I had known always that the time would come when Dr. Gryce would wait no longer. He would send for me--friend of Brett--and friend of his other two children, Martt and Francine. For a year every cylinder that had dropped on my desk had made my heart leap that it might contain this summons which now lay before me. "_I can not bear it any longer. Will you stand by us?_" So simple an appeal! But I knew the turgid torrent of heartache--the final desperation of an old man's suffering--which prompted it. Young Grante at the desk next to mine was sorting his pile of official communications newly arrived by the Venus mail. I turned to him. "I'm going away," I told him. In spite of myself--an unfortunate mannerism when I am perturbed--my voice sounded gruff, ill-tempered. "There is no time to argue--will you please notify Official 4 that my--my post is vacant." He raised his eyebrows. "Vacant?" "Yes. I'm going away." I was on my feet. Outwardly calm, but within me was a seething emotion. Going away! Out there into the immensity of the Unknown, where my friend Brett had gone, not to return. Young Grante could not guess. He was thinking Great-London perhaps--or the Asiatic province. Or perchance, Venus, or Mars. I laughed harshly. "Don't question me, Grante. Just tell them--my post is vacant." I left the room with his amazed stare following me. In the corridor, through a window I caught a glimpse of the tenth pedestrian level; its crowd of people moving upon the diverse activities of their tiny lives. Already I felt apart from them. Frank Elgon, Division 4. Presently, to such of them as knew me, I would be no more than a memory. "That young, rather quarrelsome Elgon, who walked out of his office in a temper, and vanished." They would say that, and then forget me. I laughed again. But the thought brought a pang of regret, and a shudder. In ten minutes I was within a pneumatic cylinder, speeding underground to the Southern Pennsylvania area, to the home of Dr. Gryce. II Martt and Frannie met me at the outer gateway. Their manner held a singular gravity. I had expected them to be excited, of course. But their grave, somber smiles of greeting, their instinctively hushed voices, seemed unnatural. This was no reckless, devil-may-care spirit of high adventure which I had anticipated the twins of Dr. Gryce would display. Sober drama. Their involuntary glances at the white house nestling against the hillside carried a foreboding. Drama, but it seemed almost to be tragedy. My heart sank. There was something very wrong here with the Gryces; something more imminent than the fact of Brett's absence over four years. But I said nothing. Dear little Frannie gave me her two hands. They were cold. Martt said, "Thank you for coming, Frank. Father is--waiting for you." His voice, usually flaunting, mocking at everything with the reckless spirit of youth, chilled me with its queerly broken tone.