deleine felt something akin to regret at having
to leave. She had enjoyed, and made the most of, her years of study;
but she was now quite ready to advance, curious to attack the future,
and to dominate that also. Still, the dusk on the familiar streets
inclined her to feel sentimental. "This time tomorrow, I'll be hundreds
of miles away," she said to herself, "and probably shall never see the
old place again." As she walked, she looked back upon her residence
there--already somewhat in the light of a remembrance--weighing what it
had been worth to her. Part of it was intimately associated with
Maurice Guest, and thus she recalled him, too. Of late he had passed
out of her life; she had been too busy to think of him. Now, however,
that she was at the end of this period, the fancy seized her to see him
again; and she took a resolution which had, perhaps, been dormant in
her for some time.

"I don't see why I shouldn't," she reasoned. "No one will know. And
even if they do, I'm leaving, and it won't matter."

And so she pulled her hat further over her face, and brisked up her
steps in the direction of the BRAUSTRASSE--a street which she disliked,
and never entered if she could avoid it. If he had lived in a better
neighbourhood, things might have gone better with him, she mused; for
Madeleine was a staunch believer in the influence of surroundings, and
could not, for instance, understand a person who lived in dirt and
disorder having any but a dirty or disorderly mind. She went from door
to door, scanning the numbers, with her head poked a little forward and
to one side, like a bird's. As she ascended the stair, she raised her
skirts, and her nostrils twitched displeased.

Frau Krause held the door open by an inch, and looked at Madeleine with
distrust.

"No, he's not," she replied. "And what's more, I couldn't say, if you
were to pay me, when he will be."

But Madeleine was not to be daunted by the arrogance of any landlady
alive. "Why? Is he so irregular?" she asked. She had placed her foot in
the opening of the door, and now, by a skilful movement, inserted
herself bodily into the passage.

Frau Krause, baffled, could do no more than mumble a: "Well, if you
like to wait!" and point out the room. She followed Madeleine over the
threshold, drying her hands on her apron.

"Are you a friend of his, may I ask?" she inquired.

"Why? What do you want to know for? Do you think I'd be here if I
weren't?" said Madelein