Year: 1874

The engine stood motionless, like lior


croucbed for wild, swift leap; it.


great, sinewy limbs shining and spark.


ling in the sun. Only its slow breath


ing told that there was life about it.


The men and women clambered uI


this car and that one, and were lost


sight of. Presently but few persons


were left standing on the platform, and


the engine-bell gave its warning signal


The passive monster with the shining


limbs began to wake up from its leth-
argy, and stir itself, breathing hard and


heavily. The dense, black smoke floated
down the train, and wrapped it in its
gray embrace, and Harry Fields, think
ing OF the woman he loved, and whose
face lie was going to see, thought also
of the shadow which wrapped itself
about her life.


The train moved slowly at first, and
then began to quicken its pace. There
was a cry near by, and a man ran
around street corner and sprang to-
ward the platform of the car on which
Harry stood, just as two men came
around the corner in evident pursuit.
But the man missed his footing and fell
heavily fOrward-down to his death, as
Harry knew, as he saw the slipping
grasp of the mans hands on the smooth
woodwork which was the straw be-
tween him and terrible fate. He sprang
to catch the man, but was too late. The
wild, desperate clutch weakened, and
then-the wheels of the Juggernaut
rolled On-there was one wild, despair
ing cry, and the end had come.


The train stopped, and a crowd of
startled men gathered about the crushed
fragments of what had one moment be-
fore been a living being. They lifted
the body from the track silently in a
kind of an awed way. Death, in such
a swift fashion was terrible.


"Who was hep" some one asked, in a
low voice, as if he feared to break the
silence.


"a convict from the prison yonder,"
answered on of the officers who had
been in hot pursuit. she managed to
get citizens dress and elude the keep
er. We discovered him just as he was
the prison grounds. His anne
is Wentworth-Hugh Wentworth.


Harry Fields heard it all in kind of
dream. This was all that remained of
the man who had stood between him
and the woman he loved-this mass of
senseless, sickening humanity,
from which the last spark of life had
vanished forever.


Dead! and she was his now, all his.
The scene faded from before him, and
be saw her patient face again, but the
shadow was lifting from it as a cloud
from the morning.


The mangled form was borne away,
and the train went on again. 1t seemed
% Harry that it merely crept.


He counted the miles as they passed |
over them. Nearer and nearer to Ethel
with the blessed tldings of her free
lom which had been purchased by
ieath.


At last the end of his journey came.
It seemed as if the distance from the
7illage to the old farm had heightened |
nto miles. But his eager feet bore him |
.apidly over it. He looked toward the |
house as he turned the corner and saw
/ woman standing at the gate. 1t was
The. He should know her anywhere.
His Ethel now.


"Ethel! Ethelr' he cried, in his ca
,erness, and she turned toward him
With a soft light breaking through
aces olden shadow.


"Ethel!" and his arms were about
Ter, his kisses on her cheek. 81 have
you-freedom. He is dead, and |
Tou are mine now."


And the shadow lifted from Ethel
heart and life at last, as
nay the shadows sometime lift from
Tours and mine.