She knelt beside the stand and let her hot cheek rest against a cool bud; she touched her lips to another, and then laid the roses on her eyelids. It seemed almost like a pitying human hand upon her spirit, and comforted her tired heart. She felt that she was growing old, very, very old, in these last few hours, to meet the requirements of her wedding day, and the touch of the buds seemed to steady and help her, as her mother’s hand and lips might have done. By and by she would have to get up and put on those fine garments lying over there in the morning sunlight, and go downstairs, for them all to stare at her misery; but now she would forget it all for a little while, and just think of her new-found friend, who had looked at her with such a wonderful smile—a smile in which there seemed no place for fault-finding or sternness or grim solemnity—the things which had seemed to make up the main part of her girlhood life. Meantime, Mr. Winthrop and his host had gone to meet the train, upon which the expectant bridegroom would arrive. As they neared the tavern that served as a station for the new railroad, they saw an old man, a woman, and two little children sitting upon a settle on the front stoop. The man arose and came a step or two toward them, and Mr. Winthrop saw that it was William McCord. He seemed embarrassed and he spoke apologetically: "Mr. Winthrop, sir, I don’t jest know what you’ll think about me bein’ here—I don’t, and I’m sorry’s I can be about it; but, you see, I knowed Harrington pretty well. I knowed he might find a way to smooth it all over and pull the wool over your eyes, and I’d passed my word I’d come here with her and stop the marriage, if so be it turned out you couldn’t or wouldn’t feel called upon to do so. I didn’t count on your comin’ down to the train. You see, we ben watchin’ every train sence yesterday, to make sure he didn’t get away to the house without our seein’ him. That poor girl there ain’t et scarce a mouthful sence she started from home—only just a drop o’ coffee now an’ then—and she ain’t slep’ neither. She’s jest keepin’ alive to hunt him up and try to persuade him to come home to her an’ the children. You see, I had to let her come. I couldn’t say no. She was up here day ’fore yesterday, when I come to see you. She didn’t want I should tell you, because she ain’t got the clo’es and fixin’s she’d like to hev you see her in, but she was determined to come——" He paused and looked back toward the bench where the woman and the children sat. Mr. Winthrop’s face had taken on a look of distress as he recognized William McCord. He turned to his companion and explained in a low tone, "This is the man who brought me the evidence." Mr. Van Rensselaer regarded the man with keen eyes, and decided at once that any word from a man with such a face was as good as an affidavit.