Signing the Contract and What it Cost. Finley Martha

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СКАЧАТЬ said the gentleman; “that is the train we must take. Will you sacrifice your child’s welfare or your own feelings?”

      She was now seated beside the table, her child asleep in her arms.

      He laid the deed of gift he had made out before her as he spoke, and put a pen between her fingers.

      She lifted her eyes to his with a look of wild anguish fit to move a heart of stone.

      He simply pointed to the unconscious babe.

      She looked at it, seized the pen, hurriedly scrawled a name at the foot of the deed, and fell back fainting.

      But the shrill whistle of the locomotive and the thunder of the train close at hand aroused her.

      “We must go now; let me take her,” Mrs. Kemper was saying in tones tremulous with great compassion. “I will love her dearly, dearly; I will cherish her as the apple of my eye. Let me wrap this warm shawl around her.”

      “No, Dolly, I’ll carry her,” Mr. Kemper said, in a tone of half-suppressed delight, as he finished buttoning up his overcoat after safely depositing the note-book, with the deed of gift, in an inner pocket.

      But silently the mother put them both aside. There was agony in her wan, emaciated face. She could not speak for the choking in her throat; but she strained the child to her heart, laid her cold white cheek to its warm and rosy face and kissed it passionately again and again.

      “We must go,” repeated Mrs. Kemper. “Oh, my heart aches for you, but we must go!”

      “We must indeed, poor thing! there’s not a moment to be lost,” added Mr. Kemper, taking the child from her with gentle force. “Here, this will supply your needs while you live, I think,” putting a roll of notes into her hand.

      She dropped them as if a serpent had stung her, and with a wild cry rushed after him, as, hastily wrapping a shawl about the infant, he ran with it toward the train, his wife close behind him.

      They had already tarried almost too long; had scarcely time to gain the platform of the nearest car ere the train swept swiftly on its way.

      “My child, my child! give me back my child!” shrieked the distracted mother, pursuing with outstretched arms, the storm beating pitilessly on her uncovered head, her long, dark hair streaming in the wind.

      For a moment she seemed to fly over the ground, love and despair lending her unnatural strength and speed; the next – as the train was lost to sight in the depths of the forest – she tottered and would have fallen but for the strong arm of a kindly switchman, who, hastily setting down his lantern, sprang forward just in time to save her.

      “She’s in a dead faint, poor thing!” he muttered to himself. “Here, Bill,” to a comrade, “take a holt and help me to carry her into the depot.”

      “Who is she, Jack? an’ what ails her?” asked Bill, hurrying up and holding his lantern high, while he peered curiously into the white, unconscious face.

      “No time to talk till we git her in out o’ the wet,” returned Jack gruffly.

      They laid her down on the settee.

      “She’s a human critter and in sore trouble, that’s all I know,” remarked Jack quietly, drawing his coat-sleeve across his eyes as the two stood gazing upon the pitiful sight.

      CHAPTER II

      RESCUED

      “Amid all life’s quests,

      There seems but worthy one – to do men good.” —

Bailey.

      A light covered wagon had just drawn up at the depot door, and out of it quickly stepped an elderly gentleman. Hurrying in with youthful alacrity, he glanced with eager haste from side to side of the dingy apartment. A look of keen disappointment swept over his features, changing instantly to one of grief and terror as his eye fell upon the little group about the settee.

      “What – who – who is it? What has happened?” he asked tremulously, turning pale, and laying his hand on a chair-back as if to steady himself; then heaving a sigh of relief as the men stepped aside, giving him a view of the prostrate form, Jack Strong saying:

      “It’s not Mr. Rolfe, sir, but on’y a poor female woman as has fainted. Mr. Rolfe, he didn’t come. Somebody’s took her child away from her, I do believe. Leastways she was screamin’ for it, and runnin’ arter the cars, which of course she couldn’t ketch. I reckon she’s sick too. Looks mighty bad, anyhow.”

      “So she does, poor creature!” said the gentleman, approaching. “We must do something at once to bring her to. Water, Jack – quick! I wish Dr. Wright was here.”

      But at that instant a moan came from the pale lips, and the eyes – large, dark, and lustrous – opened wide. They caught the pitying gaze of the new-comer. Feebly she lifted her arms toward him, then dropped them again, faintly murmuring:

      “You have been gone so long, father, and I am ill – dying. Take me home.”

      “That I will!” he said, obeying a sudden generous impulse, for he was much moved by the appeal. “Jack!”

      “Do you know her, sir, Mr. Heywood?” queried the switchman in surprise.

      “No more than you do, Jack, but surely she is in sore need of help, and I’m able to give it. In fact, I think it is a plain call of Providence. I’ve brought the dearborn, thinking to take home Rolfe and his luggage; but he hasn’t come, and here it is – the very thing to carry her in.

      “But wait a moment; what do you know of her? Is she quite alone?”

      “Indeed I don’t know nothin’ more than – ” began the switchman, but was interrupted by the hurried entrance of Irene.

      “Is she livin’? where is she?” asked the girl, rushing into their midst breathless with haste and excitement. “Here’s some money the gentleman gave her, and she throwed it on the floor; I reckon because she thought ’twas paying her for the child.”

      “My child! my Ethel!” cried the wanderer, starting up, but only to fall back again, overcome with weakness. “Come to mother, darling, come!” she murmured, her hand feebly extended, her eyes closed, while she moved her head restlessly from side to side.

      “She’s out of her mind,” whispered the girl.

      Mr. Heywood nodded assent; and drawing Irene aside, asked a few rapid questions, in reply to which she imparted all the information she could give in regard to the sufferer.

      All he heard but strengthened his resolution to befriend the poor creature, and he at once set about making preparations for removing her to his own house, some three miles distant.

      A quantity of clean straw was bestowed in the bottom of the dearborn, a buffalo-robe laid over it, making a not uncomfortable bed. On this the invalid was gently placed, and carefully covered with a second robe.

      She made no resistance. She was quite delirious, and knew nothing of what was passing around her.

      “Carefully now, Mike,” the old gentleman said, taking his seat beside the coachman; “the poor thing’s in no state to bear unnecessary jolting.”

      “Hallo! СКАЧАТЬ