“I guess I savvy. Not till Friday. Take the letter and the buckboard. Is that the racket?”
“Yes, that’s what I want, Pete. Here! Take them to him without fail on Friday. Good-night, Pete. Good bye!”
Keith walked back to the station and went in the waiting-room, where he sat down. His heart felt as heavy as lead. He had burned all his bridges behind him, and it made his soul sick to contemplate the long vista of the coming years.
As he sat there, the coward hope that she—Gloria—might not come, shot up in his heart, trying to make of him a traitor. He said to himself: “If——if——” Presently he heard the train whistle. He got up and went to the door. He felt he was choking. Daylight was coming fast; day-dawn in the eastern sky. The town, rain-cleansed and freshened, would soon awake and lift its face to the greeting of another morn.
The ticket-office window was shoved up. It was nearing train time.
“Hello, Mr. Keith, going away?”
“Yes, I want a——” he hesitated.
“Where to?”
But Keith did not answer. A ticket? One, or two? If she should not come—— Was Fate——? What was he to do? But, no! Yet he hesitated, while the man at the window waited his reply. Two tickets, or only one? Or not any? Nay, but he must go; and there must be two.
Then the train thundered into the station, and almost at the same moment he heard, through the sound made by the clanging bell, the rustle of a woman’s rich garments. He turned. Gloria Howard stood there, beautiful and eager, panting from her hurried walk.