The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, January 1891: An Illustrated MonthlyVarious
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, January 1891: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
But the train passed on, jarring and scraping, partly with the action of
the brake, though partly, too, with the wheel digging into the ground at
the side; it passed on and went over him altogether, coming, as it did
so, to a sudden standstill. As it stopped, a fierce joy rose uppermost
in Ughtred's soul. Thank heaven, all was well. He breathed once more
easily. He had fallen on his back across the sleepers in the middle of
the track. It was not really the train that had knocked him down at all,
but the recoil of the telegraph post. The engine and carriages had gone
over him safely. He wasn't seriously hurt. He was only bruised, and
sprained, and jarred, and shaken.
Rising up behind the train as it slackened, he ran hastily along on the
off side, towards where Netta lay still unconscious on the line in front
of it. Nobody saw him run past; and no wonder either, for every eye was
turned toward the near side and the obstruction. A person running fast
by the opposite windows was very little likely to attract attention at
such a moment. Every step pained him, to be sure, for he was bruised and
stiff; but he ran on none the less till he came up at last to where
Netta lay. There, he bent over her eagerly. Netta raised her head,
opened her eyes, and looked. In a moment the vague sense of a terrible
catastrophe averted came somehow over her. She flung her arms round his
neck. "Oh, Ughtred, you've come back!" she cried in a torrent of
emotion.
"Yes, darling," Ughtred answered, his voice half choked with tears.
"I've come back to you now, for ever and ever."
He lifted her in his arms, and carried her some little way off up the
left-hand path. His heart was very full. 'Twas a terrible moment. For as
yet he hardly knew what harm he might have done by his fatal act. He
only knew he had tried his best to undo the wrong he had half
unconsciously wrought; and if the worst came, he would give himself up
now like a man to offended justice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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