mean just that.

Marian shook her head very slowly. "Steve," she said in a voice so low that I could hardly hear her over the faint shrill of bolts being unscrewed by her brother, "so far as we know, she was never here. Why don't you forget her—"

I looked at her. She stood there, poised and a bit tensed as though she were trying to force some feeling of affectionate kinhood across the gap that separated us, as though she wanted to give me both physical and mental comfort despite the fact that we were strangers on a ten-minute first-meeting. There was distress in her face.

"Forget her—?" I ground out. "I'd rather die!"

"Oh Steve—no!" One hand went to her throat and the other came out to fasten around my forearm. Her grip was hard.

I stood there wondering what to do next. Marian's grip on my arm relaxed and she stepped back.

I pulled myself together. "I'm sorry," I told her honestly. "I'm putting you through a set of emotional hurdles by bringing my problems here. I'd better take them away."

She nodded very slowly. "Please go. But please come back once you get yourself squared away, no matter how. We'd all like to see you when you aren't all tied up inside."

Phil looked up from the guts of the tractor. "Take it easy, Steve," he said. "And remember that you do have friends here."

Blindly I turned from them and stumbled back to my car. They were a pair of very fine people, firm, upright. Marian's grip on my arm had been no weaker than her sympathy, and Phil's less-emotional approach to my trouble was no less deep, actually. It was as strong as his good right arm, loosening the head bolts of a tractor engine with a small adjustable wrench.

I'd be back. I wanted to see them again. I wanted to go back there with Catherine and introduce them to her. But I was definitely going to go back.

I was quite a way toward home before I realized that I had not met the old man. I bet myself that Father Harrison was quite the firm, active patriarch.

IV

The days dragged slowly. I faced each morning hopefully at first, but as the days dragged on and on, I began to feel that each morning was opening another day of futility, to be barely borne until it was time to flop down in weariness. I faced the night 

 Prev. P 19/199 next