"Take it easy. I'm Miss Farrow. I'll get the doctor."
"No—wait. I've been here eight days—?"
"But you were badly hurt, you know."
"But the doctor. He said that she was here, too."
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Cornell."
"But he said that she was not badly hurt."
"She wasn't."
"Then why was—is—she here so long?"
Miss Farrow laughed cheerfully. "Your Christine is in fine shape. She is still here because she wouldn't leave until you were well out of danger. Now stop fretting. You'll see her soon enough."
Her laugh was light but strained. It sounded off-key because it was as off-key as a ten-yard-strip of baldfaced perjury. She left in a hurry and I was able to esper as far as outside the door, where she leaned back against the wood and began to cry. She was hating herself because she had blown her lines and she knew that I knew it.