Thus it chanced easily that there passed up the long driveway of Graystone Hall, almost unnoticed, a vehicle carrying one who seemed a stranger there; an elderly, rather tall woman of gray hair and unfashionable garb, who made such insistence with the servant at the door that at length she won her way through. Her errand seemed not one of curiosity, nor did she lack in decision. She left upon the table an old-fashioned reticule, and following the advice given her, in reply to her question, passed up the stair and down the upper hall, to the room where lay Grace Halsey and her child. There, unknown by any of the household and accepted by those whose professional duties took them thither, she remained for many hours. Halsey and Virginia Rawn did not know of her coming. It was a cold home-coming, also, which awaited John Rawn. But he came at last, to meet that which was for him to encounter. It was night. The lights were few and dim. None greeted him at his own gate, none even at his own door, which was left unguarded. At length he found the solitary footman-butler, asleep in a chair, the worse for wine. "Where is she?" he demanded. "Where is Mrs. Rawn?" He turned before he could be coherently answered, and passed down the hall toward the library, through whose closed doors he saw a faint light gleaming. IV Something impelled John Rawn to hesitate. He stood, himself the very picture of despair, his face drawn, haggard, unshaven, his hair disordered, his hands twitching. He must find his wife, he said to himself; he must ask her what success she had had with their last hope. Yes, yes, it must be true! With Halsey's aid he would yet win! If she had won--Halsey would yet be on his side--Halsey would tell him--Halsey would go back to the factory-- But John Rawn hesitated at this door. He felt, rather than knew, believed rather than was advised, that his wife was beyond that door. He waited, apprehensive, but kept up with himself the pitiful pretense of self-deception. Ah, power, control, command!--those were the great things of the world, he reasoned. True, he knew his daughter lay dead in her room on the floor above--the paper he held in his hand told him that; for at last the doctor had prepared his statement regarding Mrs. Halsey's death by "heart failure"--the rich and all akin to them always die respectably, in a house so large as Graystone Hall. But it was too late to save her, Rawn reasoned. Let the dead bury the dead. The larger things must outweigh the small. He first must know what his wife had done with Halsey. To the tense, strained nerves of John Rawn the truth was now as apparent as it had been to the sensibilities of all these others, late friends, servants, sycophants. Ruin was here, in his citadel, his castle of pride. Only one thing could save him.... He hesitated at the door, held back from that which he knew he was about to face.... But no, he reasoned, she was there alone, he _must_ see her!