Yet, was it really so insane?
After all, what was more important to him than that he learn the truth about the fall of ancient Knossos? What else could satisfy him, after all these years?
Even if he died, it wouldn't matter too much. His parents were already gone, his friends mostly on the casual side.
For the first time, now, it dawned on Burke that rain was splattering in his face. It felt good. His clothes and shoes—he didn't even care that they were ruined.
Pivoting, he started the long tramp back to his apartment.
There, for comfort, he took a hot shower; then put on a clean, dry outfit.
It seemed like a good idea, also, to check his watch, fill his cigarette lighter, and stow the old five-shot Smith & Wesson thirty-eight he'd inherited from his father in the waistband of his trousers.
By the time he'd completed all such arrangements, the rain had stopped. Here and there, stars shone amid the thin clouds overhead.
Head up, shoulders back, Burke strolled along the wet, glistening walk towards the campus. He felt somehow detached, apart from the world about him, and it was a good feeling, even though he also enjoyed the smell of the rain-soaked earth, and the way leaves had piled up in little dams along the gutter, and the hissing, whispering sound of tires on wet pavement every time a car went by. Once he even caught himself smiling a little, a small, quiet, secret smile, over the way The Director and The Girl and The Professor each in turn had looked as they took their stands and walked out of his life.