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"Oh, darling," she said, "you're soaking wet."

Michael nodded. "That's true."

"Now don't be upset," said Bea, scoldingly, "everything turned out just fine. Mona and Yuri took care of everything. We were determined to have everything straightened out before you came back."

"That was kind of you," said Michael.

"You're exhausted," said Mona. "You need to rest."

"Now, come, you must get out of these wet clothes," said Beatrice. "You're going to be chilled. Are your things in the front room?"

He nodded.

"I'll help you," said Mona.

"Aaron. Where is Aaron?" asked Michael.

"Oh, he's just fine," said Beatrice. She turned and flashed a brilliant smile at him. "Don't you worry about Aaron. He's in the dining room having his tea. He snapped right into action when Mona and Yuri woke him up. He's fine. Just fine. Now I'm going downstairs to get you something hot to drink. Please let Mona help you. Get out of those clothes now."

She cast a long look up and down at him, and he looked down and saw the dark splatters ail over his sweater and pants. The clothes were so wet and so dark you couldn't tell the difference between the blood and the water. But when the clothes dried, you could.

Mona opened the door of the front bedroom and he followed her inside. There was the wedding bed with its white canopy. More flowers. Yellow roses. The draperies of the front windows were opened, and the street light shone in the wandering branches of the oaks. Like a treehouse, this bedroom, Michael thought.

Mona started to help him with his sweater. "You know what? These clothes are so old, I'm going to do you a real favor. I'm going to burn them. Does this fireplace work?"

He nodded.

"What did you do with the bodies of the two men?"

"Shhh. Don't talk so loud," she said with an immediate sense of immense drama. "Yuri and I took care of that. Don't ask again."

She pulled down his zipper.

"You know I killed it," he said.

She nodded. "Right. I wish I could have seen it. Just one time! You know, had a really good look at him!"

"No, you didn't want to see it, and don't ever go looking for it, don't ever ask me where I disposed of it, or..."

She didn't answer him. Her face seemed still, determined, beyond his influence, beyond his tenderness or his concern. Her own unique mixture of innocence and knowledge baffled him as surely now as it had ever done. She seemed unmarked in her freshness, her beauty, yet deep within some dangerous chamber of her own thoughts.

"You feel cheated?" he whispered.

Still she didn't answer. She'd never looked so mature--so knowing, so much the woman. And so much the mystery--the simple mystery of another being, alien to us by simple nature and separateness--one among many whom we will never fully possess or know or comprehend.

He reached into his pocket. He held out the muddy emerald, and he heard her gasp before he looked up again and saw the amazement in her face.

"Take this away with you," he said under his breath. "This is yours now. Take it. And don't ever, ever turn around and look over your shoulder. Don't ever try to understand."

Again, she was grave and silent, absorbing his words, but giving no hint of her own true response. Perhaps her expression was respectful; perhaps it was merely remote.

She closed her hand over the emerald as though to conceal it utterly. She pressed her closed hand into the bundle of his soiled clothes.

"Go bathe now," she said calmly. "Go rest. But first--the pants, and the socks and shoes. Let me get rid of them too."

Forty

THE MORNING LIGHT woke him up. He was sitting in her room, by the bed, and she was staring at the light just as if she could see it. He didn't remember falling asleep.

Sometime during the night he had told her the whole story. Everything. He had told Lasher's story and how he'd killed Lasher and how he'd slammed the hammer right into the soft spot in the top of Lasher's head. He didn't even know if he'd been talking loud enough for her to hear. He thought so. He had told it in a monotone. He had thought, She would want to know. She would want to know that it's finished and what happened. She had told the man in the truck that she was coming home.

Then he'd fallen quiet. When he closed his eyes he heard Lasher's soft voice in his memory, talking of Italy and the beautiful sunshine, and the Baby Jesus; he wondered how much Rowan had known.

