Silence. More silence. Then, "It seems dim. Almost incredulous--that it
could be--" with a trail-off into thought again.
Phillip snorted. "Make with the chin-music, you two. The rest of us
aren't telepaths, you know."
"Sorry," said Marian. "It's sort of complicated and hard to figure, you
know. What seems to be the case is sort of like this," she went on in an
uncertain tone, "We can't find any direct evidence of anything like
hypnotic suggestion. The urge to follow what you call the Highways in
Hiding is rather high for a mere bump of curiosity, but nothing
definite. I think you were probably urged very gently. Catherine
objects, saying that it would take a brilliant psycho-telepath to do a
job delicate enough to produce the urge without showing the traces of
the operation."
"Someone of scholar grade in both psychology and telepathy," said
Catherine.
I thought it over for a moment. "It seems to me that whoever did it--if
it was done--was well aware that a good part of this urge would be
generated by Catherine's total and unexplicable disappearance. You'd
have saved yourselves a lot of trouble--and saved me a lot of heartache
if you'd let me know something. God! Haven't you any feelings?"
Catherine looked at me from hurt eyes. "Steve," she said quietly, "A
billion girls have sworn that they'd rather die than live without their
one and only. I swore it too. But when your life's end is shown to you
on a microscope slide, love becomes less important. What should I do?
Just die? Painfully?"
That was handing it to me on a platter. It hurt but I am not
chuckleheaded enough to insist that she come with me to die instead of
leaving me and living. What really hurt was not knowing.
"Steve," said Marian. "You know that we couldn't have told you the
truth."
"Yeah," I agreed disconsolately.
"Let's suppose that Catherine wrote you a letter telling you that she
was alive and safe, but that she'd reconsidered the marriage. You were
to forget her and all that. What happens next?"