Margaret Danvers stepped aboard the southern-bound sleeper at Chicago one stormy March evening, and as she walked composedly to her berth in the middle of the car, the eyes of every person present were riveted upon her. She wore a closely fitting garment of Russian sable, which enveloped her completely, and a large beaver hat with drooping plumes, and from the single fine diamond flashing at her throat to the tips of her dainty SuÉde boots she looked the model of a fashionable beauty. She was the only woman on the car, and before she had fairly settled herself comfortably, all the men had mentally pronounced their opinion of her looks and style, and hazarded a conjecture as to her age. Her attendant, a florid man of middle age, received the slight degree of attention

justified by his seeming only an adjunct of the moment. As he left her, he put into her hands a bunch of costly roses, which she received with a smile and laid upon the opposite seat the instant he was gone.

Of the score of passengers, two or three knew her by sight, for she was, in a way, a public character, but, as it happened, none were really acquainted with her, and before long even those most deeply interested in her appearance yielded to the apathy peculiar to sleeping-cars, and subsided into their newspapers or their rugs, preparing to wear out the evening until bedtime.

Margaret amused herself in watching the flying snow and in reverie. Too used to traveling to even care to look about her, she yielded to the prevailing somnambulistic influence just enough to dream without sleeping. At first there was in her mind a confusion of events past, present, and to come. Incidents of no importance mingled with greater ones, and her reflections became mixed with little fanciful suggestions of things long since forgotten, or, rather, voluntarily put out of mind. She tried to think of her career, to recall her triumphs, and to dwell upon the possibilities of the future. She told herself that music was her life, that all she had to do with was the beautiful and the divine in art, and that the everyday existence she had struggled to rise above was henceforth nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

At twenty-eight she was her own mistress, earning an independent income through the use of her beautiful voice. The teaching days and the drudgery of the class-room had passed, and as a concert singer she was favorably known in more than one western city noted for its critical taste. After a successful winter in Milwaukee and Chicago, she was now upon her way to fulfil an engagement in Baltimore, which promised more than anything in which she had yet engaged. She was in the heyday of her powers, admired, in radiant health, conscious of her beauty and talent, and entirely satisfied with life. What did it mean that, as she looked from the window with a proud smile upon her lips, some tantalizing thoughts should intrude themselves, and the mind so entirely self-poised should feel, for the first time in years, the weakening influence of some emotional fancies? It was her boast that she was never lonely, never sad, that her whole heart was in the work.

The conductor passed through taking tickets, and brought her back to the present. And after this came the little stir of the porter making up the berths, and she moved to the end of the car. In front two men were talking.

"Never saw a promise of a worse storm," said one. "Shouldn't wonder if the tracks were blocked a little ahead."

"Comes from the southwest," suggested the other. "If necessary, they'll put on another locomotive. We're bound to get through at any rate on this train; that's one comfort."

By nine o'clock Margaret, enveloped in a downy wrapper of dark red, lay courting sleep in her section. Over her was spread the fur ulster, none too warm above the blankets, even for her warm blood. The thermometer outside would have registered zero, and whiffs of icy air found their way every now and then into the car. Everything was quiet save her thoughts, which began to utter themselves with loud, importunate voices, as if answering some call without, independent of her control. "I have happily been able to say all my life that I didn't know what nerves were," said Margaret to herself, "but I begin to think that from some inexplicable cause I am nervous."

"Richard Allen!" She started as if the words had been spoken in her ear. Swiftly memory flew back ten years, and she saw herself standing bareheaded at the gate of her father's house in dear old Leesburg, Virginia, where her childhood had been passed; and beside her, bending tenderly to catch her lightest word, the form of her first lover, then a poor, obscure young lieutenant in the army. With an indifference scarce tinged with pity, since it hardly occurred to her in those days that men could really feel, she had met his pleading affection with an enthusiastic outburst of her ambition to lead the artist's life, to spend her energies in self-development, and show what a woman wholly devoted to an intellectual and artistic career might become. They had sung in the choir together, had mingled their voices in moments when, inspired by devotional ecstasy, it seemed that the two spirits united into one, in that mysterious fellowship which belongs alike to religion and to love. And yet she had no feeling for him above regard: no feeling for any one, for anything, but art.

"You must not think I am deficient in womanly sensibility," she had said to him, with one of those soft glances of the meaning and effect of which she was entirely careless and unconscious. "But some women must remain spinsters, you know, and I think I am meant to be one of the sisterhood."

"You do not know yourself. The day will come when ambition will seem nothing to you; when the homely things, the real things, will take on their true value to your eyes, and a 'career' will seem a mere artificiality that has nothing to do with what is best and sweetest in life."

