bore witness to hasty dressing.

"What is it?" cried Miss Rhoda, the younger of the two. "What has
happened to Randolph?"

I introduced myself to them. I told them, as gently as I could, the
bare facts, deeming it wise to make no prevarication.

So raptly did they listen and so earnestly did I try to omit horrible
details, and yet tell the truth, that I did not hear Mrs. Schuyler
enter the room. But she did come in, and heard also, the story as I
told it.

"Can it not be," I heard a soft voice behind me say, "can it not yet
be there is some mistake? Who says that man is my husband?"

I turned to see the white face and clenched hands of Randolph
Schuyler's widow. She was holding herself together, and trying to get
a gleam of hope from uncertainty.

If I had felt pity and sorrow for her before I saw her, it was doubly
poignant now.

Ruth Schuyler was one of those gentle, appealing women, helplessly
feminine in emergency. Her frightened, grief-stricken eyes looked out
of a small, pale face, and her bloodless lips quivered as she caught
them between her teeth in an effort to preserve her self-control.

"I am Chester Calhoun," I said, and she bowed in acknowledgment. "I am
junior partner in the firm of Bradbury and Calhoun. Mr. Bradbury is