She did not answer directly. "I can't help it. I can't surrender Earthmen to those beasts. Besides"--there was a catch in her voice--"it does not matter much since--" Hilary stepped quietly from behind Grim's overshadowing bulk. The girl's eyes went wide at the sight of him; her slender white hand flew to her throat. She looked as if she had seen a ghost. "You--you!" she choked. "Hilary!" * * * * * She swayed and would have fallen, had Hilary not jumped to catch her. His heart was beating thickly with excess of emotion. Joan Robbins in his arms again--how he prayed for this moment in the icy reaches of interplanetary space. Yet what was she doing here in Bronxville? Her home had always been atop the windswept Robbins Building in Great New York. Her hand went softly over his features, as though to assure herself that it was really he. "Oh, my dear," she whispered brokenly. "I had almost given up all hope. Everyone was certain you were lost--long ago." Whirrings sounded outside. "Sorry to break up your reunion," Grim interrupted in his bass rumble, "but the Mercutians have landed on the lawn. They'll be in here right away." Joan tore herself out of Hilary's arms. Her slim straight figure tautened; her velvet soft eyebrows puckered over deep-lit pools. "Upstairs quickly, all of you," she cried. "I'll manage them somehow." Hilary said quietly, "I won't leave you alone with those brutes. You go along up, and I'll remain here." The automatic gleamed in his hand. "No, no," she panted, "you mustn't. You wouldn't have a chance. Leave it to me." She literally pushed them with her little hands to the stairway. "Go, if you love me." "The girl's right," Grim said, "there's a chance. If not," he shrugged his shoulders, "we can always come down again." Outside were heavy thuddings on the portico. "You in there," a heavy alien voice resounded, "open or we blast our way in." The door had been slid back into position. There was no room for further argument. Very reluctantly Hilary followed his companions up the winding stairway. At the top of the stairs an entrance slide showed darker on the left. Wat fumbled for a moment until he found the button. The door whirred open, even as they heard Joan's clear voice below: "Come in, Magnificents!" There was a trampling of feet. CHAPTER IV _The Kidnapping of Joan_ The Earthmen moved quickly and quietly into Joan's room. Thin, crinkly draperies of heavy silk impregnated with lead in colloidal solution, covered all the walls, the door itself. But Hilary shot no more than a cursory glance around; he had left the slide slightly ajar; he was listening intently. The gun was in his hand. There were only two bullets in the chambers--all that were left of the thousands of rounds the expedition had started out with. He must not waste them. The thick rough voice of a Mercutian floated up from below. "Three Earth slaves came in here. Where did they go?"