II

"Stop a moment. I want to speak to you," said Ludovic. The two men were

passing through the gentlemen's toilet-room; Ludovic turned his back to

the marble washstand, and waited, with his head up, and the tips of his

long hands resting in his trousers' pockets. "I have a favor to ask of

you, Mr. Burke."

"Well, sir, what's the size of it?"

"You must have heard some of our talk in there; you see how it is? They

will never, of themselves, suspect the reason of your fondness for my

company. Is it worth while, for the time we shall be together, to put

them on to it? It's not very easy, you see; make it as easy as you can."

"Have I tried to make it hard, Mr. Ludovic?"

"Not at all. I don't mean that."

"Am I giving you away most of the time?"

"Of course not. You have been most awfully good. But you're--you're

damnably in my way. I see you out of the corner of my eye always, when

you aren't square in front of me. I can't make a move but you jump. Do

you think I am such a fool as to make a break now? No, sir; I am going

through with this; I'm in it most of the time. Now see here, I give you

my word--and there are no liars of my name--that you will find me with

you at Pocatello. Till then let me alone, will you? Keep your eyes off

me. Keep out of range of my talk. I would like to say a word now and

then without knowing there's a running comment in the mind of a man

across the car, who thinks he knows me better than the people I am

talking to--understand?"

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," said Mr. Burke, deliberately. "I don't know

as it's any of my business what you say to your friends, or what they

think of you. All I'm responsible for is your person."

"Precisely. At Pocatello you will have my person."

"And have I got your word for the road between?"

"My word, and my thanks--if the thanks of a man in my situation are

worth anything."

"I'm dum sorry for you, Mr. Ludovic, and I don't mind doing what little

I can to make things easy"--Mr. Burke paused, seeing his companion

smile. "Well, yes, I know it's hard--it's dooced almighty hard; and it

looks like there was a big mistake somewheres, but it's no business of

mine to say so. Have a cigar?"

Young Mr. Ludovic had accepted a number of Mr. Burke's palliative offers

of cigars during their journey together; he accepted the courtesy, but

he did not smoke the cigars. He usually gave them to the porter. He had

an expensive taste in cigars, as in many other things. He paid for his

high-priced preferences, or he went without. He was never willing to

accept any substitute for the thing he really wanted; and it was very

hard for him, when he had set his heart upon a thing, not to approach it

in the attitude that an all-wise Providence had intended it for him.

About dusk the snow-plow engines from above came down for coal and

water. They brought no positive word, only that the plows and shovelers

were at work at both ends of the big cut, and they hoped the track would

be free by daybreak. But the snow was still falling as night set in.

Ludovic and Phebe sat in the shadowed corner behind the curtains of No.

7. Phebe's father had gone to bed early; his cough was worse, and Phebe

was treating him for that and for the fever which had developed as an

attendant symptom. She was a devotee in her chosen school of medicine;

she knew her remedies, within the limits of her household experience,

and used them with the courage and constancy that are of no school, but

which better the wisdom of them all.

Ludovic observed that she never lost count of the time through all her

talk, which was growing more and more absorbing; he was jealous of the

interruption when she said, "Excuse me," and looked at her watch, or

rose and carried her tumblers of medicine alternately to the patient,

and woke him gently; for it was now a case for strenuous treatment, and

she purposed to watch out the night, and give the medicines regularly

every hour.

Mr. Burke was as good as his word; he kept several seats distant from

the young people. He had a private understanding, though, with the car

officials: not that he put no faith in the word of a Ludovic, but

business is business.

When he went to his berth about eleven o'clock he noticed that his

prisoner was still keeping the little Quaker girl company, and neither

of them seemed to be sleepy. The table where they had taken supper

together was still between them, with Phebe's watch and the medicine

tumblers upon it. The panel of looking-glass reflected the young man's

profile, touched with gleams of lamplight, as he leaned forward with his

arms upon the table.

