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did not respond. His hands were pressed to his face, stifling his emotion.
    â€œOr was it somebody else? Did somebody hurt Joan?”
    A shard of pain slipped past his teeth before he could lock them against himself.
    â€œOr is something going to happen to me? What does that old man have to do with me? Why do you say he chose me?”
    â€œHe’s using you.” Covenant’s hands occluded his voice. But he had mastered himself. When he dropped his arms, his tone was dull and faint, like the falling of ashes. “He’s like Berenford. Thinks I need help. Thinks I can’t handle it this time.” He should have sounded bitter; but he had momentarily lost even that resource. “The only difference is, he knows—what I know.”
    â€œThen tell me,” Linden urged again. “Let me try.”
    By force of will, Covenant straightened so that he stood upright against the light. “No. Maybe I can’t stop you, but I as sure as hell don’t have to let you. I’m not going to contribute to this. If you’re dead set on getting involved, you’re going to have to find some way to do it behind my back.” He stopped as if he were finished. But then he raged at her, “And tell that bastard Berenford he ought to try trusting me for a change!”
    Retorts jumped into her throat. She wanted to yell back, Why should he? You don’t trust anybody else! But as she gathered force into her lungs, a scream stung the air.
    A woman screaming, raw and heinous. Impossible that anybody could feel such virulent terror and stay sane. It shrilled like the heart-shriek of the night.
    Before it ended, Linden was on her way past Covenant toward the front door.
    He caught her arm: she broke the grip of his half-hand, flung him off. “I’m a doctor.” Leaving him no time for permission or denial, she jerked open the door, strode into the house.
    The door admitted her to the living room. It looked bare, in spite of its carpeting and bookcases; there were no pictures, no ornaments; and the only furniture was a long overstaffed sofa with a coffee table in front of it. They occupied the center of the floor, as if to make the space around them navigable.
    She gave the room a glance, then marched down a short passage to the kitchen. There, too, a table and two straight-backed wooden chairs occupied the center of the space. She went past them, turned to enter another hall. Covenant hurried after her as she by-passed two open doors—the bathroom, his bedroom—to reach the one at the end of the hall.
    It was closed.
    At once, she took hold of the knob.
    He snatched at her wrist. “Listen.” His voice must have held emotion—urgency, anguish, something—but she did not hear it. “This you have to understand. There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything. Give him back something broken.”
    She gripped the knob with her free hand. He let her go.
    She opened the door, went into the room.
    All the lights were on.
    Joan sat on an iron-frame bed in the middle of the room. Her ankles and wrists were tied with cloth bonds which allowed her to sit up or lie down but did not permit her to bring her hands together. The long cotton nightgown covering her thin limbs had been twisted around her by her distress.
    A white gold wedding ring hung from a silver chain around her neck.
    She did not look at Covenant. Her gaze sprang at Linden, and a mad fury clenched her face. She had rabid eyes, the eyes of a demented lioness. Whimpers moaned in her throat. Her pallid skin stretched tightly over her bones.
    Intuitive revulsion appalled Linden. She could not think. She was not accustomed to such savagery. It violated all her conceptions of illness or harm, paralyzed her responses. This was not ordinary human ineffectuality or pain raised to the level of despair; this was pure ferocity, concentrated and murderous. She had to force herself forward. But when