“Okay.” He watched her close the door. She had told the truth, he thought. What he had heard could have been an out-and-out crying spell, but she would have had more trouble telling him that it had been a dream. It took him twenty minutes to get downstairs. He felt ragged, as if he had moved too quickly in the shower and in front of the mirror. He hadn’t gotten a good shave. In the kitchen he looked out the window. The weather was heavy and low and the one man walking up toward the campus had his chin pulled into the collar of his overcoat. Leland hated raw, leaden days like this.

She asked, “What did you find out from Wendell?”

“A little of everything.” He decided to take a chance. “I would guess that he knows more than he’s telling.”

“I know he does,” she said.

“He doesn’t think so,” he said.

“I know that, too. In spite of himself, Wendell tries to think that I’m stupid. You want to think so, too. Don’t be offended. Colin liked going over there in the evenings. It couldn’t have been for sports and so forth, as he used to tell me, because he really wasn’t interested in sports. He couldn’t park in front of the television set for a game, and a man has to be that interested to look forward so much to conversations.”

“What do you think they talked about?”

“That’s what I hope you’ll find out. I used to think it was me, but I’m not that complicated. That idea, that they were talking about me, is part of my own problem.” She brought the breakfast and sat down. “What did he tell you?”

“Listen, kid, I don’t want you to tell him what we’re learning.”

“I haven’t, not really. He knew about the papers in the garage from before. I saw that that bothered you.”

“All right. From here on, don’t volunteer anything, and if he asks, just tell him that you don’t know.”

“I understand. Now, what did he tell you?”

“He gave me the sports and politics baloney. My guess right now is that they indulged in that male pastime, swapping lies. Your husband told his best stories in exchange for the doctor’s best—about themselves, you understand. Probably Wendell used his professional training—he wouldn’t be able to help it—to probe your husband about his first marriage and his adultery, and because of the ethics involved, he doesn’t feel free to divulge what he heard. And he’s upset about you knowing the details of the first marriage. He’s worried about you, about the way you’re holding up.”

“I knew that,” she said. “What else?”

Leland made another decision. “He told me to lay off you. Understand?” He sipped his coffee.

“That’s not his business.”