Wait a moment. She has written it,
but it's hardly legible."
Clayton waited.
"It's about somebody you know, who had gone on night turn recently
at your plant. I can't read the name. It looks like Ballantine."
"It isn't Valentine, is it?"
"Perhaps it is. It's just a scrawl. But the first name is clear
enough - Audrey."
Afterward he did not remember hanging up the receiver, or getting
out of the house. He seemed to come to himself somewhat at the
hospital, and at the door to Clare's ward his brain suddenly cleared.
He did not need Clare's story. It seemed that he knew it all, had
known it long ages before. Her very words sounded like infinite
repetitions of something he had heard, over and over.
"She was right beside me, and I was showing her about the lathe.
They'd told me I could teach her. She was picking it up fast, too.
And she liked it. She liked it - "
The fact that Audrey had liked it broke down his scanty reserve of
restraint. Clayton found himself looking down at her from a great
distance.
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