Here in the moment of silence, for the first time since she had come to Cambridge she sensed Edward instead of only thinking about him. She could see him here among the books, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees, leaning back to laugh his unexpectedly buoyant rather light laugh, the laugh of a boy not a man. She remembered those years at Cornell, which he never spoke of without lighting up in the warmth of them, how it seemed he was discovering everything at once, including his own real self, how proud he was of being editor of the literary magazine, how ardently he participated in every side of college lie, for at that time he still played tennis, she remembered.

“Where did his happiness go, Dr. Willoughby?” she asked, on the stream of these memories, while he passed her the cream and sugar. They were still friends then, Edward and Isabel. He had invited her to come to his graduation. “What happened to him? I suppose it’s the loss of all that, his enthusiasm, his warmth, the waste that I can’t accept.” She set her cup down on the table rather hard and repeated, “The awful waste!”

“That’s what we all feel.”

Isabel observed him, bright-eyed robin of a man, so round and safe, so unshaken, and in one of those flashes of intuition she saw Edward again, standing with his back to the fireplace in her own house, angry, sore, difficult. Yet she knew now how much she loved him, how much she had longed to reach out and touch him. “He had become untouchable,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Dr. Willoughby said gently, “despair separates. It is separation—and that, no doubt, is why it is a sin.”

This was the word she had waited for and knew would have to be spoken. It shocked her back into the realization of why she was here and she sat up very straight to ask, “What will you do about the service? I mean, after all, the Burial of the Dead. Can you?” Her hand was shaking so much she did not dare pick up her cup.

Dr. Willoughby got up and walked slowly up and down the small room, his hands behind his back. She was now near to tears and very frightened, so frightened that she hid her face behind her hand, waiting as if for a verdict.

“I shall read the service,” Dr. Willoughby said and sat down again. “For as far as I can see he did no evil; he suffered much; who are we to judge?”