n't get too close to him in size, but try and attack him
unawares. We have got to get Babs away from him."

The narrowing passage rose hardly to their knees. They stepped ashore,
well to one side of the toy city. Their growth had almost stopped. But
suddenly Alan realized that Glora was diminishing! She had taken the
other drug.

"Glora!"

"I must go back, Alan. This is my world, doomed perhaps, but I cannot
forsake it now. I must give the enlarging drug to my father. And
others who can rise and fight these monsters."

"Glora!"

Dr. Kent said hurriedly, "She's right, Alan. There is a chance they
can save their city. For her to leave them would be dastardly."

She cried, "You go on up, Alan. You have enough of the drugs. Leave
me, dear one--I am going back!"

"No!" he protested. "You must not! Or if you do, I'll come with you!"

She clung to him. He felt her body diminishing within his encircling
arms. His love for her swept him--this girl who had cajoled Polter, or
tricked him, stolen several of the little vials from him heaven knows
how, and followed him up to the other world. This girl whom Alan now
knew he loved, was leaving him. Forever?

* * * * *

As he stood there, with the miniature landscape at his feet in the wan
starlight, the panic-stricken tiny city, the island with its monsters
rising to overwhelm this microscopic world--it seemed to Alan then
that if he let her go it was the end for him of all life's promised
happiness.

"Alan, lad, come." His father was pulling at him. So horrible a
choice! Alan thought that I was back on that island. But Babs, a
prisoner in the golden cage, was with Polter, plunging upward in size.
And his father was beside him, pleading.

"Alan--come--I can't get out alone. Nor save Babs. And the maddened
Polter, with the power of this drug, can conquer and enslave our Earth
as he has enslaved Orena--just one little city of one tiny golden
atom! Believe me, lad, your duty lies above."

Glora's head was now down at Alan's waist. He stooped and kissed her
white forehead; his fingers, just for an instant, smoothed her glossy
hair.

"Good-by, Glora."

"Dear one, good-by."

She plunged away, and her tread as she dwindled mashed the forest
behind the city. Alan and his father ran for the cliff. They were too
large to squeeze into the little hole. But in a moment they made
themselves smaller. They climbed as they dwindled; checked the drug