He shrugged his wide, thin shoulders. His face was very solemn. He sat with his long, lean length hunched in his chair, chin cupped in his palm, the attitude of a youthful, pagan thinker, fronted with a disturbing problem. But there was a very boyish modernity mingled with it; a lock of his straight black hair fell on his forehead. He seized it, twisted it, puzzled, and looked up at me and smiled. Then Alan said a thing very strange; he said it slowly, musingly, as though the voicing of it awed him. "I think it was on Earth. I wonder if it was something that has been, or that will be--" It came again, near dawn. The same tower; the same serene, starlit spread of landscape. The same grim encircling wall, with stalking dark figures upon it. We did not at first see the girl. The tower doorway stood open; the room inside glowed with its dim light. A moment of inactivity; and then it seemed that at this inexplicable place at which we were gazing--this unnamable time which seemed the present on our screen--a moment of action had come. A dark figure on the wall rose up--a small black blob against the background of stars. The figure of a man. His arm went up in a gesture. Another figure had come to the tower doorway, a youth, strangely garbed. We could see him clearly: white-skinned, a young man. He stood gazing; and he saw the signal from the wall, and answered it. Behind him, the girl appeared. We could see them speak. An aspect of haste enveloped all their movements--a surreptitious haste, furtive, as though this that they were doing was forbidden. The signal was repeated from the wall. They answered. They turned. The youth pushed the girl aside. He was stooping at the doorway, and her eager movements to help seemed to annoy him. He straightened. He had unfastened the tower door. He and the girl slid it slowly closed. It seemed very heavy. They pushed at it. The doorway closed with them inside. We had awakened Nanette. She sat tense between us, with her long braids of thick, chestnut hair falling unheeded over her shoulders, her hands gripping each of us. "Tell me!" * * * * * Alan said: "That door's heavy. They can't close it--yes! They've got it closed. I fancy they're barring it inside. The thing is all so silent--but you could imagine the clang of bars. I don't see the guard on the wall. It's dark over there. There's no one in sight. But, Nan, you can see that something's going to happen. See it--or feel it. Ed, look! Why--" He broke off. Nanette's grip tightened on us.