been lost to her, forever, long ago in his independent past. The train was drawing in. She turned away speechless.
“Miriam, Miriam,” he pleaded in hurried shaken tones close at her side, “remember, I did not know that you would come.”
“Well, I must go,” she said briskly, the words sounding out to her like ghostly hammer-blows upon empty space. Never again should her voice sound. The movement of getting into the train brought a nerve-crisping relief. She had taken the first step into the featureless darkness where, alone, she was to wait, in a merciful silence, forever.
“I shall meet you this evening,” said his raised voice from the platform. He stood with bowed head, his eyes gravely on her unconsidering gaze, until the train moved out. She set her teeth against the slow movement of the wheels, grinding it seemed, smoke-befouled, deliberate, with awful circling relentlessness over her prostrate body, clenched together for the pang, too numb to feel it if only it would come, but left untouched.