The words had passed her by as an idle phrase, evoked from disappointment. And she and Richard Allen had parted, he going to his post on the line in Arizona, and she to Italy to study. And yet nothing passes from us entirely. Here, without warning, without her intention, the little scene came up before her eyes; and she saw again the apple-orchard in blossom, the red brick chimney of the school-house across the way looming up in the moonlight, the hills in the distance, the strong, proudly-carried figure at her side. And then scene after scene came up before her, always with the two figures present: the manly, devoted lover, the self-absorbed girl.

Yet she had lived for ambition, and the world had been kind to her, after she had proven her mettle. She had not lacked lovers, but she had never loved. Her strong will, which had determinedly mapped out an existence entirely free from sentiment, had carried her through every affair triumphantly and untouched. Four or five hours ago she had entered that car as "free from the trammels of passion" as a vestal virgin. What was in the air, what was in the night, that hurried her on into imaginative flights? Constantly, like two stars, two meaning eyes seemed to gleam upon her, and kindle a world of emotion latent and unsuspected in her nature! She tried to be cynical, to laugh, to think of something else; she tried her best to get to sleep, but only her will could sleep, and fancy still rioted. Richard Allen had had the making of a fine man in him: what had become of him,—why had nothing been heard of him? The woman whose religion was success had little patience with patience; it seemed to her that all virtue was embodied in some sort of action. A man who at forty—he must be forty—was still obscure, was not worth a thought. And yet he had possessed a certain sort of strength. She had been forced to admire, in old times, a suggested moral superiority, a higher point of view than she considered practical. If he had brought himself to live up to his own standard, he must have been unable to make necessary concessions. And then, as Margaret recalled some "concessions" she had herself made to success, she felt her cheeks burn in the darkness. How often she had traded upon her own attractions, how often made use of the influence of her personality to bring about certain ends! If she had not lied in words, she had in act. Her present status had not been attained without some sacrifice of scruples.

The woman turned restlessly in her berth, wondering why such ideas should come to her now to interfere with her peace. She was good; she was ashamed of nothing in her past; she was living a high, free, independent life, the life for a woman of intellect and energy to lead. Thank heaven, she was not an emotional creature! Sentiment had been trained out of her. Long after midnight she lost consciousness, and passed a few hours in fitful slumber. It was cruel that she should have to dream of Richard Allen; dream that they were together in an open boat, drifting out to sea, and that his arms were around her, his eyes looking into hers. And she cared for nothing, thought of nothing but that he held her close—how strangely sweet it was!—

A jar, a shock, a sudden stop, as if the train had run against a wall of rock, and Margaret started up and drew the curtain aside instinctively. A fall through space—what was it, oh, where was she! Had the train fallen down an embankment?

After a minute she realized that she had been thrown from her berth across the car, that other persons lay about, some groaning, some hastily picking themselves up. She shut her eyes: there was a sharp pain in her left arm, and a weight upon her side. A falling lamp had struck her, and from some cause she could not rise; her leg must be broken. There was a terrible confusion, much talking, and half-a-dozen people bending over her pityingly and asking her questions.

"What has happened? Is anybody killed?" she asked.

Several persons answered at once. They had run into a freight. The engineer on their own train was killed; no one else. Many were hurt. Could she bear to be moved?

"I must," she returned, setting her lips, for agonizing pains began to shoot through her foot, and the thought of being touched was suffering.

"Fortunately we are just on the outskirts of Frithville—there are houses near." It was the conductor who spoke now, and he at once took charge. She was lifted carefully, wrapped in blankets and carried out. Their car had sustained less damage than any other, being in the rear, and there was no difficulty in getting out.

"If she could stand it to be taken over yonder," said some one, pointing to a house some distance away, "she'd be more comfortable, I reckon."

"Where are we?" asked Margaret, bravely suppressing her pain.

"Somewhere in southern Indiana—a little town called Frithville," a man answered her.

"If she could stand it to be taken over to the doctor's house—" said the persistent first speaker.

"I can stand it," she interposed; "take me there quickly."

They improvised a sort of rough litter of mattresses, and carried her across a field in the open country. The dawn was just breaking, and the pale moon was slowly fading out of view before the great coming light. The air was clear, cold, crisp; and, though there had evidently been a heavy storm during the night, it had cleared completely, and the first ray of sunlight glittered upon banks of frozen snow. The house before which they stopped was a plain, two-storied wooden structure, which seemed at first sight peculiarly barren-looking. Clean white curtains hung in straight, scant folds at the windows. The door had been drab in color, but the paint had been so assiduously scrubbed that one now took its presence on trust. There was a brass knocker and a rush door-mat, on which lay a large black cat with bristling white whiskers.

