He had found himself thinking about her. Alone in the world without parents, without love, separated from others by something in her head, something that set her apart, condemned to exist in the loneliness of her own mind. There was an affinity between them. Her life was no more, no less, than his had been then, or than it was now. How much pain might he have been spared if some stranger with a gun had ended his life thirty years ago? No loss to anyone. No one to miss him. But, he knew, he was only seeking virtue in evil. Self-justification. Such a bitter irony. It was something he had never needed before.

Now, with all the lights out, he could no longer see her at the window. But she was still there, he knew. He eased himself painfully to his feet and felt for the gun in his pocket. The cold of the barrel burned his fingers. With a heavy heart he began up the steps to the terrace. It was time.

*

Her skin was burning as though with a fever. Occasionally she moved her forehead on the glass so that it was cold again. She did not feel sleepy. She would wait at the window, she had decided, until Bannerman’s car returned. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. She wanted to see the car come up the driveway. She wanted to see him standing in the snow. Perhaps he would glance up and see her at the window and wave. And perhaps she would smile and wave back. It might be difficult, but she wanted to do it. She wanted him to know all the things she couldn’t tell him. Why was she so drawn to those startling blue eyes? Maybe it was what she saw behind them.

The lights of the city twinkled and shone in the valley below in seemingly random patterns. He was out there somewhere. Doing what? Did he think about her as she thought about him? Of course not. Her reasoning was clear and sound. She constituted only a tiny fraction of his life, of his thoughts. It was only in the great void of her own existence that he was so important to her, filling the emptiness, bringing light into darkness. There was no reason that he should think of her at all. And yet he had come here, hadn’t he? And so clearly felt something for her, something that he too was unable to express. He would come again. He had told her he would.

The clinic had been in darkness for some time now. The others would be asleep. The doctors, the nurses, the other children. Strange mirror-images of herself. Prisoners within themselves, prisoners in this house with bars on the windows.