"To think that we should owe all our misfortune to an infernal taxicab's break-down." Out of the anguish of her loneliness crept one little complaint: "If you had really wanted me, you'd have had two taxicabs." "Oh, how can you say that? I had the license bought and the minister waiting." "He's waiting yet." "And the ring--there's the ring." He fished it out of his waistcoat pocket and held it before her as a golden amulet. "A lot of good it does now," said Marjorie. "You won't even wait over till the next train." "I've told you a thousand times, my love," he protested, desperately, "if I don't catch the transport, I'll be courtmartialed. If this train is late, I'm lost. If you really loved me you'd come along with me." Her very eyes gasped at this astounding proposal. "Why, Harry Mallory, you know it's impossible." Like a sort of benevolent Satan, he laid the ground for his abduction: "You'll leave me, then, to spend three years without you--out among those Manila women." She shook her head in terror at this vision. "It would be too horrible for words to have you marry one of those mahogany sirens." He held out the apple. "Better come along, then." "But how can I? We're not married." He answered airily: "Oh, I'm sure there's a minister on board." "But it would be too awful to be married with all the passengers gawking. No, I couldn't face it. Good-bye, honey." She turned away, but he caught her arm: "Don't you love me?" "To distraction. I'll wait for you, too." "Three years is a long wait." "But I'll wait, if you will." With such devotion he could not tamper. It was too beautiful to risk or endanger or besmirch with any danger of scandal. He gave up his fantastic project and gathered her into his arms, crowded her into his very soul, as he vowed: "I'll wait for you forever and ever and ever." Her arms swept around his neck, and she gave herself up as an exile from happiness, a prisoner of a far-off love: "Good-bye, my husband-to-be." "Good-bye my wife-that-was-to-have-been-and-will-be-yet-maybe." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." "I must go." "Yes, you must." "One last kiss." "One more--one long last kiss." And there, entwined in each other's arms, with lips wedded and eyelids clinched, they clung together, forgetting everything past, future, or present. Love's anguish made them blind, mute, and deaf. They did not hear the conductor crying his, "All Aboard!" down the long wall of the train. They did not hear the far-off knell of the bell. They did not hear the porters banging the vestibules shut. They did not feel the floor sliding out with them. And so the porter found them, engulfed in one embrace, swaying and swaying, and no more aware of the increasing rush of the train than we other passengers on the earth-express are aware of its speed through the ether-routes on its ancient schedule.