Early next morning he called for her and she was waiting, slipping out the door in the late-summer chill dawn with only the cheap valise she’d left New Hampshire with, not having seen or spoken with Virginia Reeves since the afternoon before. Joey had written a note of thanks and regrets and then folded it small and carried it away with her in the pocket of her dress, believing Virginia Reeves would view the gesture with contempt. They traveled east by train to Orleans, sitting side by side and not speaking. What his private hopes for her had been she did not know and so could not read if he was reconciled or relieved but either way she knew he was engaged now in an action called for not so much by the fact of her as by some theory of conduct, a notion of comportment. She knew his action was enough, a measure of some devotion or passion mute in his soul.

At Orleans the summer coaches were still running and they rode north again in a cluster of strangers. If there were any among them that Sloane knew he did not speak to them and no one addressed him either. At the store in Truro he bought a stock of groceries without consulting Joey who trailed him along the shelves and then went outside to stand on the porch and wait for him. When he came out he stood silent a moment before explaining the groceries would be delivered with ice later in the day. Then he took up her valise and led the way out through the dunes to the beach and they trudged south more than a mile, she trailing him to watch the water and the sky and the birds skittering along the waves’ froth. At the house he went through it quickly, explaining the water system and the small cookstove and the icebox and then hat in hand he stood before her and told her to stay until she knew what she would do or the weather drove her out, told her then also that if she needed anything more, anything at all, to contact him at his store and he left a card for the business on the table and then they stood looking at each other and she knew she wouldn’t see him again and guessed he knew it also—guessed he understood her well enough to know it was true. So she stepped forward quickly and kissed him and as she took her mouth away a small groan of anguish came from him. Then she stood on the porch and watched him walk away down the beach.

Finally, without preamble or apology she finished by explaining that since she’d left New Hampshire she’d fashioned herself Joey Pelham. That she had taken his name long since.