"If she has to choose between me and her son—she will choose her son."
Sophy was thinking:
"How long will it be before I see him again?... What if I never see him again?" She felt as if some inner force were tearing her in two. She had just begun to realise that in finding Bobby again she might lose Amaldi.
She put her hand on his.
"Marco...." she whispered. Her voice was full of fear and pain.
His hand turned under hers, clasped it tight. He looked at her but said nothing.
"I'm afraid...." she whispered again. "Not only about Bobby ... about us...."
"I know," he said this time.
He tried to think of some words of comfort, but they would not come. He was obsessed by the suffocating pain of his desire to help and guard her in this dreadful crisis, and the knowledge that the only thing he could do for her was to keep away, to let her take that long, anxious journey alone. At the time when she needed him most he could do nothing. His love was powerless. It was because of his love that this dark thing had come upon her. He said at last, rather mechanically:
"When you see the solicitor, things will clear, I feel certain.... You'll write me as soon as you've seen him?"