Arthur was before him. He lifted the inanimate form in his arms, and kissed the cold, white face in despairing love before he resigned her to the impatient father’s arms.
“Ah, you can not surely guess of what a priceless treasure you are robbing me, Mr. Dawn! May Heaven judge between us whether you have been merciful to me!” he cried, reproachfully.
“I rest my cause with Heaven,” Mr. Dawn answered, reverently, as he placed Cinthia in the sleigh, covered her with warm robes, and drove away with a cold good-night to the young man, who continued his course to the station as fast as he could urge his horse to go.
In his agony of grief at losing his beautiful, promised bride, and in hot resentment of what he deemed hardness of heart in her father, Arthur Varian had yielded without reflection upon the baseness of it, to a sudden, overmastering temptation.
His caresses and emotion on handing the unconscious woman to Mr. Dawn had been simply a superb bit of acting. It was the poor waif of the road he had placed in the arms of Everard Dawn, thus completely outwitting the unhappy father while he drove rapidly on to the station, hoping to board the train before his deception was discovered.
In a moment the few scattering midnight lights of the railway town began to appear, and Cinthia gasped and opened her eyes, beginning to sob with alarm:
“Oh, oh, oh!”
“It is all right, darling. We have distanced our pursuers,” said Arthur, cheerfully. “And here we are at the station, and the train is coming. We have not time to go into the waiting-room.”
He helped her out, and called a negro boy, to whom he intrusted his sleigh, telling him to return it to Idlewild next day, and pressing a liberal reward into his willing hand.
Then he helped the bewildered Cinthia aboard the train and led her at once to a stove, saying, tenderly: