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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–“

I held on to Billy. “Had you quarreled or anything?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Things had gone wrong somehow,” he said, uncertainly, “I don’t know why. I love her.”

If you could have heard him say it! If she could have heard him! There was a silence out of which I said: “Did you ask her to warm your slippers?”

He stared at me, then he reached out his hands across the table and caught hold of mine in such a strong grip that it hurt. “You’ve seen her,” he said, “you’ve seen her–?”

Then I remembered. “I can’t say any more. You see–I’ve promised–“

“That you wouldn’t tell me?”

“Yes.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “If she’s in this part of the country, I’ll find her.” And I knew that he would. He was the kind of man you felt wouldn’t know there were obstacles in the way when he went after the thing he wanted.

I made him stay to supper. It was a drizzly cold night and he looked very tired.

“Jove,” he said, “you’re comfortable here, with your fire and your pussy-cat, and your teakettle on the hearth! This is the sort of thing I like–“

“You wouldn’t like living over a grocery store,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“Oh, nobody around here ever has, and they are all descended from signers of the Declaration of Independence and back of that from William the Conqueror, and they stick their noses in the air.”