"But what good would it do? We cannot bring Elaine back—"
"Maybe not." The other's tanned face was grim. "But we can send me back to where she is."
"Send you back!"
"Yes." A pause. "You see, I've been thinking about the things you've told me, Professor Duchard. About time travel, and how it works.
"You say we can't save Elaine. Well, that's probably true. Maybe she's got to die in France, back in the days before the revolution."
A tremor of emotion passed over him as he said it. He swallowed hard. Then:
"But if she must die, she can at least die easily. Cleanly. Quickly, with a knife through her heart. She doesn't have to go the way Adrian Vance wants her to—tortured by a bunch of drunken scum, then cut to pieces without a chance to fight back."
There was pain in the professor's face, too, when he answered.
"I wish it were as easy as that, Mark."