me member of the family must be there to back The Rogue
in his game fight. And so Sue, in company with the major and his wife,
had gone.

She had taken little interest in the race. She knew what it meant, no
one knew better than she, but somehow she had no room left for care to
occupy. She was apathetic, listless; a striking contrast to the major
and his wife, who could hardly repress their feelings. They knew what
she would find at the Aqueduct track--find the world. She did not.

All she knew was that Drake, whom she liked for his rough, patent
manhood, had very kindly offered the services of his jockey; a jockey
whom he had faith in. Who that jockey was, she did not know, nor
overmuch care. A greater sorrow had obliterated her racing passion;
had even ridden roughshod over the fear of financial ruin. Her mind was
numb.

For days succeeding Drake's statement to her that Garrison was not
married she waited for some word from him. Drake had explained how
Garrison had thought he was married. He had explained all that. She
could never forget the joy that had swamped her on hearing it; even as
she could never forget the succeeding days of waiting misery; waiting,
waiting, waiting for some word. He had been proven honest, proven Major
Calvert's nephew, proven free. What more could he ask? Then why had he
not come, written?

She could not believe he no longer cared. She could not believe that;
rather, she would not. She gaged his heart by her own. Hers was the
woman's portion--inaction. She must still wait, wait, wait. Still she
must eat her heart out. Hers was the woman's portion. And if he did not
come, if he did not write--even in imagination she could never complete
the alternative. She must live in hope; live in hope, in faith, in
trust, or not at all.

Colonel Desha's enforced absence overcame the one difficulty Major
Calvert and Jimmie Drake had acknowledged might prematurely explode
their hidden identity mine. The colonel, exercising his owner's
prerogative, would have fussed about The Rogue until the last minute.
Of course he would have interviewed Garrison, giving him riding
instructions, etc. Now Drake assumed the right by proxy, and Sue, after
one eager-whispered word to The Rogue, had assumed her position in the
grand stand.

Garrison was up-stairs in the jockey's quarters of the new paddock
structure, the lower part of which is reserved for the clerical force,
and so she had not seen him. But presently