Gardner sat down. He smiled to himself, anticipating the reunion. It wasn't every wife whose husband could go out and buy her a thirty-thousand-dollar toy. There was the crash of rending wood. The sound chilled Gardner, froze him so that the angry scream that followed was anticlimax. But it brought movement back into his legs and he lunged toward the stairs. He bellowed an order. Too late. The robot was already descending. It carried the dead body of Dolores in its steel arms. Her head hung limply on a horribly twisted neck. "She refused to come, Master," the robot said.