As we met in the centre of the room her eyes, moist with tears, were upturned to mine. "Hadron," she whispered, her voice husky with emotion, and then I put my arm about her slender shoulders and drew her to me, and something that was quite beyond my volition impelled me to kiss her upon the forehead. Instantly she disengaged herself and I feared that she had misunderstood that impulsive kiss of friendship, but her next words reassured me.
"I thought never to see you again, Hadron of Hastor," she said. "I feared that they had killed you. How comes it that you are here and in the metal of a warrior of Tjanath?"
I told her briefly of what had occurred to me since we had been separated and of how I had temporarily, at least, escaped The Death. She asked me what The Death was, but I could no
