"I found out yesterday why she acts and talks so strangely. She told me. I couldn't sleep last night, and I've decided I must leave Allertown. Somewhere there may be people who can help me, but I can't find the help I need here."
"Was it so terrible?" I asked, trying to calm him. "What did she tell you, Wyn?"
He leaned forward intensely, pointing a finger at me, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he shut it and sat back. He shook his head.
"No," he said. "Maybe it wouldn't affect you as it has me, but you couldn't feel comfortable about it. All I want from you, Don, is the promise that you'll take care of Summer and little Mark for me until I come back."
"You know I'll do that. They can move in here right away. But I think you're making a mistake, running away from whatever it is."
"I'm not running away," he replied. "I told you, I've got to have help."
That's all he would say. He left on the mid-afternoon train for Mayer City, and I went around to 138 March Street to help move his wife and child into my own home.
I didn't recall until three days later that Summer had predicted—or so Wyn had said—that when she told him why she acted as she did, he would leave her.
If I can't excuse Wyn for leaving his wife and child, I have even less excuse for becoming his wife's lover. The fact that the interlude may have been necessary to his very existence—and hers—is no justification, for I did not know that then. Nor do I know it certainly now.