The other man turned away, crossed the street, and walked back across the Square. Stroude could see him swinging on between the bushes, and the remembrance of another trail which Boyce Martin would climb rushed over him. More plainly than the crocus-bordered path to the White House shone the moonlit path up to the cabin on Pisgah where Dell Martin used to wait for his own coming, the cabin where she now waited for death. The memory of that way, twisting among laurel and rhododendrons, stabbed him more sharply than had Boyce Martin’s words; but with the old habit of setting aside disturbing thoughts, he tried to thrust the memory from his brain as he unlocked the door of his house. A servant, coming forward at the sound of his key in the lock, gave him a message with a careful precision which bespoke respect for the executive management that directed his tasks. “Mrs. Stroude wishes you to be told, sir, that she is at the theatre and will see you when she comes in. And she made an appointment, sir, for Senator Manning and two other gentlemen to see you to-night on their way from the Pan-American dinner. She said it was very important.” He thanked the man and went upstairs to the library, switching on light after light to dispel its shrouding gloom. He tried to read, but the pages of the periodicals he took up ran into dullness. He chewed his cigar savagely, finding it flavourless. He strove to concentrate on his impending interview with Manning and his companions, realizing its portent, but he could not focus his attitude. Impatiently he thrust away the work which always waited his attention on his homecoming--findings of committees, digests of newspaper editorials, confidential reports on public interests in various measures, letters from men who had constituted themselves his captains. He frowned at the framed photograph of his wife, the only decoration she had placed upon his table; and he grimaced at the portrait of himself which Rhoda had set above the immaculate mantel. He was weary with work, he told himself, crossing the room and flinging wide open the windows which looked down on the Square.