They had gone out again together, with Bronson, who was young and strong, taking the place of the coachman, McChesney, because Mrs. Drake did not care to have the other servants see her husband at times like these. "You know how good he is," had been her timid claim on him from the first, "and you know how hard he tries." And because Bronson knew, and because he had helped her like the faithful squire that he was, she had trusted him more and more with this important but secret business. She had changed her dress for something dark, and she had worn a plain dark hat and coat. She had not cried a tear and she would not cry. She had been very brave as they travelled a beaten path, visiting the places which the General frequented, going on and on until they came to the country, and to a farm-house where they found him turning night into day, having roused the amazed inmates to ask for breakfast. He had paid them well for it, and was ready to set forth again with the dawn when his wife drove in. "My dear," he had said, courteously, as his little wife's face peered out at him from the carriage, "you shouldn't have come." Sobered for the moment, he had made a handsome figure, as he stood with uncovered head, his dark hair in a thick curl between his eyes. The morning was warm and he carried his overcoat on his arm. His patent leather shoes and the broadcloth of his evening clothes showed the dust and soil of his walk through the fields. He had evidently dismissed his cab at the edge of the city and had come crosscountry. His wife had reached out her little hand to him. "I came because I was lonely. The house seems so big when you are--away--" It had wrung Bronson's heart to see her smiling. Yet she had always met the General with a smile and with the reminder of her need of him. There had been never a complaint, never a rebuke--at these moments. When he was himself, she strove with him against his devils. But to strive when he was not himself, would be to send him away from her. Her hands were clasped tightly, and her voice shook as she talked on the way back to the husband who seemed so unworthy of the love she gave. Yet she had not thought him unworthy. "If I can only save him," she had said so many times. "Oh, Bronson, I mustn't let him go down and down, with no one who loves him to hold him back." In the years that had followed, Bronson had seen her grow worn and weary, but never hopeless. He had seen her hair grow gray, he had seen the light go out of her face so that she no longer smiled as she had smiled in the picture. But she had never given up the fight. Not even at the last moment. "You will stay with him, Bronson, and help Derry." And now this other woman had come to undo all the work that his beloved mistress had done. And there in the shadowed room she was weaving her spells. Outside, snug against the deadly cold in his warm closed car, Derry waited alone for Bronson's signal.