“I know you wouldn’t want it pinned up in the shack, and it’s much too valuable to risk leaving it among my other possessions there.  So I carry it about in an old leather letter case in my pocket.  I hope you don’t mind.  I’m a little afraid of wearing it out, so I’ve constructed a sort of a frame for it, out of a heavy linen envelope, which will bear handling better than the little picture....  You are looking straight out at me—­at me?  I wish I knew it!  Won’t you tell me—­Dorothy?  You can trust me—­can’t you?  There are some things which can’t be said at long distance; they must wait.  I get to feeling like a storage battery sometimes—­overcharged!  Meanwhile, trust me—­Dorothy!”

But she would send him only this: 

“Of course I was looking at you.  Why not?  It’s only courtesy to recognize the salutation of a gentleman disguised in working clothes, standing in the door of a queer-looking South American residence.  Besides—­he looks rather well, I think!”

One April evening Mr. Julius Broughton, sitting comfortably in his room in a certain well-known building at a well-known university, was summoned to telephone.  Bringing his feet to the floor with a thump, flinging aside his book and puffing away at his pipe, he lounged unwillingly to the telephone box.  The following conversation ensued, causing a sudden and distinct change in the appearance of the young man.

“Broughton,” he acknowledged the call.  “Broughton?  This is Waldron—­Kirke Waldron.”

“Who?”

“Waldron; up from Colombia, South America.  Forgotten me?”

“What!  Forgotten you!  I say—­when did you come?  Where are you?  Will you—­”

The distant voice cut in sharply:  “Hold on.  I’ve just about one minute to spend talking.  Can you come downtown to the Warrington Street Station?  If you’ll be there at ten, sharp, under the south-side clock, I can see you for ten minutes before I leave for the train.  I want to see you very much.  Explain everything then.”

“Of course I’ll come; delighted!  Be right down.  But aren’t you going to—­”

“I’ll explain later,” said Waldron’s decisive voice again.  “Sorry to ring off now.  Good-bye.”

“Well, great George Washington!” murmured Julius to himself as he replaced the receiver on the hook and reinserted his pipe in his mouth, to emit immediately thereafter a mighty puff of smoke.  “I knew the fellow was a hustler, but I should suppose that when he comes up from South America to telephone he might spend sixty or seventy seconds at it.  Must be a sudden move; no hint of it in his last letter.”

He consulted his watch.  He would have to emulate Waldron’s haste if he reached the Warrington Street Station by ten o’clock.  He made a number of rapid moves, resulting in his catching a through car which bore him downtown at express speed and landed him in the big station at a minute before ten.  Hurrying through the crowd he came suddenly face to face with the man he sought.