partly over as the driver attempted to free it. Franz caught at the man’s coat. “Stop that!” he cried. “Why, you’re drunk, man!”      

       The driver halted his horses with some difficulty. “Oh, no—sir—”      

       “Let’s get out here, Emma, and walk.”      

       “Where are we?”      

       “Here’s the bridge already. And the wind is not nearly as strong as it was. It will be nicer to walk a little. It’s so hard to talk in the carriage.”      

       Emma drew down her veil and followed him. “Don’t you call this windy?” she exclaimed as she struggled against the gust that met her at the corner.     

       He took her arm, and called to the driver to follow them.     

       They walked on slowly. Neither spoke as they mounted the ascent of the bridge; and they halted where they could hear the flow of the water below them. Heavy darkness surrounded them. The broad stream stretched itself out in gray, indefinite outlines; red lights in the distance, floating above the water, awoke answering gleams from its surface. Trembling stripes of light reached down from the shore they had just left; on the other side of the bridge the river lost itself in the blackness of open fields. Thunder rumbled in the distance; they looked over to where the red lights soared. A train with lighted windows rolled between iron arches that seemed to spring up out of the night for an instant, to sink back into darkness again. The thunder grew fainter and more distant; silence fell again; only the wind moved, in sudden gusts.     

       Franz spoke at last, after a long silence. “We must go away.”      

       “Of course,” Emma answered, softly.     

       “We must go away,” he continued, with more animation. “Go away altogether, I mean—”      

       “Oh, we can’t!”      

       “Only because we are cowards, Emma.”      

       “And my child?”      

 Prev. P 5/17 next