He thought he knew the verdict already. A long line of tribulations had queued up in his near future. The trip back to Signal Creek by himself, the cavernous stations full of strangers. His solitary homecoming, and his explanation, to his mother and Uncle Carswall, of what had happened, or some version of it. How they would look at him. The inevitable confrontation with Effie’s father. There is a special place in hell for you, son. Word would get around—it would probably get around before he made it home. He’d be shunned by the town, even by his friends, because what he’d done was unforgivable. There’s that Henry Faircloth, who was married to Mayor Tarleton’s pretty little daughter. You know he cheated on her—on their honeymoon? He’d have to move away. To Macon, where, with Uncle Red’s recommendation, the railroad would probably take him. But he would do better to go farther. Maybe he wouldn’t go home at all. Maybe he’d go up to New England—Maine—Prince Edward Island, like Anne of Green Gables—and become a fisherman. Let everyone back home think he was dead, like he deserved.

He was shivering. After a while the lights at Clara’s went out. At the Bishops’ house they shone on—through the side door at the second-story balcony, and through the windows downstairs.

He’d torn the picture into little pieces and flushed them down the toilet. Alma had intended to hurt him, even before she’d seen him tonight. Maybe she’d only intended to leave the picture in the bedroom, for Effie to discover, but when she’d seen him there she’d been unable to resist waking him—to confront him, or to see, if only for the sport of it, if she could tempt him away. In fact he had no idea what her intentions had been, what had been in her heart. He could only speak for himself, and he was a fool.

Love. He didn’t know her at all.

He couldn’t sit still any longer. He left the porch and made his way toward the Bishops’ house. He would tell Alma she had ruined his life. He would strike her with the back of his hand. Then, maybe, they would run away together after all. What else was left for him? They could be exiles together. His thoughts were muddled. He ran up the porch steps and threw open the front door and shouted her name.