His eyes focused vaguely upon the portrait. Wavy brown hair . . . clear, honest gray eyes . . . lines of character, of strength and of humor . . . sweetly curved lips, ready to smile or to kiss. . . . He wrenched his attention away and scribbled briefly upon a sheet of paper. Then, getting up stiffly, he took the portrait and moved woodenly across the room to a furnace. After the flaming arc had done its work he turned and handed the paper to a tall man, with a Lens glowing upon his wrist, who had been watching him with quiet, understanding eyes. Significant enough, to the initiate, of the importance of the laboratory is the fact that it was headed by a Lensman. “As of now, Phil, if it’s QX with you.” The Lensman took the document, glanced at it, and slowly, meticulously, tore it into sixteen equal pieces. “Uh-uh, Storm,” he denied, gently. “Not a resignation. Leave of absence, perhaps, but not severance.” “Why not?” It was scarcely a question; Cloud’s voice was level, uninflected. “I wouldn’t be worth the paper I’d waste.” “Now, no; but the future’s another matter. I haven’t said anything so far, because I knew you and Jo. Nothing could be said.” Two hands gripped and held. “For the future, though, four words that were spoken long ago have never been improved upon. ‘This, too, shall pass’.” “You think so?” “I know so, Storm. I’ve been round a long time. You’re too good a man to go down out of control. You’ve got a place in the world and a job to do. You’ll be back—” a thought struck the Lensman and he went on, in a strangely altered tone: “But you wouldn’t—of course you wouldn’t—you couldn’t.” “I don’t think so. No.” Suicide, tempting although it might be, was not the answer. “Good-bye, Phil.” “Not good-bye, Storm. Au revoir.” “Maybe.” Cloud left the laboratory and took an elevator down to the garage. Into his big blue DeKhotinsky Special and away. Through traffic so heavy that front-, rear-, and side-bumpers almost touched he drove with his wonted cool skill; even though he did not know, consciously, that the other cars were there. He slowed, turned, stopped, “shoveled on the coal,” all correctly—and all purely automatically. He did not know where he was going, nor care. His numbed brain was simply trying to run away from its own bitter imaginings—which, if he had thought at all, he would have known hopeless of accomplishment. But he did not think. He simply acted; dumbly, miserably. Into a one-way skyway he rocketed; along it over the suburbs and into the trans-continental super-highway. Edging inward, lane after lane, he reached the “unlimited” way—unlimited, that is, except for being limited to cars of not less than seven hundred horsepower, in perfect mechanical condition, driven by registered, tested drivers at not less than one hundred twenty five miles per hour—flashed his number at the control station, and shoved his right foot down to the floor.