Starbuck wanted to weep for her. He did not really know why. She looked well, she even sounded happy, yet there was something pathetic about this place that made him hate the whole world. “I was worried about you,” he said lamely.

“That’s nice.” She gave him a half smile, then shrugged. “But I’m doing fine, real fine. Except I’ll bet that piece of shit Ethan Ridley didn’t worry about me?”

“I don’t think he does, no.”

“I’ll see him in hell.” Sally sounded bitter. A rumble of thunder sounded above the city, followed a moment later by the heavy sound of rain falling. The new drops twitched the tight-stretched gauze insect curtains that were pinned across the two open windows. It was dusk and summer lightning flickered pale across the western sky. “We’ve got wine,” Sally said, reverting to cheerfulness, “and some cold chicken, see? And bread. And these are sugar fruits, see? And nuts. Mrs. Richardson said I was getting a special visitor and the girls brought all this up here. They can look after us real well, see?” She stood and crossed to one of the open windows, staring past the gauze at the ashen sheets of lightning that flickered in the gathering darkness. The summer air was heavy and sultry, suffused with Richmond’s tobacco smell that filled Sally’s large room which, to Starbuck’s innocent eye, looked distressingly ordinary, rather like a well-furnished hotel bedroom. It had a small coal grate in a black metal fireplace, a brass fender, flowered wallpaper and framed mountain landscapes on its walls. There were two chairs, two tables and a scatter of rugs and the ubiquitous spittoons on the polished wood floor. There was also a wide bed with a carved hardwood headpiece and a heap of white pillows. Starbuck tried hard not to look at the bed while Sally still gazed through the gauze at the western horizon where the lightning stuttered. “I sometimes look over there and I think of home.”

“Do you miss it?”

She laughed. “I like it here, preacherman.”

“Nate, call me Nate.”

She turned from the window. “I always wanted to be a fine lady, see? I wanted everything nice. My ma used to tell me about a real nice house she once went to. She said it had candles and pictures and soft rugs and I always wanted that. I hated living up there. Up at four in the morning and hauling water and always so cold in winter. And your hands were always sore. Bleeding even.” She paused and held up her hands, which now were white and soft, then she took a cigar from a jar on the table where the food had been placed. “You want a smoke, Nate?”

Starbuck crossed the room, cut the cigar, lit it, then took one for himself. “How did you find me?” Sally asked.

“I went to Ethan Ridley’s brother.”