Even before Sog was dispensed with, you had an awareness of the sheer lively entertainment that Robin was experiencing, almost to the point of making her forget the world she had been stolen from.Thus it is my unpleasant duty to reveal aspects of her existence which were less than ideal. Sog’s death was decidedly a mixed blessing; it left her figuratively without insulation against life with its unkind vicissitudes, just as the house itself literally had no insulation against the winter cold (in those days the so-called “wind-chill factor” had not yet been discovered, but the howling winds on Madewell Mountain often dropped the temperature well below zero). Despite my own antipathy toward Sog, I was willing to concede that preferably he should have been allowed to continue living for several more months or even a year if need be (for the record, his affliction was a malignant form of degenerative multiple sclerosis which would have been treatable with medical attention). Living a bit longer would have permitted him to fully prepare Robin for the life she was going to have to live without him.
