The grateful heat that rose from it quickly brought the breath of life to the girl's white lips. The great, dark, somber eyes opened wide, and she saw the rugged, kindly face of the young station-agent bending over her.
"I found you—you had fainted in the graveyard," he said. "Luckily enough, I was just passing, and I brought you here."
"Oh, why didn't you let me die?" moaned the girl, so bitterly that he was shocked.
"It is very wicked to talk like that," he said, forcing down the great lump that rose in his throat.
"No!" she cried, vehemently. "How could it be very wrong to leave a great, cold, cruel world in which nobody wants you. I have nothing to live for."
"But somebody does want you, Ida May!" cried the great rough fellow, with tears that were no disgrace to his manhood coursing down his cheek. "I want you with all my heart!"
"Hush, hush, hush!" she cried; "you must not talk so to me!" she cried. "Don't say any more! It can never be! You do not know all!"
"Do not say me nay. Give me the right to protect you, Ida. We can go away from this village. I can get a job on the road anywhere along the line. I will work for you, and tend to you so very carefully that you will forget the past!"
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[47] 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 , 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.
With a note of introduction to the superintendent clutched tightly in her hand, Ida May reached New York City. She took barely time to swallow a cup of coffee ere she hurried to the number indicated. Her heart sunk within her as she looked up at the immense building; but with a courage which should have met with a better reward, she took the elevator, and soon found herself on the eighth floor, where the superintendent's office was situated studio for rent.
"He is not in," an attendant told her. "He left the city two days ago, and is not expected to return for a fortnight."