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myself!”
    He made an involuntary half turn to go to her dressing-table upstairs where he thought the pills were, then looked back at her.
    â€œYou don’t know where they are. I’ve hidden them.”
    â€œClara, let’s not be melodramatic.”
    â€œThen leave me alone!”
    â€œAll right, I will.”
    He ran upstairs to his study, closed the door, and walked around for a few moments, drawing on a cigarette. He didn’t believe she would. It was partly a threat and partly her real terror of being alone with herself. But it would subside again. Tomorrow she would be as hard and self-righteous as ever. And meanwhile was he supposed to play nursemaid to her all her life, be chained to her because of a threat? He yanked the door open and ran downstairs.
    She was not in the living-room, and he called to her, then ran up the stairs again. He found her in the bedroom. She turned quickly to him, concealing something in the white dress she carried, or perhaps only holding the dress against her while she waited for him to leave. Then as she shook the dress out and slipped a hanger into it he saw that she had nothing else in her hands. When she walked to the closet Walter saw a brandy inhaler half full of brandy on the windowsill. He looked at it incredulously for a moment.
    â€œWhy don’t you leave me alone?” she asked. “Why don’t you go out and take a long walk?”
    Jeff stopped his gay trotting around the room, sat down and looked straight at Walter as if he waited, too, for him to get out.
    â€œAll right, I just might do that,” Walter said, and he let the bedroom door slam when he went out.
    He went back to his study. He was not staying to protect her, he told himself, he just didn’t happen to want to take a walk. He started violently as the door opened behind him.
    â€œI thought I should remind you, to make you feel a little better, that after tonight you can be free to spend all your time with Ellie Briess!”
    Walter had a glass paperweight in his hand, and for an instant he wanted to throw it at her. He banged the paperweight down on the desk and strode past her out of the room, angry as he had never been before, yet still able to see himself objectively—a furiously angry man, hurling shirts and a pair of trousers into a suitcase, toothbrush, washrag, and as an afterthought the briefcase he would need tomorrow. He snapped the suitcase shut.
    â€œThe house is all yours tonight,” he called to her as he passed her in the hall.
    Walter got into his car. He was on the North Island Parkway before he realized he did not know where he was going. To New York? He could go to Jon’s. But he didn’t want to spill out all his troubles to Jon. Walter took the next exit lane and found himself in a little community that he did not recognize. He saw a movie theater close by. Walter parked his car and went in. He sat in the balcony and stared at the screen and smoked. He was going to force himself to sit there until they got around to the animated cartoon that he had come in on. Somewhere near the end of the feature picture, Walter thought, if Clara had taken the sleeping pills, it was already too late for a stomach pump to be of much help. A thrust of panic caught him unawares.
    He got up and went out.

7
    O n the bed-table stood a greenish bottle that was empty and a glass with a little water in it.
    â€œ Clara ?” He picked her up by her shoulders and shook her.
    She didn’t stir at all, her mouth hung open. Walter grabbed her wrist. There was a pulse and it felt even, strong and normal, he thought. He went into the bathroom and wet a bath towel with cold water, brought it back and wiped her face with it. There was no reaction. He slapped her face.
    â€œClara! Wake up!”
    He sat her up, but she was limp as a rag doll. Hopeless to try to get coffee down her throat, he thought. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth. He ran into the hall to