The door was opened by a severe Swedish girl, whose starched cap and apron suggested careful housekeeping, as her suspicious countenance suggested inhospitality. She made no objections to admitting them, however, and Margaret was carefully deposited upon a couch in the sitting-room to wait the coming of the doctor, who, the maid said, had just left the house to go to the scene of the wreck.

"We'll send him back to you, ma'am, right off," one of the men assured her. "You ought to be 'tended to first."

"Not if others are suffering and need him more," said Margaret faintly.

The ungenial looking Swede proved herself to be not deficient in skill, even though sympathy was in a measure lacking. She made her guest as comfortable as she could. The shoe was cut from the swollen ankle, which was bathed and bandaged, and the hurts upon the shoulder and side were pronounced to be only bruises which "Herr doctor would make-right." And then Margaret was left to herself while the girl went to make the inevitable "cup of tea," which was to set everything straight.

At first she lay perfectly still, seeing nothing, and caring for nothing, her mind full of vexation and impatience over an accident which must delay the fulfilment of her engagement. It did not occur to her that it might have been worse; anything was bad enough.

After awhile her eyes began to wander idly around the room. It seemed half parlor, half study. Folding doors divided it from the office at the back. There was a book-case, well filled; some good engravings on the walls; a few easy-chairs covered with raw silk of a dull hue, much worn; and a writing-table between the windows, half covered with books and magazines. There was something agreeable to her taste in the air of the room. She could imagine it the abode of a man whose very poverty could never become squalid. The great open Franklin stove shone brightly, and the hearth was scrupulously clean. Upon the mantel were a bronze clock and a pair of fine vases, dainty in tone and finish; they were the sole womanly touches about the place. Noting these details half indifferently, she lay back again and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, they happened to glance directly over to a corner of the room which had before been dim, but was now illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. A carved bracket hung there, and on the shelf lay a singular looking little instrument, shaped like a dagger, of Moorish device, the handle inlaid with gold, left rough and unpolished. When Margaret saw this small object, she gave a little cry and tried to rise, but finding that impossible, she dropped back upon her pillows as if she had been shot, her eyes fixed upon the little instrument with a look of recognition that was half pleasure, half alarm. What strange trick was fate about to play her? How could this thing be possible?

There was a noise: the front door opened, and some one came along the hall with a firm, measured step. Margaret's heart, that well-regulated organ, beat to suffocation. She hardly dared listen or look. She threw her arm up over her forehead, nearly concealing her face. Some one entered the room and paused beside her. A well-remembered voice, graver, deeper than of yore, yet with a cheery ring in it, said, "Let me see what I can do to help you, madam." A chair was drawn up to the side of the couch, a gentle hand took her own. Her pulse was beating furiously; the hand was held rather long, as if something perplexed him. She felt searching eyes bent upon her face, and suddenly threw down her arm. The doctor drew back, his face paling, and the two looked at each other for a minute in silence. She spoke first, putting out her hand timidly.

"Richard, don't you remember me?"

"Remember you? As if I were likely ever to forget you."

She softly touched his empty left sleeve, pinned over his breast, two tears standing in her eyes.

"At Black Gulch," he said. "I have got over minding it. Don't grieve."

"You left the army?"

"Yes, four years ago. My health gave way. I studied medicine in Indianapolis, was invited here by an old friend to become his assistant, and shortly afterward he died. That is all."

"You never—never——"

"Yes; I married."

The words were an unexpected stab. Margaret gasped, amazed that she should care. Her face suddenly became suffused with color, and she turned it away.

"She only lived a year—Margaret," said the doctor, bending down to study the fair, flushed face, suddenly pain-smitten.

"My ankle!" said Margaret faintly, drawing his attention to the lesser hurt.

He was the doctor again at once, and, for the next half hour all professional gravity, and as impersonal as the sphinx; yet the woman felt through every nerve, like a musical vibration, the thrill of his firm, warm fingers, the scrutiny of his eyes. He was changed, worn through suffering rather than years, his face lined, his hair grown gray; with nothing young about him but his eyes, which sparkled with a cheer and brightness no grief could dim, for they mirrored a mind above all personal considerations, concerned with those large, loving interests belonging to humanity.

The woman felt the presence of this spirit, as if something beautiful and good had settled softly down beside her, and mutely besought her attention from herself and her narrow world. She struggled against it, yet it was like a shaft of genial sun heat, entering suddenly some frozen glen; she felt, in a heart purposely hardened against such influences, a stir, a thaw; ice was breaking, and the long-stilled waters of human affection began to flow in gentle currents, inspiring a sensation of delight that astonished and abashed her.

The doctor came and went quietly, her eyes following him. When he intercepted the look, she blushed like a schoolgirl. Too busy all that day to give her more than necessary attention, he yet lost nothing that passed and she had a sense which was oddly pleasant that he understood something of what was passing in her mind. It was terrible, too. There were moments when she wished herself miles away. Besides all the physical pain which she endured that long day, Margaret's soul was the battle-ground of a struggle far more exhausting. Ambition, pride, and love of the world fought hard against a tender, newly-born impulse, which it seemed that a single breath of reason ought to chill to death.

The coals burned red in the open stove; a little tea-table was set in the middle of the room, and in the easiest chair in the house, piled with all the available cushions, the doctor placed Margaret, taking his position opposite her. The solemn Swedish girl brought in supper, which was well cooked and served with a scrupulous cleanliness that almost atoned for the absence of a more dainty service.

The doctor's face shone with satisfaction, but his manner, although genial, was ceremonious. Margaret felt that, in the few feet intervening between them, there lay years of care and grief and disappointment. She felt a yearning to bridge the chasm, to draw nearer to him, even though she herself had to take the hard steps toward understanding.

Thought the woman: "Does he love me still?" And thought the man: "Is she tired of the world, and could she learn to love me now?"

But they spoke of music; of camp-life on the western frontier; of what they had seen, what they had read. Not a word of what they felt. A few hours later the doctor stood in his bare little soldier's bedroom, and looked in his glass. For five minutes he studied himself, and then he turned away, resolved to let no new hope spring up in his heart. But Margaret slept to dream of him, woke through the night thinking of him, as she could not have thought in the old days, when he wooed her in the confidence of his fresh, hopeful youth.

There was no hotel in the village, and the few scattered houses were crowded with the wounded passengers, lying over till well enough to proceed with their journey. Margaret was not sorry that there was no other place for her than the refuge she had been taken to. "I am thinking that I am singularly fortunate in being in the doctor's house, where I get special attention," she said to him, with a little fluttering smile.

In time these shy looks wrought upon the doctor, and his stern resolution wavered. He found himself sounding her preferences and attachments, with the unconfessed design of extracting some unguarded word that might indicate a change in her old convictions. Carrying on together these two processes—determination to refrain and resolution to pursue, which often accompanies some course of action embraced in accordance with a natural, unworldly judgment, he managed to betray to the eager girl all he wished to conceal and she wished to know. She had telegraphed to Baltimore that she would be there in ten days. Four of them had passed, and she was free from pain and able to put her foot to the ground. The doctor persisted in helping her from her couch to the chair and back again.

"But I can walk alone now," she objected.

"We must be careful. Not until to-morrow." She protested with greater earnestness. "True—I have but one arm," he said, with the first accent of bitterness she had heard from him. Her lips parted to give utterance to a sudden rush of words, but she only looked at him, with eyes so eloquent that he answered the look.

"Margaret, do you care? Dear, I have always loved you, I love you now,—can you care?"

She drooped her head on his shoulder, but said nothing. The doctor held her close for a minute, and then, leaving her, began to walk up and down the room.

"It is impossible!"

"It may be impossible," murmured Margaret with a little blush, "but—it is true."

"It is cruel of me to ask it, dear. You are young, beautiful, brilliant—with success at your feet, and I——"

She put up her hand imploringly. It was caught and held. "And I am poor, obscure and—old," he finished, his eyes upon her face.

"I have come to you, Richard. It seemed strange to me. I cannot explain it, but it seems as if everything the world has to offer me is nothing beside——"

"Beside my love?" he bent on one knee beside her chair and put her hand to his lips.

"I want to share your life," she said, and a new expression grew upon her face, a high, devoted look which was half heroic, all womanly. "I want to learn something of the great things, the true things."

"You have had greater things than I can give you. Think of all you are leaving!"

She made a gesture of renunciation. "It does not seem much to leave—for you."

"Ah, my darling, I am afraid you will regret it. The work-a-day world will be a trial to you. And mine is a veritable work-a-day world."

He kept his eyes on her face, half dreading to see her shrink away. But what woman is not won by an appearance of self-renunciation? Richard could not have let her go now; at the last instant he would have snatched her to his breast, had she drawn away. But the misgiving that rushed over him so fiercely was a real one, a sensible one; he felt it profoundly, and tried to read in her eyes a shadow of this coming regret. But her eyes were clear, loving, radiant. She pressed herself against his breast, and gave him the great gift of her life and her future. Would the shadow ever come?

The moon looked softly in, an hour later, and finding the lovers in that delicious dream which once in a lifetime comes to most men and women, drew over her face a gray cloud-veil and left them to dream on.