The dread had grown through the passing days of tense, frightened suspicion while Scott kept growing shorter; through the second visit to Branson and the third; through the X-rays and the blood tests; through the entire bone survey, the search for signs of bone-mass decrease, the search for a pituitary tumour; through the long days of more X-raying and the grim search for cancer. Through today and this moment.

"But that's impossible."

She had to say it. They were the only words her mind and lips would form.

He shook his head slowly, dazedly.

"It's what he said," he answered. "He said my height's decreased more than half an inch in the last four days." He swallowed. "But it's not just my height I'm losing. Every part of me seems to be shrinking. Proportionately."

"No." There was adamant refusal in her voice. It was the only reaction she could make to such an idea. "That's all?" she asked, almost angrily. "That's all he can say?"

"Honey, it's what's happening," he said. "He showed me X rays-the ones he took four days ago and the ones he took today. It's true. I'm shrinking." He spoke as though he'd been kicked violently in the stomach, half dazed, half breathless with shock.

"No." This time she sounded more frightened then resolute. "We'll go to a specialist," she said.

"He wants me to," Scott said. "He said I should go to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre in New York. But-"

"Then you will," she said before he could go on.

"Honey, the cost" he said painfully. "We already owe-"

"What has that got to do with it? Do you think for one moment-"

A nervous tremor broke her words off. She stood trembling, arms crossed, her hands clutched at her loose-fleshed upper arms. It was the first time since it had started that she'd let him see how afraid she was.

"Lou." He put his arms around her. "It's all right, honey, it's all right."

"It isn't. You have to go to that centre. You have to."

"All right, all right," he murmured. "I will."

"What did he say they'd do?" she asked, and he could hear the desperate need for hope in her voice.

"He…" He licked his lips, trying to remember. "Oh, he said they'd check my endocrine glands; my thyroid, pituitary-my sex glands. He said they'd give me a basal metabolism. Some other tests."

Her lips pressed in.

"If he knows that," she said, "why did he have to say what he did about, about shrinking? That's not good doctoring. It's thoughtless."

"Honey, I asked him," he said. "I established it when I started all the tests. I told him I didn't want any secrets. What else could he-"

"All right" she broke in. "But did he have to call it… what he did?"

"That's what it is, Lou," he said in anguish. "There's evidence for it. Those X rays…"

"He could be wrong, Scott," she said. "He's not infallible."