"She was quite excited. She told me something about an artist that used to hang around Tesla. It seems that he kidnapped her and carted her to Chicago. This James girl was all upset." An interruption in the person of Edwards the editor occurred. The talk lapsed once more into world problems with Lockwood listening, skeptically open-mouthed. Late in the evening Edwards suddenly declared, "You're making a big mistake leaving New York, Erik. You've got a market now. Your stuff went big." "I'm through," Dorn answered. He arose and took his hat. "I'm leaving for Chicago to-morrow." He paused, smiling at Lockwood. "I'm going home." The novelist nodded sagely and murmured, "Uh-huh. Well, good-night." Making his way slowly through the night crowds and electrophobia of lower Manhattan, Dorn felt peacefully out of place. His thought had become: "I want to get back to where I was." In the midst of the mechanical carnival of Broadway he caught a memory of himself walking to work with a stream of faces--of a sardonic Erik Dorn to whom the street was a pattern; to whom the mysteries tugging at heels that scratched the pavements were the amusing variants of nothing. CHAPTER III "Eddy." "Yes, dear." "I have some news for you." The round, smiling face of Eddy Meredith that refused to change with age, beamed at Anna. "Erik's back." The beam hesitated. "He wrote. He's coming to see me." "Anna...." "Yes, dear, I know. It sort of frightens me, too. But," she laughed quietly, "there is nothing to be frightened about. He didn't give any address or I would have written him telling him." "He must know you're divorced," Meredith spoke nervously. "I don't know if he does, Eddy." She reached her hand out and placed it over his, her eyes glancing at the figure of Isaac Dorn. He was asleep in a chair. "Please, dearest, don't worry," she whispered. "It'll be hard for you." Meredith's face acquired an abnormal expression. "Maybe you'll feel different." He sighed, and Anna shook her head. "When's he coming?" "To-morrow night." "Did he say anything in the letter?" She stood up and went to a desk. "Here it is." A smile touched her lips. "He always wrote curious letters. Words and words when there was nothing to say. And a single phrase when there was something." She read from a sheet of paper--"'Dear Anna, I am coming home. Erik.'" In the corner Isaac Dorn opened his watery eyes and stared at the ceiling. "Are you awake, father?" "Yes, Anna." "Did I tell you I'd heard from Erik?" The old man mumbled in his beard. "He'll be out to-morrow night," she said, smiling at him. He nodded his head, stared at her, and seemed to doze off again. "Father is failing," Anna whispered. Meredith had arisen. His face had grown blank. He walked toward the hall, saying, "I'll go now." Anna came quickly to him. Her hands reached his shoulders and she stood regarding him intently.