“He did do something special. Scores don’t mean much. The character of the war kept changing. It wasn’t possible to make a high score in Europe in 1945. There was a lot of the luck of circumstance in what happened to me. The accounts say that your husband flew very well. There were men who ran away from the jets. He didn’t.”

She was silent.

He said, “The book is the best evidence available. It was gotten together when the events were fresh. We could go to Vineland for confirmation from Matthews, his wingman, but probably he would do what I did, go to the book. Unless we get something that contradicts what we have, we ought to leave it where it stands.”

“I see.”

He went on to the Manitou file, skimming over the way MacIver had bought his policies, the amounts, the kinds of insurance—all the things she had learned when she had made her claim. The changes of address verified what MacIver had told her about moving back and forth between Port Smith and Manitou. She had not known that he had made her the beneficiary of his insurance before their marriage.

“He did the same thing with his first wife,” Leland said. “You can say that he wasn’t afraid to commit himself.”

“Or that he was seeing that I got what he gave to her,” she said. “The first time you do a thing like that, it’s an act of love. The second, it’s a decision. Be honest. That’s the way it really is.”

“That may be the way it was with him—we can’t judge—but just as easily he could have forgotten what he had done with his first wife. It’s possible. The important thing for you to remember is that he married you after he had been burned once. What I learned this morning tells me that he loved you, loved you as he had never loved anybody.”

“I don’t want to hear that now.”

He had to let it pass.

“I don’t think I ever want to hear it,” she said suddenly. “Maybe I’ll wonder about the might-have-beens, but I don’t think I’ll cry again. That’s over. I’ve thought a lot about what I’ve done by hiring you. In a way I can’t explain, I’ve begun to pay my last respects. I know that sounds brutal, but I have a right to some bitterness. He lied about who he was and he died without leaving a note to explain why. If I gave away the money, I would have my feelings straight. I’d be bitter and nothing but. I’m glad to have the money and that makes me feel guilty.”