CHAPTER XV.

GERALDINE WOULD NEVER FORGET ALDERSON.

It thrills one like a draught of rarest wine, The fine, pure air, the sunshine, and the scene, The mountains, and the river where it glides, A silver chain between its banks of green; And yonder, where the town lies white and low, On flowery banks so fair beneath the sun, Oh, Alderson sweet village I may go Full many a mile, nor find a fairer one!

MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER.

Poor, pretty Geraldine, if she had ever thought of death at all, she had never dreamed of ending her life like this beneath the wheels of this great panting, shrieking iron monster, rushing down upon her as her beautiful form lay across the bright steel rails where she had thrown herself in the extremity of despair!

But, frantic with hopeless love and terror at the promise she had just given--the reckless promise of her hand without the heart--reason had momentarily deserted its throne, and, conscious only of a mad desire to escape from life's tragedies of woe, she rushed forward in front of the train, and laid her golden head down upon the pillow of death, like one lying down to pleasant dreams.

And although her suicidal act was seen by fifty pairs of eyes, it was too late for even the most heroic hand to snatch her from her impending doom.

The locomotive was so close upon her the moment she fell before it that the immense cow-catcher touched her, and--even as the horrified shriek of Standish rang upon the wintry air--it seemed to draw her beneath the horrible grinding machine!

Did Heaven, in pity and mercy, intervene to save the rash girl from the consequences of her mad attempt at self-destruction?

Not once in a hundred cases is a human life saved by being caught and thrown upward by the projecting cow-catcher in front of the monster locomotive.

Yet once in a while such a fortunate intervention occurs, and a fatal disaster is prevented.

To poor, reckless Geraldine, who had placed herself beyond the reach of human aid, this accident happened, or our story must have ended here with the tragic close of her short life.

It almost seemed as if invisible angels must have caught up her doomed form from the track and placed it on the great shovel-like projection in safety, so miraculous seemed the saving of her life.

And a moment later the train, which had been slowing up as it entered the town, came to a full stop at the station, and the horrified engineer, who had been utterly unable to prevent what had seemed to happen, saw Geraldine's form lying on the platform of the cow-catcher, where it had rebounded at the first touch, and a cry of thanksgiving rose from his throat, echoed by a hundred other voices of those who had seen it all, and who now rushed to the spot in wild haste.

Quiet little Alderson had a sensation that day never to be forgotten in after years, when the express train rushed into the station bearing on its very front that form of a beautiful girl driven wild by sorrow, until she had tried to end her life in this terrible fashion.

What kind and eager hands drew her from her perilous position; what sympathetic eyes gazed on her beautiful white face as they laid her down on the platform, quite unconscious, for she had swooned when she threw herself on the track.

Every doctor in town was speedily on the scene. They vied with each other in their efforts to restore her to consciousness.

And in a few minutes Geraldine opened her heavy-lidded eyes with a blank gaze, and saw herself surrounded by a sympathetic, though curious crowd, and, as in a dream, heard Clifford Standish eagerly explaining to the people:

"Oh, no, indeed; you are mistaken. It was not an attempt at suicide; it was only a fool-hardy attempt to cross the track before the engine. She declared that she could do it safely, and dared me to follow her, darting from my side before I could restrain her, for I would not have permitted the rash venture otherwise. Still, I believe she would have accomplished the feat and cleared the track by a hair's breadth, only that her foot slipped and threw her down at that fatal moment."

Bending down to Geraldine's ear, he whispered, warningly:

"Do not contradict what I have told them, or they may put you in prison for attempted suicide, as they do in New York."

The people thought he was her lover, whispering to her of his joy at her safety, and in a moment he confirmed the belief by saying aloud:

"She would be distressed if any one accused her of trying to kill herself, for she is one of the happiest girls in the world. In fact, while we were standing on the bridge she had promised to marry me."

"Yes, I say him hugging her on the bridge, myself," said the old countryman who had passed them, and a smile went around, and then a cheer for the fair young life saved for a happy wedded future.

They carried her to the hotel that was but a few yards away, and it was found that she had sustained some bruises on her side, that was all. She would be able to go on with the company.

And a great revulsion of feeling took place in her mind--joy that her life was spared, horror at the momentary insanity that had driven her to that awful deed. Life grew sweet again, in spite of her great sorrow.

When the sympathetic women left her alone that evening in her room, she knelt down in a passion of repentance, and prayed God to forgive her for her great sin in trying to throw away the life He had given.

And she prayed Heaven to help her to forget Harry Hawthorne, and to love Clifford Standish, the man she had promised to marry.

"Surely he is good and true, and deserves my love," she thought, in an impulse of gratitude to him for the way he had shielded her when the people talked of suicide. She was ashamed of the truth now--glad for them to think it had been an accident.

"I will never be so foolish and so wicked again," she thought, in her keen remorse for her sin.

She spent a wakeful, restless night in spite of the sedatives the kind Doctor Spicer had administered before he went away. The hotel was so close to the railroad that she could hear the trains thundering by all night long, and the sound made her shudder with terror at thought of the heavy iron wheels that had come so near to crushing out her fair young life.

She was glad when morning came, and they boarded the train for New York.

She was eager to get away from this place, yet she would never forget Alderson, with its beautiful mountains, its romantic, winding river, and the bridge where she had stood with Standish, listening to the cruel words that had extinguished the last spark of hope in her breast and driven her mad with despair.

No, she would never forget beautiful Alderson, on the rippling, winding, singing Greenbrier River, set like an emerald chain between its romantic banks, overshadowed by wooded mountains, but she would remember it always with a horror it did not deserve, poor Geraldine, because of its tragic associations.