Liane seemed to know almost each survivor by name, and a camera went off in her face as she bent to kiss one man on the cheek. The rest of the passengers seemed almost reluctant to leave, and they hugged each other and exchanged home addresses, slapped each other on the back, and congratulated the captain and the crew for getting them across, and then at last, one by one, they took their bags and left the ship. Liane and Nick and the girls were almost the last to leave, and when they finally reached the dock, they looked at each other in disbelief.

“Well, we're home.” Nick looked at Liane over the girls' heads, both of them were unable to rejoice, and all she wanted was to reach out to him.

“It doesn't feel like home yet.” She still had to get the girls to Grand Central Station, to take the train to Washington, D.C.

“It will.” He sounded calmer than he felt, and he insisted on hailing a cab for them, and accompanying them to the train, and suddenly, as they stepped inside, Liane began to laugh and Nick grinned. “We must look like a bunch of tramps.” He looked down at the borrowed clothes he still wore, and it was the first time he could remember that he hadn't left a ship by limousine.

They bantered back and forth with the girls on the way to Grand Central, and they reached it all too quickly. They walked inside to the tracks after Liane bought their tickets. She had thought about staying at a hotel in New York, but it was just as well for them to get back. If she had stayed in town, the temptation would have been too great to see Nick. He put their few belongings in their compartment, and then stood for a moment looking down at Liane as she and the girls looked up at him.

“Good-bye, Uncle Nick. Come to see us soon.” Elisabeth extended the invitation, echoed by Marie-Ange. They had abandoned “Mr. Burnham” long since on the ship.

“I will. And you take good care of your mother.” Liane could hear his voice grow hoarse with emotion, and once again she had to fight back tears. But they came anyway as she hugged him and he held her close and whispered softly in her hair. “Take care of yourself, my friend.” And then he backed away slowly, and with a last mute wave, he left them, and hurried on to the platform, brushing away the tears before the girls would see him again. He stood there waving, smiling broadly, as the three of them hung out the window, and then Liane forced the girls back inside as she blew him a kiss and he mouthed I love you, and he stood there for as long as she could see him, and with a terrible gulp of sorrow to stifle a sob, she pulled her head back inside.

She sat back on the maroon velvet banquette as the girls squabbled over the assorted knobs and lights and levers, and she closed her eyes for a moment, seeing Nick's face before her, and longing with every ounce of her soul to touch him, just once more … for an instant … She saw herself back in the first mate's cabin, in Nick's arms, and felt a pain of loss almost beyond bearing, and then unable to stifle her sobs a moment longer, she said something to the girls and walked out into the hall, closing the door behind her.

“May I help you, ma'am?” a tall, immaculate, white-coated Negro porter asked her, but she was unable to speak as she shook her head and the tears flowed. “Ma'am?” He was startled by the agony he saw but she only shook her head again.

“It's all right.” But it wasn't. How could she tell him that in the last two weeks she had left her husband after the fall of Paris, and they had crossed the Atlantic on a freighter in defiance of German U-boats, watched a ship sink, and seen men lying dead in the water all around them, that she had nursed almost two hundred men suffering from wounds and burns … and fallen in love with a man she had just said good-bye to and may never see again … it defied words as she stood there, leaning against the window of the moving train with her heart breaking.

And in Grand Central Station, Nick walked slowly toward the exit, his head down, his eyes damp, looking as though his best friend had died in his arms that morning. He hailed a cab on the street and went home to find the apartment empty. Mrs. Burnham was in Cape Ann with friends, a new maid told him. And the train to Washington sped on.





The next morning, she sent a cable to Armand to tell him they had arrived safely. The story of the Deauville was all over the morning papers, including a photograph of her kissing the cheek of the young Canadian on the stretcher as he left the ship. And in the background she could see Nick, watching her with a look of sorrow as others smiled with tears running down their faces. She felt the same lead weight on her chest again as she stared at the photograph in the paper, and the girls found her suddenly very hard to get along with. So much had changed so quickly for all of them that the girls were whiny, Liane nervous. They had been through so much and suffered so many losses that the backlash from it all was taking its toll, and when she finally decided to call her uncle George in San Francisco, to tell him they were back in the States, Liane almost snapped at him. He made an endless series of tactless remarks about the fall of France, and how the French had literally given Paris to the Germans on a silver platter and deserved what they got as a result. And Liane had to fight not to scream at him.