liday had stretched a
point or two in the first place to make the little stranger feel at home
the case was different now. She was needed, badly needed and she played
the part of house daughter so sweetly and unselfishly that her presence
among them was a double blessing to them all, except perhaps to poor
Larry who loved her best of all.

CHAPTER XXIV

A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED

Coming in from a lively game of tennis with Elsie Hathaway, his newest
sweetheart, the Ancient History Prof's pretty daughter, Ted Holiday found
awaiting him a letter from Madeline Taylor. He turned it over in his
hands with a keen distaste for opening it, had indeed almost a mind to
chuck it in the waste paper basket unread. Hang it all! Why had she
written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of
her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a
Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to make love to her
once. Nevertheless he opened the letter and pulled his forelock in
perturbation as he read it.

She had quarrelled with her grandfather and he would not let her come
back home. She was with Emma just now but she couldn't stay. Fred was
behaving very nastily and he might tell Emma any day that she, Madeline,
had to go. They were all against her. Everything was against a girl
anyway. They never had a chance as a man did. She wished she had been
killed when she had been thrown out of the car that night. It would have
been much better for her than being as miserable as she was now. She
often wished she was dead. But what she had written to Ted Holiday for
was because she thought perhaps he could help her to find a job in the
college town. She had to earn some money right away. She would do
anything. She didn't care what and would be very grateful to Ted if he
would or could help her to find work.

That was all. There was not a single personal note in the whole thing, no
reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion
to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed
between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so
summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human
being to another.

Ted thrust the letter soberly in his pocket and went off for a shower.
But the thing went with him. He wished Madeline hadn't written, wished
she hadn't besought his aid, wished most of all she hadn't been such a
dev