She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world--she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty--too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,--with a man alien in blood and culture--unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape--she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts-- She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs--listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,--silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know--she did not care. She simply leaped and ran--ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings. She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets--alone in the city--perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception--of creeping hands behind her back--of silent, moving things she could not see,--of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered: "Not--that." And he answered slowly: "No--not that!" They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.