The Airedale terrier, that now was not to know the joys of owning his own “boy,” she made her particular charge. Although she had resented him from first sight, she came to take a vicarious pride in his up-bringing and points. Through Jack’s eyes she watched his development out of puppyhood into promising young dogship; daily brushed the harsh tan coat over which the outlines of a black saddle already were forming; noted with interest that, although scarcely two months old, his eyes were turning black; attended his diet herself, lest his canine voracity weaken the bones of his front legs, now straight as two gun-barrels. In time she felt for him a comradeship even greater than Jack’s would have been. Was he not in the same, culpable position which had saddened her youth? Had not another died for him? She did not realize how much his demonstrative preference for her company had gained upon her until one night when awakened from her early sleep by the ache of loneliness. She decided to join him in Jack’s living room where he was allowed to dream his puppy dreams curled up on the foot-stool that stood as of yore before the lame little autocrat’s arm-chair. Slipping a warm robe over her nightgown and loose long hair, she tip-toed in mules along the balcony and into the suite of so many memories. Scarcely had she closed the door when the puppy rose to receive her. Although he stood a picture of preparedness in the center of the room, instinctively posing after the traditions of his A. K. C. ancestry when on hunt or show-bench, the waggle of his short, flagstaff tail and certain quivers of his stiff chin whiskers assured her that he was delighted she had come. And Dolores returned his greeting with more than usual cordiality. She rubbed the level of his back with her foot and stooped to scratch the section of forehead between the small, V-shaped ears when he kissed effusively her bare ankles. She straightened; for a moment stood listening. The room was very quiet--so much quieter than usual. She glanced at the grandfather’s clock which had ticked through so many generations of Cabots. The living John had tinkered it to outlast the life of his heir and it had made good his boast. Reproachfully Dolores eyed the “calm” face which Jack had approved. Indeed, a clock needed to be “calm-faced,” when its office was ticking lives away. The hour hand was close to eleven. But then, the hour didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that Jack was gone. With the thought, she turned toward the closed bedroom door. Impossible--almost too impossible for belief it seemed that he was not sleeping within. Comparing to-night with other nights when she had crept in to assure herself that his sleep was sound, the past seemed real, the now the unreality. Surely he would be hunched up beneath his eider-down and satin just as usual.