Walter, rising, said, “Ah, Stedley. Thank you for your care of Harry. It’s very kind of you and Mrs. Stedley to take him in. It’s been very difficult for all of us. And it will be hardest for him.”

“The question is, what can I do for you? Would you like me to go to Jenny and say a prayer?”

“I—yes, if you would. I’m sure she would have wanted that. She’s in the room where Harry was born.”

As the rector went up the stairs, Walter said, “It’s beginning. The flood of mourners. And each time I speak to them, her death becomes a little more real.”

“You must have seen death many times in your work abroad.”

Walter laughed without humor. “My first posting, I buried twelve people on my first day. A cholera epidemic. It was only the beginning. I should be accustomed to death. And then the war. I lost count of the number of men who died in my arms inside and outside the medical tents. Sometimes kneeling in the mud, sometimes watching shells scream over my head. Sometimes by a cot with bloody sheets, or in an ambulance, before the stretcher could even be lifted out. I was quite good at giving a dying man the comfort necessary to make the end easier. And all the while, I knew I was lying to them and to myself. I will say one thing for the King James version of the Bible, the words are sonorous and speak for themselves. All I had to do was remember my lines.”

Rutledge thought about the curate reading from the Psalms for Florence Teller’s service. He had seemed to speak from the heart.

“If those men were comforted, then it didn’t matter what you felt.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“There must have been rewarding moments in your mission work?”

“That too was a sham,” he answered tersely.

“But you spoke eloquently about fieldwork in your book. So I’m told.”

“That was worse than a sham, it was a fraud. But it bought me time. And that’s all that mattered.”

“Time for what?” Rutledge asked, but Teller ignored him.