I’ve tried since to think which was the worst of the individual cataclysms focused just then in Romney’s mellowed carved pine hall. Cheryl’s, for instance, as the door closed softly but with such dead finality behind her; or Dan’s, standing there helplessly, torn between his own heart’s desire and his unselfish loyalty to the dark child clinging to the newel post, the memory of that scene at the Fountain Inn still between them. Or Mara’s own, as she realized what her brother and Cheryl were giving up for her . . . or Irene’s as she saw her own ego triumph once more over the lives of her children.
Or perhaps, I thought, as I became aware of him, the toilworn farmer’s standing there like a dim ghost outside the screen, his hat gripped in his knotted hands. How long Mr. Keane had been there,
