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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:56 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:56 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12891-0.txt b/12891-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e93d40c --- /dev/null +++ b/12891-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9608 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12891 *** + +RUNNING WATER + +by + +A. E. W. MASON + +Author of _The Four Feathers_, etc. + +1907 + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + II INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + III THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + IV MR. JARVICE + + V MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + VI THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + VII THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE + + VIII SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + IX SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + X A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + XI SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + XII THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + XIII CHAYNE RETURNS + + XIV AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + XV KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + XVI AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + XVII SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + +XVIII BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + XIX THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + XX ON THE DOWN + + XXI CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + XXII REVAILLOUD REVISITED + +XXIII MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S _FÃœHRBUCH_ + + XXIV THE BRENVA RIDGE + + XXV A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + XXVI RUNNING WATER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + +The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few +minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with +a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one +regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the +coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her +compartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep. The noise of a train had no unrest +for her. Indeed, a sleeping compartment in a Continental express was the +most permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had possessed for a good many +more years than she would have cared to acknowledge. She spent her life +in hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered companion. From a winter +in Vienna or in Rome she passed to a spring at Venice or at +Constantinople, thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at the +bathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in Paris again. But always +she came back to the sleeping-car. It was the one familiar room which was +always ready for her; and though the prospect from its windows changed, +it was the one room she knew which had always the same look, the same +cramped space, the same furniture--the one room where, the moment she +stepped into it, she was at home. + +Yet on this particular journey she woke while it was yet dark. A noise +slight in comparison to the clatter of the train, but distinct in +character and quite near, told her at once what had disturbed her. Some +one was moving stealthily in the compartment--her daughter. That was all. +But Mrs. Thesiger lay quite still, and, as would happen to her at times, +a sudden terror gripped her by the heart. She heard the girl beneath her, +dressing very quietly, subduing the rustle of her garments, even the +sound of her breathing. + +"How much does she know?" Mrs. Thesiger asked of herself; and her heart +sank and she dared not answer. + +The rustling ceased. A sharp click was heard, and the next moment through +a broad pane of glass a faint twilight crept into the carriage. The blind +had been raised from one of the windows. It was two o'clock on a morning +of July and the dawn was breaking. Very swiftly the daylight broadened, +and against the window there came into view the profile of a girl's head +and face. Seen as Mrs. Thesiger saw it, with the light still dim behind +it, it was black like an ancient daguerreotype. It was also as motionless +and as grave. + +"How much does she know?" + +The question would thrust itself into the mother's thoughts. She watched +her daughter intently from the dark corner where her head lay, thinking +that with the broadening of the day she might read the answer in that +still face. But she read nothing even when every feature was revealed in +the clear dead light, for the face which she saw was the face of one who +lived much apart within itself, building amongst her own dreams as a +child builds upon the sand and pays no heed to those who pass. And to +none of her dreams had Mrs. Thesiger the key. Deliberately her daughter +had withdrawn herself amongst them, and they had given her this return +for her company. They had kept her fresh and gentle in a circle where +freshness was soon lost and gentleness put aside. + +Sylvia Thesiger was at this time seventeen, although her mother dressed +her to look younger, and even then overdressed her like a toy. It was of +a piece with the nature of the girl that, in this matter as in the rest, +she made no protest. She foresaw the scene, the useless scene, which +would follow upon her protest, exclamations against her ingratitude, +abuse for her impertinence, and very likely a facile shower of tears at +the end; and her dignity forbade her to enter upon it. She just let her +mother dress her as she chose, and she withdrew just a little more into +the secret chamber of her dreams. She sat now looking steadily out of the +window, with her eyes uplifted and aloof, in a fashion which had become +natural to her, and her mother was seized with a pang of envy at the +girl's beauty. For beauty Sylvia Thesiger had, uncommon in its quality +rather than in its degree. From the temples to the round point of her +chin the contour of her face described a perfect oval. Her forehead was +broad and low and her hair, which in color was a dark chestnut, parted in +the middle, whence it rippled in two thick daring waves to the ears, a +fashion which noticeably became her, and it was gathered behind into a +plait which lay rather low upon the nape of her neck. Her eyes were big, +of a dark gray hue and very quiet in their scrutiny; her mouth, small and +provoking. It provoked, when still, with the promise of a very winning +smile, and the smile itself was not so frequent but that it provoked a +desire to summon it to her lips again. It had a way of hesitating, as +though Sylvia were not sure whether she would smile or not; and when she +had made up her mind, it dimpled her cheeks and transfigured her whole +face, and revealed in her tenderness and a sense of humor. Her complexion +was pale, but clear, her figure was slender and active, but without +angularities, and she was of the middle height. Yet the quality which the +eye first remarked in her was not so much her beauty, as a certain +purity, a look almost of the Madonna, a certainty, one might say, that +even in the circle in which she moved, she had kept herself unspotted +from the world. + +Thus she looked as she sat by the carriage window. But as the train drew +near to Ambérieu, the air brightened and the sunlight ministered to her +beauty like a careful handmaid, touching her pale cheeks to a rosy +warmth, giving a luster to her hair, and humanizing her to a smile. Sylvia +sat forward a little, as though to meet the sunlight, then she turned +toward the carriage and saw her mother's eyes intently watching her. + +"You are awake?" she said in surprise. + +"Yes, child. You woke me." + +"I am very sorry. I was as quiet as I could be. I could not sleep." + +"Why?" Mrs. Thesiger repeated the question with insistence. "Why couldn't +you sleep?" + +"We are traveling to Chamonix," replied Sylvia. "I have been thinking of +it all night," and though she smiled in all sincerity, Mrs. Thesiger +doubted. She lay silent for a little while. Then she said, with a +detachment perhaps slightly too marked: + +"We left Trouville in a hurry yesterday, didn't we?" + +"Yes," replied Sylvia, "I suppose we did," and she spoke as though this +was the first time that she had given the matter a thought. + +"Trouville was altogether too hot," said Mrs. Thesiger; and again silence +followed. But Mrs. Thesiger was not content. "How much does she know?" +she speculated again, and was driven on to find an answer. She raised +herself upon her elbow, and while rearranging her pillow said carelessly: + +"Sylvia, our last morning at Trouville you were reading a book which +seemed to interest you very much." + +"Yes." + +Sylvia volunteered no information about that book. + +"You brought it down to the sands. So I suppose you never noticed a +strange-looking couple who passed along the deal boards just in front of +us." Mrs. Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her pillow. But +during that movement her eyes had never left her daughter's face. "A +middle-aged man with stiff gray hair, a stiff, prim face, and a figure +like a ramrod. Oh, there never was anything so stiff." A noticeable +bitterness began to sound in her voice and increased as she went on. +"There was an old woman with him as precise and old-fashioned as himself. +But you didn't see them? I never saw anything so ludicrous as that +couple, austere and provincial as their clothes, walking along the deal +boards between the rows of smart people." Mrs. Thesiger laughed as she +recalled the picture. "They must have come from the Provinces. I could +imagine them living in a chateau on a hill overlooking some tiny village +in--where shall we say?" She hesitated for a moment, and then with an air +of audacity she shot the word from her lips--"in Provence." + +The name, however, had evidently no significance for Sylvia, and Mrs. +Thesiger was relieved of her fears. + +"But you didn't see them," she repeated, with a laugh. + +"Yes, I did," said Sylvia, and brought her mother up on her elbow again. +"It struck me that the old lady must be some great lady of a past day. +The man bowed to you and--" + +She stopped abruptly, but her mother completed the sentence with a +vindictiveness she made little effort to conceal. + +"And the great lady did not, but stared in the way great ladies have. +Yes, I had met the man--once--in Paris," and she lay back again upon her +pillow, watching her daughter. But Sylvia showed no curiosity and no +pain. It was not the first time when people passed her mother that she +had seen the man bow and the woman ignore. Rather she had come to expect +it. She took her book from her berth and opened it. + +Mrs. Thesiger was satisfied. Sylvia clearly did not suspect that it was +just the appearance of that stiff, old-fashioned couple which had driven +her out of Trouville a good month before her time--her, Mrs. Thesiger of +the many friends. She fell to wondering what in the world had brought +M. de Camours and his mother to that watering place amongst the brilliant +and the painted women. She laughed again at the odd picture they had +made, and her thoughts went back over twenty years to the time when she +had been the wife of M. de Camours in the château overlooking the village +in Provence, and M. de Camours' mother had watched her with an unceasing +jealousy. Much had happened since those days. Madame de Camours' +watchings had not been in vain, a decree had been obtained from the Pope +annulling the marriage. Much had happened. But even after twenty years +the memory of that formal life in the Provencal château was vivid enough; +and Mrs. Thesiger yawned. Then she laughed. Monsieur de Camours and his +mother had always been able to make people yawn. + +"So you are glad that we are going to Chamonix, Sylvia--so glad that you +couldn't sleep?" + +"Yes." + +It sounded rather unaccountable to Mrs. Thesiger, but then Sylvia was to +her a rather unaccountable child. She turned her face to the wall and +fell asleep. + +Sylvia's explanation, however, happened to be true. Chamonix meant the +great range of Mont Blanc, and Sylvia Thesiger had the passion for +mountains in her blood. The first appearance of their distant snows +stirred her as no emotion ever had, so that she came to date her life by +these appearances rather than by the calendar of months and days. The +morning when from the hotel windows at Glion she had first seen the twin +peaks of the Dent du Midi towering in silver high above a blue corner of +the Lake of Geneva, formed one memorable date. Once, too, in the +winter-time, as the Rome express stopped at three o'clock in the morning +at the frontier on the Italian side of the Mont Cenis tunnel, she had +carefully lifted the blind on the right-hand side of the sleeping +compartment and had seen a great wall of mountains tower up in a clear +frosty moonlight from great buttresses of black rock to delicate +pinnacles of ice soaring infinite miles away into a cloudless sky of +blue. She had come near to tears that night as she looked from the +window; such a tumult of vague longings rushed suddenly in upon her and +uplifted her. She was made aware of dim uncomprehended thoughts stirring +in the depths of her being, and her soul was drawn upward to those +glittering spires, as to enchanted magnets. Ever afterward Sylvia looked +forward, through weeks, to those few moments in her mother's annual +itinerary, and prayed with all her heart that the night might be clear of +mist and rain. + +She sat now at the window with no thought of Trouville or their hurried +flight. With each throb of the carriage-wheels the train flashed nearer +to Chamonix. She opened the book which lay upon her lap--the book in +which she had been so interested when Monsieur de Camours and his mother +passed her by. It was a volume of the "Alpine Journal," more than twenty +years old, and she could not open it but some exploit of the pioneers +took her eyes, some history of a first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Such +a history she read now. She was engrossed in it, and yet at times a +little frown of annoyance wrinkled her forehead. She gave an explanation +of her annoyance; for once she exclaimed half aloud, "Oh, if only he +wouldn't be so _funny_!" The author was indeed being very funny, and to +her thinking never so funny as when the narrative should have been most +engrossing. She was reading the account of the first ascent of an +aiguille in the Chamonix district, held by guides to be impossible and +conquered at last by a party of amateurs. In spite of its humor Sylvia +Thesiger was thrilled by it. She envied the three men who had taken part +in that ascent, envied them their courage, their comradeship, their +bivouacs in the open air beside glowing fires, on some high shelf of +rock above the snows. But most of all her imagination was touched by the +leader of that expedition, the man who sometimes alone, sometimes in +company, had made sixteen separate attacks upon that peak. He stared +from the pages of the volume--Gabriel Strood. Something of his great +reach of limb, of his activity, of his endurance, she was able to +realize. Moreover he had a particular blemish which gave to him a +particular interest in her eyes, for it would have deterred most men +altogether from his pursuit and it greatly hampered him. And yet in +spite of it, he had apparently for some seasons stood prominent in the +Alpine fraternity. Gabriel Strood was afflicted with a weakness in the +muscles of one thigh. Sylvia, according to her custom, began to picture +him, began to talk with him. + +She wondered whether he was glad to have reached that summit, or whether +he was not on the whole rather sorry--sorry for having lost out of his +life a great and never-flagging interest. She looked through the +subsequent papers in the volume, but could find no further mention of his +name. She perplexed her fancies that morning. She speculated whether +having made this climb he had stopped and climbed no more; or whether he +might not get out of this very train on to the platform at Chamonix. But +as the train slowed down near to Annemasse, she remembered that the +exploit of which she had read had taken place more than twenty years ago. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + +But though Gabriel Strood occupied no seat in that train, one of his +successors was traveling by it to Chamonix after an absence of four +years. Of those four years Captain Chayne had passed the last two among +the coal-stacks of Aden, with the yellow land of Arabia at his back, +longing each day for this particular morning, and keeping his body lithe +and strong against its coming. He left the train at Annemasse, and +crossing the rails to the buffet, sat down at the table next to that +which Mrs. Thesiger and her daughter already occupied. + +He glanced at them, placed them in their category, and looked away, +utterly uninterested. They belonged to the great class of the continental +wanderers, people of whom little is known and everything +suspected--people with no kinsfolk, who flit from hotel to hotel and +gather about them for a season the knowing middle-aged men and the +ignorant young ones, and perhaps here and there an unwary woman deceived +by the more than fashionable cut of their clothes. The mother he put down +as nearer forty than thirty, and engaged in a struggle against odds to +look nearer twenty than thirty. The daughter's face Chayne could not see, +for it was bent persistently over a book. But he thought of a big doll in +a Christmas toy-shop. From her delicate bronze shoes to her large hat of +mauve tulle everything that she wore was unsuitable. The frock with its +elaborations of lace and ribbons might have passed on the deal boards of +Trouville. Here at Annemasse her superfineness condemned her. + +Chayne would have thought no more of her, but as he passed her table on +his way out of the buffet his eyes happened to fall on the book which so +engrossed her. There was a diagram upon the page with which he was +familiar. She was reading an old volume of the "Alpine Journal." Chayne +was puzzled--there was so marked a contradiction between her outward +appearance and her intense absorption in such a subject as Alpine +adventure. He turned at the door and looked back. Sylvia Thesiger had +raised her head and was looking straight at him. Thus their eyes met, and +did more than meet. + +Chayne, surprised as he had been by the book which she was reading, was +almost startled by the gentle and rather wistful beauty of the face which +she now showed to him. He had been prepared at the best for a fresh +edition of the mother's worn and feverish prettiness. What he saw was +distinct in quality. It seemed to him that an actual sympathy and +friendliness looked out from her dark and quiet eyes, as though by +instinct she understood with what an eager exultation he set out upon his +holiday. Sylvia, indeed, living as she did within herself, was inclined +to hero-worship naturally; and Chayne was of the type to which, to some +extent through contrast with the run of her acquaintance, she gave a high +place in her thoughts. A spare, tall man, clear-eyed and clean of +feature, with a sufficient depth of shoulder and wonderfully light of +foot, he had claimed her eyes the moment that he entered the buffet. +Covertly she had watched him, and covertly she had sympathized with the +keen enjoyment which his brown face betrayed. She had no doubts in her +mind as to the intention of his holiday; and as their eyes met now +involuntarily, a smile began to hesitate upon her lips. Then she became +aware of the buffet, and her ignorance of the man at whom she looked, +and, with a sudden mortification, of her own over-elaborate appearance. +Her face flushed, and she lowered it again somewhat quickly to the pages +of her book. But it was as though for a second they had spoken. + +Chayne, however, forgot Sylvia Thesiger. As the train moved on to Le +Fayet he was thinking only of the plans which he had made, of the new +expeditions which were to be undertaken, of his friend John Lattery and +his guide Michel Revailloud who would be waiting for him upon the +platform of Chamonix. He had seen neither of them for four years. The +electric train carried the travelers up from Le Fayet. The snow-ridges +and peaks came into view; the dirt-strewn Glacier des Bossons shot out a +tongue of blue ice almost to the edge of the railway track, and a few +minutes afterward the train stopped at the platform of Chamonix. + +Chayne jumped down from his carriage and at once suffered the first of +his disappointments. Michel Revailloud was on the platform to meet +him, but it was a Michel Revailloud whom he hardly knew, a Michel +Revailloud grown very old. Revailloud was only fifty-two years of age, +but during Chayne's absence the hardships of his life had taken their +toll of his vigor remorselessly. Instead of the upright, active figure +which Chayne so well remembered, he saw in front of him a little man +with bowed shoulders, red-rimmed eyes, and a withered face seamed with +tiny wrinkles. + +At this moment, however, Michel's pleasure at once more seeing his old +patron gave to him at all events some look of his former alertness, and +as the two men shook hands he cried: + +"Monsieur, but I am glad to see you! You have been too long away from +Chamonix. But you have not changed. No, you have not changed." + +In his voice there was without doubt a note of wistfulness. "I would I +could say as much for myself." That regret was as audible to Chayne as +though it had been uttered. But he closed his ears to it. He began to +talk eagerly of his plans. There were familiar peaks to be climbed again +and some new expeditions to be attempted. + +"I thought we might try a new route up the Aiguille sans Nom," he +suggested, and Michel assented but slowly, without the old heartiness and +without that light in his face which the suggestion of something new used +always to kindle. But again Chayne shut his ears. + +"I was very lucky to find you here," he went on cheerily. "I wrote so +late that I hardly hoped for it." + +Michel replied with some embarrassment: + +"I do not climb with every one, monsieur. I hoped perhaps that one of my +old patrons would want me. So I waited." + +Chayne looked round the platform for his friend. + +"And Monsieur Lattery?" he asked. + +The guide's face lit up. + +"Monsieur Lattery? Is he coming too? It will be the old days once more." + +"Coming? He is here now. He wrote to me from Zermatt that he +would be here." + +Revailloud shook his head. + +"He is not in Chamonix, monsieur." + +Chayne experienced his second disappointment that morning, and it quite +chilled him. He had come prepared to walk the heights like a god in the +perfection of enjoyment for just six weeks. And here was his guide grown +old; and his friend, the comrade of so many climbs, so many bivouacs +above the snow-line, had failed to keep his tryst. + +"Perhaps there will be a letter from him at Couttet's," said Chayne, and +the two men walked through the streets to the hotel. There was no letter, +but on the other hand there was a telegram. Chayne tore it open. + +"Yes it's from Lattery," he said, as he glanced first at the signature. +Then he read the telegram and his face grew very grave. Lattery +telegraphed from Courmayeur, the Italian village just across the chain of +Mont Blanc: + +"Starting now by Col du Géant and Col des Nantillons." + +The Col du Géant is the most frequented pass across the chain, and no +doubt the easiest. Once past its great ice-fall, the glacier leads +without difficulty to the Montanvert hotel and Chamonix. But the Col des +Nantillons is another affair. Having passed the ice-fall, and when within +two hours of the Montanvert, Lattery had turned to the left and had made +for the great wall of precipitous rock which forms the western side of +the valley through which the Glacier du Géant flows down, the wall from +which spring the peaks of the Dent du Requin, the Aiguille du Plan, the +Aiguille de Blaitière, the Grépon and the Charmoz. Here and there the +ridge sinks between the peaks, and one such depression between the +Aiguille de Blaitière and the Aiguille du Grépon is called the Col des +Nantillons. To cross that pass, to descend on the other side of the great +rock-wall into that bay of ice facing Chamonix, which is the Glacier des +Nantillons, had been Lattery's idea. + +Chayne turned to the porter. + +"When did this come?" + +"Three days ago." + +The gravity on Chayne's face changed into a deep distress. Lattery's +party would have slept out one night certainly. They would have made a +long march from Courmayeur and camped on the rocks at the foot of the +pass. It was likely enough that they should have been caught upon that +rock-wall by night upon the second day. The rock-wall had never been +ascended, and the few who had descended it bore ample testimony to its +difficulties. But a third night, no! Lattery should have been in Chamonix +yesterday, without a doubt. He would not indeed have food for three +nights and days. + +Chayne translated the telegram into French and read it out to Michel +Revailloud. + +"The Col des Nantillons," said Michel, with a shake of the head, and +Chayne saw the fear which he felt himself looking out from his +guide's eyes. + +"It is possible," said Michel, "that Monsieur Lattery did not start +after all." + +"He would have telegraphed again." + +"Yes," Michel agreed. "The weather has been fine too. There have been no +fogs. Monsieur Lattery could not have lost his way." + +"Hardly in a fog on the Glacier du Géant," replied Chayne. + +Michel Revailloud caught at some other possibility. + +"Of course, some small accident--a sprained ankle--may have detained him +at the hut on the Col du Géant. Such things have happened. It will be as +well to telegraph to Courmayeur." + +"Why, that's true," said Chayne, and as they walked to the post-office he +argued more to convince himself than Michel Revailloud. "It's very +likely--some quite small accident--a sprained ankle." But the moment +after he had sent the telegram, and when he and Michel stood again +outside the post-office, the fear which was in him claimed utterance. + +"The Col des Nantillons is a bad place, Michel, that's the truth. Had +Lattery been detained in the hut he would have found means to send us +word. In weather like this, that hut would be crowded every night; every +day there would be some one coming from Courmayeur to Chamonix. No! I am +afraid of the steep slabs of that rock-wall." + +And Michael Revailloud said slowly: + +"I, too, monsieur. It is a bad place, the Col des Nantillons; it is not a +quick way or a good way to anywhere, and it is very dangerous. And yet I +am not sure. Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rocks. Ice, that is +another thing. But he would be on rock." + +It was evident that Michel was in doubt, but it seemed that Chayne could +not force himself to share it. + +"You had better get quietly together what guides you can, Michel," he +said. "By the time a rescue party is made up the answer will have come +from Courmayeur." + +Chayne walked slowly back to the hotel. All those eager anticipations +which had so shortened his journey this morning, which during the last +two years had so often raised before his eyes through the shimmering heat +of the Red Sea cool visions of ice-peaks and sharp spires of rock, had +crumbled and left him desolate. Anticipations of disaster had taken their +place. He waited in the garden of the hotel at a spot whence he could +command the door and the little street leading down to it. But for an +hour no messenger came from the post-office. Then, remembering that a +long sad work might be before him, he went into the hotel and +breakfasted. It was twelve o'clock and the room was full. He was shown a +place amongst the other newcomers at one of the long tables, and he did +not notice that Sylvia Thesiger sat beside him. He heard her timid +request for the salt, and passed it to her; but he did not speak, he did +not turn; and when he pushed back his chair and left the room, he had no +idea who had sat beside him, nor did he see the shadow of disappointment +on her face. It was not until later in the afternoon when at last the +blue envelope was brought to him. He tore it open and read the answer of +the hotel proprietor at Courmayeur: + +"Lattery left four days ago with one guide for Col du Géant." + +He was standing by the door of the hotel, and looking up he saw Michel +Revailloud and a small band of guides, all of whom carried ice-axes and +some _Rücksacks_ on their backs, and ropes, come tramping down the +street toward him. + +Michel Revailloud came close to his side and spoke with excitement. + +"He has been seen, monsieur. It must have been Monsieur Lattery with his +one guide. There were two of them," and Chayne interrupted him quickly. + +"Yes, there were two," he said, glancing at his telegram. "Where were +they seen?" + +"High up, monsieur, on the rocks of the Blaitiere. Here, Jules"; and in +obedience to Michel's summons, a young brown-bearded guide stepped out +from the rest. He lifted his hat and told his story: + +"It was on the Mer de Glace, monsieur, the day before yesterday. I was +bringing a party back from the Jardin, and just by the Moulin I saw two +men very high up on the cliffs of the Blaitiere. I was astonished, for I +had never seen any one upon those cliffs before. But I was quite sure. +None of my party could see them, it is true, but I saw them clearly. They +were perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge between the Blaitiere and +the Grépon and to the left of the Col." + +"What time was this?" + +"Four o'clock in the afternoon." + +"Yes," said Chayne. The story was borne out by the telegram. Leaving +Courmayeur early, Lattery and his guide would have slept the night on +the rocks at the foot of the Blaitiere, they would have climbed all +the next day and at four o'clock had reached within two hundred feet +of the ridge, within two hundred feet of safety. Somewhere within +those last two hundred feet the fatal slip had been made; or perhaps a +stone had fallen. + +"For how long did you watch them?" asked Chayne. + +"For a few minutes only. My party was anxious to get back to Chamonix. +But they seemed in no difficulty, monsieur. They were going well." + +Chayne shook his head at the hopeful words and handed his telegram to +Michel Revailloud. + +"The day before yesterday they were on the rocks of the Blaitière," he +said. "I think we had better go up to the Mer de Glace and look for them +at the foot of the cliffs." + +"Monsieur, I have eight guides here and two will follow in the evening +when they come home. We will send three of them, as a precaution, up the +Mer de Glace. But I do not think they will find Monsieur Lattery there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I believe Monsieur Lattery has made the first passage of the +Col des Nantillons from the east," he said, with a peculiar solemnity. "I +think we must look for them on the western side of the pass, in the +crevasses of the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Surely not," cried Chayne. True, the Glacier des Nantillons in places +was steep. True, there were the séracs--those great slabs and pinnacles +of ice set up on end and tottering, high above, where the glacier curved +over a brow of rock and broke--one of them might have fallen. But Lattery +and he had so often ascended and descended that glacier on the way to the +Charmoz and the Grépon and the Plan. He could not believe his friend had +come to harm that way. + +Michel, however, clung to his opinion. + +"The worst part of the climb was over," he argued. "The very worst pitch, +monsieur, is at the very beginning when you leave the glacier, and then +it is very bad again half way up when you descend into a gully; but +Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rock, and having got so high, I think +he would have climbed the last rocks with his guide." + +Michel spoke with so much certainty that even in the face of his +telegram, in the face of the story which Jules had told, hope sprang up +within Chayne's heart. + +"Then he may be still up there on some ledge. He would surely not have +slipped on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +That hope, however, was not shared by Michel Revailloud. + +"There is very little snow this year," he said. "The glaciers are +uncovered as I have never seen them in all my life. Everywhere it is ice, +ice, ice. Monsieur Lattery had only one guide with him and he was not so +sure on ice. I am afraid, monsieur, that he slipped out of his steps on +the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"And dragged his guide with him?" exclaimed Chayne. His heart rather than +his judgment protested against the argument. It seemed to him disloyal to +believe it. A man should not slip from his steps on the Glacier des +Nantillons. He turned toward the door. + +"Very well," he said. "Send three guides up the Mer de Glace. We will go +up to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He went up to his room, fetched his ice-ax and a new club-rope with the +twist of red in its strands, and came down again. The rumor of an +accident had spread. A throng of tourists stood about the door and +surrounded the group of guides, plying them with questions. One or two +asked Chayne as he came out on what peak the accident had happened. He +did not reply. He turned to Michel Revailloud and forgetful for the +moment that he was in Chamonix, he uttered the word so familiar in the +High Alps, so welcome in its sound. + +"_Vorwärts_, Michel," he said, and the word was the Open Sesame to a +chamber which he would gladly have kept locked. There was work to do +now; there would be time afterward to remember--too long a time. But in +spite of himself his recollections rushed tumultuously upon him. Up to +these last four years, on some day in each July his friend and he had +been wont to foregather at some village in the Alps, Lattery coming from +a Government Office in Whitehall, Chayne now from some garrison town in +England, now from Malta or from Alexandria, and sometimes from a still +farther dependency. Usually they had climbed together for six weeks, +although there were red-letter years when the six weeks were extended to +eight, six weeks during which they lived for the most part on the high +level of the glaciers, sleeping in huts, or mountain inns, or beneath +the stars, and coming down only for a few hours now and then into the +valley towns. _Vorwärts_! The months of their comradeship seemed to him +epitomized in the word. The joy and inspiration of many a hard climb +came back, made bitter with regret for things very pleasant and now done +with forever. Nights on some high ledge, sheltered with rocks and set in +the pale glimmer of snow-fields, with a fire of brushwood lighting up +the faces of well-loved comrades; half hours passed in rock chimneys +wedged overhead by a boulder, or in snow-gullies beneath a bulge of ice, +when one man struggled above, out of sight, and the rest of the party +crouched below with what security it might waiting for the cheery cry, +"_Es geht. Vorwärts_!"; the last scramble to the summit of a virgin +peak; the swift glissade down the final snow-slopes in the dusk of the +evening with the lights of the village twinkling below; his memories +tramped by him fast and always in the heart of them his friend's face +shone before his eyes. Chayne stood for a moment dazed and bewildered. +There rose up in his mind that first helpless question of distress, +"Why?" and while he stood, his face puzzled and greatly troubled, there +fell upon his ears from close at hand a simple message of sympathy +uttered in a whisper gentle but distinct: + +"I am very sorry." + +Chayne looked up. It was the overdressed girl of the Annemasse buffet, +the girl who had seemed to understand then, who seemed to understand now. +He raised his hat to her with a sense of gratitude. Then he followed the +guides and went up among the trees toward the Glacier des Nantillons. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + +The rescue party marched upward between the trees with the measured pace +of experience. Strength which would be needed above the snow-line was not +to be wasted on the lower slopes. But on the other hand no halts were +made; steadily the file of men turned to the right and to the left and +the zigzags of the forest path multiplied behind them. The zigzags +increased in length, the trees became sparse; the rescue party came out +upon the great plateau at the foot of the peaks called the Plan des +Aiguilles, and stopped at the mountain inn built upon its brow, just over +Chamonix. The evening had come, below them the mists were creeping along +the hillsides and blotting the valley out. + +"We will stop here," said Michel Revailloud, as he stepped on to the +little platform of earth in front of the door. "If we start again at +midnight, we shall be on the glacier at daybreak. We cannot search the +Glacier des Nantillons in the dark." + +Chayne agreed reluctantly. He would have liked to push on if only to lull +thought by the monotony of their march. Moreover during these last two +hours, some faint rushlight of hope had been kindled in his mind which +made all delay irksome. He himself would not believe that his friend John +Lattery, with all his skill, his experience, had slipped from his +ice-steps like any tyro; Michel, on the other hand, would not believe +that he had fallen from the upper rocks of the Blaitière on the far side +of the Col. From these two disbeliefs his hope had sprung. It was +possible that either Lattery or his guide lay disabled, but alive and +tended, as well as might be, by his companion on some insecure ledge of +that rock-cliff. A falling stone, a slip checked by the rope might have +left either hurt but still living. It was true that for two nights and a +day the two men must have already hung upon their ledge, that a third +night was to follow. Still such endurance had been known in the annals of +the Alps, and Lattery was a hard strong man. + +A girl came from the chalet and told him that his dinner was ready. +Chayne forced himself to eat and stepped out again on to the platform. A +door opened and closed behind him. Michel Revailloud came from the +guides' quarters at the end of the chalet and stood beside him in the +darkness, saying nothing since sympathy taught him to be silent, and when +he moved moving with great gentleness. + +"I am glad, Michel, that we waited here since we had to wait," +said Chayne. + +"This chalet is new to you, monsieur. It has been built while you +were away." + +"Yes. And therefore it has no associations, and no memories. Its bare +whitewashed walls have no stories to tell me of cheery nights on the eve +of a new climb when he and I sat together for a while and talked eagerly +of the prospects of to-morrow." + +The words ceased. Chayne leaned his elbows on the wooden rail. The mists +in the valley below had been swept away; overhead the stars shone out of +an ebony sky very bright as on some clear winter night of frost, and of +all that gigantic amphitheater of mountains which circled behind them +from right to left there was hardly a hint. Perhaps here some extra cube +of darkness showed where a pinnacle soared, or there a vague whiteness +glimmered where a high glacier hung against the cliff, but for the rest +the darkness hid the mountains. A cold wind blew out of the East and +Chayne shivered. + +"You are cold, monsieur?" said Michel. "It is your first night." + +"No, I am not cold," Chayne replied, in a low and quiet voice. "But I am +thinking it will be deadly cold up there in the darkness on the rocks of +the Blaitiere." + +Michel answered him in the same quiet voice. On that broad open plateau +both men spoke indeed as though they were in a sick chamber. + +"While you were away, monsieur, three men without food sat through a +night on a steep ice-sheltered ice-slope behind us, high up on the +Aiguille du Plan, as high up as the rocks of the Blaitiere. And not one +of them came to any harm." + +"I know. I read of it," said Chayne, but he gathered little comfort from +the argument. + +Michel fumbled in his pocket and drew out a pipe. "You do not smoke any +more?" he asked. "It is a good thing to smoke." + +"I had forgotten," said Chayne. + +He filled his pipe and then took a fuse from his match-box. + +"No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he could strike it. "I +remember your fuses, monsieur." + +Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it spluttered, and frizzled, +in the hollow of his great hands. The flame burnt up. He held it first to +Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a moment his face was lit +with the red glow. Its age thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, +shocked Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on the +platform at Chamonix. Not merely were its deep lines shown up, but all +the old humor and alertness had gone. The face had grown mask-like and +spiritless. Then the match went out. + +Chayne leaned upon the rail and looked downward. A long way below him, in +the clear darkness of the valley the lights of Chamonix shone bright and +very small. Chayne had never seen them before so straight beneath him. As +he looked he began to notice them; as he noticed them, more and more they +took a definite shape. He rose upright, and pointing downward with one +hand he said in a whisper, a whisper of awe-- + +"Do you see, Michel? Do you see?" + +The great main thoroughfare ran in a straight line eastward through the +town, and, across it, intersecting it at the little square where the +guides gather of an evening, lay the other broad straight road from the +church across the river. Along those two roads the lights burned most +brightly, and thus there had emerged before Chayne's eyes a great golden +cross. It grew clearer and clearer as he looked; he looked away and then +back again, and now it leapt to view, he could not hide it from his +sight, a great cross of light lying upon the dark bosom of the valley. + +"Do you see, Michel?" + +"Yes." The answer came back very steadily. "But so it was last night +and last year. Those three men on the Plan had it before their eyes +all night. It is no sign of disaster." For a moment he was silent, and +then he added timidly: "If you look for a sign, monsieur, there is a +better one." + +Chayne turned toward Michel in the darkness rather quickly. + +"As we set out from the hotel," Michel continued, "there was a young girl +upon the steps with a very sweet and gentle face. She spoke to you, +monsieur. No doubt she told you that her prayers would be with you +to-night." + +"No, Michel," Chayne replied, and though the darkness hid his face, +Michel knew that he smiled. "She did not promise me her prayers. She +simply said: 'I am sorry.'" + +Michel Revailloud was silent for a little while, and when he spoke again, +he spoke very wistfully. One might almost have said that there was a note +of envy in his voice. + +"Well, that is still something, monsieur. You are very lonely to-night, +is it not so? You came back here after many years, eager with hopes and +plans and not thinking at all of disappointments. And the disappointments +have come, and the hopes are all fallen. Is not that so, too? Well, it is +something, monsieur--I, who am lonely too, and an old man besides, so +that I cannot mend my loneliness, I tell you--it is something that there +is a young girl down there with a sweet and gentle face who is sorry for +you, who perhaps is looking up from among those lights to where we stand +in the darkness at this moment." + +But it seemed that Chayne did not hear, or, if he heard, that he paid no +heed. And Michel, knocking the tobacco from his pipe, said: + +"You will do well to sleep. We may have a long day before us"; and he +walked away to the guides' quarters. + +But Chayne could not sleep; hope and doubt fought too strongly within +him, wrestling for the life of his friend. At twelve o'clock Michel +knocked upon his door. Chayne got up from his bed at once, drew on his +boots, and breakfasted. At half past the rescue party set out, following +a rough path through a wilderness of boulders by the light of a lantern. +It was still dark when they came to the edge of the glacier, and they sat +down and waited. In a little while the sky broke in the East, a twilight +dimly revealed the hills, Michel blew out the lantern, the blurred +figures of the guides took shape and outline, and silently the morning +dawned upon the world. + +The guides moved on to the glacier and spread over it, ascending as +they searched. + +"You see, monsieur, there is very little snow this year," said +Michel, chipping steps so that he and Chayne might round the corner +of a wide crevasse. + +"Yes, but it does not follow that he slipped," said Chayne, hotly, for +he was beginning to resent that explanation as an imputation against +his friend. + +Slowly the party moved upward over the great slope of ice into the +recess, looking for steps abruptly ending above a crevasse or for signs +of an avalanche. They came level with the lower end of a long rib of +rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise bisects the glacier. +Here the search ended for a while. The rib of rocks is the natural path, +and the guides climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier and +spread out once more, roped in couples. They were now well within the +great amphitheater. On their left the cliffs of the Charmoz overlapped +them, on the right the rocks of the Blaitière. For an hour they +advanced, cutting steps since the glacier was steep, and then from the +center of the glacier a cry rang out. Chayne at the end of the line upon +the right looked across. A little way in front of the two men who had +shouted something dark lay upon the ice. Chayne, who was with Michel +Revailloud, called to him and began hurriedly to scratch steps +diagonally toward the object. + +"Take care, monsieur," cried Michel. + +Chayne paid no heed. Coming up from behind on the left-hand side, he +passed his guide and took the lead. He could tell now what the dark +object was, for every now and then a breath of wind caught it and whirled +it about the ice. It was a hat. He raised his ax to slice a step and a +gust of wind, stronger than the others, lifted the hat, sent it rolling +and skipping down the glacier, lifted it again and gently dropped it at +his feet. He stooped down and picked it up. It was a soft broad-brimmed +hat of dark gray felt. In the crown there was the name of an English +maker. There was something more too. There were two initials--J.L. + +Chayne turned to Michel Revailloud. + +"You were right, Michel," he said, solemnly. "My friend has made the +first passage of the Col des Nantillons from the East." + +The party moved forward again, watching with redoubled vigilance for some +spot in the glacier, some spot above a crevasse, to which ice-steps +descended and from which they did not lead down. And three hundred yards +beyond a second cry rang out. A guide was standing on the lower edge of a +great crevasse with a hand upheld above his head. The searchers converged +quickly upon him. Chayne hurried forward, plying the pick of his ax as +never in his life had he plied it. Had the guide come upon the actual +place where the accident took place, he asked himself? But before he +reached the spot, his pace slackened, and he stood still. He had no +longer any doubt. His friend and his friend's guide were not lying upon +any ledge of the rocks of the Aiguille de Blaitière; they were not +waiting for any succor. + +On the glacier, a broad track, littered with blocks of ice, stretched +upward in a straight line from the upper lip of the crevasse to the great +ice-fall on the sky-line where the huge slabs and pinnacles of ice, +twisted into monstrous shapes, like a sea suddenly frozen when a tempest +was at its height, stood marshaled in serried rows. They stood waiting +upon the sun. One of them, melted at the base, had crashed down the +slope, bursting into huge fragments as it fell, and cleaving a groove +even in that hard glacier. + +Chayne went forward and stopped at the guide's side on the lower edge +of the crevasse. Beyond the chasm the ice rose in a blue straight +wall for some three feet, and the upper edge was all crushed and +battered; and then the track of the falling sérac ended. It had +poured into the crevasse. + +The guide pointed to the left of the track. + +"Do you see, monsieur? Those steps which come downward across the glacier +and stop exactly where the track meets them? They do not go on, on the +other side of the track, monsieur." + +Chayne saw clearly enough. The two men had been descending the glacier in +the afternoon, the avalanche had fallen and swept them down. He dropped +upon his knees and peered into the crevasse. The walls of the chasm +descended smooth and precipitous, changing in gradual shades and color +from pale transparent green to the darkest blue, until all color was lost +in darkness. He bent his head and shouted into the depths: + +"Lattery! Lattery!" + +And only his voice came back to him, cavernous and hollow. He shouted +again, and then he heard Michel Revailloud saying solemnly behind him: + +"Yes, they are here." + +Suddenly Chayne turned round, moved by a fierce throb of anger. + +"It's not true, you see," he cried. "He didn't slip out of his steps and +drag his guide down with him. You were wrong, Michel." + +Michel was standing with his hat in his hand. + +"Yes, monsieur, I was quite wrong," he said, gently. He turned to a big +and strong man: + +"François, will you put on the rope and go down?" + +They knotted the rope securely about François' waist and he took his +ice-ax in his hand, sat down on the edge of the crevasse with his legs +dangling, turned over upon his face and said: + +"When I pull the rope, haul in gently." + +They lowered him carefully down for sixty feet, and at that depth the +rope slackened. François had reached the bottom of the crevasse. For a +few moments they watched the rope move this way and that, and then there +came a definite pull. + +"He has found them," said Michel. + +Some of the guides lined out with the rope in their hands. Chayne took +his position in the front, at the head of the line and nearest to the +crevasse. The pull upon the rope was repeated, and slowly the men began +to haul it in. It did not occur to Chayne that the weight upon the rope +was heavy. One question filled his mind, to the exclusion of all else. +Had François found his friend? What news would he bring of them when he +came again up to the light? François' voice was heard now, faintly, +calling from the depths. But what he said could not be heard. The line of +men hauled in the rope more and more quickly and then suddenly stopped +and drew it in very gently. For they could now hear what François said. +It was but one word, persistently repeated: + +"Gently! Gently!" + +And so gently they drew him up toward the mouth of the crevasse. Chayne +was standing too far back to see down beyond the edge, but he could hear +François' ax clattering against the ice-walls, and the grating of his +boots. Michel, who was kneeling at the edge of the chasm, held up his +hand, and the men upon the rope ceased to haul. In a minute or two he +lowered it. + +"Gently," he said, "gently," gazing downward with a queer absorption. +Chayne began to hear François' labored breathing and then suddenly at the +edge of the crevasse he saw appear the hair of a man's head. + +"Up with him," cried a guide; there was a quick strong pull upon the rope +and out of the chasm, above the white level of the glacier, there +appeared a face--not François' face--but the face of a dead man. Suddenly +it rose into the colorless light, pallid and wax-like, with open, +sightless eyes and a dropped jaw, and one horrid splash of color on the +left forehead, where blood had frozen. It was the face of Chayne's +friend, John Lattery; and in a way most grotesque and horrible it bobbed +and nodded at him, as though the neck was broken and the man yet lived. +When François just below cried, "Gently! Gently," it seemed that the dead +man's mouth was speaking. + +Chayne uttered a cry; then a deathly sickness overcame him. He dropped +the rope, staggered a little way off like a drunken man and sat down upon +the ice with his head between his hands. + +Some while later a man came to him and said: + +"We are ready, monsieur." + +Chayne returned to the crevasse. Lattery's guide had been raised from the +crevasse. Both bodies had been wrapped in sacks and cords had been fixed +about their legs. The rescue party dragged the bodies down the glacier to +the path, and placing them upon doors taken from a chalet, carried them +down to Chamonix. On the way down François talked for a while to Michel +Revailloud, who in his turn fell back to where at the end of the +procession Chayne walked alone. + +"Monsieur," he said, and Chayne looked at him with dull eyes like a +man dazed. + +"There is something which François noticed, which he wished me to tell +you. François is a good lad. He wishes you to know that your friend died +at once--there was no sign of a movement. He lay in the bottom of the +crevasse in some snow which was quite smooth. The guide--he had kicked a +little with his feet in the snow--but your friend had died at once." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, without the least emotion in his voice. But he +walked with uneven steps. At times he staggered like one overdone and +very tired. But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that +he had his friend's reputation to defend: + +"You see he didn't slip on the ice, Michel. You were quite wrong. It was +the avalanche. It was no fault of his." + +"I was wrong," said Michel, and he took Chayne by the arm lest he should +fall; and these two men came long after the others into Chamonix. