Chapter II

“Why, what’s all this?” said a great voice just above her. It wasn’t the
brakeman come back—Or was it? A great gust of wind came hurricaning
round the corner of the station and filled her mouth and her eyes with
stifling flakes, and she was almost strangled. Then the hurricane and
the snow seemed suddenly shut out. It grew more luminous about her, and
the big voice was shouting through the storm over her head.

“Are you waiting for the train? How ever did you get here? It’s
outrageous to close the station on a night like this!”

She was aware of a pair of kindly eyes shrouded in snow, bushy white
eyebrows, cheeks plastered with flakes; eyelashes, too, fringed white.
The rest was covered with a woolen scarf bound firmly about head and
neck. But the sight of another human being suddenly broke her down. Even
if it had been the impertinent brakeman she couldn’t have helped it.

“Oh, I’m soooo-ccc-ooo-llldddd!” she chattered, more tears flowing over
the icicles on her face, “I can’t find the ca-ca-ca-rrrr-r!” she babbled
feebly.

“What car?” asked the apparition, glancing keenly about the white
distance.

“The Framstead c-c-arrrr!” answered Tasha trying to keep her teeth from
chattering. “They promised to be here when the train came in!” There was
a wail in the end of her words.

“Framstead!” said the man in a startled tone. “They can’t get down from
Framstead’s to-night! The bridge is down and the other road is
impassable! It is drifted twelve feet at least!”

“Oh! What shall I do-o-o-o-oo!” cried Tasha in terror. “I’m freezing! My
feet are dead now. I ca-ca-can’t feel them any more at all. How
l-l-l-long does it t-t-t-ake to fr-f-f-reeze?”

“You poor kid!” said the man stooping to lift her in his snowy arms, and
feeling with one hand for her feet. “You poor little kid! No wonder!
Why—you haven’t but one shoe—! Well that settles it! We’ll have to get
inside here somehow at once. Just wait a minute and I’ll get this door
open!”

He set her down again in the snow, but she was not conscious of feeling
any colder. It seemed that she was numb all over except for the sharp
point of hurt where the cold was still aching and stinging.

She felt as if she were come to the end of life in a terrible way. She
gave a pitiful thought back to the gayety that had been hers but a few
short hours before, and wondered that her butterfly existence had been
so short. But it didn’t seem to matter any more; the cold was so
terrible, as if it had her by the throat and were putting her out like a
candle flame being snuffed.

She heard a crash of glass in the dark, and then saw the imp of light go
flashing again and presently she was picked up and carried inside the
little box of a station.

She felt the cessation of the storm, and the dry warm air of a room that
had at least recently known fire, and then she was put down in the
darkness on a wooden seat.

“Now,” said the man, as he seemed to be moving about a few feet from
her, “we’ve got to get you warm first. Whoever let you out a night like
this with so few clothes on?”

Tasha giggled hysterically. She had forgotten her haughtiness. In this
warm darkness with the roar of the storm shut away, she could no longer
hold her pride.

“Haven’t you any baggage with you?” asked the man’s voice. He seemed to
be shaking some heavy garment on the other side of the room. A spatter
of snow reached viciously and hit her cheek. The room was a very small
one.

“No,” she said in answer to his question. “No,” almost stupidly, “I am
going to a dance!”

“Oh!” said the man almost shortly. “Some dance!”

Then he came over to where she was sitting in the dark, and almost
roughly lifted her to wrap a great rough garment about her. “It must be
his overcoat,” she thought to herself, and tried to protest.

“You’ll nnnn-eee-ddd it!” she chattered.

“Not as much as you do!” he said shortly. “Now, what can we do about
these feet?”

“They are dead!” she said, and shivered in the roughness of the
overcoat. “It won’t matter.”

The man stepped out the door and brought in a bag. He set it down on the
floor and flashed his torch into it, searching for something. She
watched him apathetically. The snow had melted from his features now,
though they were still well swathed in brown woolen scarf.

“Not entirely dead yet,” he answered as he laid the flash down on the
floor and came toward her with something dark in his hand. He reached
for her unslippered foot and began to rub it, finally tearing away the
little rag of a gold silk chiffon stocking and chafing the foot with his
big warm hands from which he had taken the heavy woolen mittens that now
lay on the floor beside the flash light.

She watched him as if it were a sort of moving picture in which she had
no part, but most surprisingly the foot began to feel alive again, and
to prickle under the chafing. And when he had it quite dry and warm
again he drew on a long thick woolen stocking, that came well up to her
little cold knee.