Phebe sat far back in her corner, pale and grave; but when her eyes were

lifted to his face they were as bright as winter stars.

It was Ludovic's intention, before he parted with Phebe, to tell her his

story--his own story; the newspaper account of him she would read, with

all the world, after she had reached Volney. Meantime he wished to lose

himself in a dream of how it might have been could he have met this

little Phebe, not on a side-track, his chance already spoiled, but on

the main line, with a long ticket, and the road clear before them to the

Golden Gate.

Under other circumstances she might not have had the same overmastering

fascination for him; he did not argue that question with himself. He

talked to her all night long as a man talks to the woman he has chosen

and is free to win, with but a single day in which to win her; and

underneath his impassioned tones, shading and deepening them with tragic

meaning, was the truth he was withholding. There was no one to stand

between Phebe and this peril, and how should she know whither they were

drifting?

He told her stories of his life of danger and excitement and contrasts,

East and West; he told her of his work, his ambitions, his

disappointments; he carried her from city to city, from camp to camp. He

spoke to sparkling eyes, to fresh, thrilling sympathies, to a warm

heart, a large comprehension, and a narrow experience. Every word went

home; for with this girl he was strangely sure of himself, as indeed he

might have been.

And still the low music of his voice went on; for he did not lack that

charm, among many others--a voice for sustained and moving speech.

Perhaps he did not know his own power; at all events, he was unsparing

of an influence the most deliberate and enthralling to which the girl

had ever been subjected.

He was a Ludovic of that family her own had ever held in highest

consideration. He was that Charles Ludovic who had called himself

unhappiest of his name. Phebe never forgot this fact, and in his pauses,

and often in his words, she felt the tug of that strong undertow of

unspoken feeling pulling him back into depths where even in thought she

could not follow him.

And so they sat face to face, with the watch between them ticking away

the fateful moments. For Ludovic, life ended at Pocatello, but not for

Phebe.

What had he done with that faith they had given him--the gentle,

generous pair! He had resisted, he thought that he was resisting, his

mad attraction to this girl--of all girls the most impossible to him

now, yet the one, his soul averred, most obviously designed for him. His

wild, sick fancy had clung to her from the moment her face had startled

him, as he took his last backward look upon the world he had forfeited.

His prayer was that he might win from Phebe, before he left her at

Pocatello, some sure token of her remembrance that he might dwell upon

and dream over in the years of his buried life.

It would not have been wonderful, as the hours of that strange night

flew by, if Phebe had lost a moment, now and then, had sometimes

wandered from the purpose of her vigil. Her thoughts strayed, but they

came back duly, and she was constant to her charge. Through all that

unwholesome enchantment her hold upon herself was firm, through her

faithfulness to the simple duties in which she had been bred.

Meanwhile the train lay still in the darkness, and Ludovic thanked God,

shamelessly, for the snow. How the dream outwore the night and

strengthened as morning broke gray and cold, and quiet with the

stillness of the desert, we need not follow. More and more it possessed

him, and began to seem the only truth that mattered.

He took to himself all the privileges of her protector; the rights,

indeed--as if he could have rights such as belong to other men, now, in

regard to any woman.

If the powers that are named of good or evil, according to the will of

the wisher, had conspired to help him on, the dream could not have drawn

closer to the dearest facts of life; but no spells were needed beyond

those which the reckless conjurer himself possessed--his youth, his

implied misfortunes, his unlikeness to any person she had known, his

passion, "meek, but wild," which he neither spoke nor attempted to

conceal.

And Phebe sat like a charmed thing while he wove the dream about her.

She could not think; she had nothing to do while her father slept; she

had nowhere to go, away from this new friend of her father's choosing.

She was exhausted with watching, and nervously unstrung. Her hands were

ice; her color went and came; her heart was in a wild alarm. She blushed

almost as she breathed, with his eyes always upon her; and blushing,

could have wept, but for the pride that still was left her in this

strange, unwholesome excitement.

