for
it--"

She interrupted him, raising her thin arm, which must have seemed so
heavy that at once she let it fall again. "Lee--I guess I am glad you're
here--want to talk to you--and I guess it better be now."

"Tomorrow--you're too tired now--"

"For me," she said with her gentle smile, "there may not be any
tomorrow--not here. Your grandfather, Lee--you really don't remember
him?"

"I was only four or five."

"Yes. That was when your father and mother died in the aero accident and
your grandfather brought you to me."

Very vaguely he could remember it. He had always understood that Anna
Green had loved his grandfather, who had died that same year.

"What I want to tell you, Lee--" She seemed summoning all her last
remaining strength. "Your grandfather didn't die. He just went away.
What you've never known--he was a scientist. But he was a lot more than
that. He had--dreams. Dreams of what we mortals might be--what we ought
to be--but are not. And so he--went away."

This dying old woman; her mind was wandering?...

"Oh--yes," Lee said. "But you're much too tired now, Anna dear--"

"Please let me tell you. He had--some scientific apparatus. I didn't see
it--I don't know where he went. I think he didn't know either, where he
was going. But he was a very good man, Lee. I think he had an
intuition--an inspiration. Yes, it must have been that. A man--inspired.
And so he went. I've never seen or heard from him since. Yet--what he
promised me--if he could accomplish it--tonight--almost now, Lee, would
be the time--"

* * * * *

Just a desperately sick old woman whose blurred mind was seeing visions.
The thin wrinkled face, like crumpled white parchment, was transfigured
as though by a vision. Her sunken eyes were bright with it. A wonderment
stirred within Lee Anthony. Why was his heart pounding? It seemed
suddenly as though he must be sharing this unknown thing of science--and
mysticism. As though something within him--his grandfather's blood
perhaps--was responding.... He felt suddenly wildly excited.

"Tonight?" he murmured.

"Your grandfather was a very good man, Lee--"

"And you, Anna--all my life I have known how good you are. Not like most
women--you're just all gentleness--just kindness--"

"That was maybe--just an inspiration from him." Her face was bright with
it. "I've tried to bring you up--the way he told me. And what I must
tell you now--about tonight, I mean