The clerk shrugged. "So much," he said hazily. "Everything." He smiled doubtfully.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," said the Governor boldly.
The clerk shook his head and left the room. The idiot gurgled and sputtered over his soup. Lampley reached for the corner of the napkin tied around his neck and wiped the drooling mouth. He took the stale crust and broke it into the soup. When the bits were soaked he used the spoon to feed them slowly to his son.
"It's no use," said the woman. "You can't teach him."
"I wasn't trying—" began Lampley, and let it go. "Where is your sister?"
She wrinkled her forehead. "Sister?"
He had asked the girl if she were this woman's daughter; she is my sister, she had said, and then something horrible—what?—happened. He could not be mistaken. "The girl who was here."
"I was the only girl here. There was no other. There never was another."
He looked at her searchingly; her face showed no disingenuousness. He finished feeding the defective and wiped his face again. He got up and went over to the woman. She reached out her hand to touch his. He bent and kissed her. Then he kissed his son.
In the lobby the clerk was behind the desk, idly searching through the empty pigeonholes. "Nothing for you," he said without turning around.