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Show 239 owlish and confused. Still covering her mouth, she pushed open the storm door with the hand that s t i l l held the tract with its beady-eyed author on the cover. "Maybe you'd better come i n , " she said. Trying not to seem surprised, because God worked in mysterious ways, they entered, Lorin f i r s t and then his companion, and stood uncertainly in the middle of the living room, leaving half-circles of snow on the carpet. She pointed them to a small tweedy sofa and turned on a table lamp that stood next to i t . "Wait t i l l I get my husband," she said and disappeared down the hallway toward the room where they had seen the light. Left to themselves, they looked around them. "Nice house," said Sorenson. "Yes," said Lorin. It was warm and tidy and smelled of tuna fish on crackers and chicken noodle soup. From where they sat they could take in most of it, from the grained cabinets hung over the sink to the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the dining area, which lacked a table, to the asphalt tile running from beneath the carpet down the hallway to the bedrooms, to the low table in front of the curtained window they had trudged past to reach the door. On the table smiled a porcelain mandarin bought with green stamps. On the other side of the wall behind them was the garage in which there doubtless stood a shiny Volkswagen. Lorin suspected he could have invented them. Mutters floated up the dark hallway, followed by the creak of bedsprings, and a moment later the girl came out, briskly, as though she had just won an argument. She flopped into an armchair across from them and folded her arms while an embarrassed young man in pajamas and wool socks and bathrobe followed her into the room. "This is Richard," she said. "Tell him what you just told me about |