Helen dropped into the chair at her dressing table. "You're still going through with this?" she asked morosely.

"Yes," Burt said firmly.

"Only an idiot runs away from a million-dollar business," she suggested.

"Then sue me, Helen. I'm an idiot."

Burt pushed himself from the bed. On heavy feet he trudged across the room. At the door he stopped. One hand rested on the doorknob as the other gripped his potbelly.

"Geez, it feels like something's eating my guts for lunch."

"Why don't you get medication for that thing?" Helen said impatiently. "They've got stuff that'll get rid of ulcers now."

"They'd put me on pills or something." Burt winced. "It's not natural."

"Oh, and I suppose it's natural to bail out of a million-dollar business?" Helen hollered as he headed out the door. "Is that natural, Burt? Tell me, because I'm dying to know."

And rather than argue with the cause of fifty percent of his ulcer, Burt Solare quietly shut the door.

ALTHOUGH BRISK, there was finally a tiny hint of warmer weather in the Northeast. Burt left his jacket unzipped as he headed down his front walk. Damp pine needles stained the slate.

He was on his way to visit the cause of the other fifty percent of his ulcer for what would be the last time.

The air was refreshing. Beyond the gate he took a few deep breaths into the pit of his ailing stomach. A sudden cold breeze tipped the tall pine trees.

Burt cut across the driveway and struck off down the rutted dirt road.

The surrounding forest made him feel as if he were the only man on Earth. As he walked along, he concentrated on the solitude, trying to will his flaming ulcer to heal. After all, that was part of the reason he had moved here in the first place.

Burt hated cities. Despised crowds. Detested the thought of those teeming masses of humanity pressing against him, smothering him. It was a phobia that had nearly paralyzed him in his younger days. The worst thing back then was how his own life had trapped him. His living was made off those same teeming masses he so abhorred.