The jealous pain of Dallas was, indeed, beyond expression, but no angry thought of Daisie mixed with his grief.
He could understand from Letty’s garbled story what an influence had been brought to bear on the young girl’s heart, and how she had almost been forced into submission.
His grief for her was as bitter as for himself, and he knew it was better to go away, as she had said, and never see her again, since they were sundered by so insurmountable an obstacle.
One thing racked his heart in her letter. It was the hope she expressed that she might forget him and learn to love her husband.
“That was cruel, but she did not mean it so, poor little Daisie, my lost love!” he sighed; and he resolved that he would try to forget her also, since to remember was but pain. “Let her forget me if she will. I, too, will forget—if I can.”
The end of it was that presently he went away to New York with the heaviest heart in the world, leaving behind him the scene of his brief love dream, with its blended joy and sorrow, to take up in sadness the burden of a life whence hope had fled, and to try to drown memory in Lethe’s tide.
CHAPTER XXIII.
“MISERY LOVES COMPANY.”
Though Letty Green conspicuously boarded the same train that he took, she was very careful not to occupy the same car, lest he should see her and have his suspicions aroused. Indeed, her concern with him ended here, for she had a fat roll of money with which to enjoy herself in the great city, and she now gave herself up to joyful anticipations of triumphs awaiting her in the near future.
As for Dallas, he threw himself moodily into a seat, and became a prey to such unpleasant reflections that it would have taken little less than an earthquake to attract his attention. The nearest thing to it, however—a collision with another train—suddenly brought him back, with a terrible shock, to things sublunary.
All at once there was a terrible rumble, then a shock that telescoped the train and made it a jumble of broken, flying timbers and crushed and bleeding humanity, on which the gray light of early dawn shone with dim gleams through a drizzle of summer rain.