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friend,” said Bartholomew.
    “There’s a book on the floor there.” He pointed to the other side of the bed and Bartholomew retrieved a thin quarto volume.
    “
Pandosto
. One of your romances.”
    “Indeed,” said Greene. “In a moment of foolishness I gave it to that sister of a scoundrel and she returned it to me here on my deathbed. Sell it for me, will you, Barty? It’s not worth much, but sell it and give the money to Mrs. Isam. Without her, I should die in the street, and hers is a debt I shan’t be able to repay in this world.”
    “Consider it done,” said Bartholomew, tucking the volume under his arm.
    “Now, off with you,” said Greene. “There are women in Southwark who will miss me tonight, and someone must tend to them.” He laughed again and Bartholomew found that he could not answer, so he only bowed low at the foot of the bed and backed out of the room, gently closing the door behind him. In the dim stairwell he looked at the book Greene had given him. It would bring a few shillings, maybe more with the death of its author. As he stepped out into the late-afternoon light, he suddenly thought that he should like to keep this volume himself, as a memento of his soon-to-be departed friend. Digging into his doublet, he pulled out half a crown and tossed it to Mrs. Isam, who sat in front of the house plucking a chicken.
    “For the debts of your lodger,” he said.
    “Bless you, sir,” said Mrs. Isam. “It’s a start at least.”
    Bartholomew tucked the book back under his arm and strode off toward St. Paul’s, the afternoon sun blurred by the tears in his eyes.

Kingham, Friday, February 17, 1995

    P eter wiped the sleep from his eyes as he waited for the bread to toast and the kettle to boil. He had looked through the indexes of his books on illustrators, but neither helped him identify B.B. Now he stared at Dr. Strayer’s list pinned to the message board in the kitchen. His original typed instructions were now almost obscured by the notes Peter had scrawled in the margins over the past several months. Underneath a circular stain of tea and a smudge of marmalade he could still read the list:
Grieve for Amanda; Acknowledge Your Feelings
Establish Regular Eating and Sleeping Habits
Meet New People
Re-establish Your Career
Use Career to Bring People Closer, Not to Keep Them Away
Develop a Passion in Addition to Books
Learn Something New
Get in Touch with Old Friends
Re-establish Relationship with Amanda’s Family
Don’t Run Away, Run Toward
    Beside “Develop a Passion” he had written and then crossed out “poetry” and “painting.” He had almost forgotten that he had purchased a watercolor set in Chipping Norton two months ago. He had given up after trying one painting. Next to “Get in Touch with Old Friends” was Francis Leland’s phone number, though Peter had not dialed it since arriving in Kingham. Beside “Meet New People,” he had scrawled the service schedule for the local parish church, but he had no intention of attending. Peter hadn’t done a very good job with his assignments.
    He would forget about the watercolor portrait, he decided. Today he would work on item number four. He would re-establish his career. After all, he had bought a couple dozen books in Hay-on-Wye for which he had customers back in the United States. He spent the rest of the morning organizing his reference books. He carefully unwrapped his purchases from Hay and put them on a shelf of their own. The
Edwin Drood
in which he had smuggled the watercolor required repair, so he would repair it. Hank had been a good teacher, and though Peter was no expert conservator, he could certainly manage a job such as this. He crawled into the dimness of the cupboard under the stairs and began to pull out the boxes that held his tools and supplies. When he had everything out in the light, he realized that he’d also pulled out his abandoned set of watercolors.
    As he was about to put it back, he suddenly