He had all of an old man’s sympathy for a lovely woman in distress.  He had all of any man’s desire to play Cophetua.

“Look here,” he said.  “You get yourself a pink parasol and a fan and a silk dress.  I’d like to see you wear them.”

She shook her head.  “What should I do with things like that?” Her voice had a note of wistfulness.  “A woman in my position must be careful.”

“But I want you to have the things,” he persisted.

“I shouldn’t have a place to wear them,” sadly.  “No, you are very good to offer them.  But I mustn’t.”

The General slept after that.  Hilda read under the lamp—­a white cat watched by a little old terrier on the stairs!

And now the big house was very still.  There were lights in the halls of the first and second floors.  Bronson crouching in the darkness of the third landing was glad of the company of the painted lady on the stairs.  He knew she would approve of what he was doing.  For years he had served her in such matters as this, saving her husband from himself.  When Derry was too small, too ignorant of evil, too innocent, to be told things, it was to the old servant that she had come.

He remembered a certain night.  She was young then and new to her task.  She and the General had been dining at one of the Legations.  She was in pale blue and very appealing.  When Bronson had opened the door, she had come in alone.

“Oh, the General, the General, Bronson,” she had said.  “We’ve got to go after him.”

She was shaking with the dread of it, and Bronson had said, “Hadn’t you better wait, ma’am?”

“I mustn’t.  We stopped at the hotel as we came by, and he said he would run in and get a New York paper.  And we waited, and we waited, and he didn’t come out again, and at last I sent McChesney in, and he couldn’t find him.  And then I went and sat in the corridor, thinking he might pass through.  It isn’t pleasant to sit alone in the corridor with the men—­staring at you—­at night.  And then I asked the man at the door if he had seen him, and he said, ‘yes,’ that he had called a cab, and then I came home.”

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.