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.
[CHAPTER XII.]
Few passengers turned to look at the little figure that entered the car at the way-side station at so early an hour of the morning, and Ida May cowered quickly down into the first seat. The clothes under the long, dark cloak were saturated, but no one could see that, nor notice how damp and matted were the curling rings of dark hair which the hood of the cloak but half concealed. The hours crept on as the express whirled over the rails; but Ida May paid no heed to time.
But hunger at last began to tell upon her, and she eagerly hailed a boy who passed through the train with a basket of sandwiches on his arm.
She looked at the coins she still held loosely in her hand, and found to her dismay that, with the exception of two pieces of silver, she held a handful of gold dollars.
"His pocket-pieces," she sobbed. "Oh, if I had known that, I would have refused to take them; but—but I will work and earn money, and—and pay him back double their value. Poor fellow—poor fellow!" and she laid her face on the window-sill, sobbing as though her heart would break.
Suddenly she heard a voice in the seat back of her say: