When the mud-covered wagons rumbled into town after their tortuous twenty-mile journey, the sun was high and the skies were clear and all the world seemed to be singing with the birds. David had prepared Mrs. Braddock and Christine; they looked for the Colonel on the station platform as the train rolled in. He was there, waiting, as if directed by Providence, at the foot of the steps which Mrs. Braddock was to descend. He had eyes for no one until she appeared in the car door. Then his ugly smile projected itself; his silk hat came off and he bowed low. One knowing the innermost workings of Colonel Grand's mind would have understood the profoundness of that bow. He was giving her time to collect herself; he was, on his own part, deliberately evading the look of repugnance he knew so well would leap into her eyes at the first glimpse of him. She did not see the hand he extended, but with a cool nod of her head, stepped unaided to the platform. Another man would have felt the rebuke. Colonel Grand, with the utmost deference in his manner, quietly relieved her of the traveling bag, his hat still in his hand. He sent a smile of greeting up to David and the angry-eyed Christine. "Bring Christine's bag, Jack," he called out. "I have a hack waiting on the other side of the depot. It is too muddy for walking." Mary Braddock drew herself up, her eyes flashed and her lips parted to resent this easy proprietorship. But she saw that a group of performers were staring at them in plain curiosity. She closed her lips in bitter determination, and walked off at his side. Close behind came her daughter and the young Virginian. Joey Grinaldi addressed himself to the little knot of strollers. "I never did see such a look as she gave 'im," said he. "My eye! It was a stinger. Take my word for it, she's going to take the bit in 'er mouth afore you know it, and show that hyena wot she's made of." "Hyena, dad?" scoffed his daughter. "He's not even that. He's a rep-_tile_." "Well, he brought the sunshine," said one of the women half-heartedly. "But it's still muddy," retorted Joey with dogged pessimism. They trooped off after him, each one lighter hearted in spite of a dull reluctance, simply because Colonel Grand had brought not only the sunshine but a life-saving opulence. Thomas Braddock, muddy, unkempt and sour, had managed to sleep off some of the effects of the liquor he had poured into himself the night before. True to his word, he had traveled by wagon. The treasurer of the circus had seen to it that he was tossed like a bundle of rags into the ticket wagon, there to roll and jostle from wall to wall over twenty miles of oblivion. He was waiting at the show grounds for the return of the street parade when he saw his wife and Christine approaching, followed at some distance by Colonel Grand and the faithful David.