With bated breath, Hugh Rowland, the station-agent, knelt down in the
dew-wet grass, and placed his hand over the girl's heart. Although the
sweet white face upturned to the gray morning light was as white as
death, he cried out sharply to himself: "Her heart still beats! God be
praised! There is life in her yet!"
Gathering her in his arms, as though she were a little child, he
carried her quickly across lots to the station, and placed her upon a
rude bench. Once there, he could control himself no longer. He dropped
upon his knees beside her, burying his face in the folds of her wet
dress, chafing her hands, and sobbing as though his heart would break.
He had loved the girl lying there so stark and motionless as he had
never loved anything in his life before; but he had never dared to tell
her of it. Though he was station-agent, and she a telegraph operator,
she seemed as far above him as the star is from the earth.
For a moment Hugh Rowland had almost lost control of himself; then he
remembered how horribly cold she was, and he had the presence of mind
to start a fire in the big stove that always stood in the center of the
waiting-room.
The grateful heat that rose from it quickly brought the breath of life
to the girl's white lips. The great, dark, somber eyes opened wide, and
she saw the rugged, kindly face of the young station-agent bending over
her.
"I found you--you had fainted in the graveyard," he said. "Luckily
enough, I was just passing, and I brought you here."
"Oh, why didn't you let me die?" moaned the girl, so bitterly that he
was shocked.
"It is very wicked to talk like that," he said, forcing down the great
lump that rose in his throat.
"No!" she cried, vehemently. "How could it be very wrong to leave a
great, cold, cruel world in which nobody wants you. I have nothing to
live for."
"But somebody does want you, Ida May!" cried the great rough fellow,
with tears that were no disgrace to his manhood coursing down his
cheek. "I want you with all my heart!"
"Hush, hush, hush!" she cried; "you must not talk so to me!" she cried.
"Don't say any more! It can never be! You do not know all!"
"Do not say me nay. Give me the right to protect you, Ida. We can go
away from this village. I can get a job on the road anywhere along the
line. I will work for you, and tend to you so very carefully that you
will forget the past!"
She only turned away from him, pleading with him for the love of Heaven
to say no more. He stopped short, looking at her gloomily. He had used
all the words that he could command, and they had been of no avail. She
would not even listen.
"One moment more!" he cried, hoarsely. "Always remember, Ida May, that
you leave behind you a heart that beats only for you--only for you. No
other woman's face shall ever win my love from you. I will wait here,
where you leave me, for long years, until you come back to me--ay, I
will wait from day to day with this one hope in my heart: Some day she
will come back to me; she will find the world too cold and hard, and
will come back to me to comfort her. I will watch for you from darkness
until day dawns again. My form, so straight now, may grow bent with
years, my hair grow white, and lines seam my face, but through it all I
shall watch for your coming until God rewards my vigilance. Good-bye,
and God bless you, Ida May, oh love of my heart!"
She passed from his sight with those words ringing in her ears, and
when the New York express passed on again after she had boarded it,
the young station-agent fell prone upon his face to the floor, and lay
there like one dead.