"You know, I can't help but feel a little disappointed they released you so quickly. Isn't that dreadful of me? I haven't had so much excitement in... in just years and years. I imagine you want to get cleaned up after that horrid jail, don't you? Poor Mr. Raymond. She must have driven him insane. Her mother was a lovely person, poor dear.

Her father was quite a rounder, though. Remember about that hotel room. Don't forget now!" She wagged a coy finger at me, smirked and backed through the doorway.

I showered, shaved and dressed. I couldn't help having a holiday feeling. It went away when I turned into the Raymond drive and parked near the side door. Mrs. Raymond's heavy old car was there, back from the lake.

The muscular Irish nurse opened the door to me. I said that I wanted to see Mrs. Dodd Raymond. The nurse whispered and took me into a small study to wait. I waited five minutes before Nancy appeared in the doorway. She wore black and she moved like an automaton.

She held a cold hand out to me.

"So good of you to stop by, Clint."

"Nancy, I'm terribly sorry."

"Do sit down, won't you? Mother Raymond is taking this very badly. The doctor left just a little while ago."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I'd thought of asking you to be one of the pall bearers, but then I decided that under the circ.u.mstances we'd better not have any. The funeral will be on Monday at two P.M. The Upmann Funeral Home."

I couldn't get beyond the social glaze. She was saying the formal proper thing.

"Nancy!"

She looked at me and her eyes widened a bit.

"I'm all right. I'm really all right. I'm standing it very well, Clint. I made the formal identification of the body this morning at nine. They'll release the body to Upmann some time today after they're through with it."

"You don't act all right."

"I'm perfectly all right. I don't know what you mean.

The family burial plot is here in Warren, of course. Mr. Upmann said he would make the necessary arrangements.

Mother Raymond wants the Reverend Doctor La-marr to give the service. I phoned him. He was a little reluctant at first, but he agreed. He said it would be in good taste.

Mother Raymond has always been a good friend of the church. I think he thought it would be difficult because the Pryors belong to the same church."

"Nancy, remember me? Clint. I'm your friend. I didn't come to pay the normal sympathy call."

Her face broke and she began to cry. She cried herself to exhaustion. She lay on the leather couch in the small gloomy study and I sat beside the couch and held her hand. It took a long time before she could talk again.

"I hadn't cried before," she said tonelessly.

"It's a good thing to do."

"I was going to go away. I was going to leave him. And he was in trouble. He should have told me."

"He couldn't tell you that."

"I failed him somehow, Clint. I didn't... measure up.

He wanted more than I had to give."

"He wouldn't find it with Mary Olan."

"I should have guessed something. He's been acting so strangely."

"How?"

"I don't think he slept more than two or three hours the last three nights. Roaming the house at all hours. I tried to call him twice at the office but he wasn't in. He didn't seem interested in the plant any more. He seemed to." be thinking something over, making his mind up about something. He wouldn't talk to me. Then yesterday afternoon he talked... wildly. I couldn't make any sense out of it. He shouldn't have been home in the middle of the day. He didn't seem to care. His hands were all dirty when he came home. He didn't seem to notice the dirt until I mentioned it. Then he looked at his hands and smiled in a funny way and said, "Dust of years gone by, darling. Or call it gold dust. That's just as good." He washed his hands and then came out to the kitchen where I was.

He acted as if he'd made up his mind about something. He said, "I've got it made, baby." He wouldn't explain what he meant. He had a wild-looking smile.

"C.P.P. can go to h.e.l.l," he said.

"We're going to really be in business." He kept nodding and smiling to himself. He left after dinner.

He didn't tell me where he was going. He made a phone call before he left, but I didn't hear who he talked to or what he said. I... I won't ever see him alive again."

"Easy, gal."

She looked into s.p.a.ce. She held my hand tightly.

"It's all over, isn't it?"

"Yes. It's over, Nancy."

She turned her face away from me.

"I keep thinking of something awful," she said in a small voice.

"Like what?"

"Like waiting until this is all over. Six months. Or a year even. And then going back and finding a way to have the good years."

"What do you mean?"

She turned abruptly toward me, her eyes almost fierce.

"We must be almost the same age, Clint. I'd know how to be good for you, in the job and everything. I know the life. We had tests, you know. It wasn't me, I can have children. It would be right this time. Young people all living together. And transfers to new places. I know it all.

You could be proud of me, people like me. I was always active on committees and things. I made every new place look good. It was all good until we came here. That's the horrid thing I keep thinking."

I didn't say anything and I didn't release her hand. She turned her face away again.

"Stupid, wasn't it?" she said.

"You're upset."