He seized the hand in both his own, and gripped it hard. He tried to
speak, but only shook his head with a rueful smile.

"I'll be waiting at the door with the car," she told him, as she left.

Horton, too, came in to volunteer assistance.

"Wilfred," said Samson, feelingly, 'there isn't any man I'd rather
have at my back, in a stand-up fight. But this isn't exactly that sort.
Where I'm going, a fellow has got to be invisible. No, you can't help,
now. Come down later. We'll organize Horton, South and Co."

"South, Horton and Co.," corrected Wilfred; "native sons first."

At that moment, Adrienne believed she had decided the long-mooted
question. Of course, she had not. It was merely the stress of the
moment; exaggerating the importance of one she was losing at the
expense of the one who was left. Still, as she sat in the car waiting,
her world seemed slipping into chaos under her feet, and, when Samson
had taken his place at her side, the machine leaped forward into a
reckless plunge of speed.

Samson stopped at his studio, and threw open an old closet where, from
a littered pile of discarded background draperies, canvases and
stretchers, he fished out a buried and dust-covered pair of saddlebags.
They had long lain there forgotten, but they held the rusty clothes in
which he had left Misery. He threw them over his arm and dropped them
at Adrienne's feet, as he handed her the studio keys.