Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/222

210 nodded assent, went away feeling that they had done the proper thing, and the train-master congratulated himself upon the result.

Minnie Morgan was a woman to win a man's heart if he had such a thing to lose, and so, as the spring deepened, Goodlough, who had been too busy all his life to go out into the world and win a heart, discovered, when it was too late, that he was slowly but surely losing his own. Up to now he had been too much occupied with his work to think of love, but, as is usual with such men, when the fever came it was high and unremitting. Miss Morgan, on her side, had pitied Goodlough at first, and then, when he recovered and came back to work, she had learned to respect and soon to admire him. It might have ended there, so far as she was concerned, if he had not fallen in love with her and showed it a dozen times a day, or every time he attempted to hide it; and soon they both loved, and each resolved to keep the secret from the other, but while Cupid held his hands over their eyes the world looked on and laughed.