“I don't know--I--” She seemed to rouse herself by an effort from her rapture. “I was going to see Nettie Spaulding. And I saw you driving past our house; and I thought you were coming here; and I couldn't bear--I couldn't bear to let you go away without telling you that I was wrong; and asking--asking you to forgive me. I thought you would do it,--I thought you would know that I had behaved that way because I--I--cared so much for you. I thought--I was afraid you had gone on the other train--” She trembled and sank back in his embrace, from which she had lifted herself a little. “How did you get here?” asked Bartley, as if willing to give himself all the proofs he could of the every-day reality of her presence. “Andy Morrison brought me. Father sent him from the hotel. I didn't care what you would say to me, I wanted to tell you that I was wrong, and not let you go away feeling that--that--you were all to blame. I thought when I had done that you might drive me away,--or laugh at me, or anything you pleased, if only you would let me take back--” “Yes,” he answered dreamily. All that wicked hardness was breaking up within him; he felt it melting drop by drop in his heart. This poor love-tossed soul, this frantic, unguided, reckless girl, was an angel of mercy to him, and in her folly and error a messenger of heavenly peace and hope. “I am a bad fellow, Marcia,” he faltered. “You ought to know that. You did right to give me up. I made love to Hannah Morrison; I never promised to marry her, but I made her think that I was fond of her.” “I don't care for that,” replied the girl. “I told you when we were first engaged that I would never think of anything that had gone before that; and then when I would not listen to a word from you, that day, I broke my promise.” “When I struck Henry Bird because he was jealous of me, I was as guilty as if I had killed him.” “If you had killed him, I was bound to you by my word. Your striking him was part of the same thing,--part of what I had promised I never would care for.” A gush of tears came into his eyes, and she saw them. “Oh, poor Bartley! Poor Bartley!” She took his head between her hands and pressed it hard against her heart, and then wrapped her arms tight about him, and softly bemoaned him. They drew a little apart when the man came in with his lantern, and set it down to mend the fire. But as a railroad employee he was far too familiar with the love that vaunts itself on all railroad trains to feel that he was an intruder. He scarcely looked at them, and went out when he had mended the fire, and left it purring. “Where is Andy Morrison?” asked Bartley. “Has he gone back?” “No; he is at the hotel over there. I told him to wait till I found out when the train went north.”