Isabel stood in the street and looked up at the long French windows on the second floor. There was no way of knowing from here that the apartment was frightfully empty, that it lay there, lying in wait, ready to pounce, ready to say “Intruder” to anyone who now forced the door. She felt the key in her hand. After all, she did not have to do this. She could walk down the hill intact. No one would ever know. She could escape whatever lay in wait for her up one flight of stairs, the flight of stairs down which Edward had walked with his Me in his hands four days before. The temptation was very great. Almost she did not resist it. But now she was looking so hard at the windows, it seemed as if they held her like eyes and she could not, quite, turn away. It was not, after all, possible to do that.

She read the name on the mailbox, saw that it was stuffed with mail, but she had no key and could not open it. Dead letters, she thought—what questions did they ask which would never be answered? What cries for help or consolation or advice lay there? She was conscious suddenly that death breaks an enormous delicate web, that thousands of tiny threads which held Edward to earth had all been snapped, and it was not only his life, but all the lives that touched it, willfully snapped and left dangling. What anguish great enough to make one able to do this? She leaned against the door, pushing her way in and very slowly, as if she carried a heavy weight, difficult to balance, mounted the stairs, touching the wall on her right as she went. And as she climbed step by step, it seemed with each step as if something fell away, so that year by year had gone when she reached the landing and stood at the door itself, not Isabel Ferrier, but Isabel Cavan—a young girl whose mother had just died, whose brother had just died—absolutely naked and alone and terrified. It was all she could do not to cry out, “Edward, where are you?” as she opened the door and stood with her back against it, closed behind her, blinded by tears, by the aching need of his voice, so warm always in greeting, aching with the need of someone to lead her to a chair, make her a cup of tea, someone to be there, not this utter emptiness and silence.