Would it, after all be possible to talk? Isabel felt as if she were carrying a tremendous burden alone, had been carrying it for years. Was it possible that here in this unlikely room she could lay it down? “I suppose I always hoped that things would change, that he would change—or something—and now I can’t get used to the idea that they won’t, that …” She couldn’t finish. The words were all mixed up. And she was grateful for their silence, grateful that they did not rush in to help her out, just waited as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be silent.

“We know so little about him, really,” Julia said into the fire.

“But at least you talked the same language,” Isabel said quickly. “Edward and I have hardly talked at all for years. He hated everything about my life. Yet I’ve been waiting, having nightmares, dreading this always—it seems to me—lying awake at night. It sounds crazy,” she said. She was almost frightened of the sensation of release. She must not talk too much. She must be careful, said the little voice inside her which made her wear gloves to lunches.

“We’ve all been anxious about him. We’ve all felt helpless,” Julia said. “That’s what’s so awful.”

Isabel took a long drink, then settled back in the chair, and for just a second closed her eyes. To close her eyes was like drowning, and she opened them again quickly to get away from the sensation of being sucked under, sucked down into places where she would lose all self-control. “But you were part of his life,” she said, “he hadn’t given you up—” She stopped because she caught the look in Damon’s eyes, the look of guilt, of acute distress.

“He walked out of this house four nights ago,” Damon said almost angrily. “We had been friends for years.”

“Poor Edward, he couldn’t help it,” she said without quite knowing why.

“What makes you say that?” Damon pounced on her now, and for a second she felt the piercing glance, the glance she had been afraid of, probing her, demanding reasons for what she could only feel, not know.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but it seems as if Edward was like a coiled spring all the time, coiled so tight, it just didn’t break.”

“Yes,” Julia murmured, “yes, that is how he was.” She was remembering these afternoons when he had come as the light was going and sat for an hour with her at teatime, and how the tension in the darkening room grew and grew till he would suddenly get up and go, without a word, leaving her feeling weak as if they had been engaged in some terrible battle.