“How then did Edward …?” She left the question in mid-air.

“Well,” Dr. Willoughby smiled, “he didn’t. He was troubled. He came here more than once to talk with me. But there were reasons why he could feel at home in this church. We have a considerable Negro membership, for instance. Then your brother found comfort in the ritual; that was the poet in him. There was also very strong in him the practicing Christian, the Christian who wants to follow Christ as literally as possible. I happen to know, for instance, that it troubled him to be responsible for more money than he needed.”

“I believe he gave most of it away.”

“Yes,” Dr. Willoughby deliberately ignored the slight edge in her voice, she felt, and went on, “but it troubled him to be able to do that. He felt it a barrier, and what your brother wanted most, Mrs. Ferrier, was communion.” Dr. Willoughby had raised his voice just a fraction and now looked her straight in the eye; Isabel met the glance, felt as if she were being hammered at and looked down frowning. “Something of what a theologian means by the communion of saints on earth,” he went on implacably. “That, in the long run, was I am sure at the root of his socialism. It was not a materialistic view at all, and there perhaps was the fatal irony of his position, also the loneliness of it.” Dr. Willoughby picked up his pipe, tapped it out and relit it, perhaps to give her time.

All this, Isabel thought, sounded convincing enough. The man was obviously sincere, yet it seemed as remote from the Edward she knew, shouting at her husband, full of antagonism, even hatred, as a bedtime story.

“He was dreadfully intolerant,” she said quite harshly.

Dr. Willoughby gave her a quick appraising look and then, rather unexpectedly, got up. “Come over to my house and have a cup of tea, Mrs. Ferrier. Do you have time?”

“Of course.” She wanted to say, “I’m helpless. You will all talk to me about Edward; that’s what I’m here for.” But she followed him out across the flagstoned court, thinking that a cup of tea sounded rather good, amused also by the idea of drinking tea at half-past ten in the morning. Was it a Cambridge custom or only an Episcopalian one? And then would Dr. Willoughby talk about the funeral? For that was what was making her withhold herself, a kind of panic. No mention had been made as yet of suicide, of sin.

She sat down gratefully in the small library where Dr. Willoughby left her, looked at the books in long shelves right to the ceiling, the bright green leather armchairs, the quiet coziness of everything, and she sank down into one of these, at last in a relaxed position, one foot under her.