He sat up. Martha had her arm around his shoulders, but she seemed more to cling to him than to support him. She was sobbing again. "How could I _know_?" she was saying. "I didn't even know you were on Earth. When your car came, when you came up the walk in the dark, I knew it wasn't Lee. Not tall enough. I thought it was one of them. I didn't dare shoot, so I used the gun to hit you--" He gripped her arm. "Martha, where is Lee?" "Jay, I don't know. I've been waiting for him here, hoping he'd come. I've been nearly crazy, by myself. And afraid--" Wales perceived that she was near hysteria. And her fear communicated to him. He got unsteadily to his feet. "We'd better go inside. Where we can talk, and have a light, without anyone seeing it." His head felt big as a pumpkin, but he navigated the steps of the old mansion successfully. In the dark interior of the house, he heard Martha lock and chain the door. Then her hand gripped his wrist. "This way. I have one room blacked out--the kitchen." He let her lead him through the darkness, heard her close another door. Then her flashlight came on again, illuminating the barny old kitchen. He looked at her. He had remembered Martha Kendrick as a small, dark girl, something of a spitfire. There was no chip on her shoulder now. She looked near collapse, her face dead white, her hands trembling. She insisted on putting cold wet cloths on his head. Holding them there, feeling at the same time painful and a little ridiculous in appearance, Wales made her sit down with him at the kitchen table. The flashlight, lying on the table, threw angular shadows against the walls. "How long have you been hiding here, Martha?" "Five weeks. It seems like five years." Her lips began to quiver. "It's been like a terrible dream. This old house, the town, everything you knew all your life, deserted and strange. The little sounds you hear at night, the glow in the sky from the burnings--" "But _why_ have you hidden here? Why didn't you--and Lee too--report to New York for evacuation to Mars, like everyone else?" Martha Kendrick seemed to get a little control of herself. She spoke earnestly. "When Castletown, like the rest of this whole region, was evacuated two years ago, Lee wanted to stay on a while. He was working each night over at the Observatory, keeping a constant watch on Nereus. I think he kept hoping that he'd discover some change in its orbit, some hope. But--he found nothing. He'd been right. It would hit Earth." "But why did _you_ stay, too?" Wales demanded. Martha looked at him in surprise. "Somebody had to take care of Lee. I wasn't going to Mars until he went. It was lonesome, after everybody left Castletown. Lee said we'd soon go, ourselves. But then--he changed. He began to seem terribly worried about something, terribly afraid." "We've all been afraid," Wales said somberly, but she shook her head.