She looked at him and for the first time was able to take the full measure of his fatigue. “Oh, God,” she said. “Adam, I’m sorry. Really.” She led him to a lower bunk, took off his shoes, covered him tenderly with a brown woolen blanket that tickled his chin, comforted him with eye-kisses that closed both his lids, and left him alone to sink into the sound of the surf.

He awoke finally to foghorns like giant stomach-rumblings, the scent and sizzle of frying food, and the feeling that he was traveling steerage on a very small ship. A smoky mist made the window as blank as Little Orphan Annie’s eyes.

“I was hoping you’d sleep late,” she said, turning bacon. “But I got so damn hungry I had to drive to the camping ground store for food.”

“Who owns this shack?” he asked, still entertaining visions of arrest.

“I do. It was left me in a small trust set up by my grandmother before she died. Don’t worry, we’re legal.”

“Jesus, an heiress.”

“There’s plenty of hot water. It’s a good heater,” she said proudly. “Tooth paste in the cabinet.”

The shower restored his enthusiasm, but the contents of the medicine cabinet dampened them again somewhat. There was what at first he feared was a douche bag but turned out to be an enema, accompanied by physics and nose drops and eye drops and aspirin and pain-killers of several varieties, as well as a welter of vitamins and unlabeled pills and medicines, a neurotic’s accumulated do-it-yourself kit of medical indulgences.

“God,” he said testily when he emerged, “will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Get rid of that . . . junk in your cabinet.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, too meekly.

They breakfasted on canned peaches, bacon and eggs and frozen corn sticks that stuck to the toaster and had to be eaten as crumbs.

“You make better coffee than anyone,” he said in mellower humor.

“Intimate knowledge of the coffee pot. I lived here alone for a year.”

“A whole year? You mean right through the winter?”

“Especially right through the winter. Under those circumstances a good cup of coffee can be absolutely life-saving.”

“Why did you want to hole up?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. I was jilted.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“The damned fool.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Adam. That’s very sweet.”

“I mean it.”

“Well, anyway. On top of my less than perfect parental situation—with which you have become somewhat familiar—it left me in a real emotional hang-up. I figured what was good for Thoreau was good for the country. I simply took some books and came here. To think things out. Try to find out who I really am.”

“Did you? Find out, I mean.”

She hesitated. “I think so.”

“You’re lucky.”

He helped her with the dishes. “It looks like we’re fogged in,” he said, as they stacked their cups and saucers.