CHAPTER XI.

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.

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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[47] 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.