re. 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 in loneliness and in anger at
my own inability to do something productive.

I pestered the police until they escorted me to the door and told me
that if I came again, they'd take me to another kind of door and loose
thereafter the key. I shrugged and left disconsolately, because by that
time I had been able to esp, page by page, the entire file that dealt
with the case of "Missing Person: Lewis, Catherine," stamped