He kicked open the door of the hotel with one blow of his foot and set
her down inside.
In the warm dark office, breathing unsteadily, they faced each other.
"Can you, Gertrude, marry that man and break my heart?" He caught up
her two hands with his words.
"No," she answered, brokenly. "Are you sure you are not frozen--ears
or cheeks or hands?"
"You won't marry him, Gertrude, and break my heart? Tell me you won't
marry him."
"No, I won't."
"Tell me again."
"Shall I tell you everything?"
"If you have mercy for me as I have love for you."
"I ran away from him to-night. He came out with the directors and
telegraphed he would be at the Springs in the afternoon for his answer,
and--I ran away. He has his answer long ago and I would not see him."
"Brave girl!"
"Oh, I wasn't brave, I was a dreadful coward. But I thought----"
"What?"
"--I could be brave, if I found as brave a man--as you."
"Gertrude, if I kiss you I never can give you up. Do you understand
what that means? I never in life or death can give you up, Gertrude,
do you understand me?"
She was crying on his shoulder. "Oh, yes, I understand," and he heard
from her lips the maddening sweetness of his boy name. "I understand,"
she sobbed. "I don't care, Ab--if only--, you will be kind to me."
It was only a moment later--her head had not yet escaped from his arm,
for Glover found for the first time that it is one thing to get leave
to kiss a lovely woman and wholly another to get the necessary action
on the conscience-stricken creature--she had not yet, I say, escaped,
when a locomotive whistle was borne from the storm faintly in on their
ears. To her it meant nothing, but she felt him start. "What is it?"
she whispered.
"The ploughs!"
"The ploughs?"
"The snow-ploughs that followed us. Twenty minutes behind--twenty
minutes between us and death, Gertrude, in that blizzard, think of it.
That must mean we are to live."
The solemn thought naturally suggested, to Glover at least, a
resumption of the status quo, but as he was locating, in the dark,
there came from behind the stove a mild cough. The effect on the
construction engineer of the whole blizzard was to that cough as
nothing. Inly raging he seated Gertrude--indeed, she sunk quite
faintly into a chair, and starting for the stove Glover dragged from
behind it Solomon Battershawl. "What are you doing here?" demanded
Glover, savagely.
"I'm night clerk, Mr. Glover--ow----"
"Night clerk? Very well, Solomon," muttered Glover, grimly, "take this
young lady to the warmest room in the house at once."