"If you'll watch the team, Mr. Crosby," the voice of Higgins broke in at this timely juncture, "I'll run acrost to the depot an' ast about the train."
"Much obliged, old man; much obliged," returned Crosby affably. "Are you afraid to be alone in the dark?" he asked, as Higgins rushed out into the rain. The storm had abated by this time and there was but the faintest suggestion of distant thunder and lightning, the after-fall of rain being little more than a drizzle.
"Awfully," she confessed, "but it's safer here than on the beam," she added, and his heart grew very tender as he detected the fatigue in her voice. "Anyhow, we have the papers safely signed."
"Mrs. Delancy, I—I swear that you shall never regret this day and night," he said, stopping in his walk and placing his hands on her shoulders. She caught her breath quickly. "Do you know what I mean?"
"I—I think—I'm not quite sure," she stammered.
"You will know some day," he said huskily.
When Mr. Higgins appeared at the end of the shed, carrying a lighted lantern, he saw a tall young man and a tall young woman standing side by side, awaiting his approach with the unconcern of persons who have no interest in common.
"Ah, a lantern," cried Crosby. "Now we can see what we look like and—and who we are."
Higgins informed them that an east-bound passenger train went through in twenty minutes, stopping on the side track to allow west-bound No. 7 to pass. This train also took water near the bridge which crossed the river just west of the depot. The west-bound train was on time, the other about five minutes late. He brought the welcome news that the rain was over and that a few stars were peeping through the western sky. There was unwelcome news, however, in the statement that the mud was ankle deep from the elevator to the station platform and that the washing out of a street culvert would prevent him from using the wagon.
"I don't mind the mud," said Mrs. Delancy, very bravely indeed.