He was the only one who could help me with Clara’s escape. That was his word, escape. Clara would leave because she was dislodged by the returning wife, Clara would leave because with unforgivable haste she’d been removed from the cozy confidences of Loon Lake’s master bedroom. But it wouldn’t do to tell him that. He thought he was in torment for her sake. He brooded about rescuing her. That’s the way poets are, I said to myself. They see what no one else can see, and what is clear to everyone else they don’t see.I found him in bed. His breath rasped. His skin was a strange pink-gray color and it shone in a glaze of perspiration. He stared at me mournfully from his pillows, his blue and bloodshot eyes swimming in helplessness.Oh God. That was all I needed.I went out and found Libby in the staff house.“I’ll have nothing to do with you,” she said.“It’s not me, Libby. It’s Mr. Penfield. Something’s wrong with him. I think he needs a doctor.”She looked at me with suspicion.
