A picture floated in Sam’s mind. He saw Sue, all in white, radiant and wonderful, coming toward him down a broad stairway, toward him, the newsboy of Caxton, the smuggler of game, the roisterer, the greedy moneygetter. All during those six weeks he had been waiting for this hour when he should sit beside the little grey-clad figure, getting from her the help he wanted in the reconstruction of his life. Without being able to talk as he had thought of talking, he yet felt assured and easy in his mind. In the moment when she had come down the stairway he had been half overcome by a feeling of intense shame, a return of the shame that had swept over him that night when she had given her word and he had walked hour after hour through the streets. It had seemed to him that from among the guests standing about should arise a voice crying, “Stop! Do not go on! Let me tell you of this fellow--this McPherson!” And then he had seen her holding to the arm of swaggering, pretentious Colonel Tom and he had taken her hand to become one with her, two curious, feverish, strangely different human beings, taking a vow in the name of their God, with the flowers banked about them and the eyes of people upon them. When Sam had gone to Colonel Tom the morning after that evening in Jackson Park, there had been a scene. The old gun maker had blustered and roared and forbidden, pounding on his desk with his fist. When Sam remained cool and unimpressed, he had stormed out of the room slamming the door and shouting, “Upstart! Damned upstart!” and Sam had gone smiling back to his desk, mildly disappointed. “I told Sue he would say ‘Ingrate,’” he thought, “I am losing my skill at guessing just what he will do and say.” The colonel’s rage had been short-lived. Within a week he was boasting of Sam to chance callers as “the best business man in America,” and in the face of a solemn promise given Sue was telling news of the approaching marriage to every newspaper man he knew. Sam suspected him of secretly calling on the telephone those newspapers whose representatives had not crossed his trail.