They remembered Mrs. Brainard at last, and they remembered that Helena, also, had had nothing at all to eat since the hour for afternoon tea. Brown flung open the door into his living-room, his face aglow, and stood laughing at the sight of Mrs. Brainard's posture in his red rocking-chair. As if exhausted by the tortures of fatigue and starvation she lay back in an attitude of utter abandonment to her fate, and only the gleam of her eyes and the smile on her lips belied the dejection of her pose. "It's a shame!" he cried, coming to her side. "Or would be if--you hadn't aided and abetted it all." "Are you happy, Donald dear?" asked the lady, sitting up and reaching up both hands to him. "Ah, yes; I only need to look at you!" "So happy I don't know what I'm doing, you kind, wise friend." "Wise? I wonder if I am. What will they all say to me, I wonder, when they know the part I've played? Never mind! Is Helena happy, too? I hope so, for the poor girl has been through the depths, bless her!" "Come and see!" And with his arm about her, Donald led her out into the kitchen. Helena came forward. "Dearest lady, will you stay and have supper with us?" said she with quite the air of the proud young housewife, and Brown laughed in his delight. "Had I better stay?" inquired Mrs. Brainard, laughing with the man at her side, while both regarded the figure before them with eyes which missed no note in the appeal of her presence in that place. "Oh, yes, indeed. We've plenty and to spare. Donald paid a visit to the corner grocery not long ago, and we've new-laid eggs, and radishes and all. Do stay!" "I think I will." And Mrs. Brainard took the radiant face between her soft, white, ringless hands and kissed it as a mother might. In no time at all the hour had come for the visitors to go to their train. In spite of their protests Brown would have a cab come for them, though it took him some minutes to get one in a quarter of the city where such luxury was rare. "Time enough for self-denial," said he as he took his place facing them. "Let me play I'm a man of affluence again--just for to-night." "I'm afraid, Don, you'll always be tempted to call cabs for your wife," Mrs. Brainard said, and suppressed a bit of a sigh; for, after all, she knew what the future must cost them both, and she herself would miss them sadly from her world. But it was Helena who silenced her. "When he walks, I'll walk," said she. "Haven't I been in training for a year--even though I didn't know why I was training?" "I think we've both been in training for the year," said Brown. "Even though we didn't know--God knew--and when He trains--then the end is sure!" When he had put them in their car, and had taken leave of them with a look which he found it hard to tear away, plain and unpretentious travellers though they were that night, he went striding back through the April midnight to the little old house the Englishman had built so long ago.