He reached Senator Blundel's rooms an hour later, and found him in the midst of his papers and pigeon-holes,--letters and pamphlets to right of him, to left of him, before and behind him. "Well," he said, by way of greeting, "our Westoria friends are out of humor this morning." "So I have heard," Tredennis answered. "And they may well be--they may well be," he said, nodding sharply. "And there are some fine stories told, of course." "I have come to tell you one myself, sir," said Tredennis. "What!" cried Blundel, turning on his chair,--"you have a story?" "Yes," returned the colonel, "not a pleasant one, and as it concerns you I will waste as few words as possible." He wasted no words at all. The story was a brief one, but as forcible as simple words could make it. There was no effort to give it effectiveness, and yet there were touches here and there which appealed to the man who heard it as he had been rarely appealed to before. They brought before him things which had found a lodging in corners of his practical political mind, and had haunted him rather pathetically since the night he had shrugged himself into his overcoat, and left the slight, desolate-looking figure behind him. He had enjoyed his friendship too much not to regret it now that he felt it was a thing of the past; he had felt the loss more than once of the new element it had introduced into his life, and had cast about in his mind in vain for a place where he could spend a spare hour or so as pleasantly as he had often spent such hours in a bright parlor he knew of. Before Tredennis had half finished his relation he was moving restlessly in his chair, and uttering occasional gruff ejaculations, and when it came to an end he sprang up, looking not a trifle heated. "That's it, is it?" he exclaimed. "They have been inventing something new about her, have they, and dragged me into it into the bargain? And they are making up plots against her,--poor little woman!--as if she hadn't been treated badly enough. A lot of gossips, I'll wager!" "Some of them are good enough," said the colonel. "They only mean to signify their disapproval of what they would have the right to condemn if it were a truth instead of a lie."