Waiting alone in the room where Pierre had witnessed the apparition, with the forbidden, flashing sweet orchard smell wafting in from outside, the softly-sobbing Isaac thought once more of dashing Mike Lexington, the brilliant scholar who had wanted to make her his life’s work. He was now, according to Brother Judy, struggling for life in the intensive care ward.
   Then, without any warning, came the sound she had been longing to hear, and she instinctively checked her fingernails. He was here! “Even the crafty Paul couldn’t keep me from you, you little fool!” he said in that unforgettable hypnotic drawl.
   Only in this moment of extremity could it have happened that the truth — the whole truth — slowly came home to her, and as he dabbed at her tears with the handkerchief she herself had made for him, she started to think about what they would call their children.