"The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses Her dark, flowing hair for some festival day, Will think of thy face till, neglecting her tresses, She mournfully turns from the mirror away." "Poor thing! she must have been a beauty," the railway employé said, as he contemplated Kathleen's cold and beautiful face. "Come, let us carry her into the house and get a doctor. Maybe she ain't really dead, only swooned," he continued, hopefully; and between them they bore her in, and laid her on a bench made soft with their overcoats. Then the man ran to his instrument, which was ticking busily away, and directly said: "Your train is several hours late, sir; so if you'll stay here, I'll run and fetch a doctor." He flashed out at the door, and in the illy-lighted, shabby little waiting-room Ralph Chainey was alone with beautiful dead Kathleen, so cruelly murdered. He knelt down by her side in an agony of dumb despair. He gazed through blinding tears upon the sweet white face; he took her cold, white hand and kissed the wound upon it, and then he whispered, as if she could hear him: "Beautiful Kathleen! you will never know now how dearly I have loved you since first I saw your face! You are dead--dead! and soon the dark earth will cover you away forever from the sight of men. Ah! if only those dead lips could unclose long enough to tell me the name of your dastardly murderer, I would pursue him to the ends of the earth, but that I would bring him to punishment!" He bent his head until his pale lips touched the rigid ones of the dead girl. They were icy cold, but the soft curls of bright hair that lightly brushed his forehead, how soft, how silken, how alive, they felt! But she was dead--this girl who had blushed last night beneath his glance, whose voice had been so sweet and low when she spoke to him. "Ah, Fate is a cruel lord, A tyrant at best his rule; And we learn by sin and sword While here in his rigid school. Ah, me. I left her with hopes beguiled, We parted, and Fate looked on and smiled." The shock and horror of the occasion began to overcome him, strong man as he was; and his head reeled; consciousness forsook him. He fell in a crouching position upon the floor, where he lay until the doctor entered, followed by his gentle, girlish wife. "Oh, the dear, sweet, pretty creature! what an awful way for her to meet such a fate! The murderer ought to be burned at the stake!" exclaimed the young wife, sorrowfully, and her tears fell fast on Kathleen's face. Doctor Churchman examined the girl's throat carefully, and said, with a deep sigh: "Poor thing, she is quite dead! There is nothing I can do for her but to carry her over to our house and take care of the body until her friends come." A deep groan startled him, and Ralph Chainey staggered dizzily to his feet.