Abruptly the gloom began to lift from him. He realized that none of the things that had happened to him mattered--not the dismissal by Kelly, nor the crimes for which he had assumed the burden, nor the inner turmoil which was exhausting him. How transient everything was! The important fact was reanimation--the defeat of death. The end of death's dominion. That was his goal, and he would work toward it--and if he destroyed himself and those about him in the process, well, there had been martyrs in man's history before. That Evas of tomorrow might live, Harker thought, I will go ahead. "Larchmont, mister," the driver called out. "Which way do I go?" Harker gave him the directions. They reached his home a few minutes later; the fare was over $10, and Harker added a good tip to it. The cab pulled away. Harker stood for a moment outside his home. The sitting-room lights were on, and one of the upstairs bedroom lights. It was shortly before ten, and since it was the weekend Chris would still be up, though young Paul had long since been tucked away. And Lois probably sat before the video, waiting patiently for her husband to come home. Harker smiled gently, put his thumb to the identity-plate of the door, and waited for it to open. Lois came to the door to meet him. She looked pale, tired; when she kissed him, it was purely mechanical, almost ritualistic. "I was hoping you were in that cab, Jim. How'd everything go?" He shrugged. "I don't know, Lois. I feel beat." "Come on inside. Tell me about your day." He followed her into the sitting-room. The autoknit stood to one side; she had been making socks, it seemed. The video blared some hideous popular song: "_If I could hold you in my arms, Baby! and cuddle up and--_" Harker jerked a thumb toward the screen. "Is this the sort of junk you've been watching?" Lois smiled faintly. "It's a good tranquilizer. I just let the sound bellow out and numb my mind." He thumbed the off-switch set in the table before the couch, and the singing died away, the image shrank to a spot of tri-colored light and then to nothing at all. His hand sought hers. He found himself wishing she would get up on her back legs and yowl, just once. It would be good for both of them. But she was so wonderfully patient! She had said nothing, or little, when he had stubbornly defied the national committee and gone ahead with the reform program that could only have ended his political career, and did. She had barely objected when he told her of his new affiliation with the Beller people, and she had said nothing in these past ten days, when the pressure of conflicting cross-currents had kept him bottled up within himself, unloving, cold. He tried to say something affectionate, something to repay her for the suffering he had caused, the lonely evenings, the tense breakfasts.