"In this snow? I thought you hated snow. You've always been a perfect pussy cat about the cold, Bronson." "Yes, sir, but this is very important, sir." The General ran his eye over the spruce figure. "And you are all dressed up. I hope you are not going to be married, Bronson." It was an old joke between them. Bronson was a pre-destined bachelor, and the General knew it. But he liked to tease him. "No, sir. I'll be back in time to look after your lunch, sir." The General had been growing stronger, so that he spent several hours each day in his chair. When Bronson had gone, he rose and moved restlessly about the room. The day nurse cautioned him. "The Doctor doesn't want you to exert yourself, General Drake." He was always courteous, but none the less he meant to have his own way. "Don't worry, Miss Martin. I'll take the responsibility." He shuffled out into the hall. When she would have followed, he waved her back. "I am perfectly able to go alone," he told her. She stood on the threshold watching him. She was very young and she was a little afraid of him. Her eyes, as she looked upon him, saw an obstinate old man in a gay dressing gown. And the man in the gay dressing gown felt old until he faced suddenly his wife's picture on the stairs. It had been weeks since he had seen it, and in those weeks much had happened. Her smiling presence came to him freshly, as the spring might come to one housed through a long winter, or the dawn after a dark night. "Edith!" He leaned upon the balustrade. The nurse, coming out, warned him. "Indeed, you'd better stay in your room." "I'm all right. Please don't worry. You 'tend to your knitting, and I'll take care of myself." She insisted, however, on bringing out a chair and a rug. "Perhaps it will be a change for you to sit in the hall," she conceded, and tucked him in, and he found himself trembling a little from weakness, and glad of the support which the chair gave him. It seemed very pleasant to sit there with Edith smiling at him. For the first time in many weeks his mind was at rest. Ever since Hilda had come he had felt the pressure of an exciting presence. He felt this morning free from it, and glad to be free. What a wife Edith had been! Holding him always to his highest and best, yet loving him even when he stumbled and fell. Bending above him in her beautiful charity and understanding, raising him up, fostering his self-respect in those moments of depression when he had despised himself. What other woman would have done it? What other woman would have kept her love for him through it all? For she had loved him. It had never been his money with her. She would have clung to him in sickness and in poverty. But Hilda loved his money. He knew it now as absolutely as if she had said it. For the first time in weeks he saw clearly. Last night his eyes had been opened.