Home, she thought morosely. She'd go home just like always; home to a rambling ranch-house that was as sterile and vacant as this classroom. And it shouldn't be this way! She should be going out and having fun, letting a nice man take her to dinner and dancing and maybe even… oh God, it was madness to think this way! "I'm still a young and attractive woman," she groaned under her breath, "but I might as well be an old hag. It might even be better if I were…"

She hung her head shamefully, leaning forward on her hands in a posture of penitence. The papers and books on the desk were a blur of meaningless nothings to her as she contemplated the barren weekend ahead. It was always worse on Friday and Saturday afternoons, although now even the weekday evenings were becoming heavier to bear alone. Yet the thought of being with a man and encouraging his affection and friendship, produced a still greater reaction of aversion in her heart. A man inevitably meant a relationship, possibly even a sexual one in time, and always that reminded her of her ex-husband.

Her marriage to Ralph Hamilton had only been one year out of her life and seven years ago at that, but the scars of that brief interlude were still carved in her soul. She had finally become inured to living in the large house which had been theirs and which had been part of the divorce settlement; now it merely produced a dull ache every once in a while when she considered it. But the thought of Ralph invariably produced a sharp, icy chill, and even now as she stood at her desk she could sense the acute pangs growing in her chest. Instead of the womanly warmth that love should have brought her, she only had the frigid void of fear and despair, which no man had ever been able to crack since her parting with Ralph. And, wretchedly, she knew that emptiness included Ralph. Especially Ralph. While there had been things wrong about him, as there is with any human being, she instinctively realized that the blame for their dissolution rested squarely on her shoulders. Or rather, she was forced to admit grimly, the blame rested down between her legs…