CHAPTER VIII

"I MUST GO BACK"

The tremendous plan for the salvation of their own suffering world
through the Chemist's discovery occupied the five friends for some time.
Then laying aside this subject, that now had become of the most vital
importance to them all, the Chemist resumed his narrative.

"My last evening in the world of the ring, I spent with Lylda,
discussing our future, and making plans for the journey. I must tell you
now, gentlemen, that never for a moment during my stay in Arite was I
once free from an awful dread of this return trip. I tried to conceive
what it would be like, and the more I thought about it, the more
hazardous it seemed.

"You must realize, when I was growing smaller, coming in, I was able to
climb down, or fall or slide down, into the spaces as they opened up.
Going back, I could only imagine the world as closing in upon me,
crushing me to death unless I could find a larger space immediately
above into which I could climb.

"And as I talked with Lylda about this and tried to make her understand
what I hardly understood myself, I gradually was brought to realize the
full gravity of the danger confronting us. If only I had made the trip
out once before, I could have ventured it with her. But as I looked at
her fragile little body, to expose it to the terrible possibilities of
such a journey was unthinkable.

"There was another question, too, that troubled me. I had been gone from
you nearly a week, and you were only to wait for me two days. I believed
firmly that I was living at a faster rate, and that probably my time
with you had not expired. But I did not know. And suppose, when I had
come out on to the surface of the ring, one of you had had it on his
finger walking along the street? No, I did not want Lylda with me in
that event.

"And so I told her--made her understand--that she must stay behind, and
that I would come back for her. She did not protest. She said
nothing--just looked up into my face with wide, staring eyes and a
little quiver of her lips. Then she clutched my hand and fell into a
low, sobbing cry.

"I held her in my arms for a few moments, so little, so delicate, so
human in her sorrow, and yet almost superhuman in her radiant beauty.
Soon she stopped crying and smiled up at me bravely.

"Next morning I left. Lylda took me through the tunnels and back into
the forest by the river's edge where I had first met her. There we
parted. I can see, now, her