Before the divorce suit of Cabot vs. Cabot came to trial reassurance on several of its vital points reached Dolores through the consideration of Rufus Holt. To the greatest possible extent details were to be denied the scandal-hungry public. John Cabot would offer his defense through eminent counsel, as a case unworthy his personal appearance. She herself, the co-respondent so necessary to the severance of marital ties if one lives and sues in the Empire commonwealth, was to remain for the present with Mrs. Morrison, reported as too ill to undertake the vindication of her name. Roscoe Strang, the judge who was to pass upon the Cabot difference, was a friend of Holt’s, indebted to him for many favors, political and otherwise. The small attorney had seen to that. Soon everything would be settled, as Mrs. Cabot’s case would be advanced on the calendar on her plea that she wished to have the painful affair over as soon as possible that she might hasten abroad to undertake certain war-orphan charities to which she had pledged herself in loving memory of her little son. Despite all these assurances, the girl awaited with keen anxiety a call to a special conference with the plaintiff’s lawyer for which she had been told to hold herself in readiness immediately after the public hearing. Summoned one mid-February afternoon by special messenger, she taxied according to instructions to a down-town “square” not far from the City Hall Park that housed the courts of alleged justice. One glance at Rufus Holt through the folds of the veil she had been asked to wear convinced her that this, indeed, was his first detour from straight legal paths. Although he smiled in at her from the opened cab door, much of the cheer and most of the youth was gone from his face. After giving a low-voiced address to the driver, he seated himself beside her and forced a return to his wonted sanguineness. No need for Dolores to ask in words whether the ordeal was over--whether John Cabot had been vindicated of the charge. The moment their machine was underway, her eyes put the demand. “Judge Strang reserved decision. But they always do that, as I explained a short while since to my client,” answered Holt. “You and I are going now to meet a friend of mine--just that, a friend of mine. In the course of a day or so, the case will be decided--against me.” Under all the circumstances, his sigh was justifiable. Dolores was beginning to realize that. The change in his face alone told her the enormity of his sacrifice in laying professional honor upon the altar of a man-to-man friendship. As the taxi wound its way up-town, he gave her an idea of the proceedings.