Her eyes filled, and she mounted the bike and pedaled away, hard and fast, bending low over the handlebars.

As he had expected, she was waiting for him at their big tree.

As he dismounted and balanced his bicycle against the tree, she said, "You better say you're sorry."

"You just didn't understand what I meant."

"I know what you said."

"I meant that my general disposition this morning is boring both of us."

"Wasn't it any good for you back there?"

"It was beautiful, dear. But we're going to have to ease up a bit. I'm in the middle of a big computer project and working very long hours, and it's sapping my energies."

She was immediately concerned. She laid her hand on his arm.

"Poor honey! I guess at your age it could be' "I wish you wouldn't get onto age so often!"

"Don't be cross. Listen, I don't think of you as an old person.

I really don't. My dad is not even as old as you are, but he seems really old to me. He is all grown up, and you aren't really. I don't know how to say it."

"I think there's another thing wrong with me, Doric. I'm beginning to feel... reluctant about what we're doing. It's beginning to make me feel guilty."

"But, honey! Right from the very first time, we both said we both know it is a terrible sin. We couldn't help ourselves. It was the weakness of the flesh. And besides, without me, you said all your job responsibility and so on would be too much for you.

Gee, I feel guilty too, lots of times. But not much lately."

He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her quickly and gently on the lips.

"I know we love each other very much, but maybe we ought to try to be stronger."

"I... I don't think I can."

"We can at least try, can't we?"

"Well, I guess so. If you want. But I don't see the point."

"It will be good for us. A test of strength."

"When will I see you again, Joe?"

"I've got conferences the rest of this week. Because of Efflander leaving and Harold Sherman taking over."

"How about early next Sunday?"

"I may have to go to Atlanta to a weekend meeting. I'll let you know, okay?"

"I don't like all this. It makes me feel funny."

He kissed her again, and smiled at her.

"Trust me. If we can show a little character, our relationship will be that much stronger. Believe me."

"Well, okay. But it just' "Run along, Doric. Have a good day."

And then she was gone, down the graded road and out of sight around a curve beyond the trees. He leaned against the tree and looked down toward where he could see, through a gap in a tall hedgerow, a small segment of the paved asphalt road that led down to the Settlements and. the rest of the complex beyond. He could see the white roofs of a few of the Settlement houses, and a cemetery slope off to the left of them where, at noon, he would have to attend the funeral of Molly Wintergarten.

He estimated that it was time for Doreen to appear, and a moment later, there she was, moving very swiftly, pedaling on the downslope. He imagined that the hot morning wind was drying her tears. He belched orange-flavored gas and had a moment of nausea which passed quickly.

He felt obscurely pleased with himself for having begun the process of giving her up. When he thought of praying for the strength to end the affair, he was sadly amused at himself. It is ever thus. When each of them begins to seem increasingly fleshy, brimful of her hot juices, huffing and grinding and moaning, then I begin to be offended by her, and to ease whatever conscience I have left, I pretend to find strength in prayer, strength to relinquish her. And when I have cut her free, with as little pain to her as I can manage, then I must rest for a time and go a-hunting again hunting for shyness, fright, reserve, reluctance, timidity, and the long delicious process of turning all that into the avidity which in time must turn me off.

But now there have been these two odd episodes, once with Annalee Purves, once back by the creek when I was thinking of Annalee, that image of a curtain opening quickly and closing again, giving me a glimpse of something I cannot describe a holy light, a revelation that would make me into the person I thought I once could become a promise of childhood coming true. I need instruction in this. I need to talk to some man of God who can tell me what it could mean, and how I might be able to open the curtain wide enough to see what is beyond.

Who is there to go to ? Not one of the instant pastors created in the same way I was. Certainly not John Tinker Meadows, who exists only in some technical audiovisual sense. Not Mary Margaret, who despises me because I represent what she fears the most. And not Walter Macy, who would not be able to understand any part of what I say.

And suddenly he thought of Annalee Purves. What if they prayed together for the soul of Joseph Deets? What if, with her, he could pray with that same simple and honest heart she had displayed in the motel? Perhaps if she could visit her daughter again, and he could talk to her, and this time tell her the complete, dreary, self-serving life of Joe Deets. Beg her forgiveness. And the Lord's.

Because he had no morning classes on Wednesdays during the short summer session, Professor F. Vernon Laird was on his hands and knees in his small front yard in the Settlements, digging out clumps of crabgrass with a small red trowel in the relative cool of early morning, when Joe Deets came coasting slowly down the hill on his bicycle. Laird returned his half wave, and looked at his watch. This time there was a seventeen-minute hiatus between the high-speed passage of the pretty little Purves girl and the slow descent of Deets. Usually it was a shorter interval. He told himself it would be wise to put all such thoughts out of his mind. He had lost his tenure at a famed university over a very ugly scandal involving a freshman girl, and he considered himself fortunate to have found this post, even though he served in a department staffed with misfits and incompetents, and was forced to use course materials that had been out of date in 1903.

He stabbed at the next clump with such force that he hurt his wrist. His wife came around the side of the house and said, "Vern? Don't you think it's getting a little too hot for that kind of work?"

He put one palm on his knee and levered himself up to his feet. He turned and as he smiled at her, he thought briefly of sticking the red trowel into her wide white throat.

"I guess it is, my dear."

"There's iced tea in the fridge."

"Thank you, my dear."

By decree issued by John Tinker Meadows, a half day of mourning began at noon on Wednesday, August twenty fourth with all work suspended at Administration and Communications, with afternoon classes at the summer session canceled. The funeral services were at noon at the small cemetery chapel, and the memorial service was scheduled for seven in the evening at the Tabernacle.

The maximum capacity of the chapel was forty persons, five rows with four persons on either side of the center aisle. Behind the altar was a glass wall which looked into the cemetery greenhouse, but in the hot months the effect was spoiled by the condensation caused by the chapel air conditioning. The first two rows on the right-hand side as one faced the altar were reserved for the immediate family, Rolf and his sister, Molly's elder brother and his wife, down from Boston, with Molly's father and her uncle. In the other two rows on the right were some friends of the Wintergartens from the Lakemore Tennis Club.

The left side of the chapel was occupied by key personnel of the Meadows Center: the Reverend Sister Mary Margaret Meadows, the Reverend Doctor John Tinker Meadows, the Reverend and Mrs. Walter Macy, the Winchester brothers, Joseph Deets, Walker McGaw, Spencer McKay, Dennis Jorgland, Ben Harvey, Dr. Hallowell, Jenny Albritton, Harold Sherman Efflander's replacement and Jenny MacBeth, along with two motel managers and a couple of people from Planning and Development.

A woman from the music department at the University noodled along at a small organ off to the right of the altar.

The metallic casket gleamed in front of the altar, standing there on a wheeled cart with a spray of long-stemmed roses atop it.

As the Tabernacle chimes struck the hour, Mary Margaret arose from her seat in the first pew on the left and walked up the steps and took her position behind the rostrum. She was clad all in white, the rope of braided hair fashioned into a gleaming tiara. She looked half again life size She waited until the last echoes of the chimes died, and said, "I take the text from the Book of Wisdom, beginning with the twenty-third verse.

"Yet God did make man imperishable, He made him in the image of His own nature;

it was the devil's envy that brought death into the world, as those who are his partners will discover."

Before she could continue, Walter Macy emitted a loud, coughing sob, and buried his face in his hands. Alberta Macy turned her head sharply and stared at him in astonishment with a feeling of nervous apprehension. Walter was a known quantity, not very emotional at any time. This was a reaction so untypical it made her feel insecure. When the faint muttering and stirring ceased, Mary Margaret continued.