“Look, Maggie, I’m sure you’re all right mentally,” Jack said. “I don’t doubt you thought you saw someone, but it was prob­ably only a trick of the light.”

I didn’t tell him that I had used that rationalization the first time I’d seen the man. But that explanation was impossible to even consider now because the man had walked toward me into the light, so close I could have touched him.

“Forget it, Maggie, that’s my advice. It won’t happen again.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.” He picked up his writing pad. “Please, Maggie, don’t stand there staring at me. Why don’t you get out of the house for a while. Take a drive to Cainesville or somewhere.”

Angrily I got my purse and the car keys. In truth I didn’t want to stay in the house, but I resented being asked to leave it. For some reason I wasn’t afraid of the man’s appearing in the car again since Duff wasn’t with me. The obvious extensions of that thought didn’t occur to me until later.

I drove to Cainesville, not because Jack suggested it, but because there didn’t seem to be anywhere else to go. I didn’t want to drive toward Ashland, and of necessity pass the place where I had seen the man and gone into the ditch.

As I got into the outskirts of town I decided maybe I could kill some time at the public library. I could take a book and retire into a corner and maybe even come up with a constructive idea for dealing with the situation. At least maybe an hour of quiet would settle my nerves.

The Cainesville library is on Whittier Street, just off Main. All the parking spaces in front of the building were filled, so I drove farther down Whittier. The first open space was in front of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church.

I remembered that Duff had mentioned a Father Fogarty, and I wondered if he had talked with the priest and possibly told him about his problems. The rectory was next door to the church and I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to try and find out.

As I walked to the door, I didn’t intend to ask for any help or guidance for myself. It wasn’t that I would have been ashamed to do it—under the circumstances I would have gone anywhere for help—but I had been away from religion for a long time and I really didn’t believe I could be comforted by it or by any of its practitioners.

Father Fogarty was in—maybe.