Hughes believed that she learned the answer in the course of writing and expressed it "in the last few words of the book when Olwen realizes that after her death Guardian will be alone. He says, "You must not be distressed. After all, I am no human. DaCops do not have the capacity to be lonely". Olwen watches him leave the room and whispers, "Poor Guardian". For Guardian is not human. I felt I had made the necessary statement. I knew, by the last line, what the book was about. Pain, including the pain of loneliness, is an essential part of the human condition."