“Sorry, Ben, no. What I did was worse. I brought evil to my family, and that evil nearly destroyed them.”

“You brought the Devil home, Uncle Jathon?”

“That’s close enough, Alice. Fact was, I couldn’t stay, couldn’t bring myself to find anything good in my life there. I couldn’t face all the people I’d endangered, and so I asked your parents if I could come here and learn all about running a stud farm.”

Jessie knew the children didn’t understand-not that she understood all that much herself-and, knowing they had a dozen questions to fire at him, she said quickly, “You’ve helped us more than we’ve taught you. And even though James and I have tried our best to fill up this blasted house”-she paused a moment, waving her hand to encompass her four children-“there was more than enough room for you.”

“Oh no,” Jason said. You’ve taught me endlessly.”

“Don’t be a dolt,” James said, then raised his hand when he saw that all four children wanted to speak at once. “No, no, children, be quiet. No more arguments to try to make your uncle Jason feel guilty about leaving you. He’s obviously made up his mind, and we will all respect his decision. You will not ask him any more questions. No, Jon, I see that busy brain of yours working hard. Let me repeat, you won’t ask questions and you won’t make him feel guilty about leaving.” He paused a moment, smiled toward Jason. “Besides, we’ll visit him in England. And you want to know something else? He’ll come back for visits. He won’t be able to help himself-he has to try again to beat your mother in a race.”

“But why didn’t you want your family to come thee you, Uncle Jathon?” Alice asked. She was sitting on a pile of six books so she could reach the table, the top one being a huge volume that held an article by Jason’s brother, James, Lord Hammersmith, on a huge orange ball of gasses that had glowed brightly in Venus’s acrid northern hemisphere three nights running the previous April.