“My mother insisted on my taking these golf stockings with me to-night,”
he meditated, “and now I’m glad I brought them.”

Tasha did not say anything. She was wondering how she would look going
through life with only one foot. One foot had come alive but the other
was stone dead. And she was so cold all over in spite of the great rough
overcoat that she felt as if she were made of ice with a hot hot fire
inside of it.

“Now!” said the man, “that’s better. Do you begin to feel a little more
comfortable?” and he began his ministrations toward the other foot.

She did not see the look on his face as he unbuttoned and laid down the
other little gold slipper, a mixture of awe and contempt upon him. He
went on silently chafing the cold little foot till it too responded to
treatment and came alive.

“Now,” said he, “I suppose you’d like me to telephone to Framstead’s.
They’ll be wondering what has become of you. We’ll see whether I can
pick the lock of the inner office and get at the telephone. What name
shall I say?”

“Endicott,” said Tasha stupidly, “Miss Endicott.” Somehow the dance no
longer seemed real. She was getting a little warm again in spots, and
longed only to get somewhere and lie down to rest. She felt as if she
had been battling against wild beasts.

There was a sound of some little metal instrument trying to force a
lock. An interval of silence and the dancing flash light; more metal
grinding against resisting locks, then the shudder of a thick door
against a great forceful shoulder. Presently the man returned to her.

“Well, it’s no use. I think there is a big bolt or bar to that door.
Anyhow I can’t budge it. I suppose they have to be extra careful for
they keep a safe in there I think, and it is rather lonely around here.”

“Oh, what shall I do? Shall I have to stay in this awful place all
night? Are you going away?” she asked in sudden fright.

“No, you can’t stay here,” he said decidedly. “I’ll have to take you
home to Mother. There’s no other house nearer where you could stay. I’ll
have time to take you back before my train gets here.” He turned the
flash light on his wrist watch now, and she could see his face studying
the dial anxiously, then he lifted his wrist and listened.

“What train did you come on?” he asked suddenly. “Did you come up from
the city?”

“Yes, on the six-five. But my train was late. We just got in. I had not
been here but a few minutes when you came, though it seemed like hours
it was so cold.”

She shuddered at the memory, and realized that a slight sense of warmth
was really stealing over her.

“Why?” she asked suddenly. “Is there a train back now? Oh, are you going
to the city? I must go too. I can’t stay here alone, since there is no
way to get to Framstead’s.”

“No,” he said gravely, “I’m not going to the city; I’m going up the road
about fifty miles where I’m supposed to preach to-morrow. There is no
train back to the city that stops at this station to-night. The only
down train is an express and you have to go five miles up the road to
get it. But I was thinking. If your train was as late as that, the next
train will be still later. I shall have plenty of time to get back, but
we can’t lose a minute talking about it. I’ll take you to Mother, but
you’ll have to do just as I say and be quick about it!”

Tasha had no time to resent this dictatorial speech, for he came over,
picked her up summarily, and slung her over his shoulder as if she had
been a bag of meal.

“Excuse me,” he said as she gasped. “It isn’t very pleasant but it’s the
only way, and I simply must get that train.”

She tried to struggle, to protest, to say she could not let him take so
much trouble, but he strode to the door, and was out before she had
finished a sentence.

“Your bag!” she called. “Stop! You must not leave your bag!”

“It’s all right till I get back!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Lie
still, can’t you, and put your arm around my neck, that way. Now, keep
your face down and you won’t get the worst of the blast.”

He plunged off the platform, and wallowed for a moment till he found the
solid path, dancing the flash light ahead of him weirdly through the
storm.

The girl gasped, and hid her face perforce on the broad shoulder that
held her. The touch of the rough wool made her conscious that she was
wearing this man’s overcoat, and that he was unprotected himself. She
tried to say something about this, but her words were flung back into
the soft plush cold of the storm, and caught away into space. She made a
feeble effort to reach the top button of the coat and show him that she
wished to take it off, but he shouted back, “Lie still, can’t you?” and
struggled on.

And it was a struggle, she could see. Slender though she was and lightly
clothed, yet wrapped in that great heavy overcoat she made a burden that
was by no means easily carried through such going.

As her eyes became accustomed to the strange white darkness, she could
peer out occasionally, and catch a glimpse of the depth of the drifts
through which he had to wade. Up to his knees, above his knees
sometimes. Once when he almost lost his footing and very nearly went
down with her, she saw he had to lift her high above his head to keep
her above the snow.

And the way seemed interminable.

He had said it was the nearest house, but how far away it seemed!
Occasionally she thought of his train, and thought she heard the roar of
its coming. But the darkness kept on being thick and white and
impenetrable, and the little firefly of light danced on and made no
impression except to illumine a step at a time.

It strangely did not enter her head to be afraid, even though she could
not see the man who was carrying her, had never really got a view of his
face, yet she knew she could trust him. It occurred to her that perhaps
she was being kidnapped. Perhaps he might have seen the flash of her
jewels at throat and wrist. But she dismissed that as foolish. If he had
wanted her jewels it would have been easy to overpower her and take
them, even to have killed her. There was no one by to see, and the snow
would have covered all tracks by morning. No, she was strangely at
peace, almost even interested, as she hung there over his shoulder, her
arms clasped around his neck, trying to help all she could in the
struggle he was having to take her to safety and warmth.

She was by no means warm even now, for the wind swooped around and
roared down the neck of the overcoat, and even the thick golf stockings
seemed but flimsy protection. But the feeling of the strength that bore
her, helped her to bear the deadly cold that swirled all about her and
chilled her to the heart; and when it grew too awful she could hide her
face entirely and breathe through the thick rough wool of his coat, to
gain a moment’s respite from the agony of breathing in the cold.

It seemed a space set apart in her lifetime never to be forgotten, that
journey through the storm on the shoulder of an unknown man. She was
growing drowsy with the cold and excitement, and had ceased to wonder if
it would never end, when she felt him turn sharply from the road, a pace
or two, then up some snow-muffled steps to a porch, and stamp, and knock
at the door.

“It’s I, Mother, open the door please! I can’t get at my key!” he
called. She roused and noticed that he was panting. How hard it must
have been for him! And he was in a hurry. It came to her that the
minister of their fashionable church in the city, which they attended
semi-occasionally, would never have attempted a thing like this, would
not have been able physically to carry it out if he had. Then hurrying
footsteps interrupted her thoughts and a flood of light broke over the
little porch, and blinded her eyes.

“Oh, my laddie!” she heard a sweet voice exclaim, “and what have you
got? Did you lose your train?”

“No, Mother, the train is late. But I found this alone in the snow at
the station, and brought her to you. Take care of her please, till the
storm is over or I get back, for now I must hurry.”

He turned to the girl and began unbuttoning the great coat, blinking his
eyes that still were blinded from coming into the light.

“I’ll have to have my coat now, if you please,” he said pleasantly, “and
I hope I wasn’t over rough with you. I hope you’ll not suffer from the
exposure.”

The coat fell away and she looked up and tried to say the conventional
thing—what was the conventional thing for such a time as this?—but she
could only blink and give a sorry little smile. Then her velvet wrap
slipped back, and fell away around her feet, and she stood there in the
bright little cottage room in her rosy silk and tulle dance frock, like
some lovely draggled flower plucked out of its garden.

The young man stepped back and looked at her for an instant with a
drawing in of his breath, for she was lovely. Her delicate make-up was a
wreck, with the storm and her crying, her wisps of coral tulle were
trailing limply about her feet, her hair was tousled and falling about
her face, yet she was lovely, and he looked.

His mother too, looked, and was filled with dismay.

“But—Thurly!—” she gasped, and the word brought him to his senses.

He turned, picked up the coat from the floor, and swung into it with a
single motion, buttoning it high around his chin which was still swathed
in the brown woolen scarf.

“But Mother, I must go!” he said, “I’ve not an instant to waste. The
lady will explain!” and he stooped and kissed his mother’s forehead.
“I’m all right, Mother! There’s nothing to worry about.”

“But, Thurly! The storm! It’s so terrible! Just give it up and telegraph
them it’s impossible!” she pleaded, following him to the door. “Do,
Thurly, do! For my sake!”

“But, Mother, you know we had all that out on our knees awhile back. You
know I must go, dearest. Now away to the lady, for she’s well nigh
frozen and needs a hot drink at once, and warm blankets or she’ll be
ill!”

He smiled and was gone, and the mother stood for an instant watching him
down the white path vanishing into the white darkness, till even the
little twinkle of the flash light was invisible. Then the mother turned
and shut the door and came back to her strange and unexpected guest.