It was an ordeal that should have had no witnesses but the angels; yet

it was seen of the porter and the conductor and Mr. Burke. The last was

not a person finely cognizant of situations like this one; but he felt

it and resented it in every fibre of his honest manhood.

"What's Ludovic doing?" he asked himself in heated soliloquy. "He's out

of the running, and the old man's sick abed, and no better than an old

woman when he's well. What's the fellow thinking of?"

Mr. Burke took occasion to ask him, when they were alone

together--Ludovic putting the finishing touches to a shave; the time was

not the happiest, but the words were honest and to the point.

"I didn't understand," said Mr. Burke, "that the little girl was in it.

Now, do you call it quite on the square, Mr. Ludovic, between you and

her? I don't like it, myself; I don't want to be a party to it. I've got

girls of my own."

Ludovic held his chin up high; his hands shook as he worked at his

collar-button.

"Have you got any boys?" he flung out in the tone of a retort.

"Yes; one about your age, I should guess."

"How would you like to see him in the fix I'm in?"

"I couldn't suppose it, Mr. Ludovic. My boy and you ain't one bit

alike."

"Are your girls like her?"

"No, sir; they are not. I ain't worrying about them any, nor wouldn't if

they was in her place. But there's points about this thing"--

"We'll leave the points. Suppose, I say, your boy was in my fix: would

you grudge him any little kindness he might be able to cheat heaven,

we'll say, out of between here and Pocatello?"

"Heaven can take care of itself; that little girl is not in heaven yet.

And there's kindnesses and kindnesses, Mr. Ludovic. There are some that

cost like the mischief. I expect you're willing to bid high on kindness

from a nice girl, about now; but how about her? Has kindness gone up in

her market? I guess not. That little creetur's goods can wait; she'd be

on top in any market. I guess it ain't quite a square deal between her

and you."

Ludovic sat down, and buried his hands in his pockets. His face was a

dark red; his lips twitched.

"Are you going to stick to your bargain, or are you not?" he asked,

fixing his eyes on a spot just above Mr. Burke's head.

"You've got the cheek to call it a bargain! But say it was a bargain. I

didn't know, I say, that the little girl was in it. Your bank's broke,

Mr. Ludovic. You ought to quit business. You've got no right to keep

your doors open, taking in money like hers, clean gold fresh from the

mint."

"O Lord!" murmured Ludovic; and he may have added a prayer for patience

with this common man who was so pitilessly in the right. A week ago, and

the right had been easy to him. But now he was off the track; every turn

of the wheels tore something to pieces.

"There are just two subjects I cannot discuss with you," he said,

sinking his voice. "One is that young lady. Her father knows my people.

She shall know me before I leave her. They say we shall go through

to-night. You must think I am the devil if you think that, without the

right even to dispense with your company, I can have much to answer for

between here and Pocatello."

"You are as selfish as the devil, that's what I think; and the worst of

it is, you look as white as other folks."

"Then leave me alone, or else put the irons on me. Do one thing or the

other. I won't be dogged and watched and hammered with your infernal

jaw! You can put a ball through me, you can handcuff me before her face;

but my eyes are my own, and my tongue is my own, and I will use them as

I please."

Mr. Burke said no more. He had said a good deal; he had covered the

ground, he thought. And possibly he had some sympathy, even when he

thought of his girls, with the young fellow who had looked too late in

the face of joy and gone clean wild over his mischance.

It was his opinion that Ludovic would "get" not less than twenty-five

years. There were likely to be Populists on that jury; the prisoner's

friends belonged to a clique of big monopolists; it would go harder

with him than if he had been an honest miner, or a playful cow-boy on

one of his monthly "tears."

When Ludovic returned to his section, Phebe had gone to sleep in the

corner opposite, her muff tucked under one flushed cheek; the other

cheek was pale. Shadows as delicate as the tinted reflections in the

hollow of a snow-drift slept beneath her chin, and in the curves around

her pathetic eyelids, and in the small incision that defined her pure

red under lip. Again the angels, whom we used to believe in, were far

from this their child.

