All well enough. We have our characters, but we are still far from having a story. An audience might be mildly interested in such people, but there would be no gripping suspense, no desire to know more concerning them. There would be no “doubt as to outcome” because from all appearances the lives of the characters are to continue in the same channel. We want “complications,” but don’t go after them like the average beginner and throw in action and befuddling incidents just for the sake of mixing things up until you are ready to have the son return home. And don’t fall back on the trite story we have already discarded--the mother in poverty and the son returning in time to save her. Let’s see: Mother and sweetheart are hoping for the son’s return, the audience expects to see him back. Can’t we introduce some element that would make his return also a cause for fear? Steer clear of that thought that tells you, “He went away charged with a crime, and he will brave arrest to come back to his dying mother’s bedside.” The audience knows that story too well. We have it! When the mother met with the accident the doctors despaired of her life. To make her last few weeks of life more happy the girl concocted imaginary letters from the son saying that he was prospering in a distant country. Later, when death seemed near, to cheer the mother and strengthen her faith in her boy the girl’s letters told of his efforts to return home, though the means of travel were difficult. But finicky fate ruled that the mother, though still blind, should recover her health, and the girl has been forced to continue the deception. Now the surgeon holds out hope that within a few months the mother’s eyesight may be restored. Here we have complications and suspense galore. Any way out seems to lead to trouble worse than any which our characters have yet encountered. We are nearing the climax, and you will find that long ago the plot has taken the reins into its own hands; it needs no more spurring. Through the rooms of the darkened house there one day sounds the mother’s cry, “I see! I see!” After the first glad embrace of the girl her cry is for her son’s letters. Desperate, the girl urges her to wait until the morrow, after the surgeon has said that she may read. While the mother is protesting the girl suddenly tears herself away and flees hysterically from the house. She walks blindly down the hillside to the railroad tracks, then throws herself down on the grass to weep. She hears voices. Peering through a near-by bush, she sees a gathering of tramps hovering over a fire, a whisky-bottle passing around the circle. Frightened, she turns to run, but a slight noise betrays her, and the tramps, drink-crazed, start after her. All but one run only a few steps, but this one, more daring than the rest, continues the pursuit. She stumbles and he comes upon her. With a despairing scream she turns to look into his leering face, and--it is the son and sweetheart.