Spoken For, Joseph Samachson [jenna bush book club TXT] 📗

the circumstances, that's completely idiotic. Would there be any sense in asking why you fell in love with him?"

"Well, he looked so lost! I guess it's maternal—"

"As genuine a case of the grand passion as I've ever encountered," he said drily. "Almost as genuine as your previous experience."

Carol flushed. "He isn't like John."

"Fortunately, you are right. Burr was essentially a selfish baby. I can't imagine him spending his life looking for a wife and children he had lost. In future, Carol, if you must fall in love at all, do it suddenly. You choose much better that way."

"Yes, I know," she said. "Except for the fact that the wife and children may interfere. But don't worry, Dad. This time I'm not quitting my job and moving several million miles away to try to forget."

"There'll be no need for that." His face took on a troubled expression. "You'll have to face your problem right here."

"You haven't answered my question," said Carol. "Do you really think you can help him?"

"That isn't an easy one to answer. We'll have to prepare him for a shock, Carol. A first-class shock. That's why I wanted to be sure you were in love with him. It may make things easier for him to stand."

"What things?"

Her father hesitated. "Have you ever heard of this L-treatment he mentioned?"

She shook her head.

"I thought not. Carol," he said, and his voice was unexpectedly full of compassion, "you're going to have a very sick man on your hands. It won't be pleasant for either you or me, and it's going to be horrible for him. But it must be gone through. He must be told."

"For heaven's sake, what is it?"

"The L in L-treatment," he said slowly, "stands for longevity. That was what he was treated for. But you see now why it was found to be dangerous and discontinued. The reason you never heard of it is that it was developed and discarded two hundred years ago. Callendar wasn't adrift in space for a year or two, as he thinks. He was adrift for two centuries."

"No! Oh, no!"

"That's why the clothes in those pictures seemed odd. They've been in style and out again half a dozen times, with slight changes each time. That is why, furthermore, he can't find his wife and children on any of Jupiter's moons. The moons were first colonized ninety years ago."

"But he says—"

"He'll never see his wife and children again. They've lived their lives and died and been buried in the past. He should have died with them in his own time and not lived into ours."

"No," said Carol, "or I'd never have known him."

She was white and trembling, and her father pulled her to him and let her head rest on his shoulder.

Mr. Marsh said, "Perhaps you're right. I don't know. Anyway, he'll have to be told. And for your sake, I'd better do the telling."

Carol was silent, and they both thought of the sleeping man who didn't know that his old life had ended and that a new life was to begin so painfully in the morning.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spoken For, by William Morrison