He wondered if Lasher's soul was up there, if it was true that St. Ashlar would come again. Where would it be next time? At Donnelaith? Or here in this house? Impossible to know.

"I'll be dead and gone by then, that's for certain," he said softly. "It took him a century to come to Suzanne. But I don't think he's here any longer. I think he found the light. I think Julien found it. Maybe Julien helped him find it. Maybe Evelyn's words were true."

He said the poem over to her softly, stopping before the last verse. Then he said it:

Crush the babes who are not children

Show no mercy to the pure

Else shall Eden have no Springtime.

Else shall our kind reign no more.

He waited a moment, then he said, "I felt sorry for him. I felt the horror. I felt it. But I had to do what I did. I did it for the small reasons, if the love of one's wife and child can be called small. But there were the great reasons, and I knew the others wouldn't do it; I knew he would seduce and overcome all of them; he had to. That was the horror of it. He was pure."

After that he'd fallen asleep. He thought he had dreamed of England, of snowy valleys and great cathedrals. He figured he would dream these dreams for some time. Maybe for always. It was raining right through the sunshine. Good thing.

"Honey, do you want me to sing to you?" he asked softly. Then he laughed. "I only know about twenty-five old Irish songs." But then he lost his nerve. Or maybe he thought about Lasher's face when Lasher had told about singing to the people, the big innocent blue eyes. He thought of the smooth black beard and the hair on the upper lip, and the great childlike vivacity in him, and the way he had sung sotto voce to show them what the melody had been.

Dead, I killed it. He shuddered all over! Morning. Don't worry. Get up.

Hamilton Mayfair had come into the room.

"Want some coffee? I'll sit with her for a while. She looks so...pretty this morning."

"She always looks pretty," said Michael. "Thanks, I will go down for a while."

He went out and down the steps.

The house was full of light, and the rain sparkled on the clear panes of the windows.

He could still smell the fire in the house, which Mona had made last night in the bedroom fireplace when she burnt his clothes.

It made him want to make a real big fire in the living room and drink his coffee there, with the sun and the fire to make him warm.

He crossed the parlor to the first fireplace, his favorite of the two, with its flowers carved in marble, and he sat down, folded his legs Indian style and leaned back against the stone. He hadn't the energy to make a cup of coffee, or to get the kindling and the wood. He didn't know who was in the house. He didn't know what he would do.

He closed his eyes. Dead, it's dead, you killed it. It's finished.

He heard the front door open and close, and Aaron came into the room. He didn't see Michael at first, and then when he did he gave a little start.

Aaron was freshly shaved, and wore a pale gray wool Norfolk jacket and a clean white shirt and tie. His thick white hair was beautifully combed, and his eyes were rested and clear.

"I know you'll never forgive me," said Michael. "But I had to do it. I had to. That's the only reason I was ever here."

"Oh, there's no question of my forgiving you," said Aaron in a deliberately comforting voice. "Don't think of this, not even for a moment. Put it out of your mind as though it were something harmful to you to think about. Put it away. It's just--I couldn't help you. I couldn't have done it myself."

"Why? Wa

s it the mystery of the thing or did you feel sorry for it, or was it love?"

Aaron pondered. He glanced about, to make certain perhaps that no one else was near. He came forward slowly, then sank down on the edge of the needlepoint chair.

"I honestly don't know," he said, looking gravely at Michael. "I couldn't have killed it." His voice dropped so low Michael could scarcely hear him as he went on. "I couldn't have done it."

"And the Order? What about them?"

"I have no answers when it comes to the Order. I have messages--to call Amsterdam, to call London. To come back. I won't go. Yuri will find the answer. Yuri left this morning. It took wild horses to drag him from Mona, but he had to go. He has promised to call us both every night. He is so smitten with Mona that only this mission could distract him. But he has to seek an audience with the Elders. He is determined to discover what really happened, if Stolov and Norgan were sent to bring it back, and if so, were the Elders the ones who directed them in what they did."