Ludovic drew down all the blinds to keep out the glare, and sat in his

own place, and watched her, and fed his aching dream. He did not care

what he did, nor who saw him, nor what anybody thought.

In the afternoon he took her out for a walk. The snow had stopped; her

father was up and dressed, and very much better, and Phebe was radiant.

Her sky was clearing all at once. She charged the porter to call her in

"just twenty minutes," for then she must give the medicine again. On

their way out of the car Ludovic slipped a dollar into the porter's

hand. Somehow that clever but corrupted functionary let the time slip

by, to Phebe's innocent amazement. Could he have gone to sleep? Surely

it must be more than twenty minutes since they had left the car.

"He's probably given the dose himself," said Ludovic. "A good porter is

always three parts nurse."

"But he doesn't know which medicine to give."

"Oh, let them be," he said impatiently. "He's talking to your father,

and making him laugh. He'll brace him up better than any medicine. They

will call you fast enough if you are needed."

They walked the platform up and down in front of the section-house. They

were watched, but Ludovic did not care for that now.

"Will you take my arm?"

She hesitated, in amused consideration of her own inexperience.

"Why, I never _did_ take any one's arm that I remember. I don't think I

could keep step with thee."

The intimate pronoun slipped out unawares.

"I will keep step with _thee_."

"I don't know that I quite like to hear you use that word."

"But you used it, just now, to me."

"It was an accident, then."

"Your father says 'thee' to me."

"He is of an older generation; my mother wore the Friends' dress. But

those customs had a religious meaning for them to which I cannot

pretend. With me it is a sort of instinct; I can't explain it, nor yet

quite ignore it."

"Have I offended that particular instinct of yours which attaches to the

word 'thee'?"

He seemed deeply chagrined. He was one who did not like to make

mistakes, and he had no time to waste in apologizing and recovering lost

ground.

"People do say it to us sometimes in fun, not knowing what the word

means to us," said Phebe.

In the fresh winter air she was regaining her tone--escaping from him,

Ludovic felt, into her own sweet, calm self-possession.

"Then you distinctly refuse me whatever--the least--that word implies? I

am one of those who 'rush in'?"

"Oh, no; but you are much too serious. It is partly a habit of speech;

we cannot lose the habit of speaking to each other as strangers in three

days."

"You were never a stranger to me. I knew you from the first moment I saw

you; yet each moment since you have been a fresh surprise."

"I cannot keep up with you," she said, slipping her hand out of his arm.

In the grasp of his passionate dream he was striding along regardless,

not of her, but of her steps.

"Oh, little steps," he groaned within himself--"oh, little doubting

steps, why did we not meet before?"

Oh, blessed hampering steps, how much safer would his have gone beside

them!

"What a charming pair!" cried a lady passenger from the forward sleeper.

She too was walking, with her husband, and her eye had been instantly

taken by the gentle girl with the delicate wild-rose color, halting on

the arm of a splendid youth with dare-devil eyes, who did not look as

happy as he ought with that sweet creature on his arm.

"Isn't it good to know that the old stories are going on all the same?"

said the sentimental traveler. "What do you say--will that story end in

happiness?"

"I say that he isn't good enough for her," the husband replied.

"Then he'll be sure to win her," laughed the lady. "He has won her, I

believe," she added more seriously, watching the pair where they stood

together at the far end of the platform; "but something is wrong."

"Something usually is at that stage, if I remember. Come, let us get

aboard."

The sun was setting clear in the pale saffron west. The train from the

buried cut had been released, and now came sliding down the track,

welcomed by boisterous salutations. Behind were the mighty snow-plow

engines, backing down, enwreathed and garlanded with snow.

"A-a-all aboard!" the conductor drawled in a colloquial tone to the

small waiting group upon the platform.

Slowly they crept back upon the main track, and heavily the motion

increased, till the old chant of the rails began again, and they were

thundering westward down the line.