I tried to sleep for a while but my mind ran and I could not sleep. I went out to the foothills of the Bricklieves and walked the last of the day away. The hills displayed with arrogance the riches of autumn and glowed, and I walked in a state of almost blissful sadness. There had been an intense romance that lasted the first half of the year but it no longer held—she went back to her wife. At my age—I had long since cleared the vault of fifty—it was not unreasonable to assume that this might have been my last great love. But still my pain had that shimmer of bliss at its edges—I had gone to
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