Rutledge was saved from answering by the appearance of one of the doctors, urging Teller to come and let them examine him, but Jenny said, “No. His brothers are on the way. Please, we’ve been so worried. Let them see he’s safe now. Then you can have him.”

But Rutledge thought it was Jenny herself who couldn’t let her husband out of her sight just yet. She clung to his arm, as if still not sure this miracle was real, or if she had dreamed it.

Dr. Sheldon said, “Half an hour, and then we really must insist.” He left, shutting the door behind him.

Teller said, “Jenny. Do you think Matron might arrange a cup of tea? I’m dry as a desert.”

She was of two minds about leaving him. Rutledge said, “I’ll be here,” and finally she walked out the door, looking back at her husband, as if she expected him to vanish before her eyes.

Teller said quietly, as soon as she was out of earshot, “I left here with every intention of drowning myself. But when I got to the river, the water was filthy. Oily and with things floating in it. Paper and feathers and the odd tin. I even saw a dead seagull some twenty yards away, feathers a dirty gray, and I thought I couldn’t let them find me like that. So I began walking. My God, I don’t know how far I walked. Halfway to France, it seemed. At night I slept in churches. I know churches, I felt safe there. I’d wait until nearly dark, and then slip inside. There are places in the organ loft where it’s not as cold, and I’m used to sleeping on the ground when I have to. I managed. Never the same church twice, for fear I’d be seen. I had money with me. I could buy enough food to keep up my strength.” He smiled ruefully. “Once a constable nearly took me into custody. I’d offered to pay for my meal with a five-pound note. He thought I’d stolen it, that I was a pickpocket. I had to convince him I was down on my luck and living on the kindness of strangers. I’d bought workmen’s clothes.”

“Is any of this true?” Rutledge asked him.

“It’s true. But I don’t want to tell these things to my wife. So I’m asking you to let her believe I was dazed or ill. It will hurt her to know I was in my right mind and still let her believe the worst.”

“She never accepted the possibility that you were dead.”

He flinched.

“Why did you leave here?”

“I told you. I wanted to die.”

“There’s usually a reason for suicide. What happened on the road between London and Essex?”