She came to herself very soon. Penelope and Nell ceased being mild old ladies and took over firmly, getting Sarah back into her own room and bed half an hour later, comfortably undressed and pillowed. She would not talk other than to say yes or no to questions they put about her physical condition and comfort, and they carefully refrained from pressing her. The room was darkened a little, and Penelope settled down in a chair to sit with her, Nell deciding to leave because, as she said to Penelope, “If I stay, we’ll talk.”

Leon had gone back into Lauretta’s room after moving Sarah to her proper bed and there had found the letter on the floor where Sarah had lain when he first entered. He snatched it up and read. Coming out into the hall from the invalid’s room, Nell saw Leon through the open doorway and said, “Where is Lauretta?”

He looked up from his reading. He looked at her without seeming to see her at all. “My God,” he said.

23

Sarah slept until noon and woke only when Leon entered the room followed by Sharon, who carried a tray. She felt as though she had slept a long time, and that it was another day, but that feeling was merely an extension of hope. Young though she was, Sarah had known other troubles and unhappiness, and her wish had always been a simple one: for time to pass—not that she might forget, for there was no chance of that, but because she knew time had a way of blunting sharp points and changing the light on a subject; and the intervention of other events, in particular minor ones, between It and Now gave her perspective. Or perhaps it was only another way of repeating the immemorial “time heals.”

She saw him speak to Penelope, who promptly got up from her chair and went to the door, followed out by Sharon. When they had gone, Leon brought the tray to the table beside her bed and set it down. He had looked her way, of course, but he had not looked at her, and he did not until he drew up a chair and sat down in it close to her.

“I’ve brought you something to eat,” he said then. She shook her head. “Maybe later. Did you sleep?” She nodded. He reached into his pocket and brought out the letter. She looked at it in his hands. He looked at her face. “It’s true and I have nothing to say to you about it. Shall I destroy this?” She nodded once.

He went to the fireplace and struck fire with the Tinder Horn igniting a corner of the opened letter and holding it until it began to burn his fingers before dropping it into the grate.