Miranda nodded. Reversing the car and driving home belonged to afterward, when she would be alone. She would not think of that. How disproportionate, she marveled, were the varied limits of human endurance: she, who got sick if she sat in the sun, or fainted if she had to stand too long in a crowd, would survive this devastating morning without any appreciable loss of physical control and would, in fact, conclude it with a twenty-mile drive. She began to gather up Russell’s papers from the floor of the car.

It will be better for her when I’m gone, Russell thought. He really meant, It will be better for me—because he could have no peace in the presence of Miranda’s pain. Once out of sight, her suffering would quickly become bearable to him. He pictured her driving home, putting the car away, going up to their—her—room, and closing the door. His imagination refused the next scene, where she lay down on the bed and wept.

Holding his books and magazines in her lap, she looked up at him and then away. He touched her white cheek with his hand. He said, with what was at that moment total irrelevance: “You’re so beautiful, Miranda.”

Without turning to him, she opened the door of the car and got out. He came round to the curb and unloaded his luggage from the back seat.

“Give me those,” he said. He took two books from her and stuffed them in the pockets of his raincoat, which he laid on top of the suitcases. Then he stood still, between the car and the steel mesh fence of the parking lot, looking at her.

“Better watch the time,” Miranda said. She had not lifted her eyes.

“I have plenty of time.” Now, as he put his arms around her, her anguish communicated itself to him at last. He could feel it pressing onto his breast as she leaned against him, weightless, submissive. For an instant he wondered, with genuine mystification, What have I done to her? Will she ever get over this? He released her a little, and passed his fingers over her eyes and mouth in a curious, sightless gesture. “Don’t come to the train,” he said.

“Let me.” She drew away from him. When he bent to pick up his luggage, she brought a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. They walked into the station side by side.