As he rode so semi-occasionally, and as the horse he selected was usually one which even his pluckiest grooms feared to exercise, the brute in question was fairly certain to be in a state of rampant, rank “freshness,” and to require the best work of two men to lead him from the stables to the _porte-cochère_. As few steeds could long withstand such training as Conover inflicted, he was forever changing mounts. The horse of the hour would wax so tame and docile as to preclude further excitement, or would break a blood-vessel or go dead lame in one of the fierce conflicts with its master. Then a new mount must be sought out. It was barely a month earlier that Caleb had discovered Dunderberg, and had bought the great black stallion at an outrageously high price. And thus far the purchase still delighted him, for Dunderberg not only showed no signs of cringing to the master’s fiery will, but daily grew fiercer and more unmanageable. So, while Mrs. Conover trembled, wept and alternately prayed and watched the length of driveway beyond her window, the Railroader was wont to dash at breakneck speed along the farther country roads, atop his huge black horse, checking the mad pace only for occasional battles-royal with the ever-fractious beast. To-night, coming atop the previous excitement of the “pleasant home hour,” the strain on Letty was too great. Clinging convulsively to Anice, the poor woman wept with a hysterical abandon that almost frightened the girl. Tenderly, lovingly as a mother the girl soothed the trembling old lady; comforting her as only a woman of great heart and small hand can; quieting at length the shuddering hysterics into half-stifled sobs. Had Caleb Conover (upstairs wrestling with an overtight riding boot) chanced upon the group, he would have been sore puzzled to recognize in this all-tender, pitying maiden the coldly reserved secretary on whose unruffled composure and steady nerve he had so utterly come to rely. “Oh, it’s horrible—_horrible_!” panted Mrs. Conover, finding voice as the sobs subsided. “Yes, yes, I know,” soothed Anice. “But it——” “You _don’t_ know. You can’t know. It isn’t only the horse. It’s everything! I sometimes wonder how I stand it. Each time it seems as if——” “Don’t! Don’t, dear! You’re overwrought and tired. Let me take you upstairs and——” “No. It does me good. There’s never been anyone I could talk to. And sometimes I’ve felt I’d give all this abominable money and everything just for one hour’s friendship with anyone who really cared.” “But _I_ care. Really, _really_ I do. Let me help you, won’t you, please? I want so much to.”