Chapter VI: They Cross the Bridge Together

Ordinarily Meade's head was as clear as the air of a mountain top, his nerves as steady as the steel of the great bridge, but that night after the shock he had sustained he was almost afraid to attempt to return to the shore along the planks laid between the rails. No experience that he had ever gone through had so completely unnerved him. It was then the woman who played the man's part. As he said, all she had faced was loss of life; that was a simple thing in his mind compared to the loss of her; extravagant, foolish, if you will, but true.

He blamed himself, too, for having allowed her to climb up on that gusset plate. To be sure he had tested it, but, as the event proved, he had not tested it as thoroughly as he should. Indeed, the fact that the most precious thing on earth to him, the being he loved above all else together, had been nearly killed through his lack of care, his failure absolutely to make sure, smote him terribly. He strove, at first vainly, to control himself, but presently by the exercise of as iron a constraint as was ever imposed on nerves by the will of man, he succeeded in attaining some degree of composure.

After that wild embrace, that first rapturous meeting of lips, he had released her slightly, though he still held her closely and she had been quite content to be so arm-encircled and await his further pleasure.

"I'm quite calm, now," he began, "that is, I have mastered that awful horror and the nervous shock that came upon me when I saw you sliding away, and I am as composed as any man could be who is holding you in his arms."

"It's all over now, there is nothing to reproach yourself with. I am safe, thanks to you. I should not have ventured, anyway."

"Yes, but if it had not been for me you would never have been in danger. It was my fault. I should have made sure. I shall never forgive myself."

"But I forgive you gladly because I shall never forget that if I had not been in danger I might not now be here in your arms."

"Oh," exclaimed the man, "how sweetly you put it--nevertheless----"

"And if I were not here," she went on swiftly, too happy in her love to be mindful of anything else, "I certainly would not be doing--this."

And of her own motion she kissed him in the moonlight.

"And if you were not doing this," said he, making the proper return, "I might not have had the courage to tell you."

"You haven't told me anything--in words," she answered, fain to hear from his lips what she well knew from the beating of his heart.

"It's not too late then to tell you that I love you, that I am yours. To give myself to you seems to be the highest possibility in life, if you will only take me."

"And do you love me more than the bridge?"

"More than all the bridges in the world, past, present and to come; more than anything or anybody. I tell you I never knew what love was or what life was until I saw you sliding to your death."

Sometimes only death opens the eyes to the meaning of life.

"I'm glad I fell just as far as I did."

"One foot more and you would have been in the river."

"As it was I stopped just at the level of your heart."

"Yes, thank God."

"And your own quickness and noble strength."

"I thought I was too late when we trembled on yonder verge."

"Do you know you actually hurt me when you swept me so roughly to you, not but that there are some pains that surpass all joys."

"There was no time for gentle measures."

"I know, and I knew I was safe when you caught me. Somehow I expected you would do it. I knew that you would not let me fall."

"If I had not succeeded I should have followed you."

"I felt that, too," she answered dreamily.

"We must go back, dearest," he said at last, "I am so fearful for you even now that I am almost unwilling to try it. Every time I glance down through these interspaces between the stringers my blood runs cold."

"You supported me before; I will support you now," laughed the woman.

"No," said the man, "we will go together."

They turned toward the shore. He took her hand and slipped his other arm about her just as simply and naturally as if they had been any humble lover and his lass in the countryside.

"No place on earth will ever be what this bridge is to me," said the woman. "I knew you loved me, of course, at least I hoped so; at any rate I knew that I loved you----"

"I never dared dream that you could."

"But here the words were first spoken, here you first took me to your heart, here you kissed me first." She stopped and he with her, she flung her free hand up in the air. The moonlight fell softly upon her sweetly rounded arm. "Oh, beautiful bridge, oh, exquisite creation of stone and steel, you have gives my lover to me. The wind will never blow through you, the moon will never shine upon you without recalling that," she cried rapturously. She waited a moment while his heart whispered amen. "Let us go," she said reluctantly enough, loath to leave the place where death had stretched out his hand and love held him back.

"One more kiss," he pleaded, "and then----"

By and by they got to the end of the bridge.

"I shall carry you across the dust once again," he said as they passed out of sight of the watchman, who had seen the falling plate and heard it splash into the river; but being a discreet man and realizing that the engineer and the woman were safe he had made no outcry. Meade thereafter properly rewarded him for his discretion.

This time he held her differently. This time she slipped her arm about his neck and laid her head upon his breast and he carried her as he might have carried a child. When he set her down on the station platform, now quite deserted, they both discovered first that she had lost the light wrap that had shrouded her bare shoulders and next that in the violence with which he had seized her as she fell, the skirt of her dress, which had caught on a piece of steel, had been rent and torn. It did not affect her appearance, in fact in that moonlight, she looked positively heavenly to him at least.

Far down the platform they could see the lights of the car.

"Listen," she said as they walked slowly along. "You must not tell father anything about this little accident."

"I obey, but why not?"

"It would only worry him, and it was my fault."

"No, mine."

"I will not hear you say it."

"But I must speak to your father about----"

"And the sooner the better; he is in good humor with you and the bridge now. I have heard him speak well of you. He is intensely American and he has never been anxious to have me marry any foreign title, or even the fortune hunters of our own country who have wooed me. I believe he will be glad to give me to you."

"And if not?"

"I should hate to grieve my father, but----"

She turned and looked at him in the moonlight, her glorious golden head, her neck, her shoulders, her arms bare and beautiful in the celestial illumination which gave to the warm flesh a touch of coldness, and mingled purity with the passion she inspired and exhibited which made it almost holy in both their hearts.

He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips as a devotee, and she understood the reason for the little touch of old-world formality and reserve, when nought but his will prevented him from taking her to his heart and making her lips, her eyes, her face, his own.

"Now may God deal with me as I deal with you," he said fervently, "if I ever fail at least to try with all my heart and soul and strength to measure up to your sweetness and light."

"My prayer for myself, too," she whispered. "You need it not."

"You must wait here," she said, deeply touched, as they had now reached the steps of the car, "until I have changed my dress; father would notice, anybody would, that tear. When I have finished I will come back to you and then we will seek him and tell him."

Accordingly Meade stood obediently waiting outside the car in the shadow it cast. There was no one about. The servants had gone to bed. The porter of the car was nodding in his quarters waiting for the time to turn out the lights. The engineer had the long platform all to himself. After a time he chose to walk quietly up and down, thinking. The future looked very fair to him. To be sure he had nearly lost the woman he loved in the river, and it had been his fault. He overlooked the fact that she had disregarded his caution and stepped forward. But after all she had not fallen. He had caught her on the very brink. He could remember, he never would forget, those seconds, like hours, when he stood trembling, even swaying, upon the very edge of the bridge, with practically nothing but his precarious foothold between the two of them and the awful plunge into the river two hundred feet below. He could not think how he managed to retain his balance and draw her back with him, away from that perilous standing place; but he had done so and the result had been the confession which he had dared to make and to which she had vouchsafed that blessed return.

If only her father could see in him any fitness to be trusted with so priceless a treasure all would be well. Meade had never made a failure in his life, except in small ways which had only been of sufficient importance to teach him to cope with greater difficulties. His career had been practically one unbroken success. He had acquired a remarkably fine reputation for so young a man in his profession and he had gained it, not only because of his father's great eminence, but in spite of it; for the paternal renown had been something of a handicap in that he had at least been compelled to live up to it.

There are few tasks so hard as living up to a reputation, unless it is living one down. He was about to fall heir to such of his father's business and prestige as the one could transfer and the other take up. The great bridge was rising grandly and even he would share in the fame that it would bring to its designer. His forebodings had been unwarranted, his father's reasoning abundantly justified. He was glad. The woman he loved returned his affection. When she might have had anyone in the world she took--him! If only her father----