"It'll come just at dawn," Jane said. I tried to tell her you can't predict the ways of the Almighty, but she wasn't going to sell out her woman's intuition for anything. She was sure. That was a long night, and not a very good one. I felt as though I were a prisoner at the bar. It wasn't a very good way to feel, but I was frightened. I suppose everybody was. Standing at the window I saw the first light of the false dawn. It was going to be a beautiful day over New York. There were no visible stars, but every light in the city was on, making stars of its own. It was as though the city was burning candles to the unknown. "Goodbye, Jane," I said. I knew she was right. The announcement would come just at dawn. I hoped Minnie was in her husband's arms; and Frank--I felt he was probably on a horse, standing up in the unfamiliar saddle and looking toward the East. I hoped he was. "Goodbye, dear," Jane said, and kissed me. There was a cool breeze from the open window, and darkness in the sky. It was beautiful, at that moment. It should have ended just like that. "_There will be a slight delay_," the voice said from behind my shoulder, as pleasant as ever, and as distant, "_in settling the affairs of the inhabitants of the planet Earth. The final examination and departure will be held ten years from this date._" * * * * * I stood at the window, my arm around Jane. We couldn't say anything for perhaps ten minutes. "Well," I said to her finally. "Well, well." "Well," she said. We were silent for a few more minutes. Then she said, "Well," again. There was nothing else to say. I looked out the window. Below me the city was sparkling with lights; the sun was coming up, and everything was deadly quiet. The only sound I could hear was the buzzing of an electric sign. It sounded like a broken alarm clock, or like a time bomb, perhaps. "You'll have to go back to work," Jane said. She started to cry. "Although I suppose ten years is only a second in eternity. Only a second to Her." "Less," I said. "A fraction of a second. Less." "But not to us," Jane said. * * * * * It certainly should have ended there. Judgment day should have come, bringing with it whatever it brought. We were ready. All the worldly goods were disposed of, in New York and I suppose, in the rest of the world. But ten years was too long, too much a strain on goodness. We should have been able to carry on. There was no reason why not. We could have gone back to our jobs. The farmers were still on the farms, the grocers and clerks were still around. We could have done such a bang-up job of it. We could have pointed to that ten years with pride, and said, "You see! Our recorded history of thousands of years of avarice, cruelty and hate isn't the whole story. For ten years were good and clean and noble. For ten years we were brothers!" Unfortunately, it wasn't that way.