“Oh, I could have—but I am so glad you came!” said Dosia. She leaned against the window, with closed eyes, to rest—her wan face, her dress, crumpled and stained, the negligence of her hair, which she had been unable to arrange properly, and her air of fatigue making a pitiful contrast to the girl who had started out so gayly on her travels in her trim attire two days before. Now, as in many another moment of silence, she felt once more the hurtling fall, the pressure of darkness, and the ravages of the rain and wind; the nightmare horror of the wreck was upon her; only the remembered clasp of a hand held her reason firm. She had spent half the day in thinking of that unknown friend, and the thought seemed to put her under some obligation of high and pure living, in a cloistered gratitude. A girl who had been saved in that way ought to be worthy of it. Some day or other—some day—it must be meant that she should meet him again and tell him what his help had been to her. She imagined herself engaged in some errand of mercy—supporting the tottering footsteps of an old woman as she crossed a crowded street, or carrying a little sick child, or kneeling by a fever-touched bedside in a tenement-house, or encouraging a terror-stricken creature through smoke and fire. She would meet him thus, and when he said, “How good and brave you are!” she might look up and say: “I learned it from you. Do you remember the girl you helped the night the train was wrecked? I am she.” And when he asked, “How did you know it was I?” she would answer: “By the tones of your voice; I would know that anywhere.” And then he would take her hand again——
Her eyes ached with unshed tears at the lost comfort of it. She tried to see his form through the blur of darkness that had enveloped it,—a swinging step, a square set of the shoulders, an effect of strong young manhood,—and she pictured his face as noble and beautiful as his care for her. Her reverie passed through different grades. She found herself after a while idly scanning Justin’s face and wondering if it embodied all that was high and good to her cousin Lois; after one was married a long time, say six or seven years, did it still matter how a man looked? She felt herself a little in awe of his keen blue eyes, in spite of his kindness; she thought she preferred a dark man.
She clung to Justin’s arm at the crossings and ferry, and hardly heard his words, bewildered by the unaccustomed sights and sounds and the weakness of her knees. Her feet slipped on the cobblestones, the hurrying people made her dizzy, and the electric lights danced before her eyes.
As they were standing on the boat, two men came up to speak to Justin; she gathered that they had heard of the accident and of his journey from Mrs. Alexander at the whist club the night before, and stopped now to make courteous inquiries. One, who was short and stout, with a pleasant if commonplace face, passed on, after his introduction to Dosia; but the other turned back, as he was following, to say:
“By the way, I see that there was a fire in your new quarters to-day, Alexander.”
“A fire! For Heaven’s sake, Barr——”
“Oh, I don’t think it amounted to much; there’s just a line in the evening paper about it. Here, read for yourself—‘fire confined to one floor, machinery slightly damaged.’ Insured, weren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, yes—that isn’t the point now. We can’t afford to be kept back a minute! I’m glad you told me; I must go—I must go back at once and see for myself.” He stopped and looked hopelessly at Dosia.
Short as the journey was now, he could not let her continue it by herself; yet every fiber in him was quivering in his wild desire to get over to the scene of disaster. He looked at his informant, who, in his turn, was regarding the girl beside Justin.
“I can go on by myself,” said Dosia, divining his thought, and wondering when this terrible journey would ever end. “Truly, I can. I know you want to go and see about the fire; please, please do! Oh, please!”