slackening hold and once again caught at the hands of the mother.

All struggle ceased. Mary's eyes shut again, the pain lines smoothed themselves, the tiny smile flowered.

He reached out and touched the small hands on each side of the mother and the feeling for which there were no words came through more strongly than ever before. Tiny voices tried to whisper within the corners of his mind, partially blotted, sometimes heard. The real things, the things of hate and fear and despair retreated beyond the bugle call that sounded somewhere.

"She will die," the voice said; one voice for two. "This part of her will die."

And then her voice came—as it had been once before when all of the world was young. "You must not be afraid, John. I have known for a long time—for they were a part of me. And you could not know for your mind was hiding and alone. I have seen ..."

He cried out and pulled his hands away. Sound died, the room was normal again. The milky, white eyes surveyed him, the hands remained locked securely over those of the mother. The thin carven features of the children were emotionless, waiting.

He strove for rational meaning within his brain. These are my sons—they can not see or hear or speak. They are identical twins—born with those defects.

Take two children, blind them, make them deaf to all sound, cut away their voices. They are identical twins, facing the same environment, sharing the same heredity of blasted chromosomes. They will have intelligence and curiosity that increases as they mature. They will not be blinded by the senses—the easy way. The first thing they will discover is each other.

What else might they then discover?

It has been said that when sight is lost the sense of touch and hearing increase to almost unbelievable acuteness—Rush knew that. The blind often also develop a sense almost like radar which allows them to perceive an object ahead of them and gives them the ability to follow twisting paths.

Take one child and put him under the disability that the twins were born with. As intelligence grows so does single bewilderment. The world is a puzzling and bewildering place. Braille is a great discovery—a way to communicate with the unknown that lies beyond.

But the twins had shown almost no interest in Braille.

He reached back down for the tiny hands.

"Yes, we can communicate," the single voice that spoke for two said. "We have tried with you before, but we could not break through. Your mind speaks in a language we do not understand, in figures and equations that are not real to us. Those things lie all through your mind—on the surface we have sensed only your pity for us and your hate for the shadowy ones around you, the ones we do not know. It was a wall we could not climb. She is different.

"A part of her will go with us," the voice said. "There is another place that touches this one which we perceive and know more fully than this one."

The voice died away and brief pictures of a land of other dimensions beyond sight flashed in his brain. He had seen them before imperfectly in the disquieting dreams. "She must go with us for she can no longer exist here," the voice said softly. "Perhaps there are others like us to come—we do not yet know what we are or whether there will be others like us. But we must go now, before we were ready, because of her."

The mother's voice came. "You must go too. There is nothing here for you but sorrow. They will take you, John." A softness touched at him. "Please, John."

The longing was a thing of fire. To cast off the world that had already given him all of the hate and fear that he could stand, that had made him worse than a coward. To go with her.

But she no longer needed him. She was complete—as they were, only necessary to themselves.

He could not go.

During the long night he kept the vigil by the bedside; long after any need to keep it.

The twins were gone and she with