An aide to the President said later: Everyone knew who were the hawks and who were the doves, but today was the doves’ day.

Kit and Fran went out into the Sunday sun. The world was still before them, as it had been the day before and the day before that, which seemed like a kind of miracle: that there should be students walking in groups and in pairs, and at noon the ringing of the University’s famous carillon. Fran groaned and held her ears as they walked.

The strangest idea, Kit wanted to say to her. Fran I have the strangest idea, I can’t even say it. But not even that much could she say.

What she thought was that maybe he was supposed to disappear. Maybe it was supposed to look as though he had died, but he hadn’t, he had gone on. She knew this was possible, that people who were in danger could be made to disappear, or seem to have died, when really they’d been helped to escape, helped to safety. But how could that be? There was no escape; he had already escaped. There was no place left that was safe.

Jackie would be able to tell her, tell her that she was nuts, to calm down. Or maybe not. He had gone too, without a word.

At nightfall a telegram was delivered to her, that had made its way to the campus and to her tower and her room. It was in a yellow envelope with a cellophane window. She took it from the proctor who had signed for it, an object she had never held in her hands before.

“Open it,” Fran said.

It was just as in the movies, a paper with typed lines of capital letters stuck on and the dots between phrases that meant stop. It was from George and Marion; the picture of Kit in the front row of the demonstrators must have appeared in their paper too.

THREE QUOTES COME TO MIND ONE MY COUNTRY MAY SHE ALWAYS BE RIGHT BUT RIGHT OR WRONG MY COUNTRY TWO I DISAGREE WITH WHAT YOU SAY BUT I WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT THREE IS THIS TRIP NECESSARY LOVE MOM DAD

She slept most of the day and night. In the morning she found in her mailbox a postcard, mailed on Friday, a picture of the carillon on campus. The message said only I’m sorry. Will write later and explain.

It was from Jackie. He hadn’t signed it but she knew.

The short answer is, he’s gone. That’s what Saul had said to her when she asked. The short answer. She felt a kind of warning tremor begin deep within her. She thought of the kitchen at East North Street, when Saul and Fred were pretending that Fred was an FBI agent. A joke. But there had to be one, they said: wherever two or three are gathered together in my name. And when she had agreed to spy on Falin, Jackie had been there, outside the dean’s office, appearing by chance but not by chance. And she had told him everything after that, everything she learned.

She crushed the card into her pocket. The tremor within her had risen to a kind of roar like the roar she felt in her head and breast when she awoke from shocking dreams. She set out across campus. The morning was white with cold.

The dean of students was just arriving at her door as Kit reached it too. She tried to avoid Kit, pretending not to have seen her coming up the steps behind her, but Kit called out to her. “Excuse me. Wait.”

“Well?” the dean said.

“I have a question,” she said.

For a moment the dean said nothing. Breath came from her red mouth. Then she let Kit through the door and went to the office, Kit following. The secretary’s desk was empty, her typewriter shrouded and her lamp off.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can tell you,” the dean said. She sought amid a huge bunch of keys for one that would open her own office door. “Just like you, I’m waiting for news. I’m afraid though that we’ll have to prepare ourselves for the worst.”

“I was wondering,” Kit said, coming into her office behind her uninvited, “if you could find Milton Bluhdorn. He might know something. I think he might know something.”

The dean at her desk looked at her as though trying to choose among several responses; Kit could see them come and pass in her features despite her masklike makeup.

“Well I would have no way of contacting him,” she said at length. “And why…What is it you think he would know?”

For a fearful moment, Kit wondered if she herself knew more than the dean did. “Professor Falin was really afraid of him,” she said, which wasn’t exactly true. “He was.”

“How did Professor Falin know about Mr. Bluhdorn?”

“I told him.” The dean seemed to be twisted inside by feelings she wanted not to show; she held herself erect as for a formal photograph, hand on the back of her big chair, but her white fingers pressed deeply into the leather. “You knew I would.”

“I know you are a very reckless young lady.”

“Why did you let him come here? Mr Bluhdorn. Why did you let him come in here and ask me those things?”

“These aren’t matters I can fully explain. Not to you. Mr. Bluhdorn represents our government. There was no reason at all to question his motives or his, his.”

“Well can you help me reach him? Please.”

“You are not going to see him again. His work here is done.” She clasped her hands behind her and lifted her chin, as though trying to grow taller. “I want you to understand me,” she said. “Everything that was said in this room between you and me and Mr. Bluhdorn was said in the utmost confidence. You are to say nothing at all about anything that took place here, or anything that was asked of you. That’s required, Christa.”

“You shouldn’t have let him come here,” Kit said.

“If you do say anything, anything at all, then what you say will be denied,” the dean said. “You can see why that would be necessary. I’m afraid that no one would believe you in any case.”

Kit turned away, stricken, and went to the door.

“Where are you going?” the dean asked.

Kit stopped but didn’t answer.

“You should know,” the dean said, “that the police will be at Professor Falin’s house this morning. They are going to be making a thorough search; they have told me so. I would think they would be there already.”

She had left her desk and come close to Kit, who backed away; she took Kit’s arm in a red-nailed hand. Kit couldn’t look away; she felt her lower lip tremble, as though she were a child caught in the sudden grip of a hostile adult, knowing nothing but fear and baseless guilt. “Now listen to me carefully, Christa. Your years here at the University could be the best years of your life. Don’t, don’t put them in jeopardy. Do you understand me? I want you to tell me that you understand me.”

Kit held still, refusing assent.

“I will tell you something else,” she said. “And I mean this in the sincerest way. You should break off with your left-wing friends. They’ll do you no good. You can blight your life by whom you associate with. I know this. No matter how smart and capable you are. They’ll always have that on you, a connection like that. And when they have need of you they’ll use it.”

Something had happened to her face, something subtle and terrible. Kit shrank away, extracting herself, in fear and pity.

“You don’t understand,” the dean said. “And maybe you won’t for a long time. But I’ll tell you this. I wish that someone had told me what I’m telling you, when I was young. I wish that very much.”

Outside Kit stood for a moment on the step. She had lost the power to look back or ahead, Epimetheus and Prometheus, she had strength only to act. She started across campus walking fast until the breath stung in her throat, then slowed until her heart ceased to pound, then ran again. At the campus gate where the cars went in and out she stopped again and leaned on the rough stone pillar. College Street ran down from here to town, down to the square and the courthouse, the Woolworth’s and the big hotel. From the drugstore on the corner the Greyhound buses departed. It seemed far away, as though it would recede from her if she tried to reach it.