“Leaving? But – but what happened?”

“They’ve found Jean. He’s not dead, Jake! A patrol picked him up in the bush, he’s badly wounded; they flew him down this morning. He’s at Mitchell Military Hospital. Will you take me?”

Jake felt the room spinning around him, but he spoke carefully. “Of course I will. I’ve got my jeep outside. Is there anything you need?”

“No, Jake, just get me there.”

Already, she was slipping away from him, like a boat making for different waters and not his.

At the hospital, he peered through the window in the door of the private room and saw the man who was Captain Comte Jean de Brissac lying there, his head heavily bandaged, Jacqueline at his side with a doctor. They came out together.

Jake said, “How is he?”

It was the doctor who answered. “A bullet creased his skull and he was half-starved when they found him, but he’ll live. You’re both very lucky.”

He walked away, and Jacqueline de Brissac smiled through her tears. “Yes, aren’t we?” Her voice caught. “Oh, God. What do I do?”

He felt incredibly calm, knowing that she needed his strength. The tears were streaming down her face, and he took out his handkerchief and wiped them away gently. “Why, you go to your husband, of course.”

She stood there looking at him, then turned and opened the door into the private room. Cazalet went down the corridor to the main entrance. He stood on the top step and lit a cigarette.

“You know what, Jake, I’m damn proud of you,” he said softly and then he marched very fast toward the car, trying to hold back the tears that were springing to his eyes.

When his time was up, he returned to Harvard and completed his doctorate. He joined his father’s law firm, but politics beckoned inevitably, Congressman first and then he married Alice Beadle when he was thirty-five, a pleasant, decent woman for whom he had a great affection. His father had pushed for it, feeling it was time for children, but there weren’t any. Alice’s health was poor and she developed leukemia, which lasted for years.