e that if anything happened to him--in the event of his
death or disappearance--she would go to his private work-room, where,
in a secret place which he described, she would find a confession.

"A confession of his?" Larry demanded.

"Yes; he said so. And he would say no more than that. It is something
of which he was ashamed, or guilty, which he wanted me to know. He
loved me, Larry. I realized it, though he never said so. And I'm going
now to his room, to see what it was he wanted me to know. I would have
gone alone, earlier; but I got suddenly frightened; I want you with
me."

They were unarmed. Larry cursed the fact, but Tina had no way of
getting a weapon without causing official comment. Larry started for
the window where the city stretched, more active now, under the red
and gold glow of a setting sun. Lights were winking on; the dusk of
twilight was at hand.

"Come now," said Tina, "before Tugh returns."

"Where is Harl's room?"

"Down under the palace in the sub-cellar. The corridors are deserted
at this hour, and no one will see us."

* * * * *

They left Larry's room and traversed a dim corridor on whose padded
floor their footsteps were soundless. Through distant arcades, voices
sounded; there was music in several of the rooms; it struck Larry that
this was a place of diversion for humans with no work to do. Tina
avoided the occupied rooms. Domestic Robots were occasionally
distantly visible, but Tina and Larry encountered none.

They descended a spiral stairway and passed down a corridor from the
main building to a cross wing. Through a window Larry saw that they
were at the ground level. The garden was outside; there was a glimpse
of the Time-cage standing there.

Another stairway, then another, they descended beneath the ground. The
corridor down here seemed more like a tunnel. There was a cave-like
open space, with several tunnels leading from it in different
directions. This once had been part of the sub-cellar of the gigantic
New York City--these tunnels ramifying into underground chambers, most
of which had now fallen into disuse. But few had been preserved
through the centuries, and they now were the caverns of the Robots.

Tina indicated a tunnel extending eastward, a passage leading to a
room beneath the Robot laboratory. Tugh and Tina had used it that
morning. Gazing down its blue-lit length Larry saw, fifty feet or so
away, that there was a metal-grid