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. JARVICE + + +The news of Lattery's death was telegraphed to England on the same +evening. It appeared the next morning under a conspicuous head-line in +the daily newspapers, and Mr. Sidney Jarvice read the item in the Pullman +car as he traveled from Brighton to his office in London. He removed his +big cigar from his fat red lips, and became absorbed in thought. The +train rushed past Hassocks and Three Bridges and East Croydon. Mr. +Jarvice never once looked at his newspaper again. The big cigar of which +the costliness was proclaimed by the gold band about its middle had long +since gone out, and for him the train came quite unexpectedly to a stop +at the ticket platform on Battersea Bridge. + +Mr. Jarvice was a florid person in his looks and in his dress. It was in +accordance with his floridness that he always retained the gold band +about his cigar while he smoked it. He was a man of middle age, with +thick, black hair, a red, broad face, little bright, black eyes, a black +mustache and rather prominent teeth. He was short and stout, and drew +attention to his figure by wearing light-colored trousers adorned with a +striking check. From Victoria Station he drove at once to his office in +Jermyn Street. A young and wizened-looking clerk was already at work in +the outer room. + +"I will see no one this morning, Maunders," said Mr. Jarvice as he +pressed through. + +"Very well, sir. There are a good number of letters," replied the clerk. + +"They must wait," said Mr. Jarvice, and entering his private room he shut +the door. He did not touch the letters upon his table, but he went +straight to his bureau, and unlocking a drawer, took from it a copy of +the Code Napoleon. He studied the document carefully, locked it up again +and looked at his watch. It was getting on toward one o'clock. He rang +the bell for his clerk. + +"Maunders," he said, "I once asked you to make some inquiries about a +young man called Walter Hine." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Do you remember what his habits were? Where he lunched, for instance?" + +Maunders reflected for a moment. + +"It's a little while ago, sir, since I made the inquiries. As far as I +remember, he did not lunch regularly anywhere. But he went to the +American Bar of the Criterion restaurant most days for a morning drink +about one." + +"Oh, he did? You made his acquaintance, of course?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, you might find him this morning, give him some lunch, and bring +him round to see me at three. See that he is sober." + +At three o'clock accordingly Mr. Walter Hine was shown into the inner +room of Mr. Jarvice. Jarvice bent his bright eyes upon his visitor. He +saw a young man with very fair hair, a narrow forehead, watery blue eyes +and a weak, dissipated face. Walter Hine was dressed in a cheap suit of +tweed much the worse for wear, and he entered the room with the sullen +timidity of the very shy. Moreover, he was a little unsteady as he +walked, as though he had not yet recovered from last night's +intoxication. + +Mr. Jarvice noted these points with his quick glance, but whether they +pleased him or not there was no hint upon his face. + +"Will you sit down?" he said, suavely, pointing to a chair. "Maunders, +you can go." + +Walter Hine turned quickly, as though he would have preferred Maunders to +stay, but he let him go. Mr. Jarvice shut the door carefully, and, +walking across the room, stood over his visitor with his hands in his +pockets, and renewed his scrutiny. Walter Hine grew uncomfortable, and +blurted out with a cockney twang-- + +"Maunders told me that if I came to see you it might be to my advantage." + +"I think it will," replied Mr. Jarvice. "Have you seen this +morning's paper?" + +"On'y the 'Sportsman'." + +"Then you have probably not noticed that your cousin, John Lattery, has +been killed in the Alps." He handed his newspaper to Hine, who glanced at +it indifferently. + +"Well, how does that affect me?" he asked. + +"It leaves you the only heir to your uncle, Mr. Joseph Hine, wine-grower +at Macon, who, I believe, is a millionaire. Joseph Hine is domiciled in +France, and must by French law leave a certain portion of his property to +his relations, in other words, to you. I have taken some trouble to go +into the matter, Mr. Hine, and I find that your share must at the very +least amount to two hundred thousand pounds." + +"I know all about that," Hine interrupted. "But as the old brute won't +acknowledge me and may live another twenty years, it's not much use +to me now." + +"Well," said Mr. Jarvice, smiling suavely, "my young friend, that is +where I come in." + +Walter Hine looked up in surprise. Suspicion followed quickly upon +the surprise. + +"Oh, on purely business terms, of course," said Jarvice. He took a seat +and resumed gaily. "Now I am by profession--what would you guess? I am a +money-lender. Luckily for many people I have money, and I lend it--I lend +it upon very easy terms. I make no secret of my calling, Mr. Hine. On the +contrary, I glory in it. It gives me an opportunity of doing a great deal +of good in a quiet way. If I were to show you my books you would realize +that many famous estates are only kept going through my assistance; and +thus many a farm laborer owes his daily bread to me and never knows his +debt. Why should I conceal it?" + +Mr. Jarvice turned toward his visitor with his hands outspread. Then his +voice dropped. + +"There is only one thing I hide, and that, Mr. Hine, is the easiness of +the terms on which I advance my loans. I must hide that. I should have +all my profession against me were it known. But you shall know it, Mr. +Hine." He leaned forward and patted his young friend upon the knee with +an air of great benevolence. "Come, to business! Your circumstances are +not, I think, in a very flourishing condition." + +"I should think not," said Walter Hine, sullenly. "I have a hundred and +fifty a year, paid weekly. Three quid a week don't give a fellow much +chance of a flutter." + +"Three pounds a week. Ridiculous!" cried Mr. Jarvice, lifting up his +hands. "I am shocked, really shocked. But we will alter all that. Oh yes, +we will soon alter that." + +He sprang up briskly, and unlocking once more the drawer in which he kept +his copy of the Code Napoleon, he took out this time a slip of paper. He +seated himself again, drawing up his chair to the table. + +"Will you tell me, Mr. Hine, whether these particulars are correct? We +must be business-like, you know. Oh yes," he said, gaily wagging his head +and cocking his bright little eyes at his visitor. And he began to read +aloud, or rather paraphrase, the paper which he held: + +"Your father inherited the same fortune as your uncle, Joseph Hine, but +lost almost the entire amount in speculation. In middle life he married +your mother, who was--forgive me if I wound the delicacy of your +feelings, Mr. Hine--not quite his equal in social position. The happy +couple then took up their residence in Arcade Street, Croydon, where you +were born on March 6, twenty-three years ago." + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"In Croydon you passed your boyhood. You were sent to the public school +there. But the rigorous discipline of school life did not suit your +independent character." Thus did Mr. Jarvice gracefully paraphrase the +single word "expelled" which was written on his slip of paper. "Ah, Mr. +Hine," he cried, smiling indulgently at the sullen, bemused weakling who +sat before him, stale with his last night's drink. "You and Shelley! +Rebels, sir, rebels both! Well, well! After you left school, at the age +of sixteen, you pursued your studies in a desultory fashion at home. Your +father died the following year. Your mother two years later. You have +since lived in Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on the income which remained +from your father's patrimony. Three pounds a week--to be sure, here it +is--paid weekly by trustees appointed by your mother. And you have +adopted none of the liberal professions. There we have it, I think." + +"You seem to have taken a lot of trouble to find out my history," said +Walter Hine, suspiciously. + +"Business, sir, business," said Mr. Jarvice. It was on the tip of his +tongue to add, "The early bird, you know," but he was discreet enough to +hold the words back. "Now let me look to the future, which opens out in a +brighter prospect. It is altogether absurd, Mr. Hine, that a young +gentleman who will eventually inherit a quarter of a million should have +to scrape through meanwhile on three pounds a week. I put it on a higher +ground. It is bad for the State, Mr. Hine, and you and I, like good +citizens of this great empire, must consider the State. When this great +fortune comes into your hands you should already have learned how to +dispose of it." + +"Oh, I could dispose of it all right," interrupted Mr. Hine with a +chuckle. "Don't you worry your head about that." + +Mr. Jarvice laughed heartily at the joke. Walter Hine could not but think +that he had made a very witty remark. He began to thaw into something +like confidence. He sat more easily on his chair. + +"You will have your little joke, Mr. Hine. You could dispose of it! Very +good indeed! I must really tell that to my dear wife. But business, +business!" He checked his laughter with a determined effort, and lowered +his voice to a confidential pitch. "I propose to allow you two thousand +pounds a year, paid quarterly in advance. Five hundred pounds each +quarter. Forty pounds a week, Mr. Hine, which with your three will make a +nice comfortable living wage! Ha! Ha!" + +"Two thousand a year!" gasped Mr. Hine, leaning back in his chair. "It +ain't possible. Two thou--here, what am I to do for it?" + +"Nothing, except to spend it like a gentleman," said Mr. Jarvice, beaming +upon his visitor. It did not seem to occur to either man that Mr. Jarvice +had set to his loan the one condition which Mr. Walter Hine never could +fulfil. Walter Hine was troubled with doubts of quite another kind. + +"But you come in somewhere," he said, bluntly. "On'y I'm hanged if I +see where." + +"Of course I come in, my young friend," replied Jarvice, frankly. "I or +my executors. For we may have to wait a long time. I propose that you +execute in my favor a post-obit on your uncle's life, giving me--well, we +may have to wait a long time. Twenty years you suggested. Your uncle is +seventy-three, but a hale man, living in a healthy climate. We will say +four thousand pounds for every two thousand which I lend you. Those are +easy terms, Mr. Hine. I don't make you take cigars and sherry! No! I +think such practices almost reflect discredit on my calling. Two thousand +a year! Five hundred a quarter! Forty pounds a week! Forty-three with +your little income! Well, what do you say?" + +Mr. Hine sat dazzled with the prospect of wealth, immediate wealth, +actually within his reach now. But he had lived amongst people who never +did anything for nothing, who spoke only a friendship when they proposed +to borrow money, and at the back of his mind suspicion and incredulity +were still at work. Somehow Jarvice would be getting the better of him. +In his dull way he began to reason matters out. + +"But suppose I died before my uncle, then you would get nothing," +he objected. + +"Ah, to be sure! I had not forgotten that point," said Mr. Jarvice. "It +is a contingency, of course, not very probable, but still we do right to +consider it." He leaned back in his chair, and once again he fixed his +eyes upon his visitor in a long and silent scrutiny. When he spoke again, +it was in a quieter voice than he had used. One might almost have said +that the real business of the interview was only just beginning. + +"There is a way which will save me from loss. You can insure your life as +against your uncle's, for a round sum--say for a hundred thousand pounds. +You will make over the policy to me. I shall pay the premiums, and so if +anything were to happen to you I should be recouped." + +He never once removed his eyes from Hine's face. He sat with his elbows +on the arms of his chair and his hands folded beneath his chin, quite +still, but with a queer look of alertness upon his whole person. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Hine, as he turned the proposal over in his mind. + +"Do you agree?" asked Jarvice. + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"Very well," said Jarvice, all his old briskness returning. "The sooner +the arrangement is pushed through, the better for you, eh? You will begin +to touch the dibs." He laughed and Walter Hine chuckled. "As to the +insurance, you will have to get the company's doctor's certificate, and I +should think it would be wise to go steady for a day or two, what? You +have been going the pace a bit, haven't you? You had better see your +solicitor to-day. As soon as the post-obit and the insurance policy are +in this office, Mr. Hine, your first quarter's income is paid into your +bank. I will have an agreement drawn, binding me on my side to pay you +two thousand a year until your uncle's death." + +Mr. Jarvice rose as if the interview was ended. He moved some papers on +his table, and added carelessly--"You have a good solicitor, I suppose?" + +"I haven't a solicitor at all," said Walter Hine, as he, too, rose. + +"Oh, haven't you?" said Mr. Jarvice, with all the appearance of surprise. +"Well, shall I give you an introduction to one?" He sat down, wrote a +note, placed it in an envelope, which he left unfastened, and addressed +it. Then he handed the envelope to his client. + +"Messrs. Jones and Stiles, Lincoln's Inn Fields," he said. "But ask for +Mr. Driver. Tell him the whole proposal frankly, and ask his advice." + +"Driver?" said Hine, fingering the envelope. "Hadn't I ought to see one +of the partners?" + +Mr. Jarvice smiled. + +"You have a business head, Mr. Hine, that's very clear. I'll let you into +a secret. Mr. Driver is rather like yourself--something of a rebel, Mr. +Hine. He came into disagreement with that very arbitrary body the +Incorporated Law Society, so,--well his name does not figure in the firm. +But he _is_ Jones and Stiles. Tell him everything! If he advises you +against my proposal, I shall even say take his advice. Good-morning." Mr. +Jarvice went to the door and opened it. + +"Well, this is the spider's web, you know," he said, with the +good-humored laugh of one who could afford to despise the slanders of the +ill-affected. "Not such a very uncomfortable place, eh?" and he bowed Mr. +Fly out of his office. + +He stood at the door and waited until the outer office closed. Then he +went to his telephone and rang up a particular number. + +"Are you Jones and Stiles?" he asked. "Thank you! Will you ask Mr. Driver +to come to the telephone"; and with Mr. Driver he talked genially for the +space of five minutes. + +Then, and not till then, with a smile of satisfaction, Mr. Jarvice turned +to the unopened letters which had come to him by the morning post. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + +That summer was long remembered in Chamonix. July passed with a +procession of cloudless days; valley and peak basked in sunlight. August +came, and on a hot starlit night in the first week of that month Chayne +sat opposite to Michel Revailloud in the balcony of a café which +overhangs the Arve. Below him the river tumbling swiftly amidst the +boulders flashed in the darkness like white fire. He sat facing the +street. Chamonix was crowded and gay with lights. In the little square +just out of sight upon the right, some traveling musicians were singing, +and up and down the street the visitors thronged noisily. Women in +light-colored evening frocks, with lace shawls thrown about their +shoulders and their hair; men in attendance upon them, clerks from Paris +and Geneva upon their holidays; and every now and then a climber with his +guide, come late from the mountains, would cross the bridge quickly and +stride toward his hotel. Chayne watched the procession in silence quite +aloof from its light-heartedness and gaiety. Michel Revailloud drained +his glass of beer, and, as he replaced it on the table, said wistfully: + +"So this is the last night, monsieur. It is always sad, the last night." + +"It is not exactly as we planned it," replied Chayne, and his eyes moved +from the throng before him in the direction of the churchyard, where a +few days before his friend had been laid amongst the other Englishmen who +had fallen in the Alps. "I do not think that I shall ever come back to +Chamonix," he said, in a quiet and heart-broken voice. + +Michel gravely nodded his head. + +"There are no friendships," said he, "like those made amongst the snows. +But this, monsieur, I say: Your friend is not greatly to be pitied. He +was young, had known no suffering, no ill-health, and he died at once. He +did not even kick the snow for a little while." + +"No doubt that's true," said Chayne, submitting to the commonplace, +rather than drawing from it any comfort. He called to the waiter. "Since +it is the last night, Michel," he said, with a smile, "we will drink +another bottle of beer." + +He leaned back in his chair and once more grew silent, watching the +thronged street and the twinkling lights. In the little square one of the +musicians with a very clear sweet voice was singing a plaintive song, and +above the hum of the crowd, the melody, haunting in its wistfulness, +floated to Chayne's ears, and troubled him with many memories. + +Michel leaned forward upon the table and answered not merely with +sympathy but with the air of one speaking out of full knowledge, and +speaking moreover in a voice of warning. + +"True, monsieur. The happiest memories can be very bitter--if one has no +one to share them. All is in that, monsieur. If," and he repeated his +phrase--"If one has no one to share them." Then the technical side of +Chayne's proposal took hold of him. + +"The Col Dolent? You will have to start early from the Chalet de Lognan, +monsieur. You will sleep there, of course, to-morrow. You will have to +start at midnight--perhaps even before. There is very little snow this +year. The great bergschrund will be very difficult. In any season it is +always difficult to cross that bergschrund on to the steep ice-slope +beyond. It is so badly bridged with snow. This season it will be as bad +as can be. The ice-slope up to the Col will also take a long time. So +start very early." + +As Michel spoke, as he anticipated the difficulties and set his thoughts +to overcome them, his eyes lit up, his whole face grew younger. + +Chayne smiled. + +"I wish you were coming with me Michel," he said, and at once the +animation died out of Michel's face. He became once more a sad, +dispirited man. + +"Alas, monsieur," he said, "I have crossed my last Col. I have ascended +my last mountain." + +"You, Michel?" cried Chayne. + +"Yes, monsieur, I," replied Michel, quietly. "I have grown old. My eyes +hurt me on the mountains, and my feet burn. I am no longer fit for +anything except to lead mules up to the Montanvert and conduct parties on +the Mer de Glace." + +Chayne stared at Michel Revailloud. He thought of what the guide's life +had been, of its interest, its energy, its achievement. More than one of +those aiguilles towering upon his left hand, into the sky, had been first +conquered by Michel Revailloud. And how he had enjoyed it all! What +resource he had shown, what cheerfulness. Remorse gradually seized upon +Chayne as he looked across the little iron table at his guide. + +"Yes, it is a little sad," continued Revailloud. "But I think that toward +the end, life is always a little sad, if"--and the note of warning once +more was audible--"if one has no well-loved companion to share one's +memories." + +The very resignation of Michel's voice brought Chayne to a yet deeper +compunction. The wistful melody still throbbed high and sank, and soared +again above the murmurs of the passers-by and floated away upon the clear +hot starlit night. Chayne wondered with what words it spoke to his old +guide. He looked at the tired sad face on which a smile of friendliness +now played, and his heart ached. He felt some shame that his own troubles +had so engrossed him. After all, Lattery was not greatly to be pitied. +That was true. He himself too was young. There would come other summers, +other friends. The real irreparable trouble sat there before him on the +other side of the iron table, the trouble of an old age to be lived out +in loneliness. + +"You never married, Michel?" he said. + +"No. There was a time, long ago, when I would have liked to," the guide +answered, simply. "But I think now it was as well that I did not get my +way. She was very extravagant. She would have needed much money, and +guides are poor people, monsieur--not like your professional cricketers," +he said, with a laugh. And then he turned toward the massive wall of +mountains. Here and there a slim rock spire, the Dru or the Charmoz, +pointed a finger to the stars, here and there an ice-field glimmered like +a white mist held in a fold of the hills. But to Michel Revailloud, the +whole vast range was spread out as on a raised map, buttress and peak, +and dome of snow from the Aiguille d'Argentière in the east to the summit +of Mont Blanc in the west. In his thoughts he turned from mountain to +mountain and found each one, majestic and beautiful, dear as a living +friend, and hallowed with recollections. He remembered days when they had +called, and not in vain, for courage and endurance, days of blinding +snow-storms and bitter winds which had caught him half-way up some +ice-glazed precipice of rock or on some long steep ice-slope crusted +dangerously with thin snow into which the ax must cut deep hour after +hour, however frozen the fingers, or tired the limbs. He recalled the +thrill of joy with which, after many vain attempts, he, the first of men, +had stepped on to the small topmost pinnacle of this or that new peak. He +recalled the days of travel, the long glacier walks on the high level +from Chamonix to Zermatt, and from Zermatt again to the Oberland; the +still clear mornings and the pink flush upon some high white cone which +told that somewhere the sun had risen; and the unknown ridges where +expected difficulties suddenly vanished at the climber's approach, and +others where an easy scramble suddenly turned into the most difficult of +climbs. Michel raised his glass in the air. "Here is good-by to you--the +long good-by," he said, and his voice broke. And abruptly he turned to +Chayne with his eyes full of tears and began to speak in a quick +passionate whisper, while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his +face quivered. + +"Monsieur, I told you your friend was not greatly to be pitied. I tell +you now something more. The guide we brought down with him from the +Glacier des Nantillons a fortnight back--all this fortnight I have been +envying him--yes, yes, even though he kicked the snow with his feet for a +little before he died. It is better to do so than to lead mules up to the +Montanvert." + +"I am sorry," said Chayne. + +The words sounded, as he spoke them, lame enough and trivial in the face +of Michel's passionate lament. But they had an astonishing effect upon +the guide. The flow of words stopped at once, he looked at his young +patron almost whimsically and a little smile played about his mouth. + +"'I am sorry,'" he repeated. "Those were the words the young lady spoke +to you on the steps of the hotel. You have spoken with her, monsieur, and +thanked her for them?" + +"No," said Chayne, and there was much indifference in his voice. + +Women had, as yet, not played a great part in Chayne's life. Easy to +please, but difficult to stir, he had in the main just talked with them +by the way and gone on forgetfully: and when any one had turned and +walked a little of his road beside him, she had brought to him no +thought that here might be a companion for all the way. His indifference +roused Michel to repeat, and this time unmistakably, the warning he had +twice uttered. + +He leaned across the table, fixing his eyes very earnestly on his +patron's face. "Take care, monsieur," he said. "You are lonely +to-night--very lonely. Then take good care that your old age is not one +lonely night like this repeated and repeated through many years! Take +good care that when you in your turn come to the end, and say good-by +too"--he waved his hand toward the mountains--"you have some one to share +your memories. See, monsieur!" and very wistfully he began to plead, "I +go home to-night, I go out of Chamonix, I cross a field or two, I come to +Les Praz-Conduits and my cottage. I push open the door. It is all dark +within. I light my own lamp and I sit there a little by myself. Take an +old man's wisdom, monsieur! When it is all over and you go home, take +care that there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room not empty. +Have some one to share your memories when life is nothing but memories." +He rose as he ended, and held out his hand. As Chayne took it, the guide +spoke again, and his voice shook: + +"Monsieur, you have been a good patron to me," he said, with a quiet and +most dignified simplicity, "and I make you what return I can. I have +spoken to you out of my heart, for you will not return to Chamonix and +after to-night we shall not meet again." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, and he added: "We have had many good days +together, Michel." + +"We have, monsieur." + +"I climbed my first mountain with you." + +"The Aiguille du Midi. I remember it well." + +Both were silent after that, and for the same reason. Neither could trust +his voice. Michel Revailloud picked up his hat, turned abruptly away and +walked out of the café into the throng of people. Chayne resumed his seat +and sat there, silent and thoughtful, until the street began to empty and +the musicians in the square ceased from their songs. + +Meanwhile Michel Revailloud walked slowly down the street, stopping to +speak with any one he knew however slightly, that he might defer his +entrance into the dark and empty cottage at Les Praz-Conduits. He drew +near to the hotel where Chayne was staying and saw under the lamp above +the door a guide whom he knew talking with a young girl. The young girl +raised her head. It was she who had said, "I am sorry." As Michel came +within the circle of light she recognized him. She spoke quickly to the +guide and he turned at once and called "Michel," and when Revailloud +approached, he presented him to Sylvia Thesiger. "He has made many first +ascents in the range of Mont Blanc, mademoiselle." + +Sylvia held out her hand with a smile of admiration. + +"I know," she said. "I have read of them." + +"Really?" cried Michel. "You have read of them--you, mademoiselle?" + +There was as much pleasure as wonder in his tone. After all, flattery +from the lips of a woman young and beautiful was not to be despised, he +thought, the more especially when the flattery was so very well deserved. +Life had perhaps one or two compensations to offer him in his old age. + +"Yes, indeed. I am very glad to meet you, Michel. I have known your name +a long while and envied you for living in the days when these mountains +were unknown." + +Revailloud forgot the mules to the Montanvert and the tourists on the Mer +de Glace. He warmed into cheerfulness. This young girl looked at him with +so frank an envy. + +"Yes, those were great days, mademoiselle," he said, with a thrill of +pride in his voice. "But if we love the mountains, the first ascent or +the hundredth--there is just the same joy when you feel the rough rock +beneath your fingers or the snow crisp under your feet. Perhaps +mademoiselle herself will some time--" + +At once Sylvia interrupted him with an eager happiness-- + +"Yes, to-morrow," she said. + +"Oho! It is your first mountain, mademoiselle?" + +"Yes." + +"And Jean here is your guide. Jean and his brother, I suppose?" Michel +laid his hand affectionately on the guide's shoulder. "You could not do +better, mademoiselle." + +He looked at her thoughtfully for a little while. She was fresh--fresh as +the smell of the earth in spring after a fall of rain. Her eyes, the +alertness of her face, the eager tones of her voice, were irresistible to +him, an old tired man. How much more irresistible then to a younger man. +Her buoyancy would lift such an one clear above his melancholy, though it +were deep as the sea. He himself, Michel Revailloud, felt twice the +fellow he had been when he sat in the balcony above the Arve. + +"And what mountain is it to be, mademoiselle?" he asked. + +The girl took a step from the door of the hotel and looked upward. To the +south, but quite close, the long thin ridge of the Aiguille des Charmoz +towered jagged and black against the starlit sky. On one pinnacle of that +ridge a slab of stone was poised like the top of a round table on the +slant. It was at that particular pinnacle that Sylvia looked. + +"L'Aiguille des Charmoz," said Michel, doubtfully, and Sylvia swung round +to him and argued against his doubt. + +"But I have trained myself," she said. "I have been up the Brévent and +Flégère. I am strong, stronger than I look." + +Michel Revailloud smiled. + +"Mademoiselle, I do not doubt you. A young lady who has enthusiasm is +very hard to tire. It is not because of the difficulty of that rock-climb +that I thought to suggest--the Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Sylvia turned with some hesitation to the younger guide. + +"You too spoke of that mountain," she said. + +Michel pressed his advantage. + +"And wisely, mademoiselle. If you will let me advise you, you will sleep +to-morrow night at the Pavillon de Lognan and the next day climb the +Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Sylvia looked regretfully up to the ridge of the Charmoz which during +this last fortnight had greatly attracted her. She turned her eyes from +the mountain to Revailloud and let them rest quietly upon his face. + +"And why do you advise the Aiguille d'Argentière?" she asked. + +Michel saw her eyes softly shining upon him in the darkness, and all the +more persisted. Was not his dear patron who must needs be helped to open +his eyes, since he would not open them himself, going to sleep to-morrow +in the Pavillon de Lognan? The roads to the Col Dolent and the Aiguille +d'Argentière both start from that small mountain inn. But this was hardly +the reason which Michel could give to the young girl who questioned him. +He bethought him of another argument, a subtle one which he fancied would +strongly appeal to her. Moreover, there was truth in it. + +"I will tell you why, mademoiselle. It is to be your first mountain. It +will be a day in your life which you will never forget. Therefore you +want it to be as complete as possible--is it not so? It is a good +rock-climb, the Aiguille des Charmoz--yes. But the Argentière is more +complete. There is a glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff, +and at the top of that a steep ice-slope. And that is not all. You want +your last step on to the summit to reveal a new world to you. On the +Charmoz, it is true, there is a cleft at the very top up which you +scramble between two straight walls and you pop your head out above the +mountain. Yes, but you see little that is new; for before you enter the +cleft you see both sides of the mountain. With the Argentière it is +different. You mount at the last, for quite a time behind the mountain +with your face to the ice-slope; and then suddenly you step out upon the +top and the chain of Mont Blanc will strike suddenly upon your eyes and +heart. See, mademoiselle, I love these mountains with a very great pride +and I would dearly like you to have that wonderful white revelation of a +new strange world upon your first ascent." + +Before he had ended, he knew that he had won. He heard the girl draw +sharply in her breath. She was making for herself a picture of the last +step from the ice-slope to summit ridge. + +"Very well," she said. "It shall be the Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Michel went upon his way out of Chamonix and across the fields. They +would be sure to speak, those two, to-morrow at the Pavillon de Lognan. +If only there were no other party there in that small inn! Michel's hopes +took a leap and reached beyond the Pavillon de Lognan. To ascend one's +first mountain--yes, that was enviable and good. But one should have a +companion with whom one can live over again the raptures of that day, in +the after time. Well--perhaps--perhaps! + +Michel pushed open the door of his cottage, and lit his lamp, without +after all bethinking him that the room was dark and empty. His ice-axes +stood in a corner, the polished steel of their adz-heads gleaming in the +light; his _Rücksack_ and some coils of rope hung upon pegs; his book +with the signatures and the comments of his patrons lay at his elbow on +the table, a complete record of his life. But he was not thinking that +they had served him for the last time. He sat down in his chair and so +remained for a little while. But a smile was upon his face, and once or +twice he chuckled aloud as he thought of his high diplomacy. He did not +remember at all that to-morrow he would lead mules up to the Montanvert +and conduct parties on the Mer de Glace. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + +The Pavillon de Lognan is built high upon the southern slope of the +valley of Chamonix, under the great buttresses of the Aiguille Verte. It +faces the north and from the railed parapet before its door the path +winds down through pastures bright with Alpine flowers to the pine woods, +and the village of Les Tines in the bed of the valley. But at its eastern +end a precipice drops to the great ice-fall of the Glacier d'Argentière, +and night and day from far below the roar of the glacier streams enters +in at the windows and fills the rooms with the music of a river in spate. + +At five o'clock on the next afternoon, Chayne was leaning upon the rail +looking straight down to the ice-fall. The din of the torrent was in his +ears, and it was not until a foot sounded lightly close behind him that +he knew he was no longer alone. He turned round and saw to his surprise +the over-dainty doll of the Annemasse buffet, the child of the casinos +and the bathing beaches, Sylvia Thesiger. His surprise was very +noticeable and Sylvia's face flushed. She made him a little bow and went +into the chalet. + +Chayne noticed a couple of fresh guides by the door of the guides' +quarters. He remembered the book which he had seen her reading with so +deep an interest in the buffet. And in a minute or two she came out again +on to the earth platform and he saw that she was not overdressed to-day. +She was simply and warmly dressed in a way which suggested business. On +the other hand she had not made herself ungainly. He guessed her mountain +and named it to her. + +"Yes," she replied. "Please say that it will be fine to-morrow!" + +"I have never seen an evening of better promise," returned Chayne, with a +smile at her eagerness. The brown cliffs of the Aiguille du Chardonnet +just across the glacier glowed red in the sunlight; and only a wisp of +white cloud trailed like a lady's scarf here and there in the blue of the +sky. The woman of the chalet came out and spoke to him. + +"She wants to know when we will dine," he explained to Sylvia. "There are +only you and I. We should dine early, for you will have to start early"; +and he repeated the invariable cry of that year: "There is so very little +snow. It may take you some time to get off the glacier on to your +mountain. There is always a crevasse to cross." + +"I know," said Sylvia, with a smile. "The bergschrund." + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne, and in his turn he smiled too. "Of +course you know these terms. I saw you reading a copy of the 'Alpine +Journal.'" + +They dined together an hour later with the light of the sunset reddening +the whitewashed walls of the little simple room and bathing in glory the +hills without. Sylvia Thesiger could hardly eat for wonder. Her face was +always to the window, her lips were always parted in a smile, her gray +eyes bright with happiness. + +"I have never known anything like this," she said. "It is all so strange, +so very beautiful." + +Her freshness and simplicity laid their charm on him, even as they had +done on Michel Revailloud the night before. She was as eager as a child +to get the meal done with and to go out again into the open air, before +the after-glow had faded from the peaks. There was something almost +pathetic in her desire to make the very most of such rare moments. Her +eagerness so clearly told him that such holidays came but seldom in her +life. He urged her, however, to eat, and when she had done they went out +together and sat upon the bench, watching in silence the light upon the +peaks change from purple to rose, the rocks grow cold, and the blue of +the sky deepen as the night came. + +"You too are making an ascent?" she asked. + +"No," he answered. "I am crossing a pass into Italy. I am going away from +Chamonix altogether." + +Sylvia turned to him; her eyes were gentle with sympathy. + +"Yes, I understand that," she said. "I am sorry." + +"You said that once before to me, on the steps of the hotel," said +Chayne. "It was kind of you. Though I said nothing, I was grateful"; and +he was moved to open his heart to her, and to speak of his dead friend. +The darkness gathered about them; he spoke in the curt sentences which +men use who shrink from any emotional display; he interrupted himself to +light his pipe. But none the less she understood the reality of his +distress. He told her with a freedom of which he was not himself at the +moment quite aware, of a clean, strong friendship which owed nothing to +sentiment, which was never fed by protestations, which endured through +long intervals, and was established by the memory of great dangers +cheerily encountered and overcome. It had begun amongst the mountains, +and surely, she thought, it had retained to the end something of their +inspiration. + +"We first met in the Tyrol, eight years ago. I had crossed a mountain +with a guide--the Glockturm--and came down in the evening to the +Radurschal Thal where I had heard there was an inn. The evening had +turned to rain; but from a shoulder of the mountain I had been able to +look right down the valley and had seen one long low building about four +miles from the foot of the glacier. I walked through the pastures toward +it, and found sitting outside the door in the rain the man who was to be +my friend. The door was locked, and there was no one about the house, nor +was there any other house within miles. My guide, however, went on. +Lattery and I sat out there in the rain for a couple of hours, and then +an old woman with a big umbrella held above her head came down from the +upper pastures, driving some cows in front of her. She told us that no +one had stayed at her inn for fourteen years. But she opened her door, +lit us a great fire, and cooked us eggs and made us coffee. I remember +that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. We sat in front of the +fire with the bedding and the mattresses airing behind us until late into +the night. The rain got worse too. There was a hole in the thatch +overhead, and through it I saw the lightning slash the sky, as I lay in +bed. Very few people ever came up or down that valley; and the next +morning, after the storm, the chamois were close about the inn, on the +grass. We went on together. That was the beginning." + +He spoke simply, with a deep quietude of voice. The tobacco glowed and +grew dull in the bowl of his pipe regularly; the darkness hid his face. +But the tenderness, almost the amusement with which he dwelt on the +little insignificant details of that first meeting showed her how very +near to him it was at this moment. + +"We went from the Tyrol down to Verona and baked ourselves in the sun +there for a day, under the colonnades, and then came back through the +St. Gotthard to Göschenen. Do you know the Göschenen Thal? There is a +semicircle of mountains, the Winterbergen, which closes it in at the +head. We climbed there together for a week, just he and I and no guides. +I remember a rock-ridge there. It was barred by a pinnacle which stood +up from it--'a gendarme,' as they call it. We had to leave the arête and +work out along the face of the pinnacle at right angles to the mountain. +There was a little ledge. You could look down between your feet quite +straight to the glacier, two thousand feet below. We came to a place +where the wall of the pinnacle seemed possible. Almost ten feet above +us, there was a flaw in the rock which elsewhere was quite +perpendicular. I was the lightest. So my friend planted himself as +firmly as he could on the ledge with his hands flat against the rock +face. There wasn't any handhold, you see, and I climbed out on to his +back and stood upon his shoulders. I saw that the rock sloped back from +the flaw or cleft in quite a practicable way. Only there was a big +boulder resting on the slope within reach, and which we could hardly +avoid touching. It did not look very secure. So I put out my hand and +just touched it--quite, quite gently. But it was so exactly balanced +that the least little vibration overset it, and I saw it begin to move, +very slowly, as if it meant no harm whatever. But it was moving, +nevertheless, toward me. My chest was on a level with the top of the +cleft, so that I had a good view of the boulder. I couldn't do anything +at all. It was much too heavy and big for my arms to stop and I couldn't +move, of course, since I was standing on Jack Lattery's shoulders. There +did not seem very much chance, with nothing below us except two thousand +feet of vacancy. But there was just at my side a little bit of a crack +in the edge of the cleft, and there was just a chance that the rock +might shoot out down that cleft past me. I remember standing and +watching the thing sliding down, not in a rush at all, but very +smoothly, almost in a friendly sort of way, and I wondered how long it +would be before it reached me. Luckily some irregularity in the slope of +rock just twisted it into the crack, and it suddenly shot out into the +air at my side with a whizz. It was so close to me that it cut the cloth +of my sleeve. I had been so fascinated by the gentle movement of the +boulder that I had forgotten altogether to tell Lattery what was +happening; and when it whizzed out over his head, he was so startled +that he nearly lost his balance on the little shelf and we were within +an ace of following our rock down to the glacier. Those were our early +days." And he laughed with a low deep ring of amusement in his voice. + +"We were late that day on the mountain," he resumed, "and it was dark +when we got down to a long snow-slope at its foot. It was new ground to +us. We were very tired. We saw it glimmering away below us. It might end +in a crevasse and a glacier for all we knew, and we debated whether we +should be prudent or chance it. We chanced the crevasse. We sat down and +glissaded in the dark with only the vaguest idea where we should end. +Altogether we had very good times, he and I. Well, they have come to an +end on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +Chayne became silent; Sylvia Thesiger sat at his side and did not +interrupt. In front of them the pastures slid away into darkness. Only a +few small clear lights shining in the chalets told them there were other +people awake in the world. Except for the reverberation of the torrent +deep in the gorge at their right, no sound at all broke the deep silence. +Chayne knocked the ashes from his pipe. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been talking to you about one whom +you never knew. You were so quiet that I seemed to be merely remembering +to myself." + +"I was so quiet," Sylvia explained, "because I wished you to go on. I was +very glad to hear you. It was all new and strange and very pleasant to +me--this story of your friendship. As strange and pleasant as this cool, +quiet night here, a long way from the hotels and the noise, on the edge +of the snow. For I have heard little of such friendships and I have seen +still less." + +Chayne's thoughts were suddenly turned from his dead friend to this, the +living companion at his side. There was something rather sad and pitiful +in the tone of her voice, no less than in the words she used. She spoke +with so much humility. He was aware with a kind of shock, that here was a +woman, not a child. He turned his eyes to her, as he had turned his +thoughts. He could see dimly the profile of her face. It was still as the +night itself. She was looking straight in front of her into the darkness. +He pondered upon her life and how she bore with it, and how she had kept +herself unspoiled by its associations. Of the saving grace of her dreams +he knew nothing. But the picture of her mother was vivid to his eyes, the +outlawed mother, shunned instinctively by the women, noisy and shrill, +and making her companions of the would-be fashionable loiterers and the +half-pay officers run to seed. That she bore it ill her last words had +shown him. They had thrown a stray ray of light upon a dark place which +seemed a place of not much happiness. + +"I am very glad that you are here to-night," he said. "It has been kind +of you to listen. I rather dreaded this evening." + +Though what he said was true, it was half from pity that he said it. He +wished her to feel her value. And in reply she gave him yet another +glimpse into the dark place. + +"Your friend," she said, "must have been much loved in Chamonix." + +"Why?" + +"So many guides came of their own accord to search for him." + +Again Chayne's face was turned quickly toward her. Here indeed was a sign +of the people amongst whom she lived, and of their unillumined thoughts. +There must be the personal reason always, the personal reason or money. +Outside of these, there were no motives. He answered her gently: + +"No; I think that was not the reason. How shall I put it to you?" He +leaned forward with his elbows upon his knees, and spoke slowly, choosing +his words. "I think these guides obeyed a law, a law not of any man's +making, and the one law last broken--the law that what you know, that you +must do, if by doing it you can save a life. I should think nine medals +out of ten given by the Humane Society are given because of the +compulsion of that law. If you can swim, sail a boat, or climb a +mountain, and the moment comes when a life can only be saved if you use +your knowledge--well, you have got to use it. That's the law. Very often, +I have no doubt, it's quite reluctantly obeyed, in most cases I think +it's obeyed by instinct, without consideration of the consequences. But +it _is_ obeyed, and the guides obeyed it when so many of them came with +me on to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He heard the girl at his side draw in a sharp breath. She shivered. + +"You are cold?" + +"No," she answered. "But that, too, is all strange to me. I should have +known of that law without the need to be told of it. But I shall not +forget it." + +Again humility was very audible in the quiet tone of her voice. She +understood that she had been instructed. She felt she should not have +needed it. She faced her ignorance frankly. + +"What one knows, that one must do," she repeated, fixing the words in her +mind, "if by doing it one can save a life. No, I shall not forget that." + +She rose from the seat. + +"I must go in." + +"Yes," cried Chayne, starting up. "You have stayed up too long as it is. +You will be tired to-morrow." + +"Not till to-morrow evening," she said, with a laugh. She looked upward +to the starlit sky. "It will be fine, I hope. Oh, it _must_ be fine. +To-morrow is my one day. I do so want it to be perfect," she exclaimed. + +"I don't think you need fear." + +She held out her hand to him. + +"This is good-by, I suppose," she said, and she did not hide the regret +the words brought to her. + +Chayne took her hand and kept it for a second or two. He ought to start +an hour and a half before her. That he knew very well. But he answered: + +"No. We go the same road for a little while. When do you start?" + +"At half past one." + +"I too. It will be daybreak before we say good-by. I wonder whether you +will sleep at all to-night. I never do the first night." + +He spoke lightly, and she answered him in the same key. + +"I shall hardly know whether I sleep or wake, with the noise of that +stream rising through my window. For so far back as I can remember I +always dream of running water." + +The words laid hold upon Chayne's imagination and fixed her in his +memories. He knew nothing of her really, except just this one curious +fact. She dreamed of running water. Somehow it was fitting that she +should. There was a kind of resemblance; running water was, in a way, +an image of her. She seemed in her nature to be as clear and fresh; yet +she was as elusive; and when she laughed, her laugh had a music as +light and free. + +She went into the chalet. Through the window Chayne saw her strike a +match and hold it to the candle. She stood for a moment looking out at +him gravely, with the light shining upward upon her young face. Then a +smile hesitated upon her lips and slowly took possession of her cheeks +and eyes. She turned and went into her room. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE + + +Chayne smoked another pipe alone and then walking to the end of the +little terrace looked down on to the glistening field of ice below. Along +that side of the chalet no light was burning. Was she listening? Was she +asleep? The pity which had been kindled within him grew as he thought +upon her. To-morrow she would be going back to a life she clearly hated. +On the whole he came to the conclusion that the world might have been +better organized. He lit his candle and went to bed, and it seemed that +not five minutes had passed before one of his guides knocked upon his +door. When he came into the living-room Sylvia Thesiger was already +breakfasting. + +"Did you sleep?" he asked. + +"I was too excited," she answered. "But I am not tired"; and certainly +there was no trace of fatigue in her appearance. + +They started at half past one and went up behind the hut. + +The stars shimmered overhead in a dark and cloudless sky. The night was +still; as yet there was no sign of dawn. The great rock cliffs of the +Chardonnet across the glacier and the towering ice-slopes of the Aiguille +Verte beneath which they passed were all hidden in darkness. They might +have been walking on some desolate plain of stones flat from horizon to +horizon. They walked in single file, Jean leading with a lighted lantern +in his hand, so that Sylvia, who followed next, might pick her way +amongst the boulders. Thus they marched for two hours along the left bank +of the glacier and then descended on to ice. They went forward partly on +moraine, partly on ice at the foot of the crags of the Aiguille Verte. +And gradually the darkness thinned. Dim masses of black rock began to +loom high overhead, and to all seeming very far away. The sky paled, the +dim masses of rock drew near about the climbers, and over the steep +walls, the light flowed into the white basin of the glacier as though +from every quarter of the sky. + +Sylvia stopped and Chayne came up with her. + +"Well?" he asked; and as he saw her face his thoughts were suddenly +swept back to the morning when the beauty of the ice-world was for the +first time vouchsafed to him. He seemed to recapture the fine emotion of +that moment. + +Sylvia stood gazing with parted lips up that wide and level glacier to +its rock-embattled head. The majestic silence of the place astounded her. +There was no whisper of wind, no rustling of trees, no sound of any bird. +As yet too there was no crack of ice, no roar of falling stones. And as +the silence surprised her ears, so the simplicity of color smote upon her +eyes. There were no gradations. White ice filled the basin and reached +high into the recesses of the mountains, hanging in rugged glaciers upon +their flanks, and streaking the gullies with smooth narrow ribands. And +about the ice, and above it, circling it in, black walls of rock towered +high, astonishingly steep and broken at the top into pinnacles of an +exquisite beauty. + +"I shall be very glad to have seen this," said Sylvia, as she stored the +picture in her mind, "more glad than I am even now. It will be a good +memory to fall back upon when things are troublesome." + +"Must things be troublesome?" he asked. + +"Don't let me spoil my one day," she said, with a smile. + +She moved on, and Chayne, falling back, spoke for a little with his +guides. A little further on Jean stopped. + +"That is our mountain, mademoiselle," he said, pointing eastward across +the glacier. + +Sylvia turned in that direction. + +Straight in front of her a bay of ice ran back, sloping ever upward, and +around the bay there rose a steep wall of cliffs which in the center +sharpened precipitously to an apex. The apex was not a point but a +rounded level ridge of snow which curved over on the top of the cliffs +like a billow of foam. A tiny black tower of rock stood alone on the +northern end of the snow-ridge. + +"That, mademoiselle, is the Aiguille d'Argentière. We cross the +glacier here." + +Jean put the rope about her waist, fixing it with the fisherman's bend, +and tied one end about his own, using the overhand knot, while his +brother tied on behind. They then turned at right angles to their former +march and crossed the glacier, keeping the twenty feet of rope which +separated each person extended. Once Jean looked back and uttered an +exclamation of surprise. For he saw Chayne and his guides following +across the glacier behind, and Chayne's road to the Col Dolent at the +head of the glacier lay straight ahead upon their former line of advance. +However he said nothing. + +They crossed the bergschrund with less difficulty than they had +anticipated, and ascending a ridge of debris, by the side of the lateral +glacier which descended from the cliffs of the Aiguille d'Argentière, +they advanced into the bay under the southern wall of the Aiguille du +Chardonnet. On the top of this moraine Jean halted, and the party +breakfasted, and while they breakfasted Chayne told Sylvia something of +that mountain's history. "It is not the most difficult of peaks," said +he, "but it has associations, which some of the new rock-climbs have not. +The pioneers came here." Right behind them there was a gap, the pass +between their mountain and the Aiguille du Chardonnet. "From that pass +Moore and Whymper first tried to reach the top by following the crest of +the cliffs, but they found it impracticable. Whymper tried again, but +this time up the face of the cliffs further on to the south and just to +the left of the summit. He failed, came back again and conquered. We +follow his road." + +And while they looked up the dead white of that rounded summit ridge +changed to a warm rosy color and all about that basin the topmost peaks +took fire. + +"It is the sun," said he. + +Sylvia looked across the valley. The great ice-triangle of the Aiguille +Verte flashed and sparkled. The slopes of the Les Droites and Mont Dolent +were hung with jewels; even the black precipices of the Tour Noir grew +warm and friendly. But at the head of the glacier a sheer unbroken wall +of rock swept round in the segment of a circle, and this remained still +dead black and the glacier at its foot dead white. At one point in the +knife-like edge of this wall there was a depression, and from the +depression a riband of ice ran, as it seemed from where they sat, +perpendicularly down to the Glacier d'Argentière. + +"That is the Col Dolent," said Chayne. "Very little sunlight ever creeps +down there." + +Sylvia shivered as she looked. She had never seen anything so somber, so +sinister, as that precipitous curtain of rock and its riband of ice. It +looked like a white band painted on a black wall. + +"It looks very dangerous," she said, slowly. + +"It needs care," said Chayne. + +"Especially this year when there is so little snow," added Sylvia. + +"Yes. Twelve hundred feet of ice at an angle of fifty degrees." + +"And the bergschrund's just beneath." + +"Yes, you must not slip on the Col Dolent," said he, quietly. + +Sylvia was silent a little while. Then she said with a slight hesitation: + +"And you cross that pass to-day?" + +There was still more hesitation in Chayne's voice as he answered: + +"Well, no! You see, this is your first mountain. And you have only +two guides." + +Sylvia looked at him seriously. + +"How many should I have taken for the Aiguille d'Argentière? Twelve?" + +Chayne smiled feebly. + +"Well, no," and his confusion increased. "Two, as a rule, are +enough--unless--" + +"Unless the amateur is very clumsy," she added. "Thank you, +Captain Chayne." + +"I didn't mean that," he cried. He had no idea whether she was angry or +not. She was just looking quietly and steadily into his face and waiting +for his explanation. + +"Well, the truth is," he blurted out, "I wanted to go up the Aiguille +d'Argentière with you," and he saw a smile dimple her cheeks. + +"I am honored," she said, and the tone of her voice showed besides that +she was very glad. + +"Oh, but it wasn't only for the sake of your company," he said, and +stopped. "I don't seem to be very polite, do I?" he said, lamentably. + +"Not very," she replied. + +"What I mean is this," he explained. "Ever since we started this morning, +I have been recapturing my own sensations on my first ascent. Watching +you, your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every moment of this +day, I almost feel as if I too had come fresh to the mountains, as if the +Argentière were my first peak." + +He saw the blood mount into her cheeks. + +"Was that the reason why you questioned me as to what I thought and +felt?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"I thought you were testing me," she said, slowly. "I thought you +were trying whether I was--worthy"; and once again humility had +framed her words and modulated their utterance. She recognized +without rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to look on +her as without the pale. + +The guides packed up the _Rücksacks_, and they started once more up the +moraine. In a little while they descended on to the lateral glacier which +descending from the recesses of the Aiguille d'Argentière in front of +them flowed into the great basin behind. They roped together now in one +party and ascended the glacier diagonally, rounding a great buttress +which descends from the rock ledge and bisects the ice, and drawing close +to the steep cliffs. In a little while they crossed the bergschrund from +the glacier on to the wall of mountain, and traversing by easy rocks at +the foot of the cliffs came at last to a big steep gully filled with hard +ice which led up to the ridge just below the final peak. + +"This is our way" said Jean. "We ascend by the rocks at the side." + +They breakfasted again and began to ascend the rocks to the left of the +great gully, Sylvia following second behind her leading guide. The rocks +were not difficult, but they were very steep and at times loose. +Moreover, Jean climbed fast and Sylvia had much ado to keep pace with +him. But she would not call on him to slacken his pace, and she was most +anxious not to come up on the rope but to climb with her own hands and +feet. This they ascended for the better part of an hour and Jean halted +on a convenient ledge. Sylvia had time to look down. She had climbed +with her face to the wall of rock, her eyes searching quickly for her +holds, fixing her feet securely, gripping firmly with her hands, +avoiding the loose boulders. Moreover, the rope had worried her. When +she had left it at its length between herself and the guide in front of +her, it would hang about her feet, threatening to trip her, or catch as +though in active malice in any crack which happened to be handy. If she +shortened it and held it in her hands, there would come a sudden tug +from above as the leader raised himself from one ledge to another which +almost overset her. + +Now, however, flushed with her exertion and glad to draw her breath +at her ease, she looked down and was astonished. So far below her +already seemed the glacier she had left, so steep the rocks up which +she had climbed. + +"You are not tired?" said Chayne. + +Sylvia laughed. Tired, when a dream was growing real, when she was +actually on the mountain face! She turned her face again to the rock-wall +and in a little more than an hour after leaving the foot of the gully she +stepped out on to a patch of snow on the shoulder of the mountain. She +stood in sunlight, and all the country to the east was suddenly unrolled +before her eyes. A moment before and her face was to the rock, now at her +feet the steep snow-slopes dropped to the Glacier of Saleinaz. The crags +of the Aiguille Dorées, and some green uplands gave color to the +glittering world of ice, and far away towered the white peaks of the +Grand Combin and the Weisshorn in a blue cloudless sky, and to the left +over the summit of the Grande Fourche she saw the huge embattlements of +the Oberland. She stood absorbed while the rest of the party ascended to +her side. She hardly knew indeed that they were there until Chayne +standing by her asked: + +"You are not disappointed?" + +She made no reply. She had no words wherewith to express the emotion +which troubled her to the depths. + +They rested for a while on this level patch of snow. To their right the +ridge ran sharply up to the summit. But not by that ridge was the summit +to be reached. They turned over on to the eastern face of the mountain +and traversed in a straight line across the great snow-slope which sweeps +down in one white unbroken curtain toward the Glacier of Saleinaz. Their +order had been changed. First Jean advanced. Chayne followed and after +him came Sylvia. + +The leading guide kicked a step or two in the snow. Then he used the adz +of his ax. A few steps still, and he halted. + +"Ice," he said, and from that spot to the mountain top he used the pick. + +The slope was at a steep angle, the ice very hard, and each step had to +be cut with care, especially on the traverse where the whole party moved +across the mountain upon the same level, and there was no friendly hand +above to give a pull upon the rope. The slope ran steeply down beneath +them, then curved over a brow and steepened yet more. + +"Are the steps near enough together?" Chayne asked. + +"Yes," she replied, though she had to stretch in her stride. + +And upon that Jean dug his pick in the slope at his side and +turned round. + +"Lean well way from the slope, mademoiselle, not toward it. There is less +chance then of slipping from the steps," he said anxiously, and there +came a look of surprise upon his face. For he saw that already of her own +thought she was standing straight in her steps, thrusting herself out +from the slope by pressing the pick of her ax against it at the level of +her waist. And more than once thereafter Jean turned about and watched +her with a growing perplexity. Chayne looked to see whether her face +showed any sign of fear. On the contrary she was looking down that great +sweep of ice with an actual exultation. And it was not ignorance which +allowed her to exult. The evident anxiety of Chayne's words, and the +silence which since had fallen upon one and all were alone enough to +assure her that here was serious work. But she had been reading deeply of +the Alps, and in all the histories of mountain exploits which she had +read, of climbs up vertical cracks in sheer walls of rocks, balancings +upon ridges sharp as a knife edge, crawlings over smooth slabs with +nowhere to rest the feet or hands, it was the ice-slope which had most +kindled her imagination. The steep, smooth, long ice-slope, white upon +the surface, grayish-green or even black where the ax had cut the step, +the place where no slip must be made. She had lain awake at nights +listening to the roar of the streets beneath her window and picturing it, +now sleeping in the sunlight, now enwreathed in mists which opened and +showed still higher heights and still lower depths, now whipped angrily +with winds which tore off the surface icicles and snow, and sent them +swirling like smoke about the shoulders of the peak. She had dreamed +herself on to it, half shrinking, half eager, and now she was actually +upon one and she felt no fear. She could not but exult. + +The sunlight was hot upon this face of the mountain; yet her feet grew +cold, as she stood patiently in her steps, advancing slowly as the man +before her moved. Once as she stood, she moved her foot and scratched the +sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once +she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard +into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon +the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was +safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne +polishing them behind him. + +In a little while the guide turned his face to the slope and cut upward +instead of across. The slope was so steep that instead of cutting zigzags +across its face, he chopped pigeon holes straight up. They moved from one +to the other as on a ladder, and their knees touched the ice as they +stood upright in the steps. For a couple of hours the axes never ceased, +and then the leader made two or three extra steps at the side of the +staircase. On to one of them he moved out, Chayne went up and joined him. + +"Come, mademoiselle," he said, and he drew in the rope as Sylvia +advanced. She climbed up level with them on the ladder and waited, not +knowing why they stood aside. + +"Go on, mademoiselle," said the guide. She took another step or two upon +snow and uttered a cry. She had looked suddenly over the top of the +mountain on to the Aiguille Verte and the great pile of Mont Blanc, even +as Revailloud had told her that she would. The guide had stood aside that +she might be the first to step out upon the summit of the mountain. She +stood upon the narrow ridge of snow, at her feet the rock-cliffs +plastered with bulging masses of ice fell sheer to the glacier. + +Her first glance was downward to the Col Dolent. Even at this hour when +the basin of the valley was filled with sunshine that one corner at the +head of the Glacier d'Argentière was still dead white, dead black. She +shivered once more as she looked at it--so grim and so menacing the +rock-wall seemed, so hard and steep the riband of ice. Then Chayne joined +her on the ridge. They sat down and ate their meal and lay for an hour +sunning themselves in the clear air. + +"You could have had no better day," said Chayne. + +Only a few white scarfs of cloud flitted here and there across the sky +and their shadows chased each other across the glittering slopes of ice +and snow. The triangle of the Aiguille Verte was over against her, the +beautiful ridges of Les Courtes and Les Droites to her right and beyond +them the massive domes and buttresses of the great white mountain. Sylvia +lay upon the eastern slope of the Argentière looking over the brow, not +wanting to speak, and certainly not listening to any word that was +uttered. Her soul was at peace. The long-continued tension of mind and +muscle, the excitement of that last ice-slope, both were over and had +brought their reward. She looked out upon a still and peaceful world, +wonderfully bright, wonderfully beautiful, and wonderfully colored. Here +a spire would pierce the sunlight with slabs of red rock interspersed +amongst its gray; there ice-cliffs sparkled as though strewn with jewels, +bulged out in great green knobs, showed now a grim gray, now a +transparent blue. At times a distant rumble like thunder far away told +that the ice-fields were hurling their avalanches down. Once or twice she +heard a great roar near at hand, and Chayne pointing across the valleys +would show her what seemed to be a handful of small stones whizzing down +the rocks and ice-gullies of the Aiguille Verte. But on the whole this +new world was silent, communing with the heavens. She was in the hushed +company of the mountains. Days there would be when these sunlit ridges +would be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would shriek about +the gullies, and dark mists swirl around the peaks. But on this morning +there was no anger on the heights. + +"Yes--you could have had no better day for your first mountain, +mademoiselle," said Jean, as he stood beside her. "But this is not your +first mountain." + +She turned to him. + +"Yes, it is." + +Her guide bowed to her. + +"Then, mademoiselle, you have great gifts. For you stood upon that +ice-slope and moved along and up it, as only people of experience stand +and move. I noticed you. On the rocks, too, you had the instinct for the +hand-grip and the foothold and with which foot to take the step. And that +instinct, mademoiselle, comes as a rule only with practice." He paused +and looked at her perplexity. + +"Moreover, mademoiselle, you remind me of some one," he added. "I cannot +remember who it is, or why you remind me of him. But you remind me of +some one very much." He picked up the _Rücksack_ which he had taken from +his shoulders. + +It was half past eleven. Sylvia took a last look over the wide prospect +of jagged ridge, ice pinnacles and rock spires. She looked down once +more upon the slim snow peak of Mont Dolent and the grim wall of rocks +at the Col. + +"I shall never forget this," she said, with shining eyes. "Never." + +The fascination of the mountains was upon her. Something new had come +into her life that morning which would never fail her to the very end, +which would color all her days, however dull, which would give her +memories in which to find solace, longings wherewith to plan the future. +This she felt and some of this her friend understood. + +"Yes," he said. "You understand the difference it makes to one's whole +life. Each year passes so quickly looking back and looking forward." + +"Yes, I understand," she said. + +"You will come back?" + +But this time she did not answer at once. She stood looking thoughtfully +out over the bridge of the Argentière. It seemed to Chayne that she was +coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her +life. Then she said--and it seemed to him that she had made her decision: + +"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back." + +They turned away and went carefully down the slope. Again her leading +guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that +instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him. The technique +came to her so naturally. She turned her back to the slope, and thus +descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of +her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder. +Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, +he cried out: + +"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you remind me of. I have been +watching you. I know now." + +She looked up. + +"Who is it?" + +"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a whole season many years +ago. A great climber, mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name. +Gabriel Strood." + +"Gabriel Strood!" she cried, and then she laughed. "I too know his name. +You are flattering me, Jean." + +But Jean would not admit it. + +"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. "I do not say you have his +skill--how should you? But there are certain movements, certain neat ways +of putting the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind me of him." + +Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment. They reached the +lateral glacier, descended it and crossed the Glacier d'Argentière. They +found their stone-encumbered pathway of the morning and at three o'clock +stood once more upon the platform in front of the Pavillon de Lognan. +Then she rested for a while, saying very little. + +"You are tired?" he said. + +"No," she replied. "But this day has made a great difference to me." + +Her guides approached her and she said no more upon the point. But Chayne +had no doubt that she was referring to that decision which she had taken +on the summit of the peak. She stood up to go. + +"You stay here to-night?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?" + +"Yes." + +She looked at him quickly and then away. + +"You will be careful? In the shadow there?" + +"Yes." + +She was silent for a moment or two, looking up the glacier toward the +Aiguille d'Argentière. + +"I thank you very much for coming with me," and again the humility in +her voice, as of one outside the door, touched and hurt him. "I am +very grateful," and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am +rather proud!" + +"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me," he answered, as they shook +hands. "I shall cross the Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow." + +They shook hands, and he asked: + +"Shall I see no more of you?" + +"That is as you will," she replied, simply. + +"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever you are likely to be. I +am on leave now for some months." + +She thought for a second or two. Then she said: + +"If you will give me your address, I will write to you. I think I shall +be in England." + +"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs." + +She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille +d'Argentière. + +"I shall dream of that to-night." + +"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden +balustrade. "You will dream of running water." + +She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this +strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine +woods and the village of Les Tines. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + +Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in +the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent +amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached +idlers of various nationalities. + +"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over +the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so +appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the +eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her +complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She +came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the +evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the +Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could +hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of +her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days. + +"Sylvia won't fit in." + +Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and +with ever more reason. Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs. +Thesiger's scheme of life. It was not that the girl resisted or +complained. Mrs. Thesiger would have understood objections and +complaints. She would not have minded them; she could have coped with +them. There would have been little scenes, with accusations of +ingratitude, of undutifulness, and Mrs. Thesiger was not averse to the +excitement of little scenes. But Sylvia never complained; she maintained +a reserve, a mystery which her mother found very uncomfortable. "She has +no sympathy," said Mrs. Thesiger. Moreover, she would grow up, and she +would grow up in beauty and in freshness. Mrs. Thesiger did her best. She +kept her dressed in a style which suited a younger girl, or rather, which +would have suited a younger girl had it been less decorative and extreme. +Again Sylvia did not complain. She followed her usual practice and shut +her mind to the things which displeased her so completely, that they +ceased to trouble her. But Mrs. Thesiger never knew that secret; and +often, when in the midst of her chatter she threw a glance at the +elaborate figure of her daughter, sitting apart with her lace skirts too +short, her heels too high, her hat too big and too fancifully trimmed, +she would see her madonna-like face turned toward her, and her dark eyes +thoughtfully dwelling upon her. At such times there would come an +uncomfortable sensation that she was being weighed and found wanting; or +a question would leap in her mind and bring with it fear, and the same +question which she had asked herself in the train on the way to Chamonix. + +"You ask me about my daughter?" she once exclaimed pettishly to +Monsieur Pettigrat. "Upon my word, I really know nothing of her except +one ridiculous thing. She always dreams of running water. Now, I ask +you, what can you do with a daughter so absurd that she dreams of +running water?" + +Monsieur Pettigrat was a big, broad, uncommon man; he knew that he was +uncommon, and dressed accordingly in a cloak and a brigand's hat; he saw +what others did not, and spoke in a manner suitably impressive. + +"I will tell you, madame, about your daughter," he said somberly. "To me +she has a fated look." + +Mrs. Thesiger was a little consoled to think that she had a daughter with +a fated look. + +"I wonder if others have noticed it," she said, cheerfully. + +"No," replied Monsieur Pettigrat. "No others. Only I." + +"There! That's just like Sylvia," cried Mrs. Thesiger, in exasperation. +"She has a fated look and makes nothing of it." + +But the secret of her discontent was just a woman's jealousy of a younger +rival. Men were beginning to turn from her toward her daughter. That +Sylvia never competed only made the sting the sharper. The grave face +with its perfect oval, which smiled so rarely, but in so winning a way, +its delicate color, its freshness, were points which she could not +forgive her daughter. She felt faded and yellow beside her, she rouged +more heavily on account of her, she looked with more apprehension at the +crow's-feet which were beginning to show about the corners of her eyes, +and the lines which were beginning to run from the nostrils to the +corners of her mouth. + +Sylvia reached the hotel in time for dinner, and as she sat with her +mother, drinking her coffee in the garden afterward, Monsieur Pettigrat +planted himself before the little iron table. + +He shook his head, which was what his friends called "leonine." + +"Mademoiselle," he said, in his most impressive voice, "I envy you." + +Sylvia looked up at him with a little smile of mischief upon her lips. + +"And why, monsieur?" + +He waved his arm magnificently. + +"I watched you at dinner. You are of the elect, mademoiselle, for whom +the snow peaks have a message." + +Sylvia's smile faded from her face. + +"Perhaps so, monsieur," she said, gravely, and her mother +interposed testily: + +"A message! Ridiculous! There are only two words in the message, my dear. +Cold-cream! and be sure you put it on your face before you go to bed." + +Sylvia apparently did not hear her mother's comment. At all events she +disregarded it, and Monsieur Pettigrat once again shook his head at +Sylvia with a kindly magnificence. + +"They have no message for me, mademoiselle," he said, with a sigh, as +though he for once regretted that he was so uncommon. "I once went up +there to see." He waved his hand generally to the chain of Mont Blanc and +drifted largely away. + +Mrs. Thesiger, however, was to hear more definitely of that message two +days later. It was after dinner. She was sitting in the garden with her +daughter on a night of moonlight; behind them rose the wall of +mountains, silent and shadowed, in front were the lights of the little +town, and the clatter of its crowded streets. Between the town and the +mountains, at the side of the hotel this garden lay, a garden of grass +and trees, where the moonlight slept in white brilliant pools of light, +or dripped between the leaves of the branches. It partook alike of the +silence of the hills and the noise of the town, for a murmur of voices +was audible from this and that point, and under the shadows of the trees +could be seen the glimmer of light-colored frocks and the glow of cigars +waxing and waning. A waiter came across the garden with some letters for +Mrs. Thesiger. There were none for Sylvia and she was used to none, for +she had no girl friends, and though at times men wrote her letters she +did not answer them. + +A lamp burned near at hand. Mrs. Thesiger opened her letters and read +them. She threw them on to the table when she had read them through. +But there was one which angered her, and replacing it in its envelope, +she tossed it so petulantly aside that it slid off the iron table and +fell at Sylvia's feet. Sylvia stooped and picked it up. It had fallen +face upward. + +"This is from my father." + +Mrs. Thesiger looked up startled. It was the first time that Sylvia had +ever spoken of him to her. A wariness come into her eyes. + +"Well?" she asked. + +"I want to go to him." + +Sylvia spoke very simply and gently, looking straight into her mother's +face with that perplexing steadiness of gaze which told so very little of +what thoughts were busy behind it. Her mother turned her face aside. She +was rather frightened. For a while she made no reply at all, but her face +beneath its paint looked haggard and old in the white light, and she +raised her hand to her heart. When she did speak, her voice shook. + +"You have never seen your father. He has never seen you. He and I parted +before you were born." + +"But he writes to you." + +"Yes, he writes to me," and for all that she tried, she could not +altogether keep a tone of contempt out of her voice. She added with some +cruelty: "But he never mentions you. He has never once inquired after +you, never once." + +Sylvia looked very wistfully at the letter, but her purpose was +not shaken. + +"Mother, I want to go to him," she persisted. Her lips trembled a little, +and with a choke of the voice, a sob half caught back, she added: "I am +most unhappy here." + +The rarity of a complaint from Sylvia moved her mother strangely. There +was a forlornness, moreover, in her appealing attitude. Just for a moment +Mrs. Thesiger began to think of early days of which the memory was at +once a pain and a reproach. A certain little village underneath the great +White Horse on the Dorsetshire Downs rose with a disturbing vividness +before her eyes. She almost heard the mill stream babble by. In that +village of Sutton Poyntz she had herself been born, and to it she had +returned, caught back again for a little while by her own country and her +youth, that Sylvia might be born there too. These months had made a kind +of green oasis in her life. She had rested there in a farm-house, after a +time of much turbulence, with the music of running water night and day in +her ears, a high-walled garden of flowers and grass about her, and the +downs with the shadow-filled hollows, and brown treeless slopes rising up +from her very feet. She could not but think of that short time of peace, +and her voice softened as she answered her daughter. + +"We don't keep step, Sylvia," she said, with an uneasy laugh. "I know +that. But, after all, would you be happier with your father, even if he +wants to keep you! You have all you want here--frocks, amusement, +companions. Try to be more friendly with people." + +But Sylvia merely shook her head. + +"I can't go on any longer like this," she said, slowly. "I can't, mother. +If my father won't have me, I must see what I can do. Of course, I can't +do much. I don't know anything. But I am too unhappy here. I cannot +endure the life we are living without a home or--respect,--" Sylvia had +not meant to use that word. But it had slipped out before she was aware. +She broke off and turned her eyes again to her mother. They were very +bright, for the moonlight glistened upon tears. But the softness had gone +from her mother's face. She had grown in a moment hard, and her voice +rang hard as she asked: + +"Why do you think that your father and I parted? Come, let me hear!" + +Sylvia turned her head away. + +"I don't think about it," she said, gently. "I don't want to think about +it. I just think that he left you, because you did not keep step either." + +"Oh, he left me? Not I him? Then why does he write to me?" + +The voice was growing harder with every word. + +"I suppose because he is kind"; and at that simple explanation Sylvia's +mother laughed with a bitter amusement. Sylvia sat scraping the gravel +with her slipper. + +"Don't do that!" cried her mother, irritably. Then she asked suddenly a +question which startled her daughter. + +"Did you meet any one last night on the mountain, at the inn?" + +Sylvia's face colored, but the moonlight hid the change. + +"Yes," she said. + +"A man?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was it?" + +"A Captain Chayne. He was at the hotel all last week. It was his friend +who was killed on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Were you alone at the inn, you and he?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he know your father?" + +Sylvia stared at her mother. + +"I don't know. I suppose not. How should he?" + +"It's not impossible," replied Mrs. Thesiger. Then she leaned on the +table. "It was he who put these ideas into your head about going away, +about leaving me." She made an accusation rather than put a question, and +made it angrily. + +"No, mother," Sylvia replied. "He never spoke of you. The ideas have been +growing in my mind for a long time, and to-day--" She raised her head, +and turning slightly, looked up to where just behind her the ice-peaks of +the Aiguilles du Midi and de Blaitière soared into the moonlit sky. +"To-day the end came. I became certain that I must go away. I am very +sorry, mother." + +"The message of the mountains!" said her mother with a sneer, and Sylvia +answered quietly: + +"Yes." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Thesiger. She had been deeply stung by her +daughter's words, by her wish to go, and if she delayed her consent, it +was chiefly through a hankering to punish Sylvia. But the thought came to +her that she would punish Sylvia more completely if she let her go. She +smiled cruelly as she looked at the girl's pure and gentle face. And, +after all, she herself would be free--free from Sylvia's unconscious +rivalry, free from the competition of her freshness and her youth, free +from the grave criticism of her eyes. + +"Very well, you shall go to your father. But remember! You have made your +choice. You mustn't come whining back to me, because I won't have you," +she said, brutally. "You shall go to-morrow." + +She took the letter from its envelope but she did not show it to +her daughter. + +"I don't use your father's name," she said. "I have not used it +since"--and again the cruel smile appeared upon her lips--"since he left +me, as you say. He is called Garratt Skinner, and he lives in a little +house in Hobart Place. Yes, you shall start for your home to-morrow." + +Sylvia stood up. + +"Thank you," she said. She looked wistfully at her mother, asking her +pardon with the look. But she did not approach her. She stood sadly in +front of her. Mrs. Thesiger made no advance. + +"Well?" she asked, in her hard, cold voice. + +"Thank you, mother," Sylvia repeated, and she walked slowly to the door +of the hotel. She looked up to the mountains. Needle spires of rock, +glistening pinnacles of ice, they stood dreaming to the moonlight and the +stars. The great step had been taken. She prayed for something of their +calm, something of their proud indifference to storm and sunshine, +solitude and company. She went up to her room and began to pack her +trunks. And as she packed, the tears gathered in her eyes and fell. + +Meanwhile, her mother sat in the garden. So Sylvia wanted a home; she +could not endure the life she lived with her mother. Afar off a band +played; the streets beyond were noisy as a river; beneath the trees of +the garden here people talked quietly. Mrs. Thesiger sat with a little +vindictive smile upon her face. Her rival was going to be punished. Mrs. +Thesiger had left her husband, not he her. She read through the letter +which she had received from him this evening. It was a pressing request +for money. She was not going to send him money. She wondered how he would +appreciate the present of a daughter instead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + +Sylvia left Chamonix the next afternoon. It was a Saturday, and she +stepped out of her railway-carriage on to the platform of Victoria +Station at seven o'clock on the Sunday evening. She was tired by her long +journey, and she felt rather lonely as she waited for her trunks to be +passed by the officers of the custom-house. It was her very first visit +to London, and there was not one person to meet her. Other travelers were +being welcomed on all sides by their friends. No one in all London +expected her. She doubted if she had one single acquaintance in the whole +town. Her mother, foreseeing this very moment, had with a subtlety of +malice refrained from so much as sending a telegram to the girl's father; +and Sylvia herself, not knowing him, had kept silence too. Since he did +not expect her, she thought her better plan was to see him, or rather, +since her thoughts were frank, to let him see her. Her mirror had assured +her that her looks would be a better introduction than a telegram. + +She had her boxes placed upon a cab and drove off to Hobart Place. The +sense of loneliness soon left her. She was buoyed up by excitement. The +novelty of the streets amused her. Moreover, she had invented her father, +clothed him with many qualities as with shining raiment, and set him high +among the persons of her dreams. Would he be satisfied with his daughter? +That was her fear, and with the help of the looking-glass at the side of +her hansom, she tried to remove the traces of travel from her young face. + +The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between two houses, and she +got out. Over the wall she saw the green leaves and branches of a few +lime trees which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the garden, +in the far recess between the two side walls, the upper windows of a +little neat white house. Sylvia was charmed with it. She rang the bell, +and a servant came to the door. + +"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia. + +"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but--" + +Sylvia, however, had made her plans. + +"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the cabman, and walked on +through the doorway into a little garden of grass with a few flowers on +each side against the walls. A tiled path led through the middle of the +grass to the glass door of the house. Sylvia walked straight down, +followed by the cabman who brought her boxes in one after the other. The +servant, giving way before the composure of this strange young visitor, +opened the door of a sitting-room upon the left hand, and Sylvia, +followed by her trunks, entered and took possession. + +"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in perplexity. She had had no +orders to expect a visitor. Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she +heard the garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was driven +away. Then, and not till then, she answered the question. + +"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some one would like to see +him." + +The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia seated herself firmly +upon one of the boxes. In spite of her composed manner, her heart was +beating wildly. She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man along +the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After all she was in the house, she +and her baggage. The door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who +seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared at her. Then he +saw her boxes, and he frowned in perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he +was a man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-lined aquiline +face. He had thick, dark brown hair, a mustache of a lighter brown and +eyes of the color of hers--a man rather lean but of an athletic build. +Sylvia watched him intently, but the only look upon his face was one of +absolute astonishment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him, perched +upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his house. + +"You wanted to see me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She looked at him gravely. "I +am Sylvia," she said. + +A smile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about his mouth. + +"And-- + +"Who is Sylvia? What is she? +Her trunks do not proclaim her!" + +he said. "Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to stay, I am rather in +the dark." + +"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?" + +"Yes." + +"I am your daughter Sylvia." + +"My daughter Sylvia!" he exclaimed in a daze. Then he sat down and held +his head between his hands. + +"Yes, by George. I _have_ got a daughter Sylvia," he said, obviously +recollecting the fact with surprise. "But you are at Chamonix." + +"I was at Chamonix yesterday." + +Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia. + +"Did your mother send you to me?" + +"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came of my own accord. A letter +came from you--" + +"Did you see it?" interrupted her father. "Did she show it you?" + +"No, but she gave me your address when I told her that I must come away." + +"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that kindly act," he said, with +a sudden bitterness. Then he looked curiously at his daughter. + +"Why did you want to come away?" + +"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been thinking over this. I hated it +all--the people we met, the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether. +Then at Chamonix I went up a mountain." + +"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you went up a mountain? +Which one?" + +"The Aiguille d'Argentière. Do you know it, father?" + +"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner. + +"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is difficult to explain. But I +felt the difference. I felt something had happened to me which I had to +recognize--a new thing. Climbing that mountain, staying for an hour upon +its summit in the sunlight with all those great still pinnacles and +ice-slopes about me--it was just like hearing very beautiful music." She +was sitting now leaning forward with her hands clasped in front of her +and speaking with great earnestness. "All the vague longings which had +ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond, came +back upon me in a tumult. There was a place in shadow at my feet far +below, the only place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col +Dolent. It seemed to me that I was living in that cold shadow. I wanted +to get up on the ridge, with the sunlight. So I came to you." + +It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her words were and must +be elusive to another, unless that other had felt what she felt or were +moved by sympathy to feel it. Her father listened without ridicule, +without a smile. Indeed, once or twice he nodded his head to her words. +Was it comprehension, she wondered, or was it only patience? + +"When I came down from that summit, I felt that what I had hated before +was no longer endurable at all. So I came to you." + +Her father got up from his chair and stood for a little while looking out +of the window. He was clearly troubled by her words. He turned away with +a shrug of his shoulders. + +"But--but--what can I do for you here?" he cried. "Sylvia, I am a very +poor man. Your mother, on the other hand, has some money." + +"Oh, father, I shan't cost you much," she replied, eagerly. "I might +perhaps by looking after things save you money. I won't cost you much." + +Garratt Skinner looked at her with a rueful smile. + +"You look to me rather an expensive person to keep up," he said. + +"Mother dressed me like this. It's not my choice," she said. "I let her +do as she wished. It did not seem to matter much. Really, if you will let +me stay, you will find me useful," she said, in a pathetic appeal. + +"Useful?" said Garratt Skinner, suddenly. He again took stock of her, but +now with a scrutiny which caused her a vague discomfort. He seemed to be +appraising her from the color of her hair and eyes to the prettiness of +her feet, almost as though she was for sale, and he a doubtful purchaser. +She looked down on the carpet and slowly her blood colored her neck and +rose into her face. "Useful," he said, slowly. "Perhaps so, yes, perhaps +so." And upon that he changed his tone. "We will see, Sylvia. You must +stay here for the present, at all events. Luckily, there is a spare room. +I have some friends here staying to supper--just a bachelor's friends, +you know, taking pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not +polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl, sound of heart." +All his perplexity had vanished; he had taken his part; and he rattled +along with a friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from Sylvia's +thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare and winning smile. He rang +the bell for the housemaid. + +"My daughter will stay here," he said, to the servant's astonishment. +"Get the spare room ready at once. You will be hostess to-night, Sylvia, +and sit at the head of the table. I become a family man. Well, well!" + +He took Sylvia up-stairs and showed her a little bright room with a big +window which looked out across the garden. He carried her boxes up +himself. "We don't run to a butler," he said. "Got everything you want? +Ring if you haven't. We have supper at eight and we shan't dress. +Only--well, you couldn't look dowdy if you tried." + +Sylvia had not the slightest intention to try. She put on a little frock +of white lace, high at the throat, dressed her hair, and then having a +little time to spare she hurriedly wrote a letter. This letter she gave +to the servant and she ran down-stairs. + +"You will be careful to have it posted, please!" she said, and at that +moment her father came out into the passage, so quickly that he might +have been listening for her approach. + +She stopped upon the staircase, a few steps above him. The evening was +still bright, and the daylight fell upon her from a window above the +hall door. + +"Shall I do?" she asked, with a smile. + +The staircase was paneled with a dark polished wood, and she stood out +from that somber background, a white figure, delicate and dainty and +wholesome, from the silver buckle on her satin slipper to the white +flower she had placed in her hair. Her face, with its remarkable +gentleness, its suggestion of purity as of one unspotted by the world, +was turned to him with a confident appeal. Her clear gray eyes rested +quietly on his. Yet she saw his face change. It seemed that a spasm of +pain or revolt shook him. Upon her face there came a blank look. Why was +he displeased? But the spasm passed. He shrugged his shoulders and threw +off his doubt. + +"You are very pretty," he said. + +Sylvia's smile just showed about the corners of her lips and her +face cleared. + +"Yes," she said, with satisfaction. + +Garratt Skinner laughed. + +"Oh, you know that?" + +"Yes," she replied, nodding her head at him. + +He led the way down the passage toward the back of the house, and +throwing open a door introduced her to his friends. + +"Captain Barstow," he said, and Sylvia found herself shaking hands with a +little middle-aged man with a shiny bald head and a black square beard. +He had an eye-glass screwed into his right eye, and that whole side of +his face was distorted by the contraction of the muscles and drawn upward +toward the eye. He did not look at her directly, but with an oblique and +furtive glance he expressed his sense of the honor which the introduction +conferred on him. However, Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. +She turned to the next of her father's guests. + +"Mr. Archie Parminter." + +He at all events looked her straight in the face. He was a man of +moderate height, youthful in build, but old of face, upon which there sat +always a smirk of satisfaction. He was of those whom no beauty in others, +no grace, no sweetness, could greatly impress, so filled was he with +self-complacency. He had no time to admire, since always he felt that he +was being admired, and to adjust his pose, and to speak so that his +words, carried to the right distance, occupied too much of his attention. +He seldom spoke to the person he talked with but generally to some other, +a woman for choice, whom he believed to be listening to the important +sentences he uttered. For the rest, he had grown heavy in jaw and his +face (a rather flat face in which were set a pair of sharp dark eyes) +narrowed in toward the top of his head like a pear. + +He bowed suavely to Sylvia, with the air of one showing to the room how a +gentleman performed that ceremony, but took little note of her. + +But Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. + +Her father took her by the elbow and turned her about. + +"Mr. Hine." + +Sylvia was confronted with a youth who reddened under her greeting and +awkwardly held out a damp coarse hand, a poor creature with an insipid +face, coarse hair, and manner of great discomfort. He was as tall as +Parminter, but wore his good clothes with Sunday air, and having been +introduced to Sylvia could find no word to say to her. + +"Well, let us go in to supper," said her father, and he held open the +door for her to pass. + +Sylvia went into the dining-room across the narrow hall, where a cold +supper was laid upon a round table. In spite of her resolve to see all +things in a rosy light, she grew conscious, in spite of herself, that she +was disappointed in her father's friends. She was perplexed, too. He was +so clearly head and shoulders above his associates, that she wondered at +their presence in his house. Yet he seemed quite content, and in a most +genial mood. + +"You sit here, Sylvia, my dear," he said, pointing to a chair. +"Wallie"--this to the youth Hine--"sit beside my daughter and keep her +amused. Barstow, you on the other side; Parminter next to me." + +He sat opposite Sylvia and the rest took their places, Hine sidling +timidly into his chair and tortured by the thought that he had to amuse +this delicate being at his side. + +"The supper is on the table," said Garratt Skinner. "Parminter, will you +cut up this duck? Hine, what have you got in front of you? Really, this +is so exceptional an occasion that I think--" he started up suddenly, as +a man will with a new and happy idea--"I certainly think that for once in +a way we might open a bottle of champagne." + +Surprise and applause greeted this brilliant idea, and Hine cried out: + +"I think champagne fine, don't you, Miss Skinner?" + +He collapsed at his own boldness. Parminter shrugged his shoulders to +show that champagne was an every-day affair with him. + +"It's drunk a good deal at the clubs nowadays," he said. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner had not moved. He stood looking across the +table to his daughter. + +"What do you say, Sylvia? It's an extravagance. But I don't have such +luck every day. It's in your honor. Shall we? Yes, then!" + +He did not wait for an answer, but opened the door of a cupboard in the +sideboard, and there, quite ready, stood half a dozen bottles of +champagne. A doubt flashed into Sylvia's mind--a doubt whether her +father's brilliant idea was really the inspiration which his manner had +suggested. Those bottles looked so obviously got in for the occasion. +But Garratt Skinner turned to her apologetically, as though he divined +her thought. + +"We don't run to a wine cellar, Sylvia. We have to keep what little stock +we can afford in here." + +Her doubt vanished, but in an instant it returned again, for as her +father came round the table with the bottle in his hand, she noticed that +shallow champagne glasses were ready laid at every place. Garratt Skinner +filled the glasses and returned to his place. + +"Sylvia," he said, and, smiling, he drank to her. He turned to his +companions. "Congratulate me!" Then he sat down. + +The champagne thawed the tongues of the company, and as they spoke +Sylvia's heart sank more and more. For in word and thought and manner her +father's guests were familiar to her. She refused to acknowledge it, but +the knowledge was forced upon her. She had thought to step out of a world +which she hated, against which her delicacy and her purity revolted, and +lo! she had stepped out merely to take a stride and step down into it +again at another place. + +The obsequious attentiveness of Captain Barstow, the vanity of Mr. +Parminter and his affected voice, suggesting that he came out of the +great world to this little supper party, really without any sense of +condescension at all, and the behavior of Walter Hine, who, to give +himself courage, gulped down his champagne--it was all horribly familiar. +Her one consolation was her father. He sat opposite to her, his strong +aquiline face a fine contrast to the faces of the others; he had an ease +of manner which they did not possess; he talked with a quietude of his +own, and he had a watchful eye and a ready smile for his daughter. +Indeed, it seemed that what she felt his guests felt too. For they spoke +to him with a certain deference, almost as if they spoke to their master. +He alone apparently noticed no unsuitability in his guests. He sat at his +ease, their bosom friend. + +Meanwhile, plied with champagne by Archie Parminter, who sat upon the +other side of him, "Wallie" Hine began to boast. Sylvia tried to check +him, but he was not now to be stopped. His very timidity pricked him on +to extravagance, and his boasting was that worst form of boasting--the +vaunt of the innocent weakling anxious to figure as a conqueror of women. +With a flushed face he dropped his foolish hints of Mrs. This and Lady +That, with an eye upon Sylvia to watch the impression which he made, and +a wise air which said "If only I were to tell you all." + +Garratt Skinner opened a fresh bottle of champagne--the supply by now was +getting low--and came round the table with it. As he held the neck of the +bottle to the brim of Hine's glass he caught an appealing look from his +daughter. At once he lifted the bottle and left the glass unfilled. As he +passed Sylvia, she said in a low voice: + +"Thank you," and he whispered back: + +"You are quite right, my dear. Interest him so that he doesn't notice +that I have left his glass empty." + +Sylvia set herself then to talk to Wallie Hine. But he was intent on +making her understand what great successes had been his. He _would_ talk, +and it troubled her that all listened, and listened with an air of +admiration. Even her father from his side of the table smiled +indulgently. Yet the stories, or rather the hints of stories, were +certainly untrue. For this her wanderings had taught her--the man of many +successes never talks. It seemed that there was a conspiracy to flatter +the wretched youth. + +"Yes, yes. You have been a devil of a fellow among the women, Wallie," +said Captain Barstow. But at once Garratt Skinner interfered and sharply: + +"Come, come, Barstow! That's no language to use before my daughter." + +Captain Barstow presented at the moment a remarkable gradation of color. +On the top was the bald head, very shiny and white, below that a face +now everywhere a deep red except where the swollen veins stood out upon +the surface of his cheeks, and those were purple, and this in its turn +was enclosed by the black square beard. He bowed at once to Garratt +Skinner's rebuke. + +"I apologize. I do indeed, Miss Sylvia! But when I was in the service we +still clung to the traditions of Wellington by--by George. And it's hard +to break oneself of the habit. 'Red-hot,'" he said, with a chuckle. +"That's what they called me in the regiment. Red-hot Barstow. I'll bet +that Red-hot Barstow is still pretty well remembered among the boys at +Cheltenham." + +"Swearing's bad form nowadays," said Archie Parminter, superciliously. +"They have given it up at the clubs." + +Sylvia seized the moment and rose from the table. Her father sprang +forward and opened the door. + +"We will join you in a few minutes," he said. + +Sylvia went down the passage to the room at the back of the house in +which she had been presented by her father to his friends. She rang the +bell at once and when the servant came she said: + +"I gave you a letter to post this evening. I should like to have it +back." + +"I am sorry, miss, but it's posted." + +"I am sorry, too," said Sylvia, quietly. + +The letter had been written to Chayne, and gave him the address of this +house as the place where he might find her if he called. She had no +thought of going away. She had made her choice for good or ill and must +abide by it. That she knew. But she was no longer sure that she wished +Captain Chayne to come and find her there. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + +Sylvia sat down in a chair and waited. She waited impatiently, for she +knew that she had almost reached the limits of her self-command, and +needed the presence of others to keep her from breaking down. But her +native courage came to her aid, and in half an hour she heard the steps +of her father and his guests in the passage. She noticed that her father +looked anxiously toward her as he came in. + +"Do you mind if we bring in our cigars?" he asked. + +"Not at all," said she; and he came in, carrying in his hand a box of +cigars, which he placed in the middle of the table. Wallie Hine at +once stumbled across the room to Sylvia; he walked unsteadily, his +features were more flushed than before. She shrank a little from him. +But he had not the time to sit down beside her, for Captain Barstow +exclaimed jovially: + +"I say, Garratt, I have an idea. There are five of us here. Let us have a +little round game of cards." + +Sylvia started. In her heart she knew that just some such proposal as +this she had been dreading all the evening. Her sinking hopes died away +altogether. + +This poor witless youth, plied with champagne; the older men who +flattered him with lies; the suggestion of champagne made as though it +were a sudden inspiration, and the six bottles standing ready in the +cupboard; and now the suggestion of a little round game of cards made in +just the same tone! Sylvia had a feeling of horror. She had kept herself +unspotted from her world, but not through ignorance. She knew it. She +knew those little round games of cards and what came of them, sometimes +merely misery and ruin, sometimes a pistol shot in the early morning. She +turned very pale, but she managed to say: + +"Thank you. I don't play cards." + +And then she heard a sudden movement by her father, who at the moment +when Barstow spoke had been lighting a fresh cigar. She looked up. +Garratt Skinner was staring in astonishment at Captain Barstow. + +"Cards!" he cried. "In my house? On a Sunday evening?" + +With each question his amazement grew, and he ended in a tone of +remonstrance. + +"Come, Barstow, you know me too well to propose that. I am rather hurt. A +friendly talk, and a smoke, yes. Perhaps a small whisky and soda. I don't +say no. But cards on a Sunday evening! No indeed." + +"Oh, I say, Skinner," objected Wallie Hine. "There's no harm in a +little game." + +Garratt Skinner shook his head at Hine in a grave friendly way. + +"Better leave cards alone, Wallie, always. You are young, you know." + +Hine flushed. + +"I am old enough to hold my own against any man," he cried, hotly. He +felt that Garratt Skinner had humiliated him, and before this wonderful +daughter of his in whose good favors Mr. Hine had been making such +inroads during supper. Barstow apologized for his suggestion at once, but +Hine was now quite unwilling that he should withdraw it. + +"There's no harm in it," he cried. "I really think you are too +Puritanical, isn't he, Miss--Miss Sylvia?" + +Hine had been endeavoring to pluck up courage to use her Christian name +all the evening. His pride that he had actually spoken it was so great +that he did not remark at all her little movement of disgust. + +Garratt Skinner seemed to weaken in his resolution. + +"Well, of course, Wallie," he said, "I want you to enjoy yourselves. And +if you especially want it--" + +Did he notice that Sylvia closed her eyes and really shivered? She could +not tell. But he suddenly spoke in a tone of revolt: + +"But card-playing on Sunday. Really no!" + +"It's done nowadays at the West-End Clubs," said Archie Parminter. + +"Oh, is it?" said Garratt Skinner, again grown doubtful. "Is it, +indeed? Well, if they do it in the Clubs--" And then with an +exclamation of relief--"I haven't got a pack of cards in the house. +That settles the point." + +"There's a public house almost next door," replied Barstow. "If you send +out your servant, I am sure she could borrow one." + +"No," said Garratt Skinner, indignantly. "Really, Barstow, your bachelor +habits have had a bad effect on you. I would not think of sending a girl +out to a public house on any consideration. It might be the very first +step downhill for her, and I should be responsible." + +"Oh well, if you are so particular, I'll go myself," cried Barstow, +petulantly. He got up and walked to the door. + +"I don't mind so much if you go yourself. Only please don't say you come +from this house," said Garratt Skinner, and Barstow went out from the +room. He came back in a very short time, and Sylvia noticed at once that +he held two quite new and unopened packs of cards in his hand. + +"A stroke of luck," he cried. "The landlord had a couple of new packs, +for he was expecting to give a little party to-night. But a relation of +his wife died rather suddenly yesterday, and he put his guests off. A +decent-minded fellow, I think. What?" + +"Yes. It's not every one who would have shown so much good feeling," said +Garratt Skinner, seriously. "One likes to know that there are men about +like that. One feels kindlier to the whole world"; and he drew up his +chair to the table. + +Sylvia was puzzled. Was this story of the landlord a glib lie of Captain +Barstow's to account, with a detail which should carry conviction, for +the suspiciously new pack of cards? And if so, did her father believe in +its truth? Had the packs been waiting in Captain Barstow's coat pocket in +the hall until the fitting moment for their appearance? If so, did her +father play a part in the conspiracy? His face gave no sign. She was +terribly troubled. + +"Penny points," said Garratt Skinner. "Nothing more." + +"Oh come, I say," cried Hine, as he pulled out a handful of sovereigns. + +"Nothing more than penny points in my house. Put that money away, Wallie. +We will use counters." + +Garratt Skinner had a box of counters if he had no pack of cards. + +"Penny points, a sixpenny ante and a shilling limit," he said. "Then no +harm will be done to any one. The black counters a shilling, the red +sixpence, and the white ones a penny. You have each a pound's worth," he +said as he dealt them out. + +Sylvia rose from her chair. + +"I think I will go to bed." + +Wallie Hine turned round in his chair, holding his counters in his +hand. "Oh, don't do that, Miss Sylvia. Sit beside me, please, and +bring me luck." + +"You forget, Wallie, that my daughter has just come from a long journey. +No doubt she is tired," said Garratt Skinner, with a friendly reproach in +his voice. He got up and opened the door for his daughter. After she had +passed out he followed her. + +"I shall take a hand for a little while, Sylvia, to see that they keep to +the stakes. I think young Hine wants looking after, don't you? He doesn't +know any geography. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well!" + +He took her by the elbow and drew her toward him. He stooped to her, +meaning to kiss her. Sylvia did not resist, but she drooped her head so +that her forehead, not her lips, was presented to his embrace. And the +kiss was never given. She remained standing, her face lowered from his, +her attitude one of resignation and despondency. She felt her father's +hand shake upon her arm, and looking up saw his eyes fixed upon her in +pity. He dropped her arm quickly, and said in a sharp voice: + +"There! Go to bed, child!" + +He watched her as she went up the stairs. She went up slowly and without +turning round, and she walked like one utterly tired out. Garratt +Skinner waited until he heard her door close. "She should never have +come," he said. "She should never have come." Then he went slowly back +to his friends. + +Sylvia went to bed, but she did not sleep. The excitement which had +buoyed her up had passed; and her hopes had passed with it. She recalled +the high anticipations with which she had set out from Chamonix only +yesterday--yes, only yesterday. And against them in a vivid contrast she +set the actual reality, the supper party, Red-hot Barstow, Archie +Parminter, and the poor witless Wallie Hine, with his twang and his silly +boasts. She began to wonder whether there was any other world than that +which she knew, any other people than those with whom she had lived. Her +father was different--yes, but--but--Her father was too perplexing a +problem to her at this moment. Why had he so clearly pitied her just now +in the passage? Why had he checked himself from the kiss? She was too +tired to reason it out. She was conscious that she was very wretched, and +the tears gathered in her eyes; and in the darkness of her room she cried +silently, pressing the sheet to her lips lest a sob should be heard. Were +all her dreams mere empty imaginings? she asked. If so, why should they +ever have come to her? she inquired piteously; why should she have found +solace in them--why should they have become her real life? Did no one +walk the earth of all that company which went with her in her fancies? + +Upon that her thoughts flew to the Alps, to the evening in the Pavillon +de Lognan, the climb upon the rocks and the glittering ice-slope, the +perfect hour upon the sunlit top of the Aiguille d'Argentière. The +memory of the mountains brought her consolation in her bad hour, as her +friend had prophesied it would. Her tears ceased to flow, she lived that +day--her one day--over again, jealous of every minute. After all that +had been real, and more perfect than any dream. Moreover, there had been +with her through the day a man honest and loyal as any of her imagined +company. She began to take heart a little; she thought of the Col Dolent +with its broad ribbon of ice set in the sheer black rocks, and always in +shadow. She thought of herself as going up some such hard, cold road in +the shadow, and remembered that on the top of the Col one came out into +sunlight and looked southward into Italy. So comforted a little, she +fell asleep. + +It was some hours before she woke. It was already day, and since she had +raised her blinds before she had got into bed, the light streamed into +the room. She thought for a moment that it was the light which had waked +her. But as she lay she heard a murmur of voices, very low, and a sound +of people moving stealthily. She looked out of the window. The streets +were quite empty and silent. In the houses on the opposite side the +blinds were drawn; a gray clear light was spread over the town; the sun +had not yet risen. She looked at her watch. It was five o'clock. She +listened again, gently opening her door for an inch or so. She heard the +low voices more clearly now. Those who spoke were speaking almost in +whispers. She thought that thieves had broken in. She hurried on a few +clothes, cautiously opened her door wider, slipped through, and crept +with a beating heart down the stairs. + +Half way down the stairs she looked over the rail of the banister, +turning her head toward the back part of the house whence the murmurs +came. At the end of the passage was the little room in which the round +game of cards was played the night before. The door stood open now, and +she looked right into the room. + +And this is what she saw: + +Wallie Hine was sitting at the table. About him the carpet was strewn +with crumpled pieces of paper. There was quite a number of them littered +around his chair. He was writing, or rather, trying to write. For Archie +Parminter leaning over the back of the chair held his hand and guided it. +Captain Barstow stood looking intently on, but of her father there was no +sign. She could not see the whole room, however. A good section of it was +concealed from her. Wallie Hine was leaning forward on the table, with +his head so low and his arms so spread that she could not see in what +book he was writing. But apparently he did not write to the satisfaction +of his companions. In spite of Parminter's care his pen spluttered. +Sylvia saw Archie look at Barstow, and she heard Barstow answer "No, that +won't do." Archie Parminter dropped Hine's hand, tore a slip of paper out +of the book, crumpled it, and threw it down with a gesture of anger on to +the carpet. + +"Try again, old fellow," said Barstow, eagerly, bending down toward Hine +with a horrid smile upon his face, a smile which tried to conceal an +intense exasperation, an intense desire to strike. Again Parminter leaned +over the chair, again he took Wallie Hine's hand and guided the pen, very +carefully lifting it from the paper at the end of an initial or a word, +and spacing the letters. This time he seemed content. + +"That will do, I think," he said, in a whisper. + +Captain Barstow bent down and examined the writing carefully with his +short-sighted eyes. + +"Yes, that's all right." + +Parminter tore the leaf out, but this time he did not crumple it. He +blotted it carefully, folded it, and laid it on the mantle-shelf. + +"Let us get him up," he said, and with Barstow's help they lifted Hine +out of his chair. Sylvia caught a glimpse of his face. His mouth was +loose, his eyes half shut, and the lids red; he seemed to be in a stupor. +His head rolled upon his shoulders. He swayed as his companions held him +up; his knees gave under him. He began incoherently to talk. + +"Hush!" said Parminter. "You'll wake the house. You don't want that +pretty girl to see you in this state, do you, Wallie? After the +impression you made on her, too! Get his hat and coat out of the +passage, Barstow." + +He propped Hine against the table, and holding him upright turned to the +door. He saw "the pretty girl" leaning over the banister and gazing with +horror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back on the instant. +With a gesture of his hand, Archie Parminter stopped Barstow on his way +to the door. + +Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the staircase, holding her +breath, and tightly pressing a hand upon her heart. Had they seen her? +Would they come out into the passage? What would happen? Would they kill +her? The questions raced through her mind. She could not have moved, she +thought, had Death stood over her. But nothing happened. She could not +now see into the room, and she heard no whisper, no footsteps creeping +stealthily along the passage toward her, no sound at all. Presently she +recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once in her room, with great +care she locked the door, and sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling. +There she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very gently +roused her. She crept along the wall till she was by the side of the +window. Then she raised herself against the wall and peered out. She saw +Barstow and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each with an arm +through his. A hansom-cab drove up, they lifted Hine into it, got in +themselves, and drove off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced +up to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind the curtains at +the side. He could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the +panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a +movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound +of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left +behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat +against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his +room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long +while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from +that room, she would just wait until he was asleep, and then she would +go--anywhere. She could not go back to her mother, that she knew. She +had no one to go to; nevertheless, she would go. + +But no sound reached her. Her father was not in the room below. He must +have gone to bed and left the others to themselves. The pigeon had been +plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her father had had no hand +in the plucking. She laid herself down upon her bed, exhausted, and +again sleep came to her. And in a moment the sound of running water was +in her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + +Sylvia did not wake again until the maid brought in her tea and told her +that it was eight o'clock. When she went down-stairs, her father was +already in the dining-room. She scanned him closely, but his face bore no +sign whatever of a late and tempestuous night; and a great relief +enheartened her. He met her with an open smile. + +"Did you sleep well, Sylvia?" + +"Not very well, father," she answered, as she watched his face. "I woke +up in the early morning." + +But nothing could have been more easy or natural than his comment on +her words. + +"Yet you look like a good sleeper. A strange house, I suppose, Sylvia." + +"Voices in the strange house," she answered. + +"Voices?" + +Garratt Skinner's face darkened. + +"Did those fellows stay so late?" he asked with annoyance. "What time was +it when they woke you up, Sylvia?" + +"A little before five." + +Garratt Skinner's annoyance increased. + +"That's too bad," he cried. "I left them and went to bed. But they +promised me faithfully only to stay another half-hour. I am very sorry, +Sylvia." And as she poured out the tea, he continued: "I will speak +pretty sharply to Barstow. It's altogether too bad." + +Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the clock, and as soon as the +hands pointed to five minutes to nine, he rose from the table. + +"I must be off--business, my dear." He came round the table to her and +gently laid a hand upon her shoulder. "It makes a great difference, +Sylvia, to have a daughter, fresh and young and pretty, sitting opposite +to me at the breakfast table--a very great difference. I shall cut work +early to-day on account of it; I'll come home and fetch you, and we'll go +out and lunch somewhere together." + +He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and Sylvia, looking up into +his face, was moved by what he said. He smiled down at her, with her own +winning smile; he looked her in the face with her own frankness, her own +good humor. + +"I have been a lonely man for a good many years, Sylvia," he said, "too +lonely. I am glad the years have come to an end"; and this time he did +what yesterday night he had checked himself from doing. He stooped down +and kissed her on the forehead. Then he went from the room, took his hat, +and letting himself out of the house closed the door behind him. He +called a passing cab, and, as he entered it, he said to the driver: + +"Go to the London and County Bank in Victoria Street," and gaily waving +his hand to his daughter, who stood behind the window, he drove off. + +At one o'clock he returned in the same high spirits. Sylvia had spent the +morning in removing the superfluous cherries and roses from her best hat +and making her frock at once more simple and more suitable to her years. +Garratt Skinner surveyed her with pride. + +"Come on," he said. "I have kept the cab waiting." + +For a poor man he seemed to Sylvia rather reckless. They drove to the +Savoy Hotel and lunched together in the open air underneath the glass +roof, with a bank of flowers upon one side of them and the windows of the +grill-room on the other. The day was very hot, the streets baked in an +arid glare of sunlight; a dry dust from the wood pavement powdered those +who passed by in the Strand. Here, however, in this cool and shaded place +the pair lunched happily together. Garratt Skinner had the tact not to +ask any questions of his daughter about her mother, or how they had fared +together. He talked easily of unimportant things, and pointed out from +time to time some person of note or some fashionable actress who happened +to pass in or out of the hotel. He could be good company when he chose, +and he chose on this morning. It was not until coffee was set before +them, and he had lighted a cigar, that he touched upon themselves, and +then not with any paternal tone, but rather as one comrade conferring +with another. There, indeed, was his great advantage with Sylvia. Her +mother had either disregarded her or treated her as a child. She could +not but be won by a father who laid bare his plans to her and asked for +her criticism as well as her assent. Her suspicions of yesterday died +away, or, at all events, slept so soundly that they could not have +troubled her less had they been dead. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I think London in August, and in such an August, is +too hot. I don't want to see you grow pale, and for myself I haven't had +a holiday for a long time. You see there is not much temptation for a +lonely man to go away by himself." + +For the second time that day he appealed to her on the ground of his +loneliness; and not in vain. She began even to feel remorseful that she +had left him to his loneliness so long. There rose up within her an +almost maternal feeling of pity for her father. She did not stop to think +that he had never sent for her; had never indeed shown a particle of +interest in her until they had met face to face. + +"But since you are here," he continued, "well--I have been doing fairly +well in my business lately, and I thought we might take a little holiday +together, at some quiet village by the sea. You know nothing of England. +I have been thinking it all out this morning. There is no country more +beautiful or more typical than Dorsetshire. Besides, you were born there. +What do you say to three weeks or so in Dorsetshire? We will stay at an +hotel in Weymouth for a few days and look about for a house." + +"Father!" exclaimed Sylvia, leaning forward with shining eyes. "It will +be splendid. Just you and I!" + +"Well, not quite," he answered, slowly; and as he saw his daughter sink +back with a pucker of disappointment on her forehead, he knocked the ash +off his cigar and in his turn leaned forward over the table. + +"Sylvia, I want to talk to you seriously," he said, and glanced around to +make sure that no one overheard him. "I should very much like one person +to come and stay with us." + +Sylvia made no answer. Her face was grave and very still, her eyes dwelt +quietly upon him and betrayed nothing of what she thought. + +"You have guessed who the one person is?" + +Again Sylvia did not answer. + +"Yes. It is Wallie Hine," he continued. + +Her suspicions were stirring again from their sleep. She waited in fear +upon his words. She looked out, through the opening at the mouth of the +court into the glare of the Strand. The bright prospect which her vivid +fancies had pictured there a minute since, transforming the dusky street +into fields of corn and purple heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn +by teams of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark. A real +horror was gripping her. But she turned her eyes quietly back upon her +father's face and waited. + +"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Garratt Skinner continued +with an easy assurance. "You saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last +night--a weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward, with graces +of neither mind nor body, and in the hands of two scoundrels." + +Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain +to see in her dark eyes. + +"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia. He has come into a little money, and he +is in the hands of two scoundrels who are leading him by the nose. My +poor girl," he cried, suddenly breaking off, "you must have found +yourself in very strange and disappointing company last night. I was very +sorry for you, and sorry for myself, too. All the evening I was saying to +myself, 'I wonder what my little girl is thinking of me.' But I couldn't +help it. I had not the time to explain. I had to sit quiet, knowing that +you must be unhappy, certain that you must be despising me for the +company I kept." + +Sylvia blushed guiltily. + +"Despising you? No, father," she said, in a voice of apology. "I saw how +much above the rest you were." + +"Blaming me, then," interrupted Garratt Skinner, with an easy smile. He +was not at all offended. "Let us say blaming me. And it was quite natural +that you should, judging by the surface. And there was nothing but the +surface for you to judge by." + +While in this way defending Sylvia against her own self-reproach, he only +succeeded in making her feel still more that she had judged hastily where +she should have held all judgment in abeyance, that she had lacked faith +where by right she should have shown most faith. But he wished to spare +her from confusion. + +"I was so proud of you that I could not but suffer all the more. However, +don't let us talk of it, my dear"; and waving with a gesture of the hand +that little misunderstanding away forever, he resumed: + +"Well, I am rather fond of Wallie Hine. I don't know why, perhaps because +he is so helpless, because he so much stands in need of a steady mentor +at his elbow. There is, after all, no accounting for one's likings. Logic +and reason have little to do with them. As a woman you know that. And +being rather fond of Wallie Hine, I have tried to do my best for him. It +would not have been of any use to shut my door on Barstow and Archie +Parminter. They have much too firm a hold on the poor youth. I should +have been shutting it on Wallie Hine, too. No, the only plan was to +welcome them all, to play Parminter's game of showing the youth about +town, and Barstow's game of crude flattery, and gradually, if possible, +to dissociate him from his companions, before they had fleeced him +altogether. So you were let in, my dear, for that unfortunate evening. Of +course I was quite sure that you would not attribute to me designs upon +Wallie Hine, otherwise I should have turned them all out at once." + +He spoke with a laugh, putting aside, as it were, a quite incredible +suggestion. But he looked at her sharply as he laughed. Sylvia's face +grew crimson, her eyes for once wavered from his face, and she lowered +her head. Garratt Skinner, however, seemed not to notice her confusion. + +"You remember," he continued, "that I tried to stop them playing cards at +the beginning. I yielded in the end, because it became perfectly clear +that if I didn't they would go away and play elsewhere, while I at all +events could keep the points down in my own house. I ought to have stayed +up, I suppose, until they went away. I blame myself there a little. But I +had no idea they would stay so late. Are you sure it was their voices you +heard and not the servants moving?" + +He asked the question almost carelessly, but his eyes rather belied his +tone, for they watched her intently. + +"Quite sure," she answered. + +"You might have made a mistake." + +"No; for I saw them." + +Garratt Skinner covered his mouth with his hand. It seemed to Sylvia that +he smiled. A suspicion flashed across her mind, in spite of herself. Was +he merely testing her to see whether she would speak the truth or not? +Did he know that she had come down the stairs in the early morning? She +thrust the suspicion aside, remembering the self-reproach which suspicion +had already caused her at this very luncheon table. If it were true that +her father knew, why then Barstow or Parminter must have told him this +very morning. And if he had seen either of them this morning, all his +talk to her in this cool and quiet place was a carefully prepared +hypocrisy. No, she would not believe that. + +"You saw them?" he exclaimed. "Tell me how." + +She told him the whole story, how she had come down the staircase, +what she had seen, as she leaned over the balustrade, and how +Parminter had turned. + +"Do you think he saw you?" asked her father. + +Sylvia looked at him closely. But he seemed really anxious to know. + +"I think he saw something," she answered. "Whether he knew that it was I +whom he saw, I can't tell." + +Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his cigar in short, +angry puffs. + +"I wouldn't have had that happen for worlds," he said, with a frown. "I +have no doubt whatever that the slips of paper on which poor Hine was +trying to write were I.O.U's. Heaven knows what he lost last night." + +"I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost £480 last night." + +"Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much violence that the +people lunching at the tables near-by looked up at the couple with +surprise. "Oh, no! I'll not believe it, Sylvia." And as he lowered his +voice, he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back upon her words, +so distressed was he at the thought that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed +out of so much money at his house. + +"Four hundred and eighty pounds," Sylvia repeated. + +Garratt Skinner caught at a comforting thought. + +"Well, it's only in I.O.U's. That's one thing. I can stop the redemption +of them. You see, he has been robbed--that's the plain English of +it--robbed." + +"Mr. Hine was not writing an I.O.U. He was writing a check, and Mr. +Parminter was guiding his hand as he wrote the signature." + +Garratt Skinner fell back in his chair. He looked about him with a dazed +air, as though he expected the world falling to pieces around him. + +"Why, that's next door to forgery!" he whispered, in a voice of horror. +"Guiding the hand of a man too drunk to write! I knew Archie Parminter +was pretty bad, but I never thought that he would sink to that. I am not +sure that he could not be laid by the heels for forgery." And then he +recovered a little from the shock. "But you can't be sure, Sylvia! This +is guesswork of yours--yes, guesswork." + +"It's not," she answered. "I told you that the floor was littered with +slips of the paper on which Mr. Hine had been trying to write." + +"Yes." + +There came an indefinable change in Garratt Skinner's face. He leaned +forward with his mouth sternly set and his eyes very still. One might +almost have believed that for the first time during that luncheon he was +really anxious, really troubled. + +"Well, this morning the carpet had been swept. The litter had gone. But +just underneath the hearth-rug one of those crumpled slips of paper lay +not quite hidden. I picked it up. It was a check." + +"Have you got it? Sylvia, have you got it?" and Garratt Skinner's voice +in steady quietude matched his face. + +"Yes." + +Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her wrist and took out +the slip of paper. She unfolded it and spread it on the table before her. +The inside was pink. + +"A check for £480 on the London and County Bank, Victoria Street," she +said. + +Garrett Skinner looked over the table at the paper. There was Wallie +Hine's wavering, unfinished signature at the bottom right-hand corner. +Parminter had guided his hand as far as the end of the Christian name, +before he tore the check out and threw it away. The amount of the body of +the check had been filled in in Barstow's hand. + +"You had better give it to me, Sylvia," he said, his fingers moving +restlessly on the table-cloth. "That check would be a very dangerous +thing if Parminter ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me." + +He leaned over and took it gently from before her, and put it carefully +away in his pocket. + +"Now, you see, there's more reason ever why we should get Wallie Hine +away from those two men. He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the +country may set his thoughts in a different grove. Will you make this +sacrifice, Sylvia? Will you let me ask him? It will be a good action. You +see he doesn't know any geography." + +"Very well; ask him, father." + +Garrett Skinner reached over the table and patted her hand. + +"Thank you, my dear! Then that's settled. I propose that you and I go +down this afternoon. Can you manage it? We might catch the four o'clock +train from Waterloo if you go home now, pack up your traps and tell the +housemaid to pack mine. I will just wind up my business and come home in +time to pick you and the luggage up." + +He rose from the table, and calling a hansom, put Sylvia into it. He +watched the cab drive out into the Strand and turn the corner. Then he +went back to the table and asked for his bill. While he waited for it, he +lit a match and drawing from his pocket the crumpled check, he set fire +to it. He held it by the corner until the flame burnt his fingers. Then +he dropped it in his plate and pounded it into ashes with a fork. + +"That was a bad break," he said to himself. "Left carelessly under the +edge of the hearth-rug. A very bad break." + +He paid his bill, and taking his hat, sauntered out into the Strand. The +carelessness which had left the check underneath the hearth-rug was not, +however, the only bad break made in connection with this affair. At a +certain moment during luncheon Garratt Skinner had unwisely smiled and +had not quite concealed the smile with his hand. Against her every wish, +that smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she drove home. +She tried to interpret it in every pleasant sense, but it kept its true +character in her thoughts, try as she might. It remained vividly a very +hateful thing--the smile of the man who had gulled her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + +A week later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and her father drove +northward out of Weymouth between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was +silent and looked about her with expectant eyes. + +"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her father had said to her. "I have secured +for our summer holiday the very house in which you were born. It cost me +some trouble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I had an +idea that you would be pleased. However, you are not to see it until it +is quite ready." + +There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought which greatly +appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it with a smile of tenderness. +Affection, surely, could alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very +gratefully. They were now upon their way to take possession. A little +white house set back under a hill and looking out across the bay from a +thick cluster of trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she +wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed the white house, and half +a mile further on turned again eastward along the road to Wareham, +following the valley, which runs parallel to the sea. They ascended the +long steep hill which climbs to Osmington, until upon their left hand a +narrow road branched off between hawthorn hedges to the downs. The road +dipped to a little hollow and in the hollow a little village nestled. A +row of deep-thatched white cottages with leaded window-panes opened on to +a causeway of stone flags which was bordered with purple phlox and raised +above the level of the road. Farther on, the roof of a mill rose high +among trees, and an open space showed to Sylvia the black massive wheel +against the yellow wall. And then the carriage stopped at a house on the +left-hand side, and Garratt Skinner got out. + +"Here we are," he said. + +It was a small square house of the Georgian days, built of old brick, +duskily red. You entered it at the side and the big level windows of the +living rooms looked out upon a wide and high-walled garden whence a +little door under a brick archway in the wall gave a second entrance on +to the road. Into this garden Sylvia wandered. If she had met with but +few people who matched the delicate company of her dreams, here, at all +events, was a mansion where that company might have fitly gathered. Great +elms and beeches bent under their load of leaves to the lawn; about the +lawn, flowers made a wealth of color, and away to the right of the house +twisted stems and branches, where the green of the apples was turning to +red, stood evenly spaced in a great orchard. And the mill stream +tunneling under the road and the wall ran swiftly between green banks +through the garden and the orchard, singing as it ran. There lingered, +she thought, an ancient grace about this old garden, some flavor of +forgotten days, as in a room scented with potpourri; and she walked the +lawn in a great contentment. + +The house within charmed her no less. It was a place of many corners and +quaint nooks, and of a flooring so unlevel that she could hardly pass +from one room to another without taking a step up or a step down. Sylvia +went about the house quietly and with a certain thoughtfulness. Here she +had been born and a mystery of her life was becoming clear to her. On +this summer evening the windows were set wide in every room, and thus in +every room, as she passed up and down, she heard the liquid music of +running water, here faint, like a whispered melody, there pleasant, like +laughter, but nowhere very loud, and everywhere quite audible. In one of +these rooms she had been born. In one of these rooms her mother had slept +at nights during the weeks before she was born, with that music in her +ears at the moment of sleep and at the moment of her waking. Sylvia +understood now why she had always dreamed of running water. She wondered +in which room she had been born. She tried to remember some corner of the +house, some nook in its high-walled garden; and that she could not awoke +in her a strange and almost eery feeling. She had come back to a house in +which she had lived, to a scene on which her eyes had looked, to sounds +which had murmured in her ears, and everything was as utterly new to her +and unimagined as though now for the first time she had crossed the +threshold. Yet these very surroundings to which her memory bore no +testimony had assuredly modified her life, had given to her a particular +possession, this dream of running water, and had made it a veritable +element of her nature. She could not but reflect upon this new knowledge, +and as she walked the garden in the darkness of the evening, she built +upon it, as will be seen. + +As she stepped back over the threshold into the library where her father +sat, she saw that he was holding a telegram in his hand. + +"Wallie Hine comes to-morrow, my dear," he said. + +Sylvia looked at her father wistfully. + +"It is a pity," she said, "a great pity. It would have been pleasant if +we could have been alone." + +The warmth of her gladness had gone from her; she walked once more in +shadows; there was in her voice a piteous appeal for affection, for love, +of which she had had too little in her life and for which she greatly +craved. She stood by the door, her lips trembling and her dark eyes for a +wonder glistening with tears. She had always, even to those who knew her +to be a woman, something of the child in her appearance, which made a +plea from her lips most difficult to refuse. Now she seemed a child on +whom the world pressed heavily before her time for suffering had come; +she had so motherless a look. Even Garratt Skinner moved uncomfortably in +his chair; even that iron man was stirred. + +"I, too, am sorry, Sylvia," he said, gently; "but we will make the best +of it. Between us"--and he laughed gaily, setting aside from him his +momentary compassion--"we will teach poor Wallie Hine a little geography, +won't we?" + +Sylvia had no smile ready for a reply. But she bowed her head, and into +her face and her very attitude there came an expression of patience. She +turned and opened the door, and as she opened it, and stood with her back +toward her father, she said in a quiet and clear voice, "Very well," and +so passed up the stairs to her room. + +It might, after all, merely be kindness in her father which had led him +to insist on Wallie Hine's visit. So she argued, and the more +persistently because she felt that the argument was thin. He could be +kind. He had been thoughtful for her during the past week in the small +attentions which appeal so much to women. Because he saw that she loved +flowers, he had engaged a new gardener for their stay; and he had shown, +in one particular instance, a quite surprising thoughtfulness for a class +of unhappy men with whom he could have had no concern, the convicts in +Portland prison. That instance remained for a long time vividly in her +mind, and at a later time she spoke of it with consequences of a +far-reaching kind. She thought then, as she thought now, only of the +kindness of her father's action, and for the first week of Hine's visit +that thought remained with her. She was on the alert, but nothing +occurred to arouse in her a suspicion. There were no cards, little wine +was drunk, and early hours were kept by the whole household. Indeed, +Garratt Skinner left entirely to his daughter the task of entertaining +his guest; and although once he led them both over the great down to +Dorchester and back, at a pace which tired his companions out, he +preferred, for the most part, to smoke his pipe in a hammock in the +garden with a novel at his side. The morning after that one expedition, +he limped out into the garden, rubbing the muscles of his thigh. + +"You must look after Wallie, my dear," he said. "Age is beginning to find +me out. And after all, he will learn more of the tact and manners which +he wants from you than from a rough man like me," and it did not occur to +Sylvia, who was of a natural modesty of thought, that he had any other +intention of throwing them thus together than to rid himself of a guest +with whom he had little in common. + +But a week later she changed her mind. She was driving Walter Hine +one morning into Weymouth, and as the dog-cart turned into the road +beside the bay, and she saw suddenly before her the sea sparkling in +the sunlight, the dark battle-ships at their firing practice, and +over against her, through a shimmering haze of heat, the crouching +mass of Portland, she drew in a breath of pleasure. It seemed to her +that her companion gave the same sign of enjoyment, and she turned to +him with some surprise. But Walter Hine was looking to the wide +beach, so black with holiday makers that it seemed at that distance a +great and busy ant-heap. + +"That's what I like," he said, with a chuckle of anticipation. "Lot's o' +people. I've knocked about too long in the thick o' things, you see, Miss +Sylvia, kept it up--I have--seen it right through every night till three +o'clock in the morning, for months at a time. Oh, that's the real thing!" +he broke off. "It makes you feel good." + +Sylvia laughed. + +"Then if you dislike the country," she said, and perhaps rather eagerly, +"why did you come to stay with us at all?" + +And suddenly Hine leered at her. + +"Oh, you know!" he said, and almost he nudged her with his elbow. "I +wouldn't have come, of course, if old Garratt hadn't particularly told +me that you were agreeable." Sylvia grew hot with shame. She drew +away, flicked the horse with her whip and drove on. Had she been used, +she wondered, to lure this poor helpless youth to the sequestered +village where they stayed?--and a chill struck through her even on +that day of July. The plot had been carefully laid if that were so; +she was to be hoodwinked no less than Wallie Hine. What sinister thing +was then intended? + +She tried to shake off the dread which encompassed her, pleading to +herself that she saw perils in shadows like the merest child. But +she had not yet shaken it off when Walter Hine cried out excitedly +to her to stop. + +"Look!" he said, and he pointed toward an hotel upon the sea-front which +at that moment they were passing. + +Sylvia looked, and saw obsequiously smirking upon the steps of the hotel, +with his hat lifted from his shiny head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. +Fortunately she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just acknowledging +his salute. It needed but this meeting to confirm her fears. It was not +coincidence which had brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth. +He had come with knowledge and a definite purpose. + +"Oh, I say," protested Wallie Hine, "you might have stopped, Miss Sylvia, +and let me pass the time of day with old Barstow." + +Sylvia stopped the trap at once. + +"I am sorry," she said. "You will find your own way home. We lunch at +half past one." + +Hine looked doubtfully at her and then back toward the hotel. + +"I didn't mean that I wanted to leave you, Miss Sylvia," he said. "Not by +a long chalk." + +"But you must leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, looking at him with serious +eyes, "if you want to pass the time of day with your 'red-hot' friend." + +There was no hint of a smile about her lips. She waited for his answer. +It came accompanied with a smile which aimed at gallantry and was +merely familiar. + +"Of course I stay where I am. What do _you_ think?" + +Sylvia hurried over her shopping and drove homeward. She went at once to +her father, who lay in the hammock in the shade of the trees, reading a +book. She came up from behind him across the grass, and he was not aware +of her approach until she spoke. + +"Father!" she said, and he started up. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he said, and just for a second there was a palpable +uneasiness in his manner. He had not merely started. He seemed also to +her to have been startled. But he recovered his composure. + +"You see, my dear, I have been thinking of you," he said, and he pointed +to a man at work among the flower-beds. "I saw how you loved flowers, +how you liked to have the rooms bright with them. So I hired a new +gardener as a help. It is a great extravagance, Sylvia, but you are to +blame, not I." + +He smiled, confident of her gratitude, and had it been but yesterday he +would have had it offered to him in full measure. To-day, however, all +her thoughts were poisoned by suspicion. She knew it and was distressed. +She knew how much happiness so simple a forethought would naturally have +brought to her. She did not indeed suspect any new peril in her father's +action. She barely looked toward the new gardener, and certainly +neglected to note whether he worked skilfully or no. But the fears of the +morning modified her thanks. Moreover the momentary uneasiness of her +father had not escaped her notice and she was wondering upon its cause. + +"Father," she resumed, "I saw Captain Barstow in Weymouth this morning." + +Though her eyes were on his face, and perhaps because her eyes were +resting there with so quiet a watchfulness, she could detect no +self-betrayal now. Garratt Skinner stared at her in pure astonishment. +Then the astonishment gave place to annoyance. + +"Barstow!" he said angrily. He lay back in the hammock, looking up to the +boughs overhead, his face wrinkled and perplexed. "He has found us out +and followed us, Sylvia. I would not have had it happen for worlds. Did +he see you?" + +"Yes." + +"And I thought that here, at all events, we were safe from him. I wonder +how he found us out! Bribed the caretaker in Hobart Place, I suppose." + +Sylvia did not accept this suggestion. She sat down upon a chair in a +disconcerting silence, and waited. Garratt Skinner crossed his arms +behind his head and deliberated. + +"Barstow's a deep fellow, Sylvia," he said. "I am afraid of him." + +He was looking up to the boughs overhead, but he suddenly glanced toward +her and then quietly removed one of his hands and slipped it down to the +book which was lying on his lap. Sylvia took quiet note of the movement. +The book had been lying shut upon his lap, with its back toward her. +Garratt Skinner did not alter its position; but she saw that his hand now +hid from her the title on the back. It was a big, and had the appearance +of an expensive, book. She noticed the binding--green cloth boards and +gold lettering on the back. She was not familiar with the look of it, and +it seemed to her that she might as well know--and as quickly as +possible--what the book was and the subject with which it dealt. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner repeated: + +"A deep fellow--Captain Barstow," and anxiously Garratt Skinner debated +how to cope with that deep fellow. He came at last to his conclusion. + +"We can't shut our doors to him, Sylvia." + +Even though she had half expected just that answer, Sylvia flinched as +she heard it uttered. + +"I understand your feelings, my dear," he continued in tones of +commiseration, "for they are mine. But we must fight the Barstows with +the Barstows' weapons. It would never do for us to close our doors. He +has far too tight a hold of Wallie Hine as yet. He has only to drop a +hint to Wallie that we are trying to separate him from his true friends +and keep him to ourselves--and just think, my dear, what a horrible set +of motives a mean-minded creature like Barstow could impute to us! Let us +be candid, you and I," cried Garratt Skinner, starting up, as though +carried away by candor. "Here am I, a poor man--here are you, my +daughter, a girl with the charm and the beauty of the spring, and here's +Wallie Hine, rich, weak, and susceptible. Oh, there's a story for a +Barstow to embroider! But, Sylvia, he shall not so much as hint at the +story. For your sake, my dear, for your sake," cried Garratt Skinner, +with all the emphasis of a loving father. He wiped his forehead with his +handkerchief. + +"I was carried away by my argument," he went on in a calmer voice. Sylvia +for her part had not been carried away at all, and no doubt her watchful +composure helped him to subdue as ineffective the ardor of his tones. +"Barstow has only to drop this hint to Wallie Hine, and Wallie will be +off like a rabbit at the sound of a gun. And there's our chance gone of +helping him to a better life. No, we must welcome Barstow, if he comes +here. Yes, actually welcome him, however repugnant it may be to our +feelings. That's what we must do, Sylvia. He must have no suspicion that +we are working against him. We must lull him to sleep. That is our only +way to keep Wallie Hine with us. So that, Sylvia, must be our plan of +campaign." + +The luncheon bell rang as he ended his oration. He got out of the hammock +quickly, as if to prevent discussion of his plan; and the book which he +was carrying caught in the netting of the hammock and fell to the ground. +Sylvia could read the title now. She did read it, hastily, as Garratt +Skinner stooped to pick it up. It was entitled "The Alps in 1864." + +She knew the book by repute and was surprised to find it in her father's +hands. She was surprised still more that he should have been at so much +pains to conceal the title from her notice. After all, what could it +matter? she wondered. + +Sylvia lay deep in misery that night. Her father had failed her utterly. +All the high hopes with which she had set out from Chamonix had fallen, +all the rare qualities with which her dreams had clothed him as in +shining raiment must now be stripped from him. She was not deceived. +Parminter, Barstow, Garratt Skinner--there was one "deep fellow" in that +trio, but it was neither Barstow nor Parminter. It was her father. She +had but to set the three faces side by side in her thoughts, to remember +the differences of manner, mind and character. Garratt Skinner was the +master in the conspiracy, the other two his mere servants. It was he who +to some dark end had brought Barstow down from London. He loomed up in +her thoughts as a relentless and sinister figure, unswayed by affection, +yet with the power to counterfeit it, long-sighted for evil, sparing no +one--not even his daughter. She recalled their first meeting in the +little house in Hobart Place, she remembered the thoughtful voice with +which, as he had looked her over, he had agreed that she might be +"useful." She thought of his caresses, his smile of affection, his +comradeship, and she shuddered. Walter Hine's words had informed her +to-day to what use her father had designed her. She was his decoy. + +She lay upon her bed with her hands clenched, repeating the word in +horror. His decoy! The moonlight poured through the open window, the +music of the stream filled the room. She was in the house in which she +had been born, a place mystically sacred to her thoughts; and she had +come to it to learn that she was her father's decoy in a vulgar +conspiracy to strip a weakling of his money. The stream sang beneath her +windows, the very stream of which the echo had ever been rippling through +her dreams. Always she had thought that it must have some particular +meaning for her which would be revealed in due time. She dwelt bitterly +upon her folly. There was no meaning in its light laughter. + +In a while she was aware of a change. There came a grayness in the room. +The moonlight had lost its white brilliance, the night was waning. Sylvia +rose from her bed, and slowly like one very tired she began to gather +together and pack into a bag such few clothes as she could carry. She had +made up her mind to go, and to go silently before the house waked. +Whither she was to go, and what she was to do once she had gone, she +could not think. She asked herself the questions in vain, feeling very +lonely and very helpless as she moved softly about the room by the light +of her candle. Her friend might write to her and she would not receive +his letter. Still she must go. Once or twice she stopped her work, and +crouching down upon the bed allowed her tears to have their way. When she +had finished her preparations she blew out her candle, and leaning upon +the sill of the open window, gave her face to the cool night air. + +There was a break in the eastern sky; already here and there a blackbird +sang in the garden boughs, and the freshness, the quietude, swept her +thoughts back to the Chalet de Lognan. With a great yearning she recalled +that evening and the story of the great friendship so quietly related to +her in the darkness, beneath the stars. The world and the people of her +dreams existed; only there was no door of entrance into that world for +her. Below her the stream sang, even as the glacier stream had sung, +though without its deep note of thunder. As she listened to it, certain +words spoken upon that evening came back to her mind and gradually began +to take on a particular application. + +"What you know, that you must do, if by doing it you can save a life or +save a soul." + +That was the law. "If you can save a life or save a soul." And she _did_ +know. Sylvia raised herself from the window and stood in thought. + +Garratt Skinner had made a great mistake that day. He had been misled by +the gentleness of her ways, the sweet aspect of her face, and by a look +of aloofness in her eyes, as though she lived in dreams. He had seen +surely that she was innocent, and since he believed that knowledge must +needs corrupt, he thought her ignorant as well. But she was not ignorant. +She had detected his trickeries. She knew of the conspiracy, she knew of +the place she filled in it herself; and furthermore she knew that as a +decoy she had been doing her work. Only yesterday, Walter Hine had been +forced to choose between Barstow and herself and he had let Barstow go. +It was a small matter, no doubt. Still there was promise in it. What if +she stayed, strengthened her hold on Walter Hine and grappled with the +three who were ranged against him? + +Walter Hine was, of course, and could be, nothing to her. He was the mere +puppet, the opportunity of obedience to the law. It was of the law that +she was thinking--and of the voice of the man who had uttered it. She +knew--by using her knowledge, she could save a soul. She did not think at +this time that she might be saving a life too. + +Quietly she undressed and slipped into her bed. She was comforted. A +smile had come upon her lips. She saw the face of her friend in the +darkness, very near to her. She needed sleep to equip herself for the +fight, and while thinking so she slept. The moonlight faded altogether, +and left the room dark. Beneath the window the stream went singing +through the lawn. After all, its message had been revealed to her in its +due season. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAYNE RETURNS + + +"Hullo," cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered round the library after +luncheon. "Here's a scatter-gun." + +He took the gun from a corner where it stood against the wall, opened the +breech, shut it again, and turning to the open window lifted the stock to +his shoulder. + +"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays," he said, taking careful +aim at a tulip in the garden. "Any cartridges, Skinner?" + +"I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied, testily. The +newspapers had only this moment been brought into the room, and he did +not wish to be disturbed. Sylvia had never noticed that double-barreled +gun before; and she wondered whether it had been brought into the room +that morning. She watched Captain Barstow bustle into the hall and back +again. Finally he pounced upon an oblong card-box which lay on the top of +a low book-case. He removed the lid and pulled out a cartridge. + +"Hullo!" said he. "No. 6. The very thing! I am going to take a pot at the +starlings, Skinner. There are too many of them about for your +fruit-trees." + +"Very well," said Garratt Skinner, lazily lifting his eyes from his +newspaper and looking out across the lawn. "Only take care you don't wing +my new gardener." + +"No fear of that," said Barstow, and filling his pockets with cartridges +he took the gun in his hand and skipped out into the garden. In a moment +a shot was heard, and Walter Hine rose from his chair and walked to the +window. A second shot followed. + +"Old Barstow can't shoot for nuts," said Hine, with a chuckle, and in his +turn he stepped out into the garden. Sylvia made no attempt to hinder +him, but she took his place at the window ready to intervene. A flight of +starlings passed straight and swift over Barstow's head. He fired both +barrels and not one of the birds fell. Hine spoke to him, and the gun at +once changed hands. At the next flight Hine fired and one of the birds +dropped. Barstow's voice was raised in jovial applause. + +"That was a good egg, Wallie. A very good egg. Let me try now!" and so +alternately they shot as the birds darted overhead across the lawn. +Sylvia waited for the moment when Barstow's aim would suddenly develop a +deadly precision, but that moment did not come. If there was any betting +upon this match, Hine would not be the loser. She went quietly back to a +writing-desk and wrote her letters. She had no wish to rouse in her +father's mind a suspicion that she had guessed his design and was +setting herself to thwart it. She must work secretly, more secretly than +he did himself. Meanwhile the firing continued in the garden; and +unobserved by Sylvia, Garratt Skinner began to take in it a stealthy +interest. His chair was so placed that, without stirring, he could look +into the garden and at the same time keep an eye on Sylvia; if she moved +an elbow or raised her head, Garratt Skinner was at once reading his +paper with every appearance of concentration. On the other hand, her +back was turned toward him, so that she saw neither his keen gaze into +the garden nor the good-tempered smile of amusement with which he turned +his eyes upon his daughter. + +In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no more. Sylvia had, in +fact, almost come to the end of her letters, when Garratt Skinner +suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. At the noise, abrupt as a +startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round. She saw that her father was +gazing with a look of perplexity into the garden, and that for the moment +he had forgotten her presence. She crossed the room quickly and +noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow, saw what he saw. The +blood flushed her throat and mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened, +and a smile of welcome transfigured her grave face. Her friend Hilary +Chayne was standing under the archway of the garden door. He had closed +the door behind him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not +looking toward the house. His attention was riveted upon the +shooting-match. Sylvia gave no thought to his attitude at the moment. He +had come--that was enough. And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the +light in his daughter's face. + +"You know him!" he cried, roughly. + +"Yes." + +"He has come to see you?" + +"Yes." + +"You should have told me," said Garratt Skinner, angrily. "I dislike +secrecies." Sylvia raised her eyes and looked her father steadily in the +face. But Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed. He returned her look +as steadily. + +"Who is he?" he continued, in a voice of authority. + +"Captain Hilary Chayne." + +It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely familiar to Garratt +Skinner, and Sylvia added: + +"I met him this summer in Switzerland." + +"Oh, I see," said her father, and he looked with a new interest across +the garden to the door. "He is a great friend." + +"My only friend," returned Sylvia, softly; and her father stepped forward +and called aloud, holding up his hand: + +"Barstow! Barstow!" + +Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the coming of her friend +was not the only change which had taken place since she had last looked +out upon the garden. The new gardener was now shooting alternately with +Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow, standing a few feet behind them, +recorded the hits in a little book. He looked up at the sound of +Garratt Skinner's voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a stop to the +match. Garratt Skinner turned again to his daughter, and spoke now +without any anger at all. There was just a hint of reproach in his +voice, but as though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand +affectionately upon her arm. + +"Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my dear. But you might have +told me that you expected him. Let us have no secrets from each other +in the future? Now bring him in, and we will see if we can give him a +cup of tea." + +He rang the bell. Sylvia did not think it worth while to argue that +Chayne's coming was a surprise to her as much as to her father. She +crossed the garden toward her friend. But she walked slowly and still +more slowly. Her memories had flown back to the evening when they had +bidden each other good-by on the little platform in front of the Chalet +de Lognan. Not in this way had she then planned that they should meet +again, nor in such company. The smile had faded from her lips, the light +of gladness had gone from her eyes. Barstow and Walter Hine were moving +toward the house. It mortified her exceedingly that her friend should +find her amongst such companions. She almost wished that he had not found +her out at all. And so she welcomed him with a great restraint. + +"It was kind of you to come," she said. "How did you know I was here?" + +"I called at your house in London. The caretaker gave me the address," he +replied. He took her hand and, holding it, looked with the careful +scrutiny of a lover into her face. + +"You have needed those memories of your one day to fall back upon," he +said, regretfully. "Already you have needed them. I am very sorry." + +Sylvia did not deny the implication of the words that "troubles" had +come. She turned to him, grateful that he should so clearly have +remembered what she had said upon that day. + +"Thank you," she answered, gently. "My father would like to know you. I +wrote to you that I had come to live with him." + +"Yes." + +"You were surprised?" she asked. + +"No," he answered, quietly. "You came to some important decision on the +very top of the Aiguille d'Argentière. That I knew at the time, for I +watched you. When I got your letter, I understood what the decision was." + +To leave Chamonix--to break completely with her life--it was just to that +decision she would naturally have come just on that spot during that one +sunlit hour. So much his own love of the mountains taught him. But Sylvia +was surprised at his insight; and what with that and the proof that their +day together had remained vividly in his thoughts, she caught back +something of his comradeship. As they crossed the lawn to the house her +embarrassment diminished. She drew comfort, besides, from the thought +that whatever her friend might think of Captain Barstow and Walter Hine, +her father at all events would impress him, even as she had been +impressed. Chayne would see at once that here was a man head and +shoulders above his companions, finer in quality, different in speech. + +But that afternoon her humiliation was to be complete. Her father had no +fancy for the intrusion of Captain Chayne into his quiet and sequestered +house. The flush of color on his daughter's face, the leap of light into +her eyes, had warned him. He had no wish to lose his daughter. Chayne, +too, might be inconveniently watchful. Garratt Skinner desired no spy +upon his little plans. Consequently he set himself to play the host with +an offensive geniality which was calculated to disgust a man with any +taste for good manners. He spoke in a voice which Sylvia did not know, so +coarse it was in quality, so boisterous and effusive; and he paraded +Walter Hine and Captain Barstow with the pride of a man exhibiting his +dearest friends. + +"You must know 'red-hot' Barstow, Captain Chayne," he cried, slapping the +little man lustily on the back. "One of the very best. You are both +brethren of the sword." + +Barstow sniggered obsequiously and screwed his eye-glass into his eye. + +"Delighted, I am sure. But I sheathed the sword some time ago, +Captain Chayne." + +"And exchanged it for the betting book," Chayne added, quietly. + +Barstow laughed nervously. + +"Oh, you refer to our little match in the garden," he said. "We dragged +the gardener into it." + +"So I saw," Chayne replied. "The gardener seemed to be a remarkable shot. +I think he would be a match for more than one professional." + +And turning away he saw Sylvia's eyes fixed upon him, and on her face an +expression of trouble and dismay so deep that he could have bitten off +his tongue for speaking. She had been behind him while he had spoken; and +though he had spoken in a low voice, she had heard every word. She bent +her head over the tea-table and busied herself with the cups. But her +hands shook; her face burned, she was tortured with shame. She had set +herself to do battle with her father, and already in the first skirmish +she had been defeated. Chayne's indiscreet words had laid bare to her the +elaborate conspiracy. The new gardener, the gun in the corner, the +cartridges which had to be looked for, Barstow's want of skill, Hine's +superiority which had led Barstow so naturally to offer to back the +gardener against him--all was clear to her. It was the little round game +of cards all over again; and she had not possessed the wit to detect the +trick! And that was not all. Her friend had witnessed it and understood! + +She heard her father presenting Walter Hine, and with almost intolerable +pain she realized that had he wished to leave Chayne no single +opportunity of misapprehension, he would have spoken just these words and +no others. + +"Wallie is the grandson--and indeed the heir--of old Joseph Hine. You +know his name, no doubt. Joseph Hine's Château Marlay, what? A warm man, +Joseph Hine. I don't know a man more rich. Treats his grandson handsomely +into the bargain, eh, Wallie?" + +Sylvia felt that her heart would break. That Garrett Skinner's admission +was boldly and cunningly deliberate did not occur to her. She simply +understood that here was the last necessary piece of evidence given to +Captain Chayne which would convince him that he had been this afternoon +the witness of a robbery and swindle. + +She became aware that Chayne was standing beside her. She did not lift +her face, for she feared that it would betray her. She wished with all +her heart that he would just replace his cup upon the tray and go away +without a word. He could not want to stay; he could not want to return. +He had no place here. If he would go away quietly, without troubling to +take leave of her, she would be very grateful and do justice to him for +his kindness. + +But though he had the mind to go, it was not without a word. + +"I want you to walk with me as far as the door," he said, gently. + +Sylvia rose at once. Since after all there must be words, the sooner they +were spoken the better. She followed him into the garden, making her +little prayer that they might be very few, and that he would leave her to +fight her battle and to hide her shame alone. + +They crossed the lawn without a word. He held open the garden door for +her and she passed into the lane. He followed and closed the door behind +them. In the lane a hired landau was waiting. Chayne pointed to it. + +"I want you to come away with me now," he said, and since she looked at +him with the air of one who does not understand, he explained, standing +quietly beside her with his eyes upon her face. And though he spoke +quietly, there was in his eyes a hunger which belied his tones, and +though he stood quietly, there was a tension in his attitude which +betrayed extreme suspense. "I want you to come away with me, I want you +never to return. I want you to marry me." + +The blood rushed into her cheeks and again fled from them, leaving her +very white. Her face grew mutinous like an angry child's, but her eyes +grew hard like a resentful woman's. + +"You ask me out of pity," she said, in a low voice. + +"That's not true," he cried, and with so earnest a passion that she could +not but believe him. "Sylvia, I came here meaning to ask you to marry me. +I ask you something more now, that is all. I ask you to come to me a +little sooner--that is all. I want you to come with me now." + +Sylvia leaned against the wall and covered her face with her hands. + +"Please!" he said, making his appeal with a great simplicity. "For I love +you, Sylvia." + +She gave him no answer. She kept her face still hid, and only her heaving +breast bore witness to her stress of feeling. Gently he removed her +hands, and holding them in his, urged his plea. + +"Ever since that day in Switzerland, I have been thinking of you, Sylvia, +remembering your looks, your smile, and the words you spoke. I crossed +the Col Dolent the next day, and all the time I felt that there was some +great thing wanting. I said to myself, 'I miss my friend.' I was wrong, +Sylvia. I missed you. Something ached in me--has ached ever since. It was +my heart! Come with me now!" + +Sylvia had not looked at him, though she made no effort to draw her hands +away, and still not looking at him, she answered in a whisper: + +"I can't, I can't." + +"Why?" he asked, "why? You are not happy here. You are no happier than +you were at Chamonix. And I would try so very hard to make you happy. I +can't leave you here--lonely, for you are lonely. I am lonely too; all +the more lonely because I carry about with me--you--you as you stood in +the chalet at night looking through the open window, with the +candle-light striking upward on your face, and with your reluctant smile +upon your lips--you as you lay on the top of the Aiguille d'Argentière +with the wonder of a new world in your eyes--you as you said good-by in +the sunset and went down the winding path to the forest. If you only +knew, Sylvia!" + +"Yes, but I don't know," she answered, and now she looked at him. "I +suppose that, if I loved, I should know, I should understand." + +Her hands lay in his, listless and unresponsive to the pressure of his. +She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes. + +"Yet you were glad to see me when I came," he urged. + +"Glad, yes! You are my friend, my one friend. I was very glad. But the +gladness passed. When you asked me to come with you across the garden, I +was wanting you to go away." + +The words hurt him. They could not but hurt him. But she was so plainly +unconscious of offence, she was so plainly trying to straighten out her +own tangled position, that he could feel no anger. + +"Why?" he asked; and again she frankly answered him. + +"I was humbled," she replied, "and I have had so much humiliation +in my life." + +The very quietude of her voice and the wistful look upon the young tired +face hurt him far more than her words had done. + +"Sylvia," he cried, and he drew her toward him. "Come with me now! My +dear, there will be an end of all humiliation. We can be married, we can +go down to my home on the Sussex Downs. That old house needs a mistress, +Sylvia. It is very lonely." He drew a breath and smiled suddenly. "And I +would like so much to show you it, to show you all the corners, the +bridle-paths across the downs, the woods, and the wide view from Arundel +to Chichester spires. Sylvia, come!" + +Just for a moment it seemed that she leaned toward him. He put his arm +about her and held her for a moment closer. But her head was lowered, not +lifted up to his; and then she freed herself gently from his clasp. + +She faced him with a little wrinkle of thought between her brows and +spoke with an air of wisdom which went very prettily with the childlike +beauty of her face. + +"You are my friend," she said, "a friend I am very grateful for, but you +are not more than that to me. I am frank. You see, I am thinking now of +reasons which would not trouble me if I loved you. Marriage with me would +do you no good, would hurt you in your career." + +"No," he protested. + +"But I am thinking that it would," she replied, steadily, "and I do not +believe that I should give much thought to it, if I really loved you. I +am thinking of something else, too--" and she spoke more boldly, +choosing her words with care--"of a plan which before you came I had +formed, of a task which before you came I had set myself to do. I am +still thinking of it, still feeling that I ought to go on with it. I do +not think that I should feel that if I loved. I think nothing else would +count at all except that I loved. So you are still my friend, and I +cannot go with you." + +Chayne looked at her for a moment sadly, with a mist before his eyes. + +"I leave you to much unhappiness," he said, "and I hate the +thought of it." + +"Not quite so much now as before you came," she answered. "I am proud, +you know, that you asked me," and putting her troubles aside, she smiled +at him bravely, as though it was he who needed comforting. "Good-by! Let +me hear of you through your success." + +So again they said good-by at the time of sunset. Chayne mounted into +the landau and drove back along the road to Weymouth. "So that's the +end," said Sylvia. She opened the door and passed again into the garden. +Through the window of the library she saw her father and Walter Hine, +watching, it seemed, for her appearance. It was borne in upon her +suddenly that she could not meet them or speak with them, and she ran +very quickly round the house to the front door, and escaped unaccosted +to her room. + +In the library Hine turned to Garratt Skinner with one of his rare +flashes of shrewdness. + +"She didn't want to meet us," he said, jealously. "Do you think she +cares for him?" + +"I think," replied Garratt Skinner with a smile, "that Captain Chayne +will not trouble us with his company again." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + +Garratt Skinner, however, was wrong. He was not aware of the great +revolution which had taken place in Chayne; and he misjudged his +tenacity. Chayne, like many another man, had mapped out his life only to +find that events would happen in a succession different to that which he +had ordained. He had arranged to devote his youth and the earlier part of +his manhood entirely to his career, if the career were not brought to a +premature end in the Alps. That possibility he had always foreseen. He +took his risks with full knowledge, setting the gain against them, and +counting them worth while. If then he lived, he proposed at some +indefinite time, in the late thirties, to fall in love and marry. He had +no parents living; there was the empty house upon the Sussex Downs; and +the small estate which for generations had descended from father to son. +Marriage was thus a recognized event. Only it was thrust away into an +indefinite future. But there had come an evening which he had not +foreseen, when, sorely grieved by the loss of his great friend, he had +fallen in with a girl who gave with open hands the sympathy he needed, +and claimed, by her very reticence and humility, his sympathy in return. +A day had followed upon that evening; and thenceforth the image of Sylvia +standing upon the snow-ridge of the Aiguille d'Argentière, with a few +strips of white cloud sailing in a blue sky overhead, the massive pile of +Mont Blanc in front, freed to the sunlight which was her due, remained +fixed and riveted in his thoughts. He began in imagination to refer +matters of moment to her judgment; he began to save up little events of +interest that he might remember to tell them to her. He understood that +he had a companion, even when he was alone, a condition which he had not +anticipated even for his late thirties. And he came to the conclusion +that he had not that complete ordering of his life on which he had +counted. He was not, however, disappointed. He seized upon the good thing +which had come to him with a great deal of wonder and a very thankful +heart; and he was not disposed to let it lightly go. + +Thus the vulgarity which Garratt Skinner chose to assume, the +unattractive figure of "red-hot" Barstow, and the obvious swindle which +was being perpetrated on Walter Hine, had the opposite effect to that +which Skinner expected. Chayne, instead of turning his back upon so +distasteful a company, frequented it in the resolve to take Sylvia out of +its grasp. It did not need a lover to see that she slept little of nights +and passed distressful days. She had fled from her mother's friends at +Chamonix, only to find herself helpless amongst a worse gang in her +father's house. Very well. She must be released. He had proposed to take +her away then and there. She had refused. Well, he had been blunt. He +would go about the business in the future in a more delicate way. And so +he came again and again to the little house under the hill where the +stream babbled through the garden, and every day the apples grew redder +upon the boughs. + +But it was disheartening work. His position indeed became difficult, and +it needed all his tenacity to enable him to endure it. The difficulty +became very evident one afternoon early in August, and the afternoon was, +moveover, remarkable in that Garratt Skinner was betrayed into a +revelation of himself which was to bear consequences of gravity in a +future which he could not foresee. Chayne rode over upon that afternoon, +and found Garratt Skinner alone and, according to his habit, stretched at +full-length in his hammock with a cigar between his lips. He received +Captain Chayne with the utmost geniality. He had long since laid aside +his ineffectual vulgarity of manner. + +"You must put up with me, Captain Chayne," he said. "My daughter is out. +However, she--I ought more properly to say, they--will be back no doubt +before long." + +"They being--" + +"Sylvia and Walter Hine." + +Chayne nodded his head. He had known very well who "they" must be, but he +had not been able to refrain from the question. Jealousy had hold of him. +He knew nothing of Sylvia's determination to acquire a power greater than +her father's over the vain and defenceless youth. The words with which +she had hinted her plan to him had been too obscure to convey their +meaning. He was simply aware that Sylvia more and more avoided him, more +and more sought the companionship of Walter Hine; and such experience as +he had, taught him that women were as apt to be blind in their judgment +of men as men in their estimation of women. + +He sought now to enlist Garratt Skinner on his side, and drawing a chair +nearer to the hammock he sat down. + +"Mr. Skinner," he said, speaking upon an impulse, "you have no doubt in +your mind, I suppose, as to why I come here so often." + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I make a guess, I admit." + +"I should be very glad if your daughter would marry me," Chayne +continued, "and I want you to give me your help. I am not a poor man, Mr. +Skinner, and I should certainly be willing to recognize that in taking +her away from you I laid myself under considerable obligations." + +Chayne spoke with some natural hesitation, but Garratt Skinner was not in +the least offended. + +"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," he replied. "Indeed, I like +your frankness. Please take what I say in the same spirit. I cannot give +you any help, Captain Chayne." + +"Why?" + +Garratt Skinner raised himself upon his elbow, and fixing his eyes upon +his companion's face, said distinctly and significantly: + +"Because Sylvia has her work to do here." + +Chayne in his turn made no pretence to misunderstand. He was being told +clearly that Sylvia was in league with her father and Captain Barstow to +pluck Walter Hine. But he was anxious to discover how far Garratt +Skinner's cynicism would carry him. + +"Will you define the work?" he asked. + +"If you wish it," replied Garratt Skinner, falling back in his hammock. +"I should have thought it unnecessary myself. The work is the reclaiming +of Wallie Hine from the very undesirable company in which he has mixed. +Do you understand?" + +"Quite," said Chayne. He understood very well. He had been told first the +real design--to pluck Walter Hine--and then the excuse which was to cloak +it. He understood, too, the reason why this information had been given to +him with so cynical a frankness. He, Chayne, was in the way. Declare the +swindle and persuade him that Sylvia was a party to it--what more likely +way could be discovered for getting rid of Captain Chayne? He looked at +his smiling companion, took note of his strong aquiline face, his clear +and steady eyes. He recognized a redoubtable antagonist, but he leaned +forward and said with a quiet emphasis: + +"Mr. Skinner, I have, nevertheless, not lost heart." + +Garratt Skinner laughed in a friendly way. + +"I suppose not. It is only in the wisdom of middle age that we lose +heart. In youth we lose our hearts--a very different thing." + +"I propose still to come to this house." + +"As often as you will, Captain Chayne," said Garratt Skinner, gaily. "My +doors are always open to you. I am not such a fool as to give you a +romantic interest by barring you out." + +Garratt Skinner had another reason for his hospitality which he kept to +himself. He was inclined to believe that a few more visits from Captain +Chayne would settle his chances without the necessity of any +interference. It was Garratt Skinner's business, as that of any other +rogue, to play with simple artifices upon the faults and vanities of men. +He had, therefore, cultivated a habit of observation; he had become +naturally attentive to trifles which others might overlook; and he was +aware that he needed to go very warily in the delicate business on which +he was now engaged. He was fighting Sylvia for the possession of Walter +Hine--that he had recognized--and Chayne for the possession of Sylvia. It +was a three-cornered contest, and he had in consequence kept his eyes +alert. He had noticed that Chayne was growing importunate, and that his +persistence was becoming troublesome to Sylvia. She gave him a less warm +welcome each time that he came to the house. She made plans to prevent +herself being left alone with him, and if by chance the plans failed she +listened rather than talked and listened almost with an air of boredom. + +"Come as often as you please!" consequently said Garratt Skinner from his +hammock. "And now let us talk of something else." + +He talked of nothing for a while. But it was plain that he had a subject +in his thoughts. For twice he turned to Chayne and was on the point of +speaking; but each time he thought silence the better part and lay back +again. Chayne waited and at last the subject was broached, but in a +queer, hesitating, diffident way, as though Garratt Skinner spoke rather +under a compulsion of which he disapproved. + +"Tell me!" he said. "I am rather interested. A craze, an infatuation +which so masters people must be interesting even to the stay-at-homes +like myself. But I am wrong to call it a craze. From merely reading books +I think it a passion which is easily intelligible. You are wondering what +I am talking about. My daughter tells me that you are a famous climber. +The Aiguille d'Argentière, I suppose, up which you were kind enough to +accompany her, is not a very difficult mountain." + +"It depends upon the day," said Chayne, "and the state of the snow." + +"Yes, that is what I have gathered from the books. Every mountain may +become dangerous." + +"Yes." + +"Each mountain," said Garratt Skinner, thoughtfully, "may reward its +conquerors with death"; and for a little while he lay looking up to the +green branches interlaced above his head. "Thus each mountain on the +brightest day holds in its recesses mystery, and also death." + +There had come a change already in the manner of the two men. They found +themselves upon neutral ground. Their faces relaxed from wariness; they +were no longer upon their guard. It seemed that an actual comradeship had +sprung up between them. + +"There is a mountain called the Grépon," said Skinner. "I have seen +pictures of it--a strange and rather attractive pinnacle, with its +knife-like slabs of rock, set on end one above the other--black rock +splashed with red--and the overhanging boulder on the top. Have you +climbed it?" + +"Yes." + +"There is a crack, I believe--a good place to get you into training." + +Chayne laughed with the enjoyment of a man who recollects a stiff +difficulty overcome. + +"Yes, to the right of the Col between the Grépon and the Charmoz. There +is a step half way up--otherwise there is very little hold and the crack +is very steep." + +They talked of other peaks, such as the Charmoz, where the first lines of +ascent had given place to others more recently discovered, of new +variations, new ascents and pinnacles still unclimbed; and then Garratt +Skinner said: + +"I saw that a man actually crossed the Col des Nantillons early this +summer. It used to be called the Col de Blaitière. He was killed with +his guide, but after the real dangers were passed. That seems to happen +at times." + +Chayne looked at Garratt Skinner in surprise. + +"It is strange that you should have mentioned John Lattery's death," he +said, slowly. + +"Why?" asked Garratt Skinner, turning quietly toward his companion. "I +read of it in 'The Times.'" + +"Oh, yes. No doubt it was described. What I meant was this. John Lattery +was my great friend, and he was a distant kind of cousin to your friend +Walter Hine, and indeed co-heir with him to Joseph Hine's great fortune. +His death, I suppose, has doubled your friend's inheritance." + +Garratt Skinner raised himself up on his elbow. The announcement was +really news to him. + +"Is that so?" he asked. "It is true, then. The mountains hold death too +in their recesses--even on the clearest day--yes, they hold death too!" +And letting himself fall gently back upon his cushions, he remained for a +while with a very thoughtful look upon his face. Twice Chayne spoke to +him, and twice he did not hear. He lay absorbed. It seemed that a new and +engrossing idea had taken possession of his mind, and when he turned his +eyes again to Chayne and spoke, he appeared to be speaking with reference +to that idea rather than to any remarks of his companion. + +"Did you ever ascend Mont Blanc by the Brenva route?" he asked. "There's +a thin ridge of ice--I read an account in Moore's 'Journal'--you have to +straddle across the ridge with a leg hanging down either precipice." + +Chayne shook his head. + +"Lattery and I meant to try it this summer. The Dent du Requin as well." + +"Ah, that is one of the modern rock scrambles, isn't it? The last two or +three hundred feet are the trouble, I believe." + +And so the talk went on and the comradeship grew. But Chayne noticed that +always Garratt Skinner came back to the great climbs of the earlier +mountaineers, the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc, the Col Dolent, the two +points of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. + +"But you, too, have climbed," Chayne cried at length. + +"On winter nights by my fireside," replied Garratt Skinner, with a smile. +"I have a lame leg which would hinder me." + +"Nevertheless, you left Miss Sylvia and myself behind when you led us +over the hills to Dorchester." + +It was Walter Hine who interrupted. He had come across the grass from +behind, and neither of the two men had noticed his approach. But the +moment when he did interrupt marked a change in their demeanor. The +comradeship which had so quickly bloomed as quickly faded. It was the +flower of an idle moment. Antagonism preceded and followed it. Thus, one +might imagine, might sentries at the outposts of opposing armies pile +their arms for half an hour and gossip of their homes or their children, +or of something dear to both of them and separate at the bugle sound. +Garratt Skinner swung himself out of his hammock. + +"Where's Sylvia, Wallie?" + +"She went up to her room." + +Chayne waited for ten minutes, and for another ten, and still Sylvia did +not appear. She was avoiding him. She could spend the afternoon with +Walter Hine, but she must run to her room when he came upon the scene. +Jealousy flamed up in him. Every now and then a whimsical smile of +amusement showed upon Garratt Skinner's face and broadened into a grin. +Chayne was looking a fool, and was quite conscious of it. He rose +abruptly from his chair. + +"I must be going," he said, over loudly, and Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I'm afraid she won't hear that," he said softly, measuring with his eyes +the distance between the group and the house. "But come again, Captain +Chayne, and sit it out." + +Chayne flushed with anger. He said, "Thank you," and tried to say it +jauntily and failed. He took his leave and walked across the lawn to the +garden, trying to assume a carriage of indifference and dignity. But +every moment he expected to hear the two whom he had left laughing at his +discomfiture. Neither, however, did laugh. Walter Hine was, indeed, +indignant. + +"Why did you ask him to come again?" he asked, angrily, as the garden +door closed upon Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laid his hand on Walter Hine's arm. + +"Don't you worry, Wallie," he said, confidentially. "Every time Chayne +comes here he loses ten marks. Give him rope! He does not, after all, +know a great deal of geography." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + +Chayne returned to London on the following day, restless and troubled. +Jealousy, he knew, was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should +have to be jealous of a Walter Hine--there was the sting. He asked the +old question over and over again, the old futile question which the +unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the +ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see +in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature +to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal. +Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their +proper proportions in Sylvia's eyes. Meanwhile there was something to be +done--a doubt to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made. + +His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject which Garratt Skinner +had chosen, and the knowledge with which he had spoken, had seemed to +Chayne rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and follow with +interest, nay almost with the passion of the mountaineer, the history of +Alpine exploration and adventure. That had happened before now. And very +likely Chayne would have troubled himself no more about Garratt Skinner's +introduction of the theme but for one or two circumstances which the more +he reflected upon them became the more significant. For instance: Garratt +Skinner had spoken and had asked questions about the new ascents made, +the new passes crossed within the last twenty years, just as a man would +ask who had obtained his knowledge out of books. But of the earlier +ascents he had spoken differently, though the difference was subtle and +hard to define. He seemed to be upon more familiar ground. He left in +Chayne's mind a definite suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of +books, but from an intimate personal knowledge, the knowledge of actual +experience. The suspicion had grown up gradually, but it had strengthened +almost into a conviction. + +It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's conversation perpetually +recurred--the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Petit Dru and the +traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the +Brenva route--yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc. Moreover, +how in the world should he know that those slabs of black granite on the +top of the Grépon were veined with red--splashed with red as he described +them? Unless he had ascended them, or the Aiguille des Charmoz +opposite--how should he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel +Revailloud flashed across Chayne's mind. "One needs some one with whom to +exchange one's memories." + +Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with so much compulsion +that he must satisfy it in spite of himself? Yet why should he practise +concealment at all? There certainly had been concealment. Chayne +remembered how more than once Garratt Skinner had checked himself before +at last he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he had spoken. +And then suddenly as the train drew up at Vauxhall Station for the +tickets to be collected, Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of +the Argentière, beside the great gully, as they descended to the glacier, +Sylvia's guide had spoken words which came flying back into Chayne's +thoughts. She had climbed that day, though it was her first mountain, as +if knowledge of the craft had been born in her. How to stand upon an +ice-slope, how to hold her ax--she had known. On the rocks, too! Which +foot to advance, with which hand to grasp the hold--she had known. +Suppose that knowledge _had_ been born in her! Why, then those words of +her guide began to acquire significance. She had reminded him of some +one--some one whose name he could not remember--but some one with whom +years ago he had climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance movement +of Sylvia's, some way in which she moved from ledge to ledge, had +revealed to him the name--Gabriel Strood. + +Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark thing was there in the +record of Strood's life that he must change his name, disappear from the +world, and avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and storm on the +high rock-ledges and the ice-slope? + +Chayne was minded to find an answer to that question. Sylvia was in +trouble; that house under the downs was no place for her. He himself was +afraid of what was being planned there. It might help him if he knew +something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew at present. And it seemed +to him that there was just a chance of acquiring that knowledge. + +He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up St. James' Street. +The street was empty. It was a hot starlit night of the first week in +August, and there came upon him a swift homesickness for the world above +the snow-line. How many of his friends were sleeping that night in +mountain huts high up on the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs +open to the stars with a rock-cliff at their backs and a fire of pine +wood blazing at their feet. Most likely amongst those friends was the +one he sought to-night. + +"Still there's a chance that I may find him," he pleaded, and +crossing Piccadilly passed into Dover Street. Half way along the +street of milliners, he stopped before a house where a famous scholar +had his lodging. + +"Is Mr. Kenyon in London?" he asked, and the man-servant replied to his +great relief: + +"Yes, sir, but he is not yet at home." + +"I will wait for him," said Chayne. + +He was shown into the study and left there with a lighted lamp. The +room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a +ladder and took down from a high corner some volumes bound simply in +brown cloth. They were volumes of the "Alpine Journal." He had chosen +those which dated back from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He +drew a chair up beside the lamp and began eagerly to turn over the +pages. Often he stopped, for the name of which he was in search often +leaped to his eyes from the pages. Chayne read of the exploits in the +Alps of Gabriel Strood. More than one new expedition was described, +many variations of old ascents, many climbs already familiar. It was +clear that the man was of the true brotherhood. A new climb was very +well, but the old were as good to Gabriel Strood, and the climb which +he had once made he had the longing to repeat with new companions. None +of the descriptions were written by Strood himself but all by +companions whom he had led, and most of them bore testimony to an +unusual endurance, an unusual courage, as though Strood triumphed +perpetually over a difficulty which his companions did not share and of +which only vague hints were given. At last Chayne came to that very +narrative which Sylvia had been reading on her way to Chamonix--and +there the truth was bluntly told for the first time. + +Chayne started up in that dim and quiet room, thrilled. He had the proof +now, under his finger--the indisputable proof. Gabriel Strood suffered +from an affection of the muscles in his right thigh, and yet managed to +out-distance all his rivals. Hine's words drummed in Chayne's ears: + +"Nevertheless he left us all behind." + +Garratt Skinner: Gabriel Strood. Surely, surely! He replaced the volumes +and took others down. In the first which he opened--it was the autumn +number of nineteen years ago--there was again mention of the man; and the +climb described was the ascent of Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier. +Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It +was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back. +The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the +Blaitière--yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back, +with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arête of the +Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages. But there was nowhere +in any volume on which he laid his hands any further record of his +exploits. Others who followed in his steps mentioned his name, but of the +man himself there was no word more. No one had climbed with him, no one +had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For five or six seasons +he had flashed through the Alps. Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the +Concordia hut--all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just +under twenty years ago he had come no more. + +Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down +again in the arm-chair before the empty grate. It was a strange and a +haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts. +Men like Gabriel Strood _always_ come back to the Alps. They sleep too +restlessly at nights, they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed +away. There must have been some great impediment. He fell into another +train of thought. Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel +Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the +Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was still not unraveled, and +while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and +a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold. He was a +man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and +his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an +aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone--until he smiled. And +in the smile there was much companionship and love. He smiled now as he +stretched out his long, finely-molded hand. + +"I am very glad to see you, Chayne," he said, in a voice remarkable for +its gentleness, "although in another way I am sorry. I am sorry because, +of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps." + +Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder +and forced him down again with a friendly pressure. "I read of Lattery's +death. I am grieved about it--for you as much as for Lattery. I know just +what that kind of loss means. It means very much," said he, letting his +deep-set eyes rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man. Kenyon +put a whisky and soda by Chayne's elbow, and setting the tobacco jar on a +little table between them, sat down and lighted his pipe. + +"You came back at once?" he asked. + +"I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into Italy," replied Chayne. + +"Yes, yes," said Kenyon, nodding his head. "But you will go back next +year, or the year after." + +"Perhaps," said Chayne; and for a little while they smoked their pipes in +silence. Then Chayne came to the object of his visit. + +"Kenyon," he asked, "have you any photographs of the people who went +climbing twenty to twenty-five years ago? I thought perhaps you might +have some groups taken in Switzerland in those days. If you have, I +should like to see them." + +"Yes, I think I have," said Kenyon. He went to his writing-desk and +opening a drawer took out a number of photographs. He brought them back, +and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light fell clear and strong +upon the little table, laid them down. + +Chayne bent over them with a beating heart. Was his suspicion to be +confirmed or disproved? + +One by one he took the photographs, closely examined them, and laid +them aside while Kenyon stood upright on the other side of the table. +He had turned over a dozen before he stopped. He held in his hand the +picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open space before the door. In the +open space men were gathered. They were talking in groups; some of them +leaned upon ice-axes, some carried _Rücksacks_ upon their backs, as +though upon the point of starting for the hills. As he held the +photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and bent his head a little +lower, Kenyon made a slight uneasy movement. But Chayne did not notice. +He sat very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. On the +outskirts of the group stood Sylvia's father. Younger, slighter of +build, with a face unlined and a boyish grace which had long since +gone--but undoubtedly Sylvia's father. + +The contours of the mountains told Chayne clearly enough in what valley +the hotel stood. + +"This is Zermatt," he said, without lifting his eyes. + +"Yes," replied Kenyon, quietly, "a Zermatt you are too young to know," +and then Chayne's forefinger dropped upon the figure of Sylvia's father. + +"Who is this?" he asked. + +Kenyon made no answer. + +"It is Gabriel Strood," Chayne continued. + +There was a pause, and then Kenyon confirmed the guess. + +"Yes," he said, and some hint of emotion in his voice made Chayne lift +his eyes. The light striking upward through the green shade gave to +Kenyon's face an extraordinary pallor. But it seemed to Chayne that not +all the pallor was due to the lamp. + +"For six seasons," Chayne said, "Gabriel Strood came to the Alps. In his +first season he made a great name." + +"He was the best climber I have ever seen," replied Kenyon. + +"He had a passion for the mountains. Yet after six years he came back no +more. He disappeared. Why?" + +Kenyon stood absolutely silent, absolutely still. Perhaps the trouble +deepened a little on his face; but that was all. Chayne, however, was +bent upon an answer. For Sylvia's sake alone he must have it, he must +know the father into whose clutches she had come. + +"You knew Gabriel Strood. Why?" + +Kenyon leaned forward and gently took the photograph out of Chayne's +hand. He mixed it with the others, not giving to it a single glance +himself, and then replaced them all in the drawer from which he had taken +them. He came back to the table and at last answered Chayne: + +"John Lattery was your friend. Some of the best hours of your life were +passed in his company. You know that now. But you will know it still +more surely when you come to my age, whatever happiness may come to you +between now and then. The camp-fire, the rock-slab for your floor and +the black night about you for walls, the hours of talk, the ridge and +the ice-slope, the bad times in storm and mist, the good times in the +sunshine, the cold nights of hunger when you were caught by the +darkness, the off-days when you lounged at your ease. You won't forget +John Lattery." + +Kenyon spoke very quietly but with a conviction, and, indeed, a certain +solemnity, which impressed his companion. + +"No," said Chayne, gently, "I shall not forget John Lattery." But his +question was still unanswered, and by nature he was tenacious. His eyes +were still upon Kenyon's face and he added: "What then?" + +"Only this," said Kenyon. "Gabriel Strood was my John Lattery," and +moving round the table he dropped his hand upon Chayne's shoulder. "You +will ask me no more questions," he said, with a smile. + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne. + +He had his answer. He knew now that there was something to conceal, that +there was a definite reason why Gabriel Strood disappeared. + +"Good-night," he said; and as he left the room he saw Kenyon sink down +into his arm-chair. There seemed something sad and very lonely in the +attitude of the older man. Once more Michel Revailloud's warning rose up +within his mind. + +"When it is all over, and you go home, take care that there is a lighted +lamp in the room and the room not empty. Have some one to share your +memories when life is nothing but memories." + +At every turn the simple philosophy of Michel Revailloud seemed to obtain +an instance and a confirmation. Was that to be his own fate too? Just for +a moment he was daunted. He closed the door noiselessly, and going down +the stairs let himself out into the street. The night was clear above his +head. How was it above the Downs of Dorsetshire, he wondered. He walked +along the street very slowly. Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood. There +was clearly a dark reason for the metamorphosis. It remained for Chayne +to discover that reason. But he did not ponder any more upon that problem +to-night. He was merely thinking as he walked along the street that +Michel Revailloud was a very wise man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + +"Between gentlemen," said Wallie Hine. "Yes, between gentlemen." + +He was quoting from a letter which he held in his hand, as he sat at the +breakfast table, and, in his agitation, he had quoted aloud. Garratt +Skinner looked up from his plate and said: + +"Can I help you, Wallie?" + +Hine flushed red and stammered out: "No, thank you. I must run up to town +this morning--that's all." + +"Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-cart after breakfast," +said Garratt Skinner, and he made no further reference to the journey. +But he glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with some +perplexity at Walter Hine. "You will be back this evening, I suppose?" + +"Rather," said Walter Hine, with a smile across the table at Sylvia; but +his agitation got the better of his gallantry, and as she drove him into +Weymouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for protection. "I +don't want to go one little bit, Miss Sylvia. But between gentlemen. Yes, +I mustn't forget that. Between gentlemen." He clung to the phrase, +finding some comfort in its reiteration. + +"You have given me your promise," said Sylvia. "There will be no +cards, no bets." + +Walter Hine laughed bitterly. + +"I shan't break it. I have had my lesson. By Jove, I have." + +Walter Hine traveled to Waterloo and drove straight to the office of +Mr. Jarvice. + +"I owe some money," he began, bleating the words out the moment he was +ushered into the inner office. + +Mr. Jarvice grinned. + +"This interview is concluded," he said. "There's the door." + +"I owe it to a friend, Captain Barstow," Hine continued, in desperation. +"A thousand pounds. He has written for it. He says that debts of honor +between gentlemen--" But he got no further, for Mr. Jarvice broke in upon +his faltering explanations with a snarl of contempt. + +"Barstow! You poor little innocent. I have something else to do with my +money than to pour it into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send him to +me to-morrow, and I'll talk to him--as between gentlemen." + +Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed to deference and flatteries +in the household of Garratt Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr. +Jarvice stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong element of his +character. He was in the mind hotly to defend Captain Barstow from Mr. +Jarvice's insinuations, but he refrained. + +"Then Barstow will know that I draw my allowance from you, and not from +my grandfather," he stammered. There was the trouble for Walter Hine. +If Barstow knew, Garratt Skinner would come to know. There would be an +end to the deference and the flatteries. He would no longer be able to +pose as the favorite of the great millionaire, Joseph Hine. He would +sink in Sylvia's eyes. At the cost of any humiliation that downfall +must be avoided. + +His words, however, had an immediate effect upon Mr. Jarvice, though for +quite other reasons. + +"Why, that's true," said Mr. Jarvice, slowly, and in a voice suddenly +grown smooth. "Yes, yes, we don't want to mix up my name in the affair at +all. Sit down, Mr. Hine, and take a cigar. The box is at your elbow. +Young men of spirit must have some extra license allowed to them for the +sake of the promise of their riper years. I was forgetting that. No, we +don't want my name to appear at all, do we?" + +Publicity had no charms for Mr. Jarvice. Indeed, on more than one +occasion he had found it quite a hindrance to the development of his +little plans. To go his own quiet way, unheralded by the press and +unacclaimed of men--that was the modest ambition of Mr. Jarvice. + +"However, I don't look forward to handing over a thousand pounds to +Captain Barstow," he continued, softly. "No, indeed. Did you lose any of +your first quarter's allowance to him besides the thousand?" + +Walter Hine lit his cigar and answered reluctantly: + +"Yes." + +"All of it?" + +"Oh no, no, not all of it." + +Jarvice did not press for the exact amount. He walked to the window and +stood there with his hands in his pockets and his back toward his +visitor. Walter Hine watched his shoulders in suspense and apprehension. +He would have been greatly surprised if he could have caught a glimpse at +this moment of Mr. Jarvice's face. There was no anger, no contempt, +expressed in it at all. On the contrary, a quiet smile of satisfaction +gave to it almost a merry look. Mr. Jarvice had certain plans for Walter +Hine's future--so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of the +phrase--and fate seemed to be helping toward their fulfilment. + +"I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said Jarvice, turning back +to his table. "The means I must think over, but I can do it. Only there's +a condition. You need not be alarmed. A little condition which a loving +father might impose upon his only son," and Mr. Jarvice beamed paternally +as he resumed his seat. + +"What is the condition?" asked Walter Hine. + +"That you travel for a year, broaden your mind by visiting the great +countries and capitals of Europe, take a little trip perhaps into the +East and return a cultured gentleman well equipped to occupy the high +position which will be yours when your grandfather is in due time +translated to a better sphere." + +Mr. Jarvice leaned back in his chair, and with a confident wave of his +desk ruler had the air of producing the startling metamorphosis like some +heavy but benevolent fairy. Walter Hine, however, was not attracted by +the prospect. + +"But--" he began, and at once Mr. Jarvice interrupted him. + +"I anticipate you," he said, with a smile. "Standing at the window there, +I foresaw your objection. But--it would be lonely. Quite true. Why should +you be lonely? And so I am going to lay my hands on some pleasant and +companionable young fellow who will go with you for his expenses. An +Oxford man, eh? Fresh from Alma Mater with a taste for pictures and +statuettes and that sort of thing! Upon my word, I envy you, Mr. Hine. If +I were young, bless me, if I wouldn't throw my bonnet over the mill, as +after a few weeks in La Ville Lumière you will be saying, and go with +you. You will taste life--yes, life." + +And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died suddenly out of the +face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his eyes somberly upon his visitor and a +queer inscrutable smile played about his lips. But Walter Hine had no +eyes for Mr. Jarvice. He was nerving himself to refuse the proposal. + +"I can't go," he blurted out, with the ungracious stubbornness of a weak +mind which fears to be over-persuaded. Afraid lest he should consent, he +refused aggressively and rudely. + +Mr. Jarvice repressed an exclamation of anger. "And why?" he asked, +leaning forward on his elbows and fixing his bright, sharp eyes on Walter +Hine's face. + +Walter Hine shifted uncomfortably in his chair but did not answer. + +"And why can't you go?" he repeated. + +"I can't tell you." + +"Oh, surely," said Mr. Jarvice, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "Come +now! Between gentlemen! Well?" + +Walter Hine yielded to Jarvice's insistence. + +"There's a girl," he said, with a coy and odious smile. + +Mr. Jarvice beat upon his desk with his fists in a savage anger. His +carefully calculated plan was to be thwarted by a girl. + +"She's a dear," cried Walter Hine. Having made the admission, he let +himself go. His vanity pricked him to lyrical flights. "She's a dear, +she's a sob, she would never let me go, she's my little girl." + +Such was Sylvia's reward for engaging in a struggle which she loathed for +the salvation of Walter Hine. She was jubilantly claimed by him as his +little girl in a money-lender's office. Mr. Jarvice swore aloud. + +"Who is she?" he asked, sternly. + +A faint sense of shame came over Walter Hine. He dimly imagined what +Sylvia would have thought and said, and what contempt her looks would +have betrayed, had she heard him thus boast of her goodwill. + +"You are asking too much, Mr. Jarvice," he said. + +Mr. Jarvice waved the objection aside. + +"Of course I ask it as between gentlemen," he said, with an ironical +politeness. + +"Well, then, as between gentlemen," returned Walter Hine, seriously. "She +is the daughter of a great friend of mine, Mr. Garratt Skinner. What's +the matter?" he cried; and there was reason for his cry. + +It had been an afternoon of surprises for Mr. Jarvice, but this simple +mention of the name of Garratt Skinner was more than a surprise. Mr. +Jarvice was positively startled. He leaned back in his chair with his +mouth open and his eyes staring at Walter Hine. The high color paled in +his face and his cheeks grew mottled. It seemed that fear as well as +surprise came to him in the knowledge that Garratt Skinner was a friend +of Walter Hine. + +"What is the matter?" repeated Hine. + +"It's nothing," replied Mr. Jarvice, hastily. "The heat, that is all." +He crossed the room, and throwing up the window leaned for a few moments +upon the sill. Yet even when he spoke again, there was still a certain +unsteadiness in his voice. "How did you come across Mr. Garratt +Skinner?" he asked. + +"Barstow introduced me. I made Barstow's acquaintance at the Criterion +Bar, and he took me to Garratt Skinner's house in Hobart Place." + +"I see," said Mr. Jarvice. "It was in Garratt Skinner's house that you +lost your money, I suppose." + +"Yes, but he had no hand in it," exclaimed Walter Hine. "He does not know +how much I lost. He would be angry if he did." + +A faint smile flickered across Jarvice's face. + +"Quite so," he agreed, and under his deft cross-examination the whole +story was unfolded. The little dinner at which Sylvia made her +appearance and at which Walter Hine was carefully primed with drink; the +little round game of cards which Garratt Skinner was so reluctant to +allow in his house on a Sunday evening, and from which, being an early +riser, he retired to bed, leaving Hine in the hands of Captain Barstow +and Archie Parminter; the quiet secluded house in the country; the new +gardener who appeared for one day and shot with so surprising an +accuracy, when Barstow backed him against Walter Hine, that Hine lost a +thousand pounds; the incidents were related to Mr. Jarvice in their +proper succession, and he interpreted them by his own experience. +Captain Barstow, who was always to the fore, counted for nothing in the +story as Jarvice understood it. He was the mere creature, the servant. +Garratt Skinner, who was always in the background, prepared the swindle +and pocketed the profits. + +"You are staying at the quiet house in Dorsetshire now, I suppose. Just +you and Garratt Skinner and the pretty daughter, with occasional visits +from Barstow?" + +"Yes," answered Hine. "Garratt Skinner does not care to see much +company." + +Once more the smile of amusement played upon Mr. Jarvice's face. + +"No, I suppose not," he said, quietly. There were certain definite +reasons of which he was aware, to account for Garratt Skinner's +reluctance to appear in a general company. He turned back from the window +and returned to his table. He had taken his part. There was no longer +either unsteadiness or anger in his voice. + +"I quite understand your reluctance to leave your new friends," he said, +with the utmost friendliness. "I recognize that the tour abroad on which +I had rather set my heart must be abandoned. But I have no regrets. For I +think it possible that the very object which I had in mind when proposing +that tour may be quite as easily effected in the charming country house +of Garratt Skinner." + +He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, looking benevolently at his +visitor. If the words were capable of another and a more sinister meaning +than they appeared to convey, Walter Hine did not suspect it. He took +them in their obvious sense. + +"Yes, I shall gain as much culture in Garratt Skinner's house as I should +by seeing picture-galleries abroad," he said eagerly, and then Mr. +Jarvice smiled. + +"I think that very likely," he said. "Meanwhile, as to Barstow and his +thousand pounds. I must think the matter over. Barstow will not press you +for a day or two. Just leave me your address--the address in +Dorsetshire." + +He dipped a pen in the ink and handed it to Hine. Hine took it and drew a +sheet of paper toward him. But he did not set the pen to the paper. He +looked suddenly up at Jarvice, who stood over against him at the other +side of the table. + +"Garratt Skinner's address?" he said, with one of his flashes of cunning. + +"Yes, since you are staying there. I shall want to write to you." + +Walter Hine still hesitated. + +"You won't peach to Garratt Skinner about the allowance, eh?" + +"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Jarvice. He was more hurt than offended. "To +put it on the lowest ground, what could I gain?" + +Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once the clerk appeared at the +door and handed Jarvice a card. + +"I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine: "Our business is +over, I think." + +Jarvice opened a second door which led from the inner office straight +down a little staircase into the street. "Good-by. You shall hear from +me," he said, and Walter Hine went out. + +Jarvice closed the door and turned back to his clerk. + +"That will do," he said. + +There was no client waiting at all. Mr. Jarvice had an ingenious +contrivance for getting rid of his clients at the critical moment after +they had come to a decision and before they had time to change their +minds. By pressing a particular button in the leather covering of the +right arm of his chair, he moved an indicator above the desk of his clerk +in the outer office. The clerk thereupon announced a visitor, and the one +in occupation was bowed out by the private staircase. By this method +Walter Hine had been dismissed. + +Jarvice had the address of Garratt Skinner. But he sat with it in front +of him upon his desk for a long time before he could bring himself to use +it. All the amiability had gone from his expression now that he was +alone. He was in a savage mood, and every now and then a violent gesture +betrayed it. But it was with himself that he was angry. He had been a +fool not to keep a closer watch on Walter Hine. + +"I might have foreseen," he cried in his exasperation. "Garratt Skinner! +If I had not been an ass, I _should_ have foreseen." + +For Mr. Jarvice was no stranger to Walter Hine's new friend. More than +one young buck fresh from the provinces, heir to the great factory or the +great estate, had been steered into this inner office by the careful +pilotage of Garratt Skinner. In all the army of the men who live by their +wits, there was not one to Jarvice's knowledge who was so alert as +Garratt Skinner to lay hands upon the new victim or so successful in +lulling his suspicions. He might have foreseen that Garratt Skinner would +throw his net over Walter Hine. But he had not, and the harm was done. + +Mr. Jarvice took the insurance policy from his safe and shook his head +over it sadly. He had seen his way to making in his quiet fashion, and at +comparatively little cost, a tidy little sum of one hundred thousand +pounds. Now he must take a partner, so that he might not have an enemy. +Garratt Skinner with Barstow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for +his decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded. Jarvice must +share with Garratt Skinner--unless he preferred to abandon his scheme +altogether; and that Mr. Jarvice would not do. + +There was no other way. Jarvice knew well that he could weaken Garratt +Skinner's influence over Walter Hine by revealing to the youth certain +episodes in the new friend's life. He might even break the +acquaintanceship altogether. But Garratt Skinner would surely discover +who had been at work. And then? Why, then, Mr. Jarvice would have upon +his heels a shrewd and watchful enemy; and in this particular business, +such an enemy Mr. Jarvice could not afford to have. Jarvice was not an +impressionable man, but his hands grew cold while he imagined Garratt +Skinner watching the development of his little scheme--the tour abroad +with the pleasant companion, the things which were to happen on the +tour--watching and waiting until the fitting moment had come, when all +was over, for him to step in and demand the price of his silence and hold +Mr. Jarvice in the hollow of his hand for all his life. No, that would +never do. Garratt Skinner must be a partner so that also he might be an +accessory. + +Accordingly, Jarvice wrote his letter to Garratt Skinner, a few lines +urging him to come to London on most important business. Never was +there a letter more innocent in its appearance than that which Jarvice +wrote in his inner office on that summer afternoon. Yet even at the +last he hesitated whether he should seal it up or no. The sun went +down, shadows touched with long cool fingers the burning streets; +shadows entered into that little inner office of Mr. Jarvice. But still +he sat undecided at his desk. + +The tour upon the Continent must be abandoned, and with it the journey +under canvas to the near East--a scheme so simple, so sure, so safe. +Still Garratt Skinner might confidently be left to devise another. And he +had always kept faith. To that comforting thought Mr. Jarvice clung. He +sealed up his letter in the end, and stood for a moment or two with the +darkness deepening about him. Then he rang for his clerk and bade him +post it, but the voice he used was one which the clerk did not know, so +that he pushed his head forward and peered through the shadows to make +sure that it was his master who spoke. + +Two days afterward Garratt Skinner paid a long visit to Mr. Jarvice, and +that some agreement was reached between the two men shortly became +evident. For Walter Hine received a letter from Captain Barstow which +greatly relieved him. + +"Garratt Skinner has written to me," wrote the 'red-hot' Captain, "that +he has discovered that the gardener, whom he engaged for a particular +job, is notorious as a poacher and a first-class shot. Under these +circumstances, my dear old fellow, the red-hot one cannot pouch your +pennies. As between gentlemen, the bet must be considered o-p-h." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + + +Hilary Chayne stayed away from Dorsetshire for ten complete days; and +though the hours crept by, dilatory as idlers at a street corner, he +obtained some poor compensation by reflecting upon his fine diplomacy. In +less than a week he would surely be missed; by the time that ten days had +passed the sensation might have become simply poignant. So for ten days +he wandered about the Downs of Sussex with an aching heart, saying the +while, "It serves her right." On the morning of the eleventh he received +a letter from the War Office, bidding him call on the following +afternoon. + +"That will just do," he said. "I will go down to Weymouth to-day, and I +will return to London to-morrow." And with an unusual lightness of +spirit, which he ascribed purely to his satisfaction that he need punish +Sylvia no longer, he started off upon his long journey. He reached the +house of the Running Water by six o'clock in the evening; and at the +outset it seemed that his diplomacy had been sagacious. + +He was shown into the library, and opposite to him by the window +Sylvia stood alone. She turned to him a white terror-haunted face, +gazed at him for a second like one dazed, and then with a low cry of +welcome came quickly toward him. Chayne caught her outstretched hands +and all his joy at her welcome lay dead at the sight of her distress. +"Sylvia!" he exclaimed in distress. He was hurt by it as he had never +thought to be hurt. + +"I am afraid!" she said, in a trembling whisper. He drew her toward him +and she yielded. She stood close to him and very still, touching him, +leaning to him like a frightened child. "Oh, I am afraid," she repeated; +and her voice appealed piteously for sympathy and a little kindness. + +In Chayne's mind there was suddenly painted a picture of the ice-slope on +the Aiguille d'Argentière. A girl had moved from step to step, across +that slope, looking down its steep glittering incline without a tremor. +It was the same girl who now leaned to him and with shaking lips and eyes +tortured with fear cried, "I am afraid." By his recollection of that day +upon the heights Chayne measured the greatness of her present trouble. + +"Why, Sylvia? Why are you afraid?" + +For answer she looked toward the open window. Chayne followed her glance +and this was what he saw: The level stretch of emerald lawn, the stream +running through it and catching in its brown water the red light of the +evening sun, the great beech trees casting their broad shadows, the high +garden walls with the dusky red of their bricks glowing amongst fruit +trees, and within that enclosure pacing up and down, in and out among the +shadows of the trees, Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine. Yet that sight she +must needs have seen before. Why should it terrify her beyond reason now? + +"Do you see?" Sylvia said in a low troubled voice. For once distress had +mastered her and she spoke without her usual reticence. "There can be no +friendship between those two. No real friendship! You have but to see +them side by side to be sure of it. It is pretence." + +Yet that too she must have known before. Why then should the pretence now +so greatly trouble her? Chayne watched the two men pacing in the garden. +Certainly he had never seen them in so intimate a comradeship. Garratt +Skinner had passed his arm through Walter Hine's and held him so, plying +him with stories, bending down his keen furrowed aquiline face toward him +as though he had no thought in the world but to make him his friend and +bind him with affection; and Walter Hine looked up and listened and +laughed, a vain, weak wisp of a creature, flattered to the skies and +defenceless as a rabbit. + +"Why the pretence?" said Sylvia. "Why the linked arms? The pretence has +grown during these last days. What new thing is intended?" Her eyes were +on the garden, and as she looked it seemed that her terror grew. "My +father went away a week ago. Since he has returned the pretence has +increased. I am afraid! I am afraid!" + +Garratt Skinner turned in his walk and led Walter Hine back toward the +house. Sylvia shrank from his approach as from something devilish. When +he turned again, she drew her breath like one escaped from sudden peril. + +"Sylvia! Of what are you afraid?" + +"I don't know!" she cried. "That's just the trouble. I don't know!" She +clenched her hands together at her breast. Chayne caught them in his and +was aware that in one shut palm she held something which she concealed. +Her clasp tightened upon it as his hands touched hers. Sylvia had more +reason for her fears than she had disclosed. Barstow came no more. There +were no more cards, no more bets; and this change taken together with +Garratt Skinner's increased friendship added to her apprehensions. She +dreaded some new plot more sinister, more terrible than that one of which +she was aware. + +"If only I knew," she cried. "Oh, if only I knew!" + +Archie Parminter had paid one visit to the house, had stayed for one +night; and he and Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine had sat up till +morning, talking together in the library. Sylvia waking up from a fitful +sleep, had heard their voices again and again through the dark hours; and +when the dawn was gray, she had heard them coming up to bed as on the +first night of her return; and as on that night there was one who +stumbled heavily. It was since that night that terror had distracted her. + +"I have no longer any power," she said. "Something has happened to +destroy my power. I have no longer any influence. Something was done upon +that night," and she shivered as though she guessed; and she looked at +her clenched hand as though the clue lay hidden in its palm. There lay +her great trouble. She had lost her influence over Walter Hine. She had +knowledge of the under side of life--yes, but her father had a greater +knowledge still. He had used his greater knowledge. Craftily and with a +most ingenious subtlety he had destroyed her power, he had blunted her +weapons. Hine was attracted by Sylvia, fascinated by her charm, her +looks, and the gentle simplicity of her manner. Very well. On the other +side Garratt Skinner had held out a lure of greater attractions, greater +fascination; and Sylvia was powerless. + +"He has changed," Sylvia went on, with her eyes fixed on Walter Hine. +"Oh, not merely toward me. He has changed physically. Can you understand? +He has grown nervous, restless, excitable, a thing of twitching limbs. +Oh, and that's not all. I will tell you. This morning it seemed to me +that the color of his eyes had changed." + +Chayne stared at her. "Sylvia!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, I have not lost my senses," she answered, and she resumed: "I only +noticed that there was an alteration at first. I did not see in what the +alteration lay. Then I saw. His eyes used to be light in color. This +morning they were dark. I looked carefully to make sure, and so I +understood. The pupils of his eyes were so dilated that they covered the +whole eyeball. Can you think why?" and even as she asked, she looked at +that clenched hand of hers as though the answer to that question as well +lay hidden there. "I am afraid," she said once more; and upon that Chayne +committed the worst of the many indiscretions which had signalized his +courtship. + +"You are afraid? Sylvia! Then let me take you away!" + +At once Sylvia drew back. Had Chayne not spoken, she would have told him +all that there was to tell. She was in the mood at this unguarded moment. +She would have told him that during these last days Walter Hine had taken +to drink once more. She would have opened that clenched fist and showed +the thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her father beyond all +hope of exculpation. But Chayne had checked her as surely as though he +had laid the palm of his hand upon her lips. He would talk of love and +flight, and of neither had she any wish to hear. She craved with a great +yearning for sympathy and a little kindness. But Chayne was not content +to offer what she needed. He would add more, and what he added marred the +whole gift for Sylvia. She shook her head, and looking at him with a sad +and gentle smile, said: + +"Love is for the happy people." + +"That is a hard saying, Sylvia," Chayne returned, "and not a true one." + +"True to me," said Sylvia, with a deep conviction, and as he advanced to +her she raised her hand to keep him off. "No, no," she cried, and had he +listened, he might have heard a hint of exasperation in her voice. But he +would not be warned. + +"You can't go on, living here, without sympathy, without love, without +even kindness. Already it is evident. You are ill, and tired. And you +think to go on all your life or all your father's life. Sylvia, let me +take you away!" + +And each unwise word set him further and further from his aim. It seemed +to her that there was no help anywhere. Chayne in front of her seemed to +her almost as much her enemy as her father, who paced the lawn behind her +arm in arm with Walter Hine. She clasped her hands together with a quick +sharp movement. + +"I will not let you take me away," she cried. "For I do not love you"; +and her voice had lost its gentleness and grown cold and hard. Chayne +began again, but whether it was with a renewal of his plea, she did not +hear. For she broke in upon him quickly: + +"Please, let me finish. I am, as you said, a little over-wrought! Just +hear me out and leave me to bear my troubles by myself. You will make it +easier for me"; she saw that the words hurt her lover. But she did not +modify them. She was in the mood to hurt. She had been betrayed by her +need of sympathy into speaking words which she would gladly have +recalled; she had been caught off her guard and almost unawares; and she +resented it. Chayne had told her that she looked ill and tired; and she +resented that too. No wonder she looked tired when she had her father +with his secret treacheries on one side and an importunate lover upon +the other! She thought for a moment or two how best to put what she had +still to stay: + +"I have probably said to you," she resumed, "more than was right or +fair--I mean fair to my father. I have no doubt exaggerated things. I +want you to forget what I have said. For it led you into a mistake." + +Chayne looked at her in perplexity. + +"A mistake?" + +"Yes," she answered. She was standing in front of him with her forehead +wrinkled and a somber, angry look in her eyes. "A mistake which I must +correct. You said that I was living here without kindness. It is not +true. My father is kind!" And as Chayne raised his eyes in a mute +protest, she insisted on the word. "Yes, kind and thoughtful--thoughtful +for others besides myself." A kind of obstinacy forced her on to enlarge +upon the topic. "I can give you an instance which will surprise you." + +"There is no need," Chayne said, gently, but Sylvia was implacable. + +"But there is need," she returned. "I beg you to hear me. When my father +and I were at Weymouth we drove one afternoon across the neck of the +Chesil beach to Portland." + +Chayne looked at Sylvia quickly. + +"Yes?" he said, and there was an indefinable change in his voice. He had +consented to listen, because she wished it. Now he listened with a keen +attention. For a strange thought had crept into his mind. + +"We drove up the hill toward the plateau at the top of the island, but as +we passed through the village--Fortune's Well I think they call it--my +father stopped the carriage at a tobacconist's, and went into the shop. +He came out again with some plugs of tobacco--a good many--and got into +the carriage. You won't guess why he bought them. I didn't." + +"Well?" said Chayne, and now he spoke with suspense. Suspense, too, was +visible in his quiet attitude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's +sake he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now call himself +Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery. But he must unravel it without +doing any hurt to Sylvia. He could not go too warily--of that he had been +sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak of it. There might be some +hidden thing which for Sylvia's sake must not be brought to light. +Therefore he must find out the truth without help from any one. He +wondered whether unconsciously Sylvia herself was going to give him the +clue. Was she to tell him what she did not know herself--why Gabriel +Strood was now Garratt Skinner? "Well?" he repeated. + +"As we continued up the hill," she resumed, "my father cut up the tobacco +into small pieces with his pocket knife. 'Why are you doing that?' I +asked, and he laughed and said, 'Wait, you will see.' At the top of the +hill we got out of the carriage and walked across the open plateau. In +front of us, rising high above a little village, stood out a hideous +white building. My father asked if I knew what it was. I said I guessed." + +"It was the prison," Chayne interrupted, quickly. + +"Yes." + +"You went to it?" + +Upon the answer to the question depended whether or no Chayne was to +unravel his mystery, to-day. + +"No," replied Sylvia, and Chayne drew a breath. Had she answered "Yes," +the suspicion which had formed within his mind must needs be set aside, +as clearly and finally disproved. Since she answered "No," the suspicion +gathered strength. "We went, however, near to it. We went as close to it +as the quarries. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and as we came to +the corner of the wall which surrounds the quarries, my father said, +'They have stopped work now.'" + +"He knew that?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. We turned into a street which runs down toward the prison. On one +side are small houses, on the other the long wall of the Government +quarries. The street was empty; only now and then--very seldom--some one +passed along it. On the top of the wall, there were sentry-boxes built at +intervals, for the warders to overlook the convicts. But these were empty +too. The wall is not high; I suppose--in fact my father said--the quarry +was deep on the other side." + +"Yes," said Chayne, quietly. "And then?" + +"Then we walked slowly along the street, and whenever there was no one +near, my father threw some tobacco over the wall. 'I don't suppose they +have a very enjoyable time,' he said. 'They will be glad to find the +tobacco there to-morrow.' We walked up the street and turned and came +back, and when we reached the corner he said with a laugh, 'That's all, +Sylvia. My pockets are empty.' We walked back to the carriage and drove +home again to Weymouth." + +Sylvia had finished her story, and the mystery was clear to Chayne. She +had told him the secret which she did not know herself. He was sure now +why Gabriel Strood had changed his name; he knew now why Gabriel Strood +no longer climbed the Alps; and why Kenyon would answer no question as to +the disappearance of his friend. + +"I have told you this," said Sylvia, "because you accused my father of +unkindness and want of thought. Would you have thought of those poor +prisoners over there in the quarries? If you had, would you have taken so +much trouble just to give them a small luxury? I think they must have +blessed the unknown man who thought for them and showed them what so many +want--a little sympathy and a little kindness." + +Chayne bowed his head. + +"Yes," he said, gently. "I was unjust." + +Indeed even to himself he acknowledged that Garratt Skinner had shown an +unexpected kindness, although he was sure of the reason for the act. He +had no doubt that Garratt Skinner had labored in those quarries himself, +and perhaps had himself picked up in bygone days, as he stooped over his +work, tobacco thrown over the walls by some more fortunate man. + +"I am glad you acknowledge that," said Sylvia, but her voice did not +relent from its hostility. She stood without further word, expecting him +to take his leave. Chayne recollected with how hopeful a spirit he had +traveled down from London. His fine diplomacy had after all availed him +little. He had gained certainly some unexpected knowledge which convinced +him still more thoroughly that the sooner he took Sylvia away from her +father and his friends the better it would be. But he was no nearer to +his desire. It might be that he was further off than ever. + +"You are returning to London?" she asked. + +"Yes. I have to call at the War Office to-morrow." + +Sylvia had no curiosity as to that visit. She took no interest in it +whatever, he noticed with a pang. + +"And then?" she asked slowly, as she crossed the hall with him to the +door. "You will go home?" + +Chayne smiled rather bitterly. + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"Into Sussex?" + +"Yes." + +She opened the door, and as he came out on to the steps she looked at him +with a thoughtful scrutiny for a few moments. But whether her thoughts +portended good or ill for him, he could not tell. + +"When I was a boy," he said abruptly, "I used to see from the garden of +my house, far away in a dip of the downs, a dark high wall standing up +against the sky. I never troubled myself as to how it came to have been +built there. But I used to wonder, being a boy, whether it could be +scaled or no. One afternoon I rode my pony over to find out, and I +discovered--What do you think?--that my wall was a mere hedge just three +feet high, no more." + +"Well!" said Sylvia. + +"Well, I have not forgotten--that's all," he replied. + +"Good-by," she said, and he learned no more from her voice than he had +done from her looks. He walked away down the lane, and having gone a few +yards he looked back. Sylvia was still standing in the doorway, watching +him with grave and thoughtful eyes. But there was no invitation to him to +return, and turning away again he walked on. + +Sylvia went up-stairs to her room. She unclenched her hand at last. In +its palm there lay a little phial containing a colorless solution. But +there was a label upon the phial, and on the label was written "cocaine." +It was that which had struck at her influence over Walter Hine. It was to +introduce this drug that Archie Parminter had been brought down from +London and the West End clubs. + +"It's drunk a good deal in a quiet way," Archie had said, as he made a +pretence himself to drink it. + +"You leave such drugs to the aristocracy, Walter," Garratt Skinner had +chimed in. "Just a taste if you like. But go gently." + +Sylvia had not been present. But she conjectured the scene, and her +conjecture was not far from the truth. But why? she asked, and again fear +took hold of her. "What was to be gained?" There were limits to Sylvia's +knowledge of the under side of life. She did not guess. + +She turned to her mirror and looked at herself. Yes, she looked tired, +she looked ill. But she was not grateful for having the fact pointed out +to her. And while she still looked, she heard her father's voice calling +her. She shivered, as though her fear once more laid hold on her. Then +she locked the bottle of cocaine away in a drawer and ran lightly down +the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + +Chayne's house stood high upon a slope of the Sussex Downs. Built of +stone two centuries ago, it seemed gradually to have taken on the brown +color of the hill behind it, subduing itself to the general scheme, even +as birds and animals will do; so that strangers who searched for it in +the valley discovered it by the upward swirl of smoke from its wide +chimneys. On its western side and just beneath the house, there was a +cleft in the downs through which the high road ran and in the cleft the +houses of a tiny village clustered even as at the foot of some old castle +in Picardy. On the east the great ridge with its shadow-holding hollows, +its rounded gorse-strewn slopes of grass, rolled away for ten miles and +then dipped suddenly to the banks of the River Arun. The house faced the +south, and from its high-terraced garden, a great stretch of park and +forest land was visible, where amidst the green and russet of elm and +beach, a cluster of yews set here and there gave the illusion of a black +and empty space. Beyond the forest land a lower ridge of hills rose up, +and over that ridge one saw the spires of Chichester and the level flats +of Selsea reaching to the sea. + +Into this garden Chayne came on the next afternoon, and as he walked +along its paths alone he could almost fancy that his dead father paced +with the help of his stick at his side, talking, as had been his wont, of +this or that improvement needed by the farms, pointing out to him a +meadow in the hollow beneath which might soon be coming into the market, +and always ending up with the same plea. + +"Isn't it time, Hilary, that you married and came home to look after it +all yourself?" + +Chayne had turned a deaf ear to that plea, but it made its appeal to him +to-night. Wherever his eyes rested, he recaptured something of his +boyhood; the country-side was alive with memories. He looked south, and +remembered how the perished cities of history had acquired reality for +him by taking on the aspect of Chichester lying low there on the flats; +and how the spires of the fabled towns of his storybooks had caught the +light of the setting sun, just as did now the towers of the cathedral. +Eastward, in the dip between the shoulder of the downs, and the trees of +Arundel Park, a long black hedge stood out with a remarkable definition +against the sky--the hedge of which he had spoken to Sylvia--the great +dark wall of brambles guarding the precincts of the Sleeping Beauty. He +recalled the adventurous day when he had first ridden alone upon his pony +along the great back of the downs and had come down to it through a +sylvan country of silence and ferns and open spaces; and had discovered +it to be no more than a hedge waist-high. The dusk came upon him as he +loitered in that solitary garden; the lights shone out in cottage and +farm-house; and more closely still his memories crowded about him weaving +spells. Some one to share them with! Chayne had no need to wait for old +age before he learnt the wisdom of Michel Revailloud. For his heart +leaped now, as he dreamed of exploring once more with Sylvia at his side +the enchanted country of his boyhood; gallops in the quiet summer +mornings along that still visible track across the downs, by which the +Roman legions had marched in the old days from London straight as a die +to Chichester; winter days with the hounds; a rush on windy afternoons in +a sloop-rigged boat down the Arun to Littlehampton. Chayne's heart leaped +with a passionate longing as he dreamed, and sank as he turned again to +the blank windows of the empty house. + +He dined alone, and while he dined evoked Sylvia's presence at the +table, setting her, not at the far end, but at the side and close, so +that a hand might now and then touch hers; calling up into her face her +slow hesitating smile; seeing her still gray eyes grow tender; in a word +watching the Madonna change into the woman. He went into the library +where, since the night had grown chilly, a fire was lit. It was a place +of comfort, with high bookshelves, deep-cushioned chairs, and dark +curtains. But, no less than the dining-room it needed another presence, +and lacking that lacked everything. It needed the girl with the tired +and terror-haunted face. Here, surely the fear would die out of her +soul, the eyes would lose their shadows, the feet regain the lightness +of their step. + +Chayne took down his favorite books, but they failed him. Between the +pages and his eyes one face would shape itself. He looked into the fire +and sought as of old to picture in the flames some mountain on which his +hopes were set and to discover the right line for its ascent. But even +that pastime brought no solace for his discontent. The house oppressed +him. It was empty, it was silent. He drew aside the curtains and looking +down into the valley through the clear night air watched the lights in +cottage and farm with the envy born of his loneliness. + +In spite of the brave words he had used, he wondered to-night whether the +three-foot hedge was not after all to prove the unassailable wall. And it +was important that he should know. For if it were so, why then he had not +called at the War Office in vain. A proposal had been made to him--that +he should join a commission for the delimitation of a distant frontier. A +year's work and an immediate departure--those were the conditions. Within +two days he must make up his mind--within ten days he must leave England. + +Chayne pondered over the decision which he must make. If he had lost +Sylvia, here was the mission to accept. For it meant complete severance, +a separation not to be measured by miles alone, but by the nature of the +work, and the comrades, and even the character of the vegetation. He went +to bed in doubt, thinking that the morning might bring him counsel. It +brought him a letter from Sylvia instead. + +The letter was long; it was written in haste, it was written in great +distress, so that words which were rather unkind were written down. But +the message of the letter was clear. Chayne was not to come again to the +House of the Running Water; nor to the little house in London when she +returned to it. They were not to meet again. She did not wish for it. + +Chayne burnt the letter as soon as he had read it, taking no offence at +the hasty words. "I seem to have worried her more than I thought," he +said to himself with a wistful smile. "I am sorry," and again as the +sparks died out from the black ashes of the letter he repeated: "Poor +little girl. I am very sorry." + +So the house would always be silent and empty. + +Sylvia had written the letter in haste on the very evening of Chayne's +visit, and had hurried out to post it in fear lest she might change her +mind in the morning. But in the morning she was only aware of a great +lightness of spirit. She could now devote herself to the work of her +life; and for two long tiring days she kept Walter Hine at her side. But +now he sought to avoid her. The little energy he had ever had was gone, +he alternated between exhilaration and depression; he preferred, it +seemed, to be alone. For two days, however, Sylvia persevered, and on the +third her lightness of spirit unaccountably deserted her. + +She drove with Walter Hine that morning, and something of his own +irritability seemed to have passed into her; so that he turned to her +and asked: + +"What have I done? Aren't you pleased with me? Why are you angry?" + +"I am not angry," she replied, turning her great gray eyes upon him. "But +if you wish to know, I miss something." + +So much she owned. She missed something, and she knew very well what it +was that she missed. Even as Chayne in his Sussex home had ached to know +that the house lacked a particular presence, so it began to be with +Sylvia in Dorsetshire. + +"Yet he has been absent for a longer time," she argued with herself, "and +I have not missed him. Indeed, I have been glad of his absence." And the +answer came quickly from her thoughts. + +"At any time you could have called him to your side, and you knew it. Now +you have sent him away for always." + +During the week the sense of loss, the feeling that everything was +unbearably incomplete, grew stronger and stronger within her. She had no +heart for the losing battle in which she was engaged. A dangerous +question began to force itself forward in her mind whenever her eyes +rested upon Walter Hine. "Was he worth while?" she asked herself: though +as yet she did not define all that the "while" connoted. The question was +most prominent in her mind on the seventh day after the letter had been +sent. She had persuaded Walter Hine to mount with her on to the down +behind the house; they came to the great White Horse, and Hine, pleading +fatigue, a plea which during these last days had been ever on his lips, +flung himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly +watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an +afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the +distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, +coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a +roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of +heat--heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to +dream of the cool glaciers; and the Chalet de Lognan suddenly stood +visible before her eyes. She watched the sunlight die off the red rocks +of the Chardonnet, the evening come with silent feet across the snow, and +the starlit night follow close upon its heels; night fled as she dreamed. +She saw the ice-slope on the Aiguille d'Argentière, she could almost hear +the chip-chip of the axes as the steps were cut and the perpetual hiss as +the ice-fragments streamed down the slope. Then she looked toward Walter +Hine with the speculative inquiry which had come so often into her eyes +of late. And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from a pocket a +tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into his mouth. + +"How long have you been taking cocaine?" she asked, suddenly. + +Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with a shrinking look. + +"I don't," he stammered. + +"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found it." + +"That was not mine," said he, still more confused. "That was Archie +Parminter's. He left it behind." + +"Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion confirmed. "But he left +it for you?" + +"And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably to her, "what can it +matter to you? I believe that what your father says is true." + +"What does he say?" + +"That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it's no use for any one else +to think of you." + +Sylvia started. + +"Oh, he says that!" + +She understood now one of the methods of the new intrigue. Sylvia was in +love with Chayne; therefore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine. +It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it. Oh, no! But Archie Parminter +is invited for the night, takes the drug himself, or pretends to take it, +praises it, describes how the use of it has grown in the West End and +amongst the clubs, and then conveniently leaves the drug behind, and no +doubt supplies it as it is required. + +Sylvia began to dilate upon its ill-effects, and suddenly broke off. A +great disgust was within her and stopped her speech. She got to her feet. +"Let us go home," she said, and she went very quickly down the hill. When +she came to the house she ran up-stairs to her room, locked the door and +flung herself upon her bed. Walter Hine, her father, their plots and +intrigues, were swept clean from her mind as of no account. Her struggle +for the mastery became unimportant in her thoughts--a folly, a waste. For +what her father had said was true; she cared for Chayne. And what she +herself had said to Chayne when first he came to the House of the Running +Water was no less true. "If I loved, I think nothing else would count at +all except that I loved." + +She had judged herself aright. She knew that, as she lay prone upon +her bed, plunged in misery, while the birds called upon the boughs in +the garden and the mill stream filled the room with its leaping music. +In a few minutes a servant knocked upon the door and told her that tea +was ready in the library; but she returned no answer. And in a few +minutes more--or so it seemed, but meanwhile the dusk had come--there +came another knock and she was told that dinner had been served. But +to that message again she returned no answer. The noises of the busy +day ceased in the fields, the birds were hushed upon the branches, +quiet and darkness took and refreshed the world. Only the throbbing +music of the stream beat upon the ears, and beat with a louder +significance, since all else was still. Sylvia lay staring wide-eyed +into the darkness. To the murmur of this music, in perhaps this very +room, she had been born. "Why," she asked piteously, "why?" Of what +use was it that she must suffer? + +Of all the bad hours of her life, these were the worst. For the yearning +for happiness and love throbbed and cried at her heart, louder and +louder, just as the music of the stream swelled to importance with the +coming of the night. And she learned that she had had both love and +happiness within her grasp and that she had thrown them away for a +shadow. She thought of the letter which she had written, recalling its +phrases with a sinking heart. + +"No man could forgive them. I must have been mad," she said, and she +huddled herself upon her bed and wept aloud. + +She ran over in her mind the conversations which she and Hilary Chayne +had exchanged, and each recollection accused her of impatience and paid a +tribute to his gentleness. On the very first day he had asked her to go +with him and her heart cried out now: + +"Why didn't I go?" + +He had been faithful and loyal ever since, and she had called his +faithfulness importunity and his loyalty a humiliation. She struck a +match and looked at her watch and by habit wound it up. And she drearily +wondered on how many, many nights she would have to wind it up and +speculate in ignorance what he, her lover, was doing and in what corner +of the world, before the end of her days was reached. What would become +of her? she asked. And she raised the corner of a curtain and glanced at +the bright picture of what might have been. And glancing at it, the +demand for happiness raised her in revolt. + +She lit her candle and wrote another letter, of the shortest. It +contained but these few words: + +"Oh, please forgive me! Come back and forgive. Oh, you must!--SYLVIA." + +And having written them, Sylvia stole quietly down-stairs, let herself +out at the door and posted them. + +Two nights afterward she leaned out of her window at midnight, wondering +whether by the morrow's post she would receive an answer to her message. +And while she wondered she understood that the answer would not come that +way. For suddenly in the moonlit road beneath her, she saw standing the +one who was to send it. Chayne had brought his answer himself. For a +moment she distrusted her own eyes, believing that her thoughts had +raised this phantom to delude her. But the figure in the road moved +beneath her window and she heard his voice call to her: + +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + +Sylvia raised her hand suddenly, enjoining silence, and turned back into +the room. She had heard a door slam violently within the house; and now +from the hall voices rose. Her father and Walter Hine were coming up +early to-night from the library, and it seemed in anger. At all events +Walter Hine was angry. His voice rang up the stairway shrill and violent. + +"Why do you keep it from me? I will have it, I tell you. I am not a +child," and an oath or two garnished the sentences. + +Sylvia heard her father reply with the patronage which never failed to +sting the vanity of his companion, which was the surest means to provoke +a quarrel, if a quarrel he desired. + +"Go to bed, Wallie! Leave such things to Archie Parminter! You are +too young." + +His voice was friendly, but a little louder than he generally used, so +that Sylvia clearly distinguished every word; so clearly indeed, that had +he wished her to hear, thus he would have spoken. She heard the two men +mount the stairs, Hine still protesting with the violence which had grown +on him of late; Garratt Skinner seeking apparently to calm him, and +apparently oblivious that every word he spoke inflamed Walter Hine the +more. She had a fear there would be blows--blows struck, of course, by +Hine. She knew the reason of the quarrel. Her father was depriving Hine +of his drug. They passed up-stairs, however, and on the landing above she +heard their doors close. Then coming back to the window she made a sign +to Chayne, slipped a cloak about her shoulders and stole quietly down the +dark stairs to the door. She unlocked the door gently and went out to her +lover. Upon the threshold she hesitated, chilled by a fear as to how he +would greet her. But he turned to her and in the moonlight she saw his +face and read it. There was no anger there. She ran toward him. + +"Oh, my dear," she cried, in a low, trembling voice, and his arms +enclosed her. As she felt them hold her to him, and knew indeed that it +was he, her lover, whose lips bent down to hers, there broke from her a +long sigh of such relief and such great uplifting happiness as comes but +seldom, perhaps no more than once, in the life of any man or woman. Her +voice sank to a whisper, and yet was very clear and, to the man who heard +it, sweet as never music was. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear! You have come then?" and she stroked his face, and +her hands clung about his neck to make very sure. + +"Were you afraid that I wouldn't come, Sylvia?" he asked, with a low, +quiet laugh. + +She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he saw at once the tears +bright in her eyes and the smile trembling upon her lips. + +"No," she said, "I rather thought that you would come," and she laughed +as she spoke. Or did she sob? He could hardly tell, so near she was to +both. "Oh, but I could not be sure! I wrote with so much unkindness," and +her eyes dropped from his in shame. + +"Hush!" he said, and he held her close. + +"Have you forgiven me? Oh, please forgive me!" + +"Long since," said he. + +But Sylvia was not reassured. + +"Ah, but you won't forget," she said, ruefully. "One can forgive, but one +can't forget what one forgives," and then since, even in her remorse, +hope was uppermost with her that night, she cried, "Oh, Hilary, do you +think you ever will forget what I wrote to you?" + +And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears. + +"What does it matter what you wrote a week ago, since to-night we are +here, you and I--together, in the moonlight, for all the world to see +that we are lovers." + +She drew him quickly aside into the shadow of the wall. + +"Are you afraid we should be seen?" he asked. + +"No, but afraid we may be interrupted," she replied, with a clear trill +of laughter which showed to her lover that her fears had passed. + +"The whole village is asleep, Sylvia," he said in a whisper; and as he +spoke a blind was lifted in an upper story of the house, a window was +flung wide, and the light streamed out from it into the moonlit air and +spread over their heads like a great, yellow fan. Walter Hine leaned his +elbows on the sill and looked out. + +Sylvia moved deeper into the shadow. + +"He cannot see us," said Chayne, with a smile, and he set his arm about +her waist; and so they stood very quietly. + +The house was built a few yards back from the road, and on each side of +it the high wall of the garden curved in toward it, making thus an open +graveled space in front of its windows. Sylvia and her lover stood at one +of the corners where the wall curved in; the shadow reached out beyond +their feet and lay upon the white road in a black triangle; they could +hardly be seen from any window of the house, and certainly they could not +be recognized. But on the other hand they could see. From behind Walter +Hine the light streamed out clear. The ceiling of the room was visible +and the shadow of the lamp upon it, and even the top part of the door in +the far corner. + +"We will wait until he turns back into the room," Sylvia whispered; and +for a little while they stood and watched. Then she felt Chayne's arm +tighten about her and hold her still. + +"Do you see?" he cried, in a low, quick voice. "Sylvia, do you see?" + +"What?" + +"The door. Look! Behind him! The door!" And Sylvia, looking as he bade +her, started, and barely stifled the cry which rose to her lips. For +behind Walter Hine, the door in the far corner of the room was +opening--very slowly, very stealthily, as though the hand which opened it +feared to be detected. So noiselessly had the latch been loosed that +Walter Hine did not so much as turn his head. Nor did he turn it now. He +heard nothing. He leaned from the window with his elbows on the sill, and +behind him the gap between the door and the wall grew wider and wider. +The door opened into the room and toward the window, so that the two +people in the shadow below could see nothing of the intruder. But the +secrecy of his coming had something sinister and most alarming. Sylvia +joined her hands above her lover's arm, holding her breath. + +"Shout to him!" she whispered. "Cry out that there's danger." + +"Not yet!" said Chayne, with his eyes fixed upon the lighted room; and +then, in spite of herself, a low and startled cry broke from Sylvia's +lips. A great shadow had been suddenly flung upon the ceiling of the +room, the shadow of a man, bloated and made monstrous by the light. The +intruder had entered the room; and with so much stealth that his +presence was only noticed by the two who watched in the road below. But +even they could not see who the intruder was, they only saw the shadow +on the ceiling. + +Walter Hine, however, heard Sylvia's cry, faint though it was. He leaned +forward from the window and peered down. + +"Now!" said Sylvia. "Now!" + +But Chayne did not answer. He was watching with an extraordinary +suspense. He seemed not to hear. And on the ceiling the shadow moved, and +changed its shape, now dwindling, now growing larger again, now +disappearing altogether as though the intruder stooped below the level of +the lamp; and once there was flung on the white plaster the huge image of +an arm which had something in its hand. Was the arm poised above the +lamp, on the point of smashing it with the thing it held? Chayne waited, +with a cry upon his lips, expecting each moment that the room would be +plunged in darkness. But the cry was not uttered, the arm was withdrawn. +It had not been raised to smash the lamp, the thing which the hand held +was for some other purpose. And once more the shadow appeared moving and +changing as the intruder crept nearer to the window. Sylvia stood +motionless. She had thought to cry out, now she was fascinated. A spell +of terror constrained her to silence. And then, suddenly, behind Walter +Hine there stood out clearly in the light the head and shoulders of +Garratt Skinner. + +"My father," said Sylvia, in relief. Her clasp upon Chayne's arm relaxed; +her terror passed from her. In the revulsion of her feelings she laughed +quietly at her past fear. Chayne looked quickly and curiously at her. +Then as quickly he looked again to the window. Both men in the room were +now lit up by the yellow light; their attitudes, their figures were very +clear but small, like marionettes upon the stage of some tiny theater. +Chayne watched them with no less suspense now that he knew who the +intruder was. Unlike Sylvia he had betrayed no surprise when he had seen +Garratt Skinner's head and shoulders rise into view behind Walter Hine; +and unlike Sylvia, he did not relax his vigilance. Suddenly Garratt +Skinner stepped forward, very quickly, very silently. With one step he +was close behind his friend; and then just as he was about to move +again--it seemed to Sylvia that he was raising his arm, perhaps to touch +his friend upon the shoulder--Chayne whistled--whistled sharply, shrilly +and with a kind of urgency which Sylvia did not understand. + +Walter Hine leaned forward out of the window. That was quite natural. But +on the other hand Garratt Skinner did nothing of the kind. To Sylvia's +surprise he stepped back, and almost out of sight. Very likely he thought +that he was out of sight. But to the watchers in the road his head was +just visible. He was peering over Walter Hine's shoulder. + +Again Chayne whistled and, not content with whistling, he cried out in a +feigned bucolic accent: + +"I see you." + +At once Garratt Skinner's head disappeared altogether. + +Walter Hine peered down into the darkness whence the whistle came, +curving his hands above his forehead to shut out the light behind him; +and behind him once more the shadow appeared upon the ceiling and the +wall. A third time Chayne whistled; and Walter Hine cried out: + +"What is it?" + +And behind him the shadow vanished from the ceiling and the door began to +close, softly and stealthily, just as softly and stealthily as it had +been opened. + +Again, Hine cried out: + +"Who's there? What is it?" + +And Chayne laughed aloud derisively, as though he were some yokel +practising a joke. Hine turned back into the room. The room was empty, +but the door was unlatched. He disappeared from the window, and the +watchers below saw the door slammed to, heard the sound of the slamming +and then another sound, the sound of a key turning in the lock. + +It seemed almost that Chayne had been listening for that sound. For he +turned at once to Sylvia. + +"We puzzled them fairly, didn't we?" he said, with a smile. But the smile +somehow seemed hardly real, and his face was very white. + +"It's the moonlight," he explained. "Come!" + +They walked quietly through the silent village where the thick eaves of +the cottages threw their black shadows on the white moonlit road, past +the mill and the running water, to a gate which opened on the down. +They unlatched the gate noiselessly and climbed the bare slope of +grass. Half way up Chayne turned and looked down upon the house. There +was no longer any light in any window. He turned to Sylvia and slipped +his arm through hers. + +"Come close," said he, and now there was no doubt the smile was real. +"Shall we keep step, do you think?" + +"If we go always like this, we might," said Sylvia, with a smile. + +"At times there will be a step to be cut, no doubt," said he. + +"You once said that I could stand firm while the step was being cut," she +answered. Always at the back of both their minds, evident from time to +time in some such phrase as this, was the thought of the mountain upon +which their friendship had been sealed. Friendship had become love here +in the quiet Dorsetshire village, but in both their thoughts it had +another background--ice-slope and rock-spire and the bright sun over all. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ON THE DOWN + + +Sylvia led the way to a little hollow just beneath the ridge of the +downs, a sheltered spot open to the sea. On the three other sides bushes +grew about it and dry branches and leaves deeply carpeted the floor. Here +they rested and were silent. Upon Sylvia's troubled heart there had +fallen a mantle of deep peace. The strife, the fears, the torturing +questions had become dim like the small griefs of childhood. Even the +incident of the lighted window vexed her not at all. + +"Hilary," she said softly, lingering on the name, since to frame it and +utter it and hear her lips speaking it greatly pleased her, "Hilary," and +her hand sought his, and finding it she was content. + +It was a warm night of August. Overhead the moon sailed in a cloudless +summer sky, drowning the stars. To the right, far below, the lamps of +Weymouth curved about the shore; and in front the great bay shimmered +like a jewel. Seven miles across it the massive bluff of Portland pushed +into the sea; and even those rugged cliffs were subdued to the beauty of +the night. Beneath them the riding-lights shone steady upon the masts of +the battle ships. Sylvia looked out upon the scene with an overflowing +heart. Often she had gazed on it before, and she marveled now how quickly +she had turned aside. Her eyes were now susceptible to beauty as they had +never been. There was a glory upon land and sea, a throbbing tenderness +in the warm air of which she had not known till now. It seemed to her +that she had lived until this night in a prison. Once the doors had been +set ajar for a little while--just for a night and a day in the quiet of +the High Alps. But only now had they been opened wide. Only to-night had +she passed through and looked forth with an unhindered vision upon the +world; and she discovered it to be a place of wonders and sweet magic. + +"They were true, then," she said, with a smile on her lips. + +"Of what do you speak?" asked Chayne. + +"My dreams," Sylvia answered, knowing that she was justified of them. +"For I have come awake into the land of my dreams, and I know it at last +to be a real land, even to the sound of running water." + +For from the hollow at her feet the music of the mill stream rose to her +ears through the still night, very clear and with a murmur of laughter. +Sylvia looked down toward it. She saw it flashing like a riband of silver +in the garden of the dark quiet house. There was no breath of wind in +that garden, and all the great trees were still. She saw the intricate +pattern of their boughs traced upon the lawn in black and silver. + +"In that house I was born," she said softly, "to the noise of that +stream. I am very glad to know that in that house, too, my great +happiness has come to me." + +Chayne leaned forward, and sitting side by side with Sylvia, gazed down +upon it with rapture. Oh, wonderful house where Sylvia was born! How much +the world owed to it! + +"It was there!" he said with awe. + +"Yes," replied Sylvia. She was not without a proper opinion of herself, +and it seemed rather a wonderful house to her, too. + +"Perhaps on some such night as this," he said, and at once took the words +back. "No! You were born on a sunny morning of July and the blackbirds on +the branches told the good news to the blackbirds on the lawn, and the +stream took up the message and rippled it out to the ships upon the sea. +There were no wrecks that day." + +Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a smile, her dark eyes kind +and bright. + +"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!" + +"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And Sylvia laughed with the +clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon +those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of +contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more +dropped to the still garden and the dark square house at the down's foot. + +"There you asked me to marry you, to go away with you," she said, and she +caught his hand and held it close against her breast. + +"Yes, there I first asked you," he said, and some distress, forgotten in +these first perfect moments, suddenly found voice. "Sylvia, why didn't +you come with me then? Oh, my dear, if you only had!" + +But Sylvia's happiness was as yet too fresh, too loud at her throbbing +heart for her to mark the jarring note. + +"I did not want to then," she replied lightly, and then tightening her +clasp upon his hand. "But now I do. Oh, Hilary, I do!" + +"If only you had wanted then!" + +Though he spoke low, the anguish of his voice was past mistaking. Sylvia +looked at him quickly and most anxiously; and as quickly she looked away. + +"Oh, no," she whispered hurriedly. + +Her happiness could not be so short-lived a thing. Her heart stood still +at the thought. It could not be that she had set foot actually within the +dreamland, to be forthwith cast out again. She thought of the last week, +its aching lonely hours. She needed her lover at her side, longed for him +with a great yearning, and would not let him go. + +"I'll not listen, Hilary," she said stubbornly. "I will not hear! No"; +and Chayne drew her close to his side. + +"There is bad news, Sylvia." + +The outcry died away upon her lips. The words crushed the rebellion in +her heart, they were so familiar. It seemed to her that all her life +bad news had been brought to her by every messenger. She shivered and +was silent, looking straight out across the moonlit sea. Then in a +small trembling voice, like a child's, she pleaded, still holding her +face averted: + +"Don't go away from me, Hilary! Oh, please! Don't go away from me now!" + +Her voice, her words, went to Chayne's heart. He knew that pride and a +certain reticence were her natural qualities. That she should throw aside +the one, break through the other, proved to him indeed how very much she +cared, how very much she needed him. + +"Sylvia," he cried, "it will only be for a little while"; and again +silence followed upon his words. + +Since bad news was to be imparted, strength was needed to bear it; and +habit had long since taught Sylvia that silence was the best nurse of +strength. She did not turn her face toward her lover; but she drooped her +head and clenched her hands tightly together upon her knees, nerving +herself for the blow. The movement, slight though it was, stirred Chayne +to pity and hurt him with an intolerable pain. It betrayed so +unmistakably the long habit of suffering. She sat silent, motionless, +with the dumb patience of a wounded animal. + +"Oh, Sylvia, why did you not come with me on that first day?" he cried. + +"Tell me your bad news, dear," she replied, gently. + +"I cannot help it," he began in broken tones. "Sylvia, you will see that +there is no escape, that I must go. An appointment was offered to me--by +the War Office. It was offered to me, pressed on me, the day after I last +came here, the day after we were together in the library. I did not know +what to do. I did not accept it. But it seemed to me that each time I +came to see you we became more and more estranged. I was given two days +to make up my mind, and within the two days, my dear, your letter came, +telling me you did not wish to see me any more." + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered. + +"I accepted the appointment at once. There were reasons why I welcomed +it. It would take me abroad!" + +"Abroad!" she cried. + +"Yes, I welcomed that. To be near you and not to see you--to be near you +and know that others were talking with you, any one, every one except +me--to be near you and know that you were unhappy and in trouble, and +that I could not even tell you how deeply I was sorry--I dreaded that, +Sylvia. And yet I dreaded one thing more. Here, in England, at each turn +of the street, I should think to come upon you suddenly. To pass you as a +stranger, or almost as a stranger. No! I could not do it!" + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered, and lifting his hand she laid it against +her cheek. + +"So for a week I was glad. But this morning I received your second +letter, Sylvia. It came too late, my dear. There was no time to obtain a +substitute." + +Sylvia turned to him with a startled face. + +"When do you go?" + +"Very soon." + +"When?" + +The words had to be spoken. + +"To-morrow morning. I catch the first train from Weymouth to Southampton. +We sail from Southampton at noon." + +Habit came again to her assistance. She turned away from him so that he +might not see her face, and he went on: + +"Had there been more time, I could have made arrangements. Some one else +could have gone. As it is--" He broke off suddenly, and bending toward +her cried: "Sylvia, say that I must go." + +But she could not bring herself to that. She was minded to hold with both +hands the good thing which had come to her this night. She shook her +head. He sought to turn her face to his, but she looked stubbornly away. + +"And when will you return?" she asked. + +"In a few months, Sylvia." + +"When?" + +"In June." And she counted off the months upon her fingers. + +"So after to-night," she said, in a low voice, "I shall not see you any +more for all these months. The winter must pass, and the spring, too. Oh, +Hilary!" and she turned to him with a quivering face and whispered +piteously: "Don't go, my dear. Don't go!" + +"Say that I must go!" he insisted, and she laughed with scorn. Then the +laughter ceased and she said: + +"There will be danger?" + +"None," he cried. + +"Yes--from sickness, and--" her voice broke in a sob--"I shall not be +near." + +"I will take great care, Sylvia. Be sure of that," he answered. "Now that +I have you, I will take great care," and leaning toward her, as she sat +with her hands clasped upon her knees, he touched her hair with his lips +very tenderly. + +"Oh, Hilary, what will I do? Till you come back to me! What will I do?" + +"I have thought of it, Sylvia. I thought this. It might be better if, for +these months--they will not pass quickly, my dear, either for you or me. +They will be long slow months for both of us. That's the truth, my dear. +But since they must be got through, I thought it might be better if you +went back to your mother." + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"It would be better," he urged, with a look toward the house. + +"I can't do that. Afterward, in a year's time--when we are together, I +should like very much for us both to go to her. But my mother forbade it +when I went away from Chamonix. I was not to come whining back to her, +those were her words. We parted altogether that night." + +She spoke with an extreme simplicity. There was neither an appeal for +pity nor a hint of any bitterness in her voice. But the words moved +Chayne all the more on that account. He would be leaving a very lonely, +friendless girl to battle through the months of his absence by herself; +and to battle with what? He was not sure. But he had not taken so lightly +the shadow on the ceiling and the opening door. + +"If only you had come with me on that first day," he cried. + +"I will have to-night to look back upon, my dear," she said. "That will +be something. Oh, if I had not asked you to come back! If you had gone +away and said nothing! What would I have done then? As it is, I will know +that you are thinking of me--" and suddenly she turned to him, and held +him away from her in a spasm of fear while her eyes searched his face. +But in a moment they melted and a smile made her lips beautiful. "Oh, +yes, I can trust you," she said, and she nestled against him contentedly +like a child. + +For a little while they sat thus, and then her eyes sought the garden and +the house at her feet. It seemed that the sinister plot was not, after +all, to develop in that place of quiet and old peace without her for its +witness. It seemed that she was to be kept by some fatality +close-fettered to the task, the hopeless task, which she would now gladly +have foregone. And she wondered whether, after all, she was in some way +meant to watch the plot, perhaps, after all, to hinder it. + +"Hilary," she said, "you remember that evening at the Chalet de Lognan?" + +"Do I remember it?" + +"You explained to me a law--that those who know must use their knowledge, +if by using it they can save a soul, or save a life." + +"Yes," he said, vaguely remembering that he had spoken in this strain. + +"Well, I have been trying to obey that law. Do you understand? I want you +to understand. For when I have been unkind, as I have been many times, it +was, I think, because I was not obeying it with very much success. And I +should like you to believe and know that. For when you are away, you will +remember, in spite of yourself, the times when I was bitter." + +Her words made clear to him many things which had perplexed him during +these last weeks. Her friendship for Walter Hine became intelligible, and +as though to leave him no shadow of doubt, she went on. + +"You see, I knew the under side of things, and I seemed to see the +opportunity to use the knowledge. So I tried to save"; and whether it was +life or soul, or both, she did not say. She did not add that so far she +had tried in vain; she did not mention the bottle of cocaine, or the +dread which of late had so oppressed her. She was careful of her lover. +Since he had to go, since he needs must be absent, she would spare him +anxieties and dark thoughts which he could do nothing to dispel. But even +so, he obtained a clearer insight into the distress which she had +suffered in that house, and the bravery with which she had borne it. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I had no thought, no wish, that what I said should +stay with you." + +"Yet it did," she answered, "and I was thankful. I am thankful even now. +For though I would gladly give up all the struggle now, if I had you +instead; since I have not you, I am thankful for the law. It was your +voice which spoke it, it came from you. It will keep you near to me all +through the black months until you come back. Oh, Hilary!" and the brave +argument spoken to enhearten herself and him ended suddenly in a most +wistful cry. Chayne caught her to him. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" and he added: "The life is not yet saved!" + +"Perhaps I am given to the summer," she answered, and then, with a +whimsical change of humor, she laughed tenderly. "Oh, but I wish I +wasn't. You will write? Letters will come from you." + +"As often as possible, my dear. But they won't come often." + +"Let them be long, then," she whispered, "very long," and she leaned her +head against his shoulder. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "Lie close!" + +For a while longer they talked in low voices to one another, the words +which lovers know and keep fragrant in their memories. The night, warm +and clear, drew on toward morning, and the passage of the hours was +unremarked. For both of them there was a glory upon the moonlit land and +sea which made of it a new world. And into this new world both walked for +the first time--walked in their youth and hand in hand. Each for the +first time knew the double pride of loving and being loved. In spite of +their troubles they were not to be pitied, and they knew it. The gray +morning light flooded the sky and turned the moon into a pale white disk. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "It is not time." + +In the trees in the garden below the blackbirds began to bustle amongst +the leaves, and all at once their clear, sweet music thrilled upward to +the lovers in the hollow of the down. + +"Lie close, my dear," he repeated. + +They watched the sun leap into the heavens and flash down the Channel in +golden light. + +"The night has gone," said Chayne. + +"Nothing can take it from us while we live," answered Sylvia, very +softly. She raised herself from her couch of leaves. + +Then from one of the cottages in the tiny village a blue coil of smoke +rose into the air. + +"It is time," said Chayne, and they rose and hand in hand walked down the +slope of the hill to the house. Sylvia unlatched the door noiselessly and +went in. Chayne stepped in after her; and in the silent hall they took +farewell of one another. + +"Good-by, my dear," she whispered, with the tears in her eyes and in her +voice, and she clung to him a little and so let him go. She held the door +ajar until the sound of his footsteps had died away--and after that. For +she fancied that she heard them still, since, she so deeply wished to +hear them. Then with a breaking heart she went up the stairs to her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + +"Six weeks ago I said good-by to the French Commission on the borders of +a great lake in Africa. A month ago I was still walking to the rail head +through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said Chayne, and he looked +about the little restaurant in King Street, St. James', as though to make +sure that the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the red +benches against the walls, the women in their delicate gowns of lace, and +the jingle of harness in the streets without, made their appeal to one +who for the best part of a year had lived within the dark walls of a +forest. June had come round again, and Sylvia sat at his side. + +"You shall tell me how these months have gone with you while we dine," +said he. "Your letters told me nothing of your troubles." + +"I did not mean them to," replied Sylvia. + +"I guessed that, my dear. It was like you. Yet I would rather have +known." + +Only a few hours before he had stood upon the deck of the Channel packet +and had seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the +pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster +of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing +quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the +first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage +to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew +was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little house in +Hobart Place. + +"One thing I see," he said. "You are not as troubled as you were. The +look of fear--that has gone from your eyes. Sylvia, I am glad!" + +"There, were times," she answered--and as she thought upon them, terror +once more leapt into her face--"times when I feared more than ever, when +I needed you very much. But they are past now, Hilary," and her hand +dropped for a moment upon his, and her eyes brightened with a smile. As +they dined she told the story of those months. + +"We returned to London very suddenly after you had gone away," she began. +"We were to have stayed through September. But my father said that +business called him back, and I noticed that he was deeply troubled." + +"When did you notice that?" asked Chayne, quickly. "When did you first +notice it?" + +Sylvia reflected for a moment. + +"The day after you had gone." + +"Are you sure?" asked Chayne, with a certain intensity. + +"Quite." + +Chayne nodded his head. + +"I did not understand the reason of the hurry. And I was perplexed--and +also a little alarmed. Everything which I did not understand frightened +me in those days." She spoke as if "those days" and all their dark events +belonged to some dim period of which no consequence could reach her now. +"Our departure had almost the look of a flight." + +"Yes," said Chayne. For his part he was not surprised at their flight. He +had passed more than one wakeful night during the last few months arguing +and arguing again whether or no he should have disclosed to Sylvia the +meaning of that softly opening door and the shadow on the ceiling as he +read it. He might have been wrong; if so, he would have added to Sylvia's +burden of troubles yet another, and one more terrible than all the rest. +He might have been right; and if so, he might have enabled Sylvia to +avert a tragedy. Thus the argument had revolved in a circle and left him +always in the same doubt. Now he understood that his explanation of the +incident had been confirmed. The loud whistle from the darkness of the +road, the yokel's cry, which had driven Garratt Skinner from the room, as +noiselessly as he had entered it, had done more than that--they had +driven him from the neighborhood altogether. Some one had seen him--had +seen him standing just behind Walter Hine in the lighted room--and on the +next day he had fled! + +"I was right," he said, absently, "right to keep silent." For here was +Sylvia at his side and the dreaded peril unfulfilled. "Well, you returned +to London?" he added, hastily. + +"Yes. There is something of which I did not tell you, that night when we +were together on the downs. Walter Hine had begun to take cocaine." + +Chayne started. + +"Cocaine!" he cried. + +"Yes. My father taught him to take it." + +"Your father," said Chayne, slowly, trying to fit this new and astounding +fact in with the rest. "But why?" + +"I think I can tell you," said Sylvia. "My father knew quite well that he +had me working against him, trying to rescue Walter Hine out of his +hands. And I was beginning to get some power. He understood that, and +destroyed it. I was no match for him. I thought that I knew something of +the under side of life. But he knew more, ever so much more, and my +knowledge was of no avail. He taught Walter Hine the craving for cocaine, +and he satisfied the craving--there was his power. He provided the drug. +I do not know--I might perhaps have fought against my father and won. But +against my father and a drug I was helpless. My father obtained it in +sufficient quantity, withheld it at times, gave it at other times, played +with him, tantalized him, gratified him. You can understand there was +only one possible result. Walter Hine became my father's slave, his dog. +I no longer counted in his thoughts at all. I was nothing." + +"Yes," said Chayne. + +The device was subtle, diabolically subtle. But he wondered whether it +was only to counterbalance and destroy Sylvia's influence that Garratt +Skinner had introduced cocaine to Hine's notice; whether he had not had +in view some other end, even still more sinister. + +"I saw very little of Mr. Hine after our return to London," she +continued. "He did not come often to the house, but when he did come, +each time I saw that he had changed. He had grown nervous and violent of +temper. Even before we left Dorsetshire the violence had become +noticeable." + +"Oh!" said Chayne, looking quickly at Sylvia. "Before you left +Dorsetshire?" + +"Yes; and my father seemed to me to provoke it, though I could not guess +why. For instance--" + +"Yes?" said Chayne. "Tell me!" + +He spoke quietly enough, but once again there was audible a certain +intensity in his voice. There had been an occasion when Sylvia had given +to him more news of Garratt Skinner than she had herself. Was she to do +so once more? He leaned forward with his eyes on hers. + +"The night when you came back to me. Do you remember, Hilary?" and a +smile lightened his face. + +"I shall forget no moment of that night, sweetheart, while I live," he +whispered; and blushes swept prettily over her face, and in a sweet +confusion she smiled back at him. + +"Oh, Hilary!" she said. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he mimicked; and as they laughed together, it seemed there +was a danger that the story of the months of separation would never be +completed. But Chayne brought her back to it. + +"Well? On that night when I came back?" + +"I saw you in the road from my window, and then motioning you to be +silent, I disappeared from the window." + +"Yes, I remember," said Chayne, eagerly. He began to think that the +cocaine was after all going to fit in with the incidents of that night. + +"Walter Hine and my father were going up to bed. I heard them on the +stairs. They were going earlier than usual." + +"You are sure?" interrupted Chayne. "Think well!" + +"Much earlier than usual, and they were quarreling. At least, Walter Hine +was quarreling; and my father was speaking to him as if he were a child. +That hurt his vanity and made him worse." + +"Your father was provoking him?" + +Sylvia's forehead puckered. + +"I could not say that, and be sure of it. But I can say this. If my +father had wished to provoke him to a greater anger, it's in that way +that he would have done it." + +"Yes. I see." + +"They were speaking loudly--even my father was--more loudly than +usual--especially at that time. For when they went up-stairs, they +usually went very quietly"; and again Chayne interrupted her. + +"Your father might have wanted you to hear the quarrel?" he suggested. + +Sylvia turned to him curiously. + +"Why should he wish that?" she asked, and considered the point. "He might +have. Only, on the other hand, they were earlier than usual. They would +not be so careful to go quietly; I was likely to be still awake." + +"Exactly," said Chayne. + +For in the probability that Sylvia would be still awake, would hear the +violent words of Hine, and would therefore be an available witness +afterward, Chayne found the reason both of the loudness of Garratt +Skinner's tones and his early retirement for the night. + +"Did you hear what was said? Can you repeat the words?" he asked. + +"Yes. My father was keeping something from Mr. Hine which he wanted. I +have no doubt it was the cocaine," and she repeated the words. + +"Yes," said Chayne. "Yes," in the tone of one who is satisfied. The +incident of the lighted room and the shadow on the ceiling were clear to +him now. A quarrel of which there was a witness, a quarrel all to the +credit of Garratt Skinner since it arose from his determination to hinder +Walter Hine from poisoning himself with drugs--at least, that is how the +evidence would work out; the quarrel continued in Walter Hine's bedroom, +whither Garratt Skinner had accompanied his visitor, a struggle begun for +the possession of the drug, begun by a man half crazy for want of it, a +blow in self-defence delivered by Garratt Skinner, perhaps a fall from +the window--that is how Chayne read the story of that night, as fashioned +by the ingenuity of Garratt Skinner. + +But on one point he was still perplexed. The story had not been told out +to its end that night: there had come an unexpected shout, which had +interrupted it, and indeed forever had prevented its completion on that +spot. But why had it not been completed afterward, during the next few +months, somewhere else? It had not been completed. For here was Sylvia +with all her fears allayed, continuing the story of those months. + +"But violence was not the only change in Walter Hine. There were some +physical alterations which frightened me. Mr. Hine, as I say, came very +seldom to our house, though my father saw a great deal of him. Otherwise +I should have noticed them before. But early this year he came and--you +remember he was fair--well, his skin had grown dark, quite dark, his +complexion had changed altogether. And there was something else which +shocked me. His tongue was black, really black. I asked him what was the +matter? He grew restless and angry and lied to me, and then he broke down +and told me he could not sleep. He slept for a few minutes only at a +time. He really was ill--very ill." + +Was this the explanation, Chayne asked himself? Having failed at the +quick process, the process of the lighted room and the open window, had +Garratt Skinner left the drug to do its work slowly and surely? + +"He was so weak, so broken in appearance, that I was alarmed. My father +was not in the house. I sent for a cab and I took Mr. Hine myself to a +doctor. The doctor knew at once what was amiss. For a time Mr. Hine said +'No,' but he gave in at the last. He was in the habit of taking thirty +grains of cocaine a day." + +"Thirty grains!" exclaimed Chayne. + +"Yes. Of course it could not go on. Death or insanity would surely +follow. He was warned of it, and for a while he went into a home. Then he +got better, and he determined to go abroad and travel." + +"Who suggested that?" asked Chayne. + +"I do not know. I know only that he refused to go without my father, and +that my father consented to accompany him." + +Chayne was startled. + +"They are away together now?" he cried. A look of horror in his eyes +betrayed his fear. He stared at Sylvia. Had she no suspicion--she +who knew something of the under side of life? But she quietly +returned his look. + +"I took precautions. I told my father what I knew--not merely that Mr. +Hine had acquired the habit of taking cocaine, but who had taught him the +habit. Yes, I did that," she said simply, answering his look of +astonishment. "It was difficult, my dear, and I would very much have +liked to have had you there to help me through with it. But since you +were not there, since I was alone, I did it alone. I thought of you, +Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say. I tried to hear your voice +speaking again outside the Chalet de Lognan. 'What you know, that you +must do.' I warned my father that if any harm came to Walter Hine from +taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I +would not keep silent." + +Chayne leaned back in his seat. + +"You said that--to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!" and the warmth of pride and +admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated +her for that bad hour. "You stood up alone and braved him out! My dear, +if I had only been there! And you never wrote to me a word of it!" + +"It would only have troubled you," she answered. "It would not have +helped me to know that you were troubled!" + +"And he--your father?" he asked. "How did he receive it?" + +Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she +could not for the moment trust her voice. Then she shuddered and said in +a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour: + +"I thought that I should never see you again." + +She said no more. From those few words, and from the manner in which she +uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken +place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house +in Hobart Place. He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple +of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes. +There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which +he had heard which shocked him. + +"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said. "Trust me, I will! There +shall be good hours, now. I'll watch you, till I know surely without +a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting. Trust +me, dearest!" + +"With all my heart and the rest of my life," she answered, a smile +responding to his words, and she resumed her story: + +"I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to +me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were. And to that--at +last--he consented. They have been away together for two months, and +every week I have heard. So I think there is no danger." + +Chayne did not disagree. But, on the other hand, he did not assent. + +"I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?" he said, doubtfully. + +"No," replied Sylvia. "That's another reason why--I am not afraid." She +chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate +charge against her father. "I used to think that he was--in the +beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him. But when the bets +ceased and no more cards were played--I used to puzzle over why they +ceased last year. But I think I have hit upon the explanation. My +father discovered then what I only found out a few weeks ago. I wrote +to Mr. Hine's grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill, and +asking him whether he would not send for him. I thought that would be +the best plan." + +"Yes, well?" + +"Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly that he did not know his +grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to +do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to +think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, +"and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I +suppose that it was natural he should think so. And I am so glad that I +wrote. For he told me that although Mr. Hine must eventually have a +fortune, it would not be until he himself died and that he was a very +healthy man. So you see, there could be no advantage to any one--" and +she did not finish the sentence. + +But Chayne could finish it for himself. There could be no advantage to +any one if Walter Hine died. But then why the cocaine? Why the incident +of the lighted window? + +"Yes," he said, in perplexity, "I can corroborate that. It happened that +my friend John Lattery, who was killed in Switzerland, was also +connected with Joseph Hine. He also would have inherited; and I knew +from him that the old man did not recognize his heirs. But--but Walter +Hine had money--some money, at all events. And he earned none. From whom +did he get it?" + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"I do not know." + +"Had he no other relations, no friends?" + +"None who would have made him an allowance." + +Chayne pondered over that question. For in the answer to it he was +convinced he would find the explanation of the mystery. If money was +given to Walter Hine, who had apparently no rich relations but his +grandfather, and certainly no rich friends, it would have been given with +some object. To discover the giver and his object--that was the problem. + +"Think! Did he never speak of any one?" + +Sylvia searched her memories. + +"No," she said. "He never spoke of his private affairs. He always led us +to understand that he drew an allowance from his grandfather." + +"But your father found that that was untrue when you were in Dorsetshire, +ten months ago. For the card-playing and the bets ceased." + +"Yes," Sylvia agreed thoughtfully. Then her face brightened. "I +remember a morning when Mr. Hine was in trouble. Wait a moment! He had +a letter. We were at breakfast and the letter came from Captain +Barstow. There was some phrase in the letter which Mr. Hine repeated. +'As between gentlemen'--that was it! I remember thinking at the time +what in the world Captain Barstow could know about gentlemen; and +wondering why the phrase should trouble Mr. Hine. And that morning Mr. +Hine went to London." + +"Oh, did he?" cried Chayne. "'As between gentlemen.' Had Hine been losing +money lately to Captain Barstow?" + +"Yes, on the day when you first came." + +"The starlings," exclaimed Chayne in some excitement. "That's it--Walter +Hine owes money to Captain Barstow which he can't pay. Barstow writes for +it--a debt of honor between gentlemen--one can imagine the letter. Hine +goes up to London. Well, what then?" + +Sylvia started. + +"My father went to London two days afterward." + +"Are you sure?" + +It seemed to Chayne that they were getting hot in their search. + +"Quite sure. For I remember that after his return his manner changed. +What I thought to be the new plot was begun. The cards disappeared, the +bets ceased, Mr. Parminter was brought down with the cocaine. I remember +it all clearly. For I always associated the change with my father's +journey to London. You came one evening--do you remember? You found me +alone and afraid. My father and Walter Hine were walking arm-in-arm in +the garden. That was afterward." + +"Yes, you were afraid because there was no sincerity in that friendship. +Now let me get this right!" + +He remained silent for a little while, placing the events in their due +order and interpreting them, one by the other. + +"This is what I make of it," he said at length. "The man in London who +supplies Walter Hine with money finds that Walter Hine is spending too +much. He therefore puts himself into communication with Garratt Skinner, +of whom he has doubtless heard from Walter Hine. Garratt Skinner travels +to London, has an interview, and a concerted plan of action is agreed +upon, which Garratt Skinner proceeds to put in action." + +He spoke so gravely that Sylvia turned anxiously toward him. + +"What do you infer, then?" she asked. + +"That we are in very deep and troubled waters, my dear," he replied, but +he would not be more explicit. He had no doubt in his mind that the +murder of Walter Hine had been deliberately agreed upon by Garratt +Skinner and the unknown man in London. But just as Sylvia had spared him +during his months of absence, so now he was minded to spare Sylvia. Only, +in order that he might spare her, in order that he might prevent shame +and distress greater than she had known, he must needs go on with his +questioning. He must discover, if by any means he could, the identity of +the unknown man who was so concerned in the destiny of Walter Hine. + +"Of your father's friends, was there one who was rich? Who came to the +house? Who were his companions?" + +"Very few people came to the house. There was no one amongst them who +fits in"; and upon that she started. "I wonder--" she said, thoughtfully, +and she turned to her lover. "After my father had gone away, I found a +telegram in a drawer in one of the rooms. There was no envelope, there +was just the telegram. So I opened it. It was addressed to my father. I +remember the words, for I did not know whether there was not something +which needed attention. It ran like this: 'What are you waiting for? +Hurry up.'" + +"Was it signed?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. 'Jarvice,'" replied Sylvia. + +"Jarvice," Chayne repeated; and he spoke it yet again, as though in some +vague way it was familiar to him. "What was the date of the telegram?" + +"It had been sent a month before I found it. So I put it back into +the drawer." + +"'What are you waiting for? Hurry up. Jarvice,'" said Chayne, slowly, and +then he remembered how and when he had come across the name of Jarvice +before. His face grew very grave. + +"We are in deep waters, my dear," he said. + +There had been trouble in his regiment, some years before, in which the +chief figures had been a subaltern and a money-lender. Jarvice was the +name of the money-lender--an unusual name. Just such a man would be +likely to be Garratt Skinner's confederate and backer. Chayne ran over +the story in his mind again, by this new light. It certainly strengthened +the argument that the Mr. Jarvice who sent the telegram was Mr. Jarvice, +the money-lender. Thus did Chayne work it out in his thoughts: + +"Jarvice, for some reason unknown, pays Walter Hine an allowance. Walter +Hine gives it out that he receives it from his grandfather, whose heir +he undoubtedly is, and being a vain person much exaggerates the amount. +He falls into Garratt Skinner's hands, who, with the help of Barstow and +others, proceeds to pluck him. Walter Hine loses more than he has and +applies to Jarvice for more. Jarvice elicits the facts, and instead of +disclosing who Garratt Skinner is, and the obvious swindle of which Hine +is the victim, takes Garratt Skinner into his confidence. What happened +at the interview between Mr. Jarvice and Garratt Skinner in London the +subsequent facts make plain. At Jarvice's instigation the plot to +swindle Walter Hine becomes a cold-blooded plan to murder him. That plan +has been twice frustrated, once by me in Dorsetshire, and a second time +by Sylvia." + +So far the story worked out naturally, logically. But there remained two +questions. For what reason did Mr. Jarvice make Walter Hine an allowance? +And how would Walter Hine's death profit him? Chayne pondered over those +two questions and then the truth flashed upon him. He remembered how the +subaltern had been extracted from his difficulties. Money had been raised +by a life insurance. Again Chayne ranged his facts in order. + +"Walter Hine is the heir to great wealth. But he has no money now. Mr. +Jarvice makes him an allowance, the money to be repaid with a handsome +interest on the grandfather's death. But in order to insure Jarvice +from loss, if Walter Hine should die first, Walter Hine's life is +insured for a large sum. Thus Mr. Jarvice makes his position tenable +should his conduct be called in question. Having insured Walter Hine's +life, he arranges with Garratt Skinner to murder him. The attempt +failed the first time, the slower method is then adopted by Garratt +Skinner, and as a result comes the impatient telegram: 'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up!'" + +The case was thus so far clear. But anxiety remained. Was the plan +abandoned altogether, now that Sylvia had stood bravely up and warned her +father that she would not keep silent? So certainly Sylvia thought. But +then she did not know all that Chayne knew. It seemed that she had not +understood the incident of the lighted window. Nor was Chayne surprised. +For she was unaware of what was in Chayne's eyes the keystone of the +whole argument. She did not know that her father had worked as a convict +in the Portland quarries. + +"So they are abroad together, your father and Walter Hine," said +Chayne, slowly. + +"Yes!" replied Sylvia, with a smile. "Guess where they are now!" and she +turned to him with a tender look upon her face which he did not +understand. + +"I can't guess." + +"At Chamonix!" + +She saw her lover flinch, his face grow white, his eyes stare in horror. +And she wondered. For her the little town, overtopped by its tumbled +glittering fields of snow and tall rock spires was a place apart. She +cherished it in her memories, keeping clear and distinct the windings of +its streets, where they narrowed, where they broadened into open spaces; +yet all the while her thoughts transformed it, and made of its mere +stones and bricks a tiny city magical with light and grace. For while she +stayed in it her happiness had dawned and she saw it always roseate with +that dawn. It seemed to her that plots and thoughts of harm could there +hardly outlive one starlit night, one sunlit day. Had she mapped out her +father's itinerary, thither and nowhere else would she have sent him. + +"You are afraid?" she asked. "Hilary, why?" + +Chayne did not answer her question. He was minded to spare her, even as +she had spared him. He talked of other things until the restaurant grew +empty and the waiters began to turn out the lights as a hint to these two +determined loiterers. Then in the darkness, for now there was but one +light left, and that at a little distance from their table, Chayne leaned +forward and turning to Sylvia, as they sat side by side: + +"You have been happy to-night?" + +"Very," she answered, and there was a thrill of joyousness in her clear, +low voice, as though her heart sang within her. Her eyes rested on his +with pride. "No man could quite understand," she said. + +"Well then, why should we wait longer, Sylvia?" he said. "We have waited +long enough, my dear. We have after all no one but ourselves to please. I +should like our marriage to take place as soon as possible." + +Sylvia answered him without affectation. + +"I, too," she whispered. + +"To-morrow then! I'll get a special license to-morrow morning, and make +the arrangements. We can go away together at once." + +Sylvia smiled, and the smile deepened into a laugh. + +"Where shall we go, Hilary?" she cried. "To some perfect place." + +"To Chamonix," he answered. "That was where we first met. There could be +no better place. We can just go and tell your father what we have done +and then go up into the hills." + +It was well done. He spoke without wakening Sylvia's suspicions. She had +never understood the episode of the lighted window; she did not know +that her father was Gabriel Strood, of whose exploits in the Alps she +had read; she believed that all danger to Walter Hine was past. Chayne +on the other hand knew that hardly at any time could Hine have stood in +greater peril. To Chamonix he must go; and to Chamonix he must take +Sylvia too. For by the time when he could reach Chamonix, he might +already be too late. There might be publicity, inquiries, and for +Garratt Skinner ruin, and worse than ruin. Would Sylvia let her lover +share the dishonor of her name? He knew very surely she would not. +Therefore he would have the marriage. + +"By the way," he said, as he draped her cloak about her shoulders. "You +have that telegram from Jarvice?" + +"Yes." + +"That's good," he said. "It might be useful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +REVAILLOUD REVISITED + + +Never that familiar journey across France seemed to Chayne so slow. Would +he be in time? Would he arrive too late? The throb of the wheels beat out +the questions in a perpetual rhythm and gave him no answer. The words of +Jarvice's telegram were ever present in his mind, and grew more sinister, +the more he thought upon them. "What are you waiting for? Hurry up!" +Once, when the train stopped over long as it seemed to him he muttered +the words aloud and then glanced in alarm at his wife, lest perchance she +had overheard them. But she had not. She was remembering her former +journey along this very road. Then it had been night; now it was day. +Then she had been used to seek respite from her life in the shelter of +her dreams. Now the dreams were of no use, since what was real made them +by comparison so pale and thin. The blood ran strong and joyous in her +veins to-day; and looking at her, Chayne sent up his prayers that they +might not arrive in Chamonix too late. To him as to her Walter Hine was a +mere puppet, a thing without importance--so long as he lived. But he must +live. Dead, he threatened ruin and dishonor, and since from the beginning +Sylvia and he had shared--for so she would have it--had shared in the +effort to save this life, it would be well for them, he thought that they +should not fail. + +The long hot day drew to an end, and at last from the platform at the end +of the electric train they saw the snow-fields lift toward the soaring +peaks, and the peaks purple with the after glow stand solitary and +beautiful against the evening sky. + +"At last!" said Sylvia, with a catch in her breath, and the clasp of her +hand tightened upon her husband's arm. But Chayne was remembering certain +words once spoken to him in a garden of Dorsetshire, by a man who lay +idly in a hammock and stared up between the leaves. "On the most sunny +day, the mountains hold in their recesses mystery and death." + +"You know where your father is staying?" Chayne asked. + +"He wrote from the Hôtel de l'Arve," Sylvia replied. + +"We will stay at Couttet's and walk over to see him this evening," said +Chayne, and after dinner they strolled across the little town. But at +the Hôtel de l'Arve they found neither Garratt Skinner nor his friend, +Walter Hine. + +"Only the day before yesterday," said the proprietor, "they started for +the mountains. Always they make expeditions." + +Chayne drew no satisfaction from that statement. Garratt Skinner and his +friend would make many expeditions from which both men would return in +safety. Garratt Skinner was no blunderer. And when at the last he +returned alone with some flawless story of an accident in which his +friend had lost his life, no one would believe but that here was another +mishap, and another name to be added to the Alpine death-roll. + +"To what mountain have they gone?" Chayne asked. + +"To no mountain to-day. They cross the Col du Géant, monsieur, to +Courmayeur. But after that I do not know." + +"Oh, into Italy," said Chayne, in relief. So far there was no danger. The +Col du Géant, that great pass between France and Italy across the range +of Mont Blanc, was almost a highway. There would be too many parties +abroad amongst its ice séracs on these days of summer for any deed which +needed solitude and secrecy. + +"When do you expect them back?" + +"In five days, monsieur; not before." And at this reply Chayne's fears +were all renewed. For clearly the expedition was not to end with the +passage of the Col du Géant. There was to be a sequel, perhaps some +hazardous ascent, some expedition at all events which Garratt Skinner had +not thought fit to name. + +"They took guides, I suppose," he said. + +"One guide, monsieur, and a porter. Monsieur need not fear. For Monsieur +Skinner is of an excellence prodigious." + +"My father!" exclaimed Sylvia, in surprise. "I never knew." + +"What guide?" asked Chayne. + +"Pierre Delouvain"; and so once again Chayne's fears were allayed. He +turned to Sylvia. + +"A good name, sweetheart. I never climbed with him, but I know him +by report. A prudent man, as prudent as he is skilful. He would run +no risks." + +The name gave him indeed greater comfort than even his words expressed. +Delouvain's mere presence would prevent the commission of any crime. His +great strength would not be needed to hinder it. For he would be there, +to bear witness afterward. Chayne was freed from the dread which during +the last two days had oppressed him. Perhaps after all Sylvia was right +and the plot was definitely abandoned. Chayne knew very well that Garratt +Skinner's passion for the Alps was a deep and real one. Perhaps it was +that alone which had brought him back to Chamonix. Perhaps one day in the +train, traveling northward from Italy, he had looked from the window and +seen the slopes of Monte Rosa white in the sun--white with the look of +white velvet--and all the last twenty years had fallen from him like a +cloak, and he had been drawn back as with chains to the high playground +of his youth. Chayne could very well understand that possibility, and +eased of his fears he walked away with Sylvia back to the open square in +the middle of the town. Darkness had come, and both stopped with one +accord and looked upward to the massive barrier of hills. The rock peaks +stood sharply up against the clear, dark sky, the snow-slopes glimmered +faintly like a pale mist, and incredibly far, incredibly high, underneath +a bright and dancing star, shone a dim and rounded whiteness, the +snow-cap of Mont Blanc. + +"A year ago," said Sylvia, drawing a breath and bethinking her of the +black shadows which during those twelve months had lain across her path. + +"Yes, a year ago we were here," said Chayne. The little square was +thronged, the hotels and houses were bright with lights, and from here +and from there music floated out upon the air, the light and lilting +melodies of the day. "Sylvia, you see the café down the street there by +the bridge?" + +"Yes." + +"A year ago, on just such a night as this, I sat with my guide, Michel +Revailloud. I was going to cross the Col Dolent on the morrow. He had +made his last ascent. We were not very cheerful. And he gave me as a +parting present the one scrap of philosophy his life had taught him. He +said: 'Take care that when the time comes for you to get old that you +have some one to share your memories. Take care that when you go home in +the end, there shall be some one waiting in the room and the lamp lit +against your coming.'" + +Sylvia pressed against her side the hand which he had slipped +through her arm. + +"But he did more than give advice," Chayne continued, "for as he went +away to his home in the little village of Les Praz-Conduits, just across +the fields, he passed Couttet's Hotel and saw you under the lamp talking +to a guide he knew. You were making your arrangements to ascend the +Charmoz. But he dissuaded you." + +"Yes." + +"He convinced you that your first mountain should be the Aiguille +d'Argentière. He gave you no doubt many reasons, but not the real one +which he had in his thoughts." + +Sylvia looked at Chayne in surprise. + +"He sent you to the Aiguille d'Argentière, because he knew that so you +and I would meet at the Pavilion de Lognan." + +"But he had never spoken to me until that night," exclaimed Sylvia. + +"Yet he had noticed you. When I went up to fetch down my friend Lattery, +you were standing on the hotel step. You said to me, 'I am sorry.' Michel +heard you speak, and that evening talked of you. He had the thought that +you and I were matched." + +Sylvia looked back to the night before her first ascent. She pictured +to herself the old guide coming down the narrow street and out of the +darkness into the light of the lamp above the doorway. She recalled +how he had stopped at the sight of her, how cunningly he had spoken. +He had desired that her last step on to her first summit should bring +to her eyes and soul a revelation which no length of after years could +dim. That was the argument, and it was just the argument which would +prevail with her. + +"So it was his doing," she cried, with a laugh, and at once grew serious, +dwelling, as lovers will, upon the small accident which had brought them +together, and might so easily never have occurred. An unknown guide +speaks to her in a doorway, and lo! for her the world is changed, dark +years come to an end, the pathway broadens to a road; she walks not +alone. Whatever the future may hold--she walks not alone. Suppose there +had been no lamp above the doorway! Suppose there had been a lamp and she +not there! Suppose the guide had passed five minutes sooner or five +minutes later! + +"Oh, Hilary!" she cried, and put the thought from her. + +"I was thinking," he said, "that if you were not tired we might walk +across the fields to Michel's house. He would, I think, be very happy +if we did." + +A few minutes later they knocked upon Michel's door. Michel Revailloud +opened it himself and stood for a moment peering at the dim figures in +the darkness of the road. + +"It is I, Michel," said Chayne, and at the sound of his voice Michel +Revailloud drew him with a cry of welcome into the house. + +"So you have come back to Chamonix, monsieur! That is good"; and he +looked his "monsieur" over from head to foot and shook him warmly by the +hand. "Ah, you have come back!" + +"And not alone, Michel," said Chayne. + +Revailloud turned to the door and saw Sylvia standing there. She was on +the threshold and the light reached to her. Sylvia moved into the +low-roofed room. It was a big, long room, bare, and with a raftered +ceiling, and since one oil lamp lighted it, it was full of shadows. To +Chayne it had a lonely and a dreary look. He thought of his own house in +Sussex and of the evening he had passed there, thinking it just as +lonely. He felt perhaps at this moment, more than at any, the value of +the great prize which he had won. He took her hand in his, and, turning +to Michel, said simply: + +"We are married, Michel. We reached Chamonix only this evening. You are +the first of our friends to know of our marriage." + +Michel's face lighted up. He looked from one to the other of his visitors +and nodded his head once or twice. Then he blew his nose vigorously. "But +I let you stand!" he cried, in a voice that shook a little, and he +bustled about pushing chairs forward, and of a sudden stopped. He came +forward to Sylvia very gravely and held out his hand. She put her hand +into his great palm. + +"Madame, I will not pretend to you that I am not greatly moved. This is a +great happiness to me," he said with simplicity. He made no effort to +hide either the tears which filled his eyes or the unsteadiness of his +voice. "I am very glad for the sake of Monsieur Chayne. But I know him +well. We have been good friends for many a year, madame." + +"I know, Michel," she said. + +"And I can say therefore with confidence I am very glad for your sake +too. I am also very glad for mine. A minute ago I was sitting here +alone--now you are both here and together. Madame, it was a kind thought +which brought you both here to me at once." + +"To whom else should we come?" said Sylvia with a smile, "since it was +you, Michel, who would not let me ascend the Aiguille des Charmoz when I +wanted to." + +Michel was taken aback for a moment; then his wrinkled and +weatherbeaten face grew yet more wrinkled and he broke into a low and +very pleasant laugh. + +"Since my diplomacy has been so successful, madame, I will not deny it. +From the first moment when I heard you with your small and pretty voice +say on the steps of the hotel 'I am sorry' to my patron in his great +distress, and when I saw your face, too thoughtful for one so young, I +thought it would be a fine thing if you and he could come together. In +youth to be lonely--what is it? You slip on your hat and your cloak and +you go out. But when you are old, and your habits are settled, and you do +not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to +have a companion. And it is well to choose your companion in your youth, +madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together +when the good of life is chiefly recollection." + +He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered +them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true +gentleman he was. It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that +he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his +eyes than he had been last year. But at all events to-night he had the +spirit, the good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits upon peaks +then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's book, in which his messieurs +had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the +photographs which they had sent to him. + +"There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame," he said, +proudly, "with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and +the Alps were all young together. But it is not only the famous who are +interesting. Look, madame! Here is your husband's friend, Monsieur +Lattery--a good climber but not always very sure on ice." + +"You always will say that, Michel," protested Chayne. "I never knew a man +so obstinate." + +Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia: + +"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say a word against Monsieur +Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you +good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man. +Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and +nodded emphatically: "It is true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on +ice. And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt +known to you in London--Professor Kenyon." + +Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide's little book, +looked up at the photograph. + +"It was taken many years ago," she said. + +"Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Michel, with a shrug of the +shoulders, "when he and I and the Alps were young." + +Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the +table. If Kenyon's portrait was amongst Revailloud's small treasures, +there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the +portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon's "John +Lattery." There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in +Zermatt which he himself had seen in Kenyon's rooms. Fortunately however, +or so it seemed to him, Sylvia was engrossed in Michel's little book. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FÃœHRBUCH + + +The book indeed was of far more interest to her than the portrait of any +mountaineer. It had a romance, a glamour of its own. It was just a +little note-book with blue-lined pages and an old dark-red soiled +leather cover which could fit into the breast pocket and never be +noticed there. But it went back to the early days of mountaineering when +even the passes were not all discovered and many of them were still +uncrossed, when mythical peaks were still gravely allotted their +positions and approximate heights in the maps; and when the easy +expedition of the young lady of to-day was the difficult achievement of +the explorer. It was to the early part of the book to which she turned. +Here she found first ascents of which she had read with her heart in her +mouth, ascents since made famous, simply recorded in the handwriting of +the men who had accomplished them--the dates, the hours of starting and +returning, a word or two perhaps about the condition of the snow, a warm +tribute to Michel Revailloud and the signatures. The same names recurred +year after year, and often the same hand recorded year after year +attempts on one particular pinnacle, until at the last, perhaps after +fifteen or sixteen failures, weather and snow and the determination of +the climbers conspired together, and the top was reached. + +"Those were the grand days," cried Sylvia. "Michel, you must be proud of +this book." + +"I value it very much, madame," he said, smiling at her enthusiasm. +Michel was a human person; and to have a young girl with a lovely face +looking at him out of her great eyes in admiration, and speaking almost +in a voice of awe, was flattery of a soothing kind. "Yes, many have +offered to buy it from me at a great price--Americans and others. But I +would not part with it. It is me. And when I am inclined to grumble, as +old people will, and to complain that my bones ache too sorely, I have +only to turn over the pages of that book to understand that I have no +excuse to grumble. For I have the proof there that my life has been very +good to live. No, I would not part with that little book." + +Sylvia turned over the pages slowly, naming now this mountain, now that, +and putting a question from time to time as to some point in a climb +which she remembered to have read and concerning which the narrative had +not been clear. And then a cry of surprise burst from her lips. + +Chayne had just assured himself that there was no portrait of Gabriel +Strood amongst those spread out upon the table. + +"What is it, madame?" asked Michel. + +Sylvia did not answer, but stared in bewilderment at the open page. +Chayne saw the book which she was reading and knew that his care lest she +should come across her father's portrait was of no avail. He crossed +round behind her chair and looked over her shoulder. There on the page in +her father's handwriting was the signature: "Gabriel Strood." + +Sylvia raised her face to Hilary's, and before she could put her question +he answered it quietly with a nod of the head. + +"Yes, that is so," he said. + +"You knew?" + +"I have known for a long time," he replied. + +Sylvia was lost in wonder. Yet there was no doubt in her mind. Gabriel +Strood, of whom she had made a hero, whose exploits she knew almost by +heart, had suffered from a physical disability which might well have +kept the most eager mountaineer to the level. It was because of his +mastery over his disability that she had set him so high in her esteem. +Well, there had been a day when her father had tramped across the downs +to Dorchester and had come back lame and in spite of his lameness had +left his companions behind. Other trifles recurred to her memory. She +had found him reading "The Alps in 1864," and yes--he had tried to hide +from her the title of the book. On their first meeting he had understood +at once when she had spoken to him of the emotion which her first +mountain peak had waked in her. And before that--yes, her guide had +cried aloud to her, "You remind me of Gabriel Strood." She owed it to +him that she had turned to the Alps as to her heritage, and that she had +brought to them an instinctive knowledge. Her first feeling was one of +sheer pride in her father. Then the doubts began to thicken. He called +himself Garratt Skinner. + +"Why? But why?" she cried, impulsively, and Chayne, still leaning on her +chair, pressed her arm with his hand and warned her to be silent. + +"I will tell you afterward," he said, quietly, and then he suddenly drew +himself upright. The movement was abrupt like the movement of a man +thoroughly startled--more startled even than she had been by the +unexpected sight of her father's handwriting. She looked up into his +face. He was staring at the open page of Michel's book. She turned back +to it herself and saw nothing which should so trouble him. Over Gabriel +Strood's signature there were just these words written in his hand and +nothing more: + +"Mont Blanc by the Brenva route. July, 1868." + +Yet it was just that sentence which had so startled Hilary. Gabriel +Strood _had_ then climbed Mont Blanc from the Italian side--up from the +glacier to the top of the great rock-buttress, then along the +world-famous ice-arête, thin as a knife edge, and to right and left +precipitous as a wall, and on the far side above the ice-ridge up the +hanging glaciers and the ice-cliffs to the summit of the Corridor. From +the Italian side of the range of Mont Blanc! And the day before yesterday +Gabriel Strood had crossed with Walter Hine to Italy, bound upon some +expedition which would take five days, five days at the least. + +It was to the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc that Garratt Skinner was +leading Walter Hine! The thought flashed upon Chayne swift as an +inspiration and as convincing. Chayne was sure. The Brenva route! It +was to this climb Garratt Skinner's thoughts had perpetually recurred +during that one summer afternoon in the garden in Dorsetshire, when he +had forgotten his secrecy and spoken even with his enemy of the one +passion they had in common. Chayne worked out the dates and they fitted +in with his belief. Two days ago Garratt Skinner started to cross the +Col du Géant. He would sleep very likely in the hut on the Col, and go +down the next morning to Courmayeur and make his arrangements for the +Brenva climb. On the third day, to-day, he would set out with Walter +Hine and sleep at the gîte on the rocks in the bay to the right of the +great ice-fall of the Brenva glacier. To-morrow he would ascend the +buttress, traverse the ice-ridge with Walter Hine--perhaps--yes, only +perhaps--and at that thought Chayne's heart stood still. And even if he +did, there were the hanging ice-cliffs above, and yet another day would +pass before any alarm at his absence would be felt. Surely, it would be +the Brenva route! + +Garratt Skinner himself would run great risk upon this hazardous +expedition--that was true. But Chayne knew enough of the man to be +assured that he would not hesitate on that account. The very audacity of +the exploit marked it out as Gabriel Strood's. Moreover, there would be +no other party on the Brenva ridge to spy upon his actions. There was +just one fact so far as Chayne could judge to discredit his +inspiration--the inconvenient presence of a guide. + +"Do you know a guide Delouvain, Michel?" + +"Indeed, yes! A good name, monsieur, and borne by a man worthy of it." + +"So I thought," said Chayne. "Pierre Delouvain," and Michel laughed +scornfully and waved the name away. + +"Pierre! No, indeed!" he cried. "Monsieur, never engage Pierre Delouvain +for your guide. I speak solemnly. Joseph--yes, and whenever you can +secure him. I thought you spoke of him. But Pierre, he is a cousin who +lives upon Joseph's name, a worthless fellow, a drunkard. Monsieur, never +trust yourself or any one whom you hold dear with Pierre Delouvain!" + +Chayne's last doubt was dispelled. Garratt Skinner had laid his plans for +the Brenva route. Somewhere on that long and difficult climb the accident +was to take place. The very choice of a guide was in itself a +confirmation of Chayne's fears. It was a piece of subtlety altogether in +keeping with Garratt Skinner. He had taken a bad and untrustworthy guide +on one of the most difficult expeditions in the range of Mont Blanc. Why, +he would be asked? And the answer was ready. He had confused Pierre +Delouvain with Joseph, his cousin, as no doubt many another man had done +before. Did not Pierre live on that very confusion? The answer was not +capable of refutation. + +Chayne was in despair. Garratt Skinner had started two days before from +Chamonix, was already, now, at this moment, asleep, with his unconscious +victim at his side, high up on the rocks of the upper Brenva glacier. +There was no way to hinder him--no way unless God helped. He asked +abruptly of Michel: + +"Have you climbed this season, Michel?" + +Michel laughed grimly. + +"Indeed, yes, to the Montanvert, monsieur. And beyond--yes, beyond, to +the Jardin." + +Chayne broke in upon his bitter humor. + +"I want the best guide in Chamonix. I want him at once. I must start by +daylight." + +Michel glanced up in surprise. But what he saw in Chayne's face stopped +all remonstrance. + +"For what ascent, monsieur?" he asked. + +"The Brenva route." + +"Madame will not go!" + +"No, I go alone. I must go quickly. There is very much at stake. I beg +you to help me." + +In answer Michel took his hat down from a peg, and while he did so Chayne +turned quickly to his wife. She had risen from her chair, but she had not +interrupted him, she had asked no questions, she had uttered no prayer. +She stood now, waiting upon him with a quiet and beautiful confidence +which deeply stirred his heart. + +"Thank you, sweetheart!" he said, quietly. "You can trust. I thank you," +and he added, gravely: "Whatever happens--you and I--there is no +altering that." + +Michel opened the door. + +"I will walk with you into Chamonix, and I will bring the best guides I +can find to your hotel." + +They passed out, and crossed the fields quickly to Chamonix. + +"Do you go to your hotel, monsieur," said Revailloud, "and leave the +choice to me. I must go about it quietly. If you were to come with me, we +should have to choose the first two guides upon the rota and that would +not do for the Brenva climb." + +He left them at the door of the hotel and went off upon his errand. +Sylvia turned at once to Hilary; her face was very pale, her voice shook. + +"You will tell me everything now. Something terrible has happened. No +doubt you feared it. You came to Chamonix because you feared it, and now +you know that it has happened." + +"Yes," said Chayne. "I hid it from you even as you spared me your bad +news all this last year." + +"Tell me now, please. If it is to be 'you and I,' as you said just now, +you will tell me." + +Chayne led the way into the garden, and drawing a couple of chairs apart +from the other visitors told her all that he knew and she did not. He +explained the episode of the lighted window, solved for her the riddle of +her father's friendship for Walter Hine, and showed her the reason for +this expedition to the summit of Mont Blanc. + +She uttered one low cry of horror. "Murder!" she whispered. + +"To think that we are two days behind, that even now they are sleeping on +the rocks, _he_ and Walter Hine, sleeping quite peacefully and quietly. +Oh, it's horrible!" he cried, beating his hands upon his forehead in +despair, and then he broke off. He saw that Sylvia was sitting with her +hands covering her face, while every now and then a shudder shook her and +set her trembling. + +"I am so sorry, Sylvia," he cried. "Oh, my dear, I had so hoped we should +be in time. I would have spared you this knowledge if I could. Who knows? +We may be still in time," and as he spoke Michel entered the garden with +one other man and came toward him. + +"Henri Simond!" said Michel, presenting his companion. "You will know +that name. Simond has just come down from the Grépon, monsieur. He will +start with you at daylight." + +Chayne looked at Simond. He was of no more than the middle height, but +broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and long of arm. His strength was well +known in Chamonix--as well known as his audacity. + +"I am very glad that you can come, Simond," said Chayne. "You are the +very man;" and then he turned to Michel. "But we should have another +guide. I need two men." + +"Yes," said Michel. "Three men are needed for that climb," and Chayne +left him to believe that it was merely for the climb that he needed +another guide. "But there is André Droz already at Courmayeur," he +continued. "His patron was to leave him there to-day. A telegram can be +sent to him to-morrow bidding him wait. If he has started, we shall meet +him to-morrow on the Col du Géant. And Droz, monsieur, is the man for +you. He is quick, as quick as you and Simond. The three of you together +will go well. As for to-morrow, you will need no one else. But if you do, +monsieur, I will go with you." + +"There is no need, Michel," replied Chayne, gratefully, and thereupon +Sylvia plucked him by the sleeve. + +"I must go with you to-morrow, Hilary," she pleaded, wistfully. "Oh, you +won't leave me here. Let me come with you as far as possible. Let me +cross to Italy. I will go quick. If I get tired, you shall not know." + +"It will be a long day, Sylvia." + +"It cannot be so long as the day I should pass waiting here." + +She wrung her hands as she spoke. The light from a lamp fixed in the +hotel wall fell upon her upturned face. It was white, her lips trembled, +and in her eyes Chayne saw again the look of terror which he had hoped +was gone forever. "Oh, please," she whispered. + +"Yes," he replied, and he turned again to Simond. "At two o'clock then. +My wife will go, so bring a mule. We can leave it at the Montanvert." + +The guides tramped from the garden. Chayne led his wife toward the hotel, +slipping his arm through hers. + +"You must get some sleep, Sylvia." + +"Oh, Hilary," she cried. "I shall bring shame on you. We should never +have married," and her voice broke in a sob. + +"Hush!" he replied. "Never say that, my dear, never think it! Sleep! You +will want your strength to-morrow." + +But Sylvia slept little, and before the time she was ready with her +ice-ax in her hand. At two o'clock they came out from the hotel in the +twilight of the morning. There were two men there. + +"Ah! you have come to see us off, Michel," said Chayne. + +"No, monsieur, I bring my mule," said Revailloud, with a smile, and he +helped Sylvia to mount it. "To lead mules to the Montanvert--is not that +my business? Simond has a rope," he added, as he saw Chayne sling a coil +across his shoulder. + +"We may need an extra one," said Chayne, and the party moved off upon +its long march. At the Montanvert hotel, on the edge of the Mer de +Glace, Sylvia descended from her mule, and at once the party went down +on to the ice. + +"Au revoir!" shouted Michel from above, and he stood and watched them, +until they passed out of his sight. Sylvia turned and waved her hand to +him. But he made no answering sign. For his eyes were no longer good. + +"He is very kind," said Sylvia. "He understood that there was some +trouble, and while he led the mule he sought to comfort me," and then +between a laugh and a sob she added: "You will never guess how. He +offered to give me his little book with all the signatures--the little +book which means so much to him." + +It was the one thing which he had to offer her, as Sylvia understood, and +always thereafter she remembered him with a particular tenderness. He had +been a good friend to her, asking nothing and giving what he had. She saw +him often in the times which were to come, but when she thought of him, +she pictured him as on that early morning standing on the bluff of cliff +by the Montanvert with the reins of his mule thrown across his arm, and +straining his old eyes to hold his friends in view. + +Later during that day amongst the séracs of the Col du Géant, Simond +uttered a shout, and a party of guides returning to Chamonix changed +their course toward him. Droz was amongst the number, and consenting +at once to the expedition which was proposed to him, he tied himself +on to the rope. + +"Do you know the Brenva ascent?" Chayne asked of him. + +"Yes, monsieur. I have crossed Mont Blanc once that way. I shall be very +glad to go again. We shall be the first to cross for two years. If only +the weather holds." + +"Do you doubt that?" asked Chayne, anxiously. The morning had broken +clear, the day was sunny and cloudless. + +"I think there may be wind to-morrow," he replied, raising his face and +judging by signs unappreciable to other than the trained eyes of a guide. +"But we will try, eh, monsieur?" he cried, recovering his spirits. "We +will try. We will be the first on the Brenva ridge for two years." + +But there Chayne knew him to be wrong. There was another party somewhere +on the great ridge at this moment. "Had _it_ happened?" he asked himself. +"How was it to happen?" What kind of an accident was it to be which could +take place with a guide however worthless, and which would leave no +suspicion resting on Garratt Skinner? There would be no cutting of the +rope. Of that he felt sure. That method might do very well for a +melodrama, but actually--no! Garratt Skinner would have a better plan +than that. And indeed he had, a better plan and a simpler one, a plan +which not merely would give to any uttered suspicion the complexion of +malignancy, but must even bring Mr. Garratt Skinner honor and great +praise. But no idea of the plan occurred either to Sylvia or to Chayne as +all through that long hot day they toiled up the ice-fall of the Col du +Géant and over the passes. It was evening before they came to the +pastures, night before they reached Courmayeur. + +There Chayne found full confirmation of his fears. In spite of effort to +dissuade them, Garratt Skinner, Walter Hine and Pierre Delouvain had +started yesterday for the Brenva climb. They had taken porters with them +as far as the sleeping-place upon the glacier rocks. The porters had +returned. Chayne sent for them. + +"Yes," they said. "At half past two this morning, the climbing party +descended from the rocks on to the ice-fall of the glacier. They should +be at the hut at the Grands Mulets now, on the other side of the +mountain, if not already in Chamonix. Perhaps monsieur would wish for +porters to-morrow." + +"No," said Chayne. "We mean to try the passage in one day"; and he turned +to his guides. "I wish to start at midnight. It is important. We shall +reach the glacier by five. Will you be ready?" + +And at midnight accordingly he set out by the light of a lantern. Sylvia +stood outside the hotel and watched the flame diminish to a star, dance +for a little while, and then go out. For her, as for all women, the bad +hour had struck when there was nothing to do but to sit and watch and +wait. Perhaps her husband, after all, was wrong, she said to herself, +and repeated the phrase, hoping that repetition would carry conviction +to her heart. + +But early on that morning Chayne had sure evidence that he was right. For +as he, Simond and André Droz were marching in single file through the +thin forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd lad came running +down toward them. He was so excited that he could hardly tell the story +with which he was hurrying to Courmayeur. Only an hour before he had +seen, high up on the Brenva ridge, a man waving a signal of distress. +Both Simond and Droz discredited the story. The distance was too great; +the sharpest eyes could not have seen so far. But Chayne believed, and +his heart sank within him. The puppet and Garratt Skinner--what did they +matter? But he turned his eyes down toward Courmayeur. It was Sylvia upon +whom the blow would fall. + +"The story cannot be true," cried Simond. + +But Chayne bethought him of another day long ago, when a lad had burst +into the hotel at Zermatt and told with no more acceptance for his story +of an avalanche which he had seen fall from the very summit of the +Matterhorn. Chayne looked at his watch. It was just four o'clock. + +"There has been an accident," he said. "We must hurry." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE BRENVA RIDGE + + +The peasant was right. He _had_ seen a man waving a signal of distress on +the slopes of Mont Blanc above the great buttress. And this is how the +signal came to be waved. + +An hour before Chayne and Sylvia set out from Chamonix to cross the Col +du Géant, and while it was yet quite dark, a spark glowed suddenly on an +island of rocks set in the great white waste of the Brenva glacier. The +spark was a fire lit by Pierre Delouvain. For Garratt Skinner's party had +camped upon those rocks. The morning was cold, and one by one the +porters, Garratt Skinner, and Walter Hine, gathered about the blaze. +Overhead the stars glittered in a clear, dark sky. It was very still; no +sound was heard at all but the movement in the camp; even on the glacier +a thousand feet below, where all night long the avalanches had thundered, +in the frost of the early morning there was silence. + +Garratt Skinner looked upward. + +"We shall have a good day," he said; and then he looked quickly toward +Walter Hine. "How did you sleep, Wallie?" + +"Very little. The avalanches kept me awake. Besides, I slipped and fell a +hundred times at the corner of the path," he said, with a shiver. "A +hundred times I felt emptiness beneath my feet." + +He referred to a mishap of the day before. On the way to the gîte after +the chalets and the wood are left behind, a little path leads along the +rocks of the Mont de la Brenva high above the glacier. There are one or +two awkward corners to pass where rough footsteps have been hewn in the +rock. At one of these corners Walter Hine had slipped. His side struck +the step; he would have dropped to the glacier, but Garratt Skinner had +suddenly reached out a hand and saved him. + +Garratt Skinner's face changed. + +"You are not afraid," he said. + +"You think we can do it?" asked Hine, nervously, and Garratt +Skinner laughed. + +"Ask Pierre Delouvain!" he said, and himself put the question. Pierre +laughed in his turn. + +"Bah! I snap my fingers at the Brenva climb," said he. "We shall be +in Chamonix to-night"; and Garratt Skinner translated the words to +Walter Hine. + +Breakfast was prepared and eaten. Walter Hine was silent through the +meal. He had not the courage to say that he was afraid; and Garratt +Skinner played upon his vanity. + +"We shall be in Chamonix to-night. It will be a fine feather in your cap, +Wallie. One of the historic climbs!" + +Walter Hine drew a deep breath. If only the day were over, and the party +safe on the rough path through the woods on the other side of the +mountain! But he held his tongue. Moreover, he had great faith in his +idol and master, Garratt Skinner. + +"You saved my life yesterday," he said; and upon Garratt Skinner's face +there came a curious smile. He looked steadily into the blaze of the fire +and spoke almost as though he made an apology to himself. + +"I saw a man falling. I saw that I could save him. I did not think. My +hand had already caught him." + +He looked up with a start. In the east the day was breaking, pale and +desolate; the lower glacier glimmered into view beneath them; the +gigantic amphitheater of hills which girt them in on three sides loomed +out of the mists from aerial heights and took solidity and shape, +westward the black and rugged Peuteret ridge, eastward the cliffs of Mont +Maudit, and northward sweeping around the head of the glacier, the great +ice-wall of Mont Blanc with its ruined terraces and inaccessible cliffs. + +"Time, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, and he rose to his feet and called +to Pierre Delouvain. "There are only three of us. We shall have to go +quickly. We do not want to carry more food than we shall need. The rest +we can send back with our blankets by the porters." + +Pierre Delouvain justified at once the ill words which had been spoken of +him by Michel Revailloud. He thought only of the burden which through +this long day he would have to carry on his back. + +"Yes, that is right," he said. "We will take what we need for the day. +To-night we shall be in Chamonix." + +And thus the party set off with no provision against that most probable +of all mishaps--the chance that sunset might find them still upon the +mountain side. Pierre Delouvain, being lazy and a worthless fellow, as +Revailloud had said, agreed. But the suggestion had been made by Garratt +Skinner. And Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood, who knew--none +better--the folly of such light traveling. + +The rope was put on; Pierre Delouvain led the way, Walter Hine as the +weakest of the party was placed in the middle, Garratt Skinner came last; +the three men mounted by a snow-slope and a gully to the top of the rocks +which supported the upper Brenva glacier. + +"That's our road, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. He pointed to a great +buttress of rock overlain here and there with fields of snow, which +jutted out from the ice-wall of the mountain, descended steeply, bent to +the west in a curve, and then pushed far out into the glacier as some +great promontory pushes out into the sea. "Do you see a hump above the +buttress, on the crest of the ridge and a little to the right? And to the +right of the hump, a depression in the ridge? That's what they call the +Corridor. Once we are there our troubles are over." + +But between the party and the buttress stretched the great ice-fall of +the upper Brenva glacier. Crevassed, broken, a wilderness of towering +séracs, it had the look of a sea in a gale whose breakers had been frozen +in the very act of over toppling. + +"Come," said Pierre. + +"Keep the rope stretched tight, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner; and they +descended into the furrows of that wild and frozen sea. The day's work +had begun in earnest; and almost at once they began to lose time. + +Now it was a perilous strip of ice between unfathomable blue depths along +which they must pass, as bridge-builders along their girders, yet without +the bridge-builders' knowledge that at the end of the passage there was a +further way. Now it was some crevasse into which they must descend, +cutting their steps down a steep rib of ice; now it was a wall up which +the leader must be hoisted on the shoulders of his companions, and even +so as likely as not, his fingers could not reach the top, but hand holds +and foot holds must be hewn with the ax till a ladder was formed. Now it +was some crevasse gaping across their path; they must search this way and +that for a firm snow-bridge by which to overpass it. It was difficult, as +Pierre Delouvain discovered, to find a path through that tangled +labyrinth without some knowledge of the glacier. For, only at rare times, +when he stood high on a sérac, could he see his way for more than a few +yards ahead. Pierre aimed straight for the foot of the buttress, working +thus due north. And he was wrong. Garratt Skinner knew it, but said not a +word. He stood upon insecure ledges and supported Delouvain upon his +shoulders, and pushed him up with his ice-ax into positions which only +involved the party in further difficulties. He took his life in his hands +and risked it, knowing the better way. Yet all the while the light +broadened, the great violet shadows crept down the slopes and huddled at +the bases of the peaks. Then the peaks took fire, and suddenly along the +dull white slopes of ice in front of them the fingers of the morning +flashed in gold. Over the eastern rocks the sun had leaped into the sky. +For a little while longer they advanced deeper into the entanglement, and +when they were about half way across they came to a stop. They were on a +tongue of ice which narrowed to a point; the point abutted against a +perpendicular ice-wall thirty feet high. Nowhere was there any break in +that wall, and at each side of the tongue the ice gaped in chasms. + +"We must go back," said Pierre. "I have forgotten the way." + +He had never known it. Seduced by a treble fee, he had assumed an +experience which he did not possess. Garratt Skinner looked at his watch, +and turning about led the party back for a little while. Then he turned +to his right and said: + +"I think it might go in this direction," and lo! making steadily across +some difficult ground, no longer in a straight line northward to Mont +Blanc, but westward toward the cliffs of the Peuteret ridge under Garratt +Skinner's lead, they saw a broad causeway of ice open before them. The +causeway led them to steep slopes of snow, up which it was just possible +to kick steps, and then working back again to the east they reached the +foot of the great buttress on its western side just where it forms a +right angle with the face of the mountain. Garratt Skinner once more +looked at his watch. It had been half-past two when they had put on the +rope, it was now close upon half-past six. They had taken four hours to +traverse the ice-fall, and they should have taken only two and a half. +Garratt Skinner, however, expressed no anxiety. On the contrary, one +might have thought that he wished to lose time. + +"There's one of the difficulties disposed of," he said, cheerily. "You +did very well, Wallie--very well. It was not altogether nice, was it? But +you won't have to go back." + +Walter Hine had indeed crossed the glacier without complaint. There had +been times when he had shivered, times when his heart within him had +swelled with a longing to cry out, "Let us go back!" But he had not +dared. He had been steadied across the narrow bridge with the rope, +hauled up the ice-walls and let down again on the other side. But he had +come through. He took some pride in the exploit as he gazed back from the +top of the snow-slope across the tumult of ice to the rocks on which he +had slipped. He had come through safely, and he was encouraged to go on. + +"We won't stop here, I think," said Garratt Skinner. They had already +halted upon the glacier for a second breakfast. The sun was getting hot +upon the slopes above, and small showers of snow and crusts of ice were +beginning to shoot down the gullies of the buttress at the base of which +they stood. "We will have a third breakfast when we are out of range." He +called to Delouvain who was examining the face of the rock-buttress up +which they must ascend to its crest and said: "It looks as if we should +do well to work out to the right I think." + +The rocks were difficult, but their difficulty was not fully appreciated +by Walter Hine. Nor did he understand the danger. There were gullies in +which new snow lay in a thin crust over hard ice. He noticed that in +those gullies the steps were cut deep into the ice below, that Garratt +Skinner bade him not loiter, and that Pierre Delouvain in front made +himself fast and drew in the rope with a particular care when it came to +his turn to move. But he did not know that all that surface snow might +peel off in a moment, and swish down the cliffs, sweeping the party from +their feet. There were rounded rocks and slabs with no hold for hand or +foot but roughness, roughness in the surface, and here and there a +wrinkle. But the guide went first, as often as not pushed up by Garratt +Skinner, and Walter Hine, like many another inefficient man before him, +came up, like a bundle, on the rope afterward. Thus they climbed for +three hours more. Walter Hine, nursed by gradually lengthening +expeditions, was not as yet tired. Moreover the exhilaration of the air, +and excitement, helped to keep fatigue aloof. They rested just below the +crest of the ridge and took another meal. + +"Eat often and little. That's the golden rule," said Garratt Skinner. "No +brandy, Wallie. Keep that in your flask!" + +Pierre Delouvain, however, followed a practice not unknown amongst +Chamonix guides. + +"Absinthe is good on the mountains," said he. + +When they rose, the order of going was changed. Pierre Delouvain, who +had led all the morning, now went last, and Garratt Skinner led. He led +quickly and with great judgment or knowledge--Pierre Delouvain at the +end of the rope wondered whether it was judgment or knowledge--and +suddenly Walter Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt +Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a glacier far below, which +flows from the Mur de la Côte on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the +Brenva glacier. + +"That's famous," cried Garratt Skinner, looking once more at his watch. +He did not say that they had lost yet another hour upon the face of the +buttress. It was now half past nine in the morning. "We are twelve +thousand feet up, Wallie," and he swung to his left, and led the party up +the ridge of the buttress. + +As they went along this ridge, Wallie Hine's courage rose. It was narrow +but not steep, nor was it ice. It was either rock or snow in which steps +could be kicked. He stepped out with a greater confidence. If this were +all, the Brenva climb was a fraud, he exclaimed to himself in the vanity +of his heart. Ahead of them a tall black tower stood up, hiding what lay +beyond, and up toward this tower Garratt Skinner led quickly. He no +longer spoke to his companions, he went forward, assured and inspiring +assurance; he reached the tower, passed it and began to cut steps. His ax +rang as it fell. It was ice into which he was cutting. + +This was the first warning which Walter Hine received. But he paid no +heed to it. He was intent upon setting his feet in the steps; he found +the rope awkward to handle and keep tight, his attention was absorbed in +observing his proper distance. Moreover, in front of him the stalwart +figure of Garratt Skinner blocked his vision. He went forward. The snow +on which he walked became hard ice, and instead of sloping upward ran +ahead almost in a horizontal line. Suddenly, however, it narrowed; Hine +became conscious of appalling depths on either side of him; it narrowed +with extraordinary rapidity; half a dozen paces behind him he had been +walking on a broad smooth path; now he walked on the width of the top of +a garden wall. His knees began to shake; he halted; he reached out +vainly into emptiness for some support on which his shaking hands might +clutch. And then in front of him he saw Garratt Skinner sit down and +bestride the wall. Over Garratt Skinner's head, he now saw the path by +which he needs must go. He was on the famous ice-ridge; and nothing so +formidable, so terrifying, had even entered into his dreams during his +sleep upon the rocks where he had bivouacked. It thinned to a mere sharp +edge, a line without breadth of cold blue ice, and it stretched away +through the air for a great distance until it melted suddenly into the +face of the mountain. On the left hand an almost vertical slope of ice +dropped to depths which Hine did not dare to fathom with his eyes; on +the right there was no slope at all; a wall of crumbling snow descended +from the edge straight as a weighted line. On neither side could the +point of the ax be driven in to preserve the balance. Walter Hine +uttered a whimpering cry: + +"I shall fall! I shall fall!" + +Garratt Skinner, astride of the ridge, looked over his shoulder. + +"Sit down," he cried, sharply. But Walter Hine dared not. He stood, all +his courage gone, tottering on the narrow top of the wall, afraid to +stoop, lest his knees should fail him altogether and his feet slip from +beneath him. To bend down until his hands could rest upon the ice, and +meanwhile to keep his feet--no, he could not do it. He stood trembling, +his face distorted with fear, and his body swaying a little from side to +side. Garratt Skinner called sharply to Pierre Delouvain. + +"Quick, Pierre." + +There was no time for Garratt Skinner to return; but he gathered himself +together on the ridge, ready for a spring. Had Walter Hine toppled over, +and swung down the length of the rope, as at any moment he might have +done, Garratt Skinner was prepared. He would have jumped down the +opposite side of the ice-arête, though how either he or Walter Hine could +have regained the ridge he could not tell. Would any one of the party +live to return to Courmayeur and tell the tale? But Garratt Skinner knew +the risk he took, had counted it up long before ever he brought Walter +Hine to Chamonix, and thought it worth while. He did not falter now. All +through the morning, indeed, he had been taking risks, risks of which +Walter Hine did not dream; with so firm and yet so delicate a step he had +moved from crack to crack, from ice-step up to ice-step; with so obedient +a response of his muscles, he had drawn himself up over the rounded rocks +from ledge to ledge. He shouted again to Pierre Delouvain, and at the +same moment began carefully to work backward along the ice-arête. Pierre, +however, hurried; Walter Hine heard the guide's voice behind him, felt +himself steadied by his hands. He stooped slowly down, knelt upon the +wall, then bestrode it. + +"Now, forward," cried Skinner, and he pulled in the rope. "Forward. We +cannot go back!" + +Hine clung to the ridge; behind him Pierre Delouvain sat down and held +him about the waist. Slowly they worked themselves forward, while Garratt +Skinner gathered in the rope in front. The wall narrowed as they +advanced, became the merest edge which cut their hands as they clasped +it. Hine closed his eyes, his head whirled, he was giddy, he felt sick. +He stopped gripping the slope on both sides with his knees, clutching the +sharp edge with the palms of his hands. + +"I can't go on! I can't," he cried, and he reeled like a novice on the +back of a horse. + +Garratt Skinner worked back to him. + +"Put your arms about my waist, Wallie! Keep your eyes shut! You +shan't fall." + +Walter Hine clung to him convulsively, Pierre Delouvain steadied Hine +from behind, and thus they went slowly forward for a long while. Garratt +Skinner gripped the edge with the palms of his hands--so narrow was the +ridge--the fingers of one hand pointed down one slope, the fingers of the +other down the opposite wall. Their legs dangled. + +At last Walter Hine felt Garratt Skinner loosening his clasped fingers +from about his waist. Garratt Skinner stood up, uncoiled the rope, +chipped a step or two in the ice and went boldly forward. For a yard +or two further Walter Hine straddled on, and then Garratt Skinner +cried to him: + +"Look up, Wallie. It's all over." + +Hine looked and saw Garratt Skinner standing upon a level space of snow +in the side of the mountain. A moment later he himself was lying in the +sun upon the level space. The famous ice-arête was behind them. Walter +Hine looked back along it and shuddered. The thin edge of ice curving +slightly downward, stretched away to the black rock-tower, in the bright +sunlight a thing most beautiful, but most menacing and terrible. He +seemed cut off by it from the world. They had a meal upon that level +space, and while Hine rested, Pierre Delouvain cast off the rope and went +ahead. He came back in a little while with a serious face. + +"Will it go?" asked Garratt Skinner. + +"It must," said Delouvain. "For we can never go back"; and suddenly +alarmed lest the way should be barred in front as well as behind, Walter +Hine turned and looked above him. His nerves were already shaken; at the +sight of what lay ahead of him, he uttered a cry of despair. + +"It's no use," he cried. "We can never get up," and he flung himself upon +the snow and buried his face in his arms. Garratt Skinner stood over him. + +"We must," he said. "Come! Look!" + +Walter Hine looked up and saw his companion dangling the face of his +watch before his eyes. + +"We are late. It is now twelve o'clock. We should have left this spot two +hours ago and more," he said, very gravely; and Pierre Delouvain +exclaimed excitedly: + +"Certainly, monsieur, we must go on. It will not do to loiter now," and +stooping down, he dragged rather than helped Walter Hine to his feet. The +quiet gravity of Garratt Skinner and the excitement of Delouvain +frightened Walter Hine equally. Some sense of his own insufficiency broke +in at last upon him. His vanity peeled off from him, just at the moment +when it would most have been of use. He had a glimpse of what he was--a +poor, weak, inefficient thing. + +Above them the slopes stretched upward to a great line of towering +ice-cliffs. Through and up those ice-cliffs a way had to be found. And at +any moment, loosened by the sun, huge blocks and pinnacles might break +from them and come thundering down. As it was, upon their right hand +where the snow-fields fell steeply in a huge ice gully, between a line of +rocks and the cliffs of Mont Maudit, the avalanches plunged and +reverberated down to the Brenva glacier. Pierre Delouvain took the lead +again, and keeping by the line of rocks the party ascended the steep +snow-slopes straight toward the wall of cliffs. But in a while the snow +thinned, and the ax was brought into play again. Through the thin crust +of snow, steps had to be cut into the ice beneath, and since there were +still many hundreds of feet to be ascended, the steps were cut wide +apart. With the sun burning upon his face, and his feet freezing in the +ice-steps, Walter Hine stood and moved, and stood again all through that +afternoon. Fatigue gained upon him, and fear did not let him go. "If only +I get off this mountain," he said to himself with heartfelt longing, +"never again!" When near to the cliffs Pierre Delouvain stopped. In front +of him the wall was plainly inaccessible. Far away to the left there was +a depression up which possibly a way might be forced. + +"I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said Pierre. + +"But you should _know_" said Garratt Skinner. + +"It is some time since I was here. I have forgotten;" and Pierre began to +traverse the ice-slope to the left. Garratt Skinner followed without a +word. But he knew that when he had ascended Mont Blanc by the Brenva +route twenty-three years before, he had kept to the right along the rocks +to a point where that ice-wall was crevassed, and through that crevasse +had found his path. They passed quickly beneath an overhanging rib of ice +which jutted out from the wall, and reached the angle then formed at four +o'clock in the afternoon. + +"Our last difficulty, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, as he cut a +large step in which Hine might stand. "Once up that wall, our +troubles are over." + +Walter Hine looked at the wall. It was not smooth ice, it was true; +blocks had broken loose from it, and had left it bulging out here, +there, and in places fissured. But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees. +It seemed impossible that any one should ascend it. He looked down the +slope up which they had climbed--it seemed equally impossible that any +one should return. Moreover, the sun was already in the West, and the +ice promontory under which they stood shut its warmth from them. Walter +Hine was in the shadow, and he shivered with cold as much as with fear. +For half an hour Pierre Delouvain tried desperately to work his way up +that ice wall, and failed. + +"It is too late," he said. "We shall not get up to-night." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"No, nor get down," he added, gravely. "I am sorry, Wallie. We must go +back and find a place where we can pass the night." + +Walter Hine was in despair. He was tired, he was desperately cold, his +gloves were frozen, his fingers and his feet benumbed. + +"Oh, let's stop here!" he cried. + +"We can't," said Garratt Skinner, and he turned as he spoke and led the +way down quickly. There was need for hurry. Every now and then he stopped +to cut an intervening step, where those already cut were too far apart, +and at times to give Hine a hand while Delouvain let him down with the +help of the rope from behind. + +Slowly they descended, and while they descended the sun disappeared, the +mists gathered about the precipices below