for his wayward son, and he had forbidden Madeline to go. Her
mother forgot her haughty poise and dignity. Madeline, however,
had exhibited a will she had never before been known to possess.
She stood her ground even to reminding them that she was
twenty-four and her own mistress. In the end she had prevailed,
and that without betraying the real state of her mind.

Her decision to visit her brother had been too hurriedly made and
acted upon for her to write him about it, and so she had
telegraphed him from New York, and also, a day later, from
Chicago, where her traveling friends had been delayed by illness.
Nothing could have turned her back then. Madeline had planned to
arrive in El Cajon on October 3d, her brother's birthday, and she
had succeeded, though her arrival occurred at the twenty-fourth
hour. Her train had been several hours late. Whether or not the
message had reached Alfred's hands she had no means of telling,
and the thing which concerned her now was the fact that she had
arrived and he was not there to meet her.

It did not take long for thought of the past to give way wholly
to the reality of the present.

"I hope nothing has happened to Alfred," she said to herself.
"He was well, doing splendidly, the last time he wrote. To be
sure, that was a good while ago; but, then, he never wrote often.
He's all right. Pretty soon he'll come, and how glad I'll be! I
wonder if he has changed."

As Madeline sat waiting in the yellow gloom she heard the faint,
intermittent click of the telegraph instrument, the low hum of