As the time went on we hated more and more to leave her, but she was very brave about it.  “I have my good man Friday,” she told us, “to protect me, and my grandfather’s revolver.”

So the summer passed, and the fall came, and the busy robin and all of her red-breasted family started for the South, and there was rain and more rain, so that when October rolled around the roads were perfect rivers of red mud, and the swollen streams swept under the bridges in raging torrents of terra-cotta, and the sheep on the hills were pinker than ever.  There was no lack of color in those gray days, for the trees burst through the curtain of mist in great splashes of red and green and gold.  But now I did not go abroad with William Watters behind his old gray mule, for things had happened which kept me at home.

It was on a rainy November night that I came down to the store to call Billy to supper.  I had brought a saucer for old Tid, the store cat, and when he had finished Billy had cut him a bit of cheese and he was begging for it.  We had taught Tid to sit up and ask, and he looked so funny, for he is fat and black and he hates to beg, but he loves cheese.  We were laughing at him when a great flash of light seemed to sweep through the store, and a motor stopped.

Billy went forward at once.  The front door opened, and a man in a rain-coat was blown in by the storm.

“Jove, it’s a wet night!” I heard him say, and I knew it wasn’t any of Billy’s customers from around that part of the country.  This was no drawling Virginia voice.  It was crisp and clear-cut and commanding.

He took off his hat, and even at that distance I could see his shining blond head.  He towered above Billy, and Billy isn’t short.  “I wonder if you could help me,” he began, and then he hesitated, “it is a rather personal matter.”

“If you’ll come up-stairs,” Billy told him, “there’ll be only my wife and me, and I can shut up the store for the night.”

“Good!” he said, and I went ahead of them with old Tid following, and presently the men arrived and Billy presented the stranger to me.

He told us at once what he wanted.  “I thought that as you kept the store, you might hear the neighborhood news.  I have lost—­my wife—­”

“Dead?” Billy inquired solicitously.

“No.  Several months ago we motored down into this part of the country.  Some miles from here I had trouble with my engine, and I had to walk to town for help.  When I came back my wife was gone—­”

I pinched Billy under the table.  “Gone?” I echoed.

“Yes.  She left a note.  She said that she could catch a train at the station and that she would take it.  Some one evidently gave her a lift, for she had her traveling bag with her.  She said that she would sail at once for France, and that I must not try to follow her.  Of course I did follow her, and I searched through Europe, but I found no trace, and then it occurred to me that after all she might still be in this part of the country—­”