Frank stifled his quick anger. "We'll be outside," he said. He found Nora waiting where he'd left her. He loaded batteries into four flashlights before Jim Wilson and Minna reappeared. Wilson's good humor was back. "How about the Morrison or the Sherman," he said. "Or do you want to get real ritzy and walk up to the Drake?" "My feet hurt," Minna said. The woman spoke so rarely, Frank Brooks was startled by her words. "Morrison's the closest," Jim Wilson said. "Let's go." He took Minna by the arm and swung off up the street. Frank and Nora fell in behind. Nora shivered. Frank, holding her arm, asked, "Cold?" "No. It's just all--unreal again." "I see what you mean." "I never expected to see the Loop dark. I can't get used to it." A vagrant, whispering wind picked up a scrap of paper and whirled it along the street. It caught against Nora's ankle. She jerked perceptibly and kicked the scrap away. The wind caught it again and spiralled it away into the darkness. "I want to tell you something," she said. "Tell away." "I told you before that I slept through the--the evacuation, or whatever it was. That wasn't exactly true. I did sleep through it, but it was my fault. I put myself to sleep." "I don't get it." "I tried to kill myself. Sleeping tablets. Seven of them. They weren't enough." Frank said nothing while they paced off ten steps through the dark canyon that was Madison Street. Nora wondered if he had heard. "I tried to commit suicide." "Why?" "I was tired of life, I guess." "What do you want--sympathy?" The sudden harshness in his voice brought her eyes around, but his face was a white blur. "No--no, I don't think so." "Well, you won't get it from me. Suicide is silly. You can have troubles and all that--everybody has them--but suicide--why did you try it?" A high, thin whine--a wordless vibration of eloquence--needled out of the darkness into their ears. The shock was like a sudden shower of ice water dashed over their bodies. Nora's fingers dug into Frank's arm, but he did not feel the cutting nails. "We're--there's someone out there in the street!" * * * * * Twenty-five feet ahead of where Frank and Nora stood frozen there burst the booming voice of Jim Wilson. "What the hell was that?" And the shock was dispelled. The white circle from Wilson's flash bit out across the blackness to outline movement on the far side of the street. Then Frank Brook's light, and Nora's, went exploring. "There's somebody over there," Wilson bellowed. "Hey, you! Show your face! Quit sneaking around!" Frank's light swept an arc that clearly outlined the buildings across the street and then weakened as it swung westward. There was something or someone back there, but obscured by the dimness. He was swept by a sense of unreality again. "Did you see them?" Nora's light beam had dropped to her feet as though she feared to point it out into the darkness. "I thought I saw something."