Just then the fiery eye of the oncoming train burst from the tunnel ahead.
Instinctively, the young man caught his companion's arm and drew her
forward to the embankment beyond the bridge, holding her, startled and
trembling, as the screaming train tore past them.

The pent black smoke from the tunnel rolled in a thick cloud about them,
stifling them. The girl, dazed with the roar and blinded by the smoke,
could only cling to her protector. For an instant they felt as if they
were about to be drawn into the awful power of the rushing monster. Then
it had passed, and a roar of silence followed, as if they were suddenly
plunged into a vacuum. Gradually the noises of the world began again: the
rumble of a trolley-car on the bridge; the "honk-honk" of an automobile;
the cry of a newsboy. Slowly their breath and their senses came back.

The man's first thought was to get out of the cut before another train
should come. He grasped his companion's arm and started up the steep
embankment, realizing as he did so that the wrist he held was slender, and
that the sleeve which covered it was of the finest cloth.

They struggled up, scarcely pausing for breath. The steps at the side of
the bridge, made for the convenience of railroad hands, were out of the
question, for they were at a dizzy height, and hung unevenly over the
yawning pit where trains shot constantly back and forth.

As they emerged from the dark, the man saw that his companion was a young
and beautiful woman, and that she wore a light cloth gown, with neither
hat nor gloves.

At the top of the embankment they paused, and the girl, with her hand at
her throat, looked backward with a shudder. She seemed like a young bird