I've not come to you to ask your forgiveness, for I can't
forgive myself, much less expect it of you. But I want you to know how
I feel, and if there's any reparation, apology, anything, that you'd
like, I'll--"
Madge interrupted my speech there by holding out her hand.
"You don't suppose," she said, "that, after all you have done for us,
I could be angry over what was merely a mistake?"
That's what I call a trump of a girl, worth loving for a lifetime.
Well, we coupled on to No. 2 that morning and started East, this time
Mr. Cullen's car being the "ender." All on 218 were wildly jubilant,
as was natural, but I kept growing bluer and bluer. I took a farewell
dinner on their car the night we were due in Albuquerque, and
afterward Miss Cullen and I went out and sat on the back platform.
"I've had enough adventures to talk about for a year," Madge said, as
we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the
K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you didn't lose anything."
"I have lost something," I sighed sadly.
Madge looked at me quickly, started to speak, hesitated, and then
said, "Oh, Mr. Gordon, if you only could know how badly I have felt
about that, and how I appreciate the sacrifice."
I had only meant that I had lost my heart, and, for that matter,
probably my head, for it would have been ungenerous even to hint to
Miss Cullen that I had made any sacrifice of conscience for her sake,
and I would as soon have asked her to pay for it in money as have told
her.
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