She had
been torn away from hope, love, almost life itself. Where was Neale?
He had turned from her, obedient to Allison Lee and the fatal
complexity and perversenes's of life. The vindication of her
spiritual faith and the answer to her prayers lay in the fact that
she had been saved; but rather than to be here in this car, daughter
of a rich father, but separated from Neale, she would have preferred
to fill one of the nameless graves in Benton.
33
The sun set pale-gold and austere as Neale watched the train bear
Allie Lee away. No thought of himself entered into that solemn
moment of happiness. Allie Lee--alive--safe--her troubles ended--on
her way home with her father! The long train wound round the bold
bluff and at last was gone. For Neale the moment held something big,
final. A phase--a part of his life ended there.
"Son, it's over," said Slingerland, who watched with him. "Allie's
gone home--back to whar she belongs--to come into her own. Thank
God! An' you--why this day turns you back to whar you was once....
Allie owes her life to you an' her father's life. Think, son, of
these hyar times--how much wuss it might hev been."
Neale's sense of thankfulness was unutterable. Passively he went
with Slingerland, silent and gentle. The trapper dressed his wounds,
tended him, kept men away from him, and watched by him as if he were
a sick child.
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