. There was a long delay. She entered the vehicle and
directed that haste should be made to the Canal street depot. She
approached the bridge. She feared she had made a mistake. David would
think she was silly. It was entirely unlike the cold Esther Lockwin to
be acting in this manner.

The bridge bell had rung. The bridge swung. She had looked at her
watch. The train would leave at five o'clock. It was 4:50. Could not
the driver go round by the Washington street tunnel?

"It is closed for repairs," the driver had said--a falsehood.

When Esther reached the station the train had left. She had returned
to her home to wait in dire anxiety until her husband should reach
Washington. She had written a long letter unfolding her heart to him.

"Come back to me, my darling," she said in that letter, "and see how
happy we shall be! Let the politics go; that killed Davy and makes us
all so unhappy. You were made for something nobler. Let us go to
Europe once more. Let us seek out the places where you and I have met
in the past."

It had seemed too cold.

"I love you, I love you. I shall die without you! Come home to me and
save me! I love you, I love you!"

So she had written for a page, and was satisfied.

If she might telegraph it! No! only advertisers and divorced people
did that. She must wait.

He would not reply. He would come.

The newspaper announces the arrival of the congressman-elect at the
White House. He had left almost immediately for the West.

Then he will not get the letter!

He may arrive in Chicago this night, but how and where? A gale is
rising. The wife is terrified with waiting and with love. If she had
some little clue of his route homeward. She is a woman, and does not
know how to proceed. She goes to her father.

"Oh, fudge, puss! You mustn't let him go again. Ha! ha! you're just
like your mother. She pretty near had a fit when I went away the first
time. He went a little soon for his health, but our leading men tell
us he was needed in Washington. They wanted to see him and get some
pledges from him. He'll be home by some lake boat in the morning.
They get in about daylight, but it's like a needle in a haystack. Why,
the last time I came from Mackinaw they landed me on a pile of soft
coal--blest if they didn't! Stay all night, puss. Or go home, if you
want to be there."

"Wind blows like sixty!" says the old Chicagoan, after Esther has gone.

The m