"Very well; we'll try it, then." He took the warm bundle that was the sleeping child from Lois, saying, as she half demurred, "It's all right; I've carried 'em in the Spanish-American war in Cuba," holding it in one arm, while with the other he supported Lois. The dragging march began again, Dosia, stumbling sometimes, trying to keep alongside of him, so that when he turned his head anxiously to look for her she would be there, to meet his eyes with hers, bravely scorning fatigue. The trees had disappeared now from the side of the road; long, swelling, wild fields lay on the slopes of the hillside, broken only by solitary clumps of bushes--fields deserted of life, broad resting-places for the moonlight, which illumined the farthest edge of the scene, although the moon itself was hidden by the crest of a hill. And as they went on, slowly perforce, he questioned Lois gently; and she, with simple words, gradually laid the facts bare. "Oh, why didn't Alexander tell me all this?" he asked pitifully, and she answered: "He said it was no use; he said you had no money." "No; but I can sometimes get it for other people! I could have gone to Rondell Brothers and got it." "Rondell Brothers? I thought they were difficult to approach." "That depends. I was with Rondell's boy in Cuba when he had the fever, and he's always said--but that's neither here nor there. Apart from that, they've had their eye on your husband lately. You can't hide the quality of a man like him, Mrs. Alexander; it shows in a hundred ways that he doesn't think of. They have had dealings with him, though he doesn't know it--it's been through agents. Mr. Warren, one of their best men, has, it seems, taken a fancy to him. I shouldn't wonder if they'd take over the typometer as it stands, and work Alexander in with it. If Rondell Brothers really take up any one!"--Girard did not need to finish. Even Lois and Dosia had heard of Rondell Brothers, the great firm that was known from one end of the country to the other--a commercial house whose standing was as firm, as unquestioned, as the Bank of England, and almost as conservative. Apart from this, their reputation was unique. It was more than a commercial house: it was an institution, in which for three generations the firm known as Rondell Brothers had carried on their business to high advantage--on the principles of personal honor and honesty and fair dealing.