Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell

before,
    threading his way on the old bicycle through the increasing traffic on the
    Marylebone Road into the complexities of Bayswater and Notting Hill. It
    was very quiet in St. Blaise House in the fifties while Stephen Reeves and
    Gwendolen sat side by side and talked and whispered, putting the world
    right, laughing a little, their hands and knees very close, their eyes
    meeting. Because of these sessions and the intimacy that had grown up
    between them, because he had once said he was awfully fond of her, she
    considered herself irrevocably bound to him. In her mind it was an untildeath-us-do-part agreement.
    For a long time she had been bitter against him, seeing him as
    treacherous, a man who had jilted her. If he had never said he loved her
    in so many words, actions spoke louder. Later on, she had looked at the
    situation more rationally, understanding that he had no doubt been
    entangled with this Eileen before he had met her, or before he had got to
    know her, and had perhaps been threatened with an action for breach of
    promise. Or her father or brother had threatened him with a horsewhip.
    Such things happened, she knew from her reading. Dueling, of course,
    was illegal and long since gone out of fashion. But he must have been
    inescapably entangled with the woman, so what could he do but marry
    her? As for her, Gwendolen, she too was tied to him, as good as his wife.
    It was interesting, she thought as she pushed her trolley along
    Westbourne Grove, the number of people she had heardof lately who,
    widowed or losing their wives in old age, came back to their past and
    married the sweetheart of their youth. Queenie "Winthrop's sister was
    such a one and so was a certain member of the St. Blaise Residents'
    Association, a Mrs. Coburn-French. Of course, Gwendolen was a realist
    and had to face the fact that women lost their husbands more often than
    men lost their wives. But sometimes women were the first to die. Look at
    her father. Not that he had married any long-lost sweetheart, but Mr.
    Iqbal from the Hyderabad Emporium had done just that, meeting outside
    the mosque in "Willesden a lady he had known from the same village in
    India fifty years before.
    And now Eileen was dead ...
    Stephen Reeves was a widower now. Would he come backfor her? If she
    had married someone else and that someone had died, she would look
    for him. The bond between them must be as fixed and enduring for him
    as it was for her. Perhaps she should take steps to find him ... ? He
    might be shy, he might even feel guilty about what he had done and be
    afraid to face her. Men were such cowards, that was a well-known fact.
    Look how squeamish the professor had been about taking on any of the
    tending of her mother when she was so ill.
    It was half a century since last she had seen Stephen, or it soon would
    be. There were ways of finding people these days, much easier and surer
    ways than when she was young. You didi t somehow with a computer.
    You used this computer and got into something called the "net" or the
    "web" and it would tell you. There were places--there was one in
    Ladbroke Grove called Internet cafes. For a long time Gwendolen had
    thought that meant a place to have coffee in and eat cakes, but Olive,
    laughing stupidly, had set her right. If she went to such a place would
    she be able to find Stephen Reeves after fifty years?
    She thought about all this as she walked home with her shopping. After
    he had told her she was a nice girl and he was fond of her, she sat up in
    her bedroom and practiced writing her name as it would soon be.
    Gwendolen Reeves or G. L. Reeves, she would sign herself, but on
    invitation cards she would be Mrs. Stephen Reeves. Mrs. Stephen Reeves
    at home and Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Reeves thank you for your kind
    invitation but regretthey cannot accept ... As it turned out, these last had
    been reserved for Eileen. That need not trouble her now, for Eileen was
    dead. Somehow she knew it hadn't been a