You have made us happy for the rest of our lives."
The train moved out with a quick, heavy rush, and the car-wheels took
up the young stranger's last words and seemed to say, "You have made
us happy--made us happy for the rest of our lives."
It had all come about so rapidly that the Plunger had had no time to
consider or to weigh his motives, and all that seemed real to him now,
as he stood alone on the platform of the dark, deserted station, were
the words of the man echoing and re-echoing like the refrain of the
song. And then there came to him suddenly, and with all the force of a
gambler's superstition, the thought that the words were the same as
those which his father had used in his letter, "you can make us happy
for the rest of our lives."
"Ah," he said, with a quick gasp of doubt, "if I could! If I made
those poor fools happy, mayn't I live to be something to him, and to
her? O God!" he cried, but so gently that one at his elbow could not
have heard him, "if I could, if I could!"
He tossed up his hands, and drew them down again and clenched them in
front of him, and raised his tired, hot eyes to the calm purple sky
with its millions of moving stars. "Help me!" he whispered fiercely,
"help me.
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