“I did,” she said in a dreamy, distant voice. “But it’s over now.”

“Is good you go to your sister,” Pietro said.

Phoebe nodded her agreement. She was floating like the priest, suspended in warm liquid.

“When you can go?” he persisted. “Maybe today. Perhaps we walk together to the station. You have there your bag?”

Phoebe turned, looking him full in the face. “I lied to you,” she said. “My sister is dead.”

She caught a faint reflexive action somewhere in Pietro’s eyes, an infinitesimal quickening. “You are alone?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling, for something had opened, the world was flooding inside her.

“We go outside, Phoebe,” Pietro said, standing, taking her by the hand. “Soon I take the train, I have already my ticket, but we must speak.”