Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/201

 and all that might have happened there since his departure. He wondered if Gladys had missed him, and then he smiled at the thought. He knew that she must have grieved over his departure. He knew that she loved him now; he had never doubted it since that night when they rode home together through the sweet country lanes of Newport, the very evening before his departure. Then he thought again, and with a sudden pain, of her voice as he had heard it calling him, heavy with distress, full of passionate entreaty. What could it have meant? If any ill had befallen her, he certainly would have learned it by telegraph. He was coming to her now with all the speed of steam and iron, yet the journey seemed so long!

The dark prairie was all about him, before,—behind, on either side,—and the train sped on rapidly. Suddenly, far off, a spark of light broke the blackness of the night. It grew brighter and clearer, as the train approached it, and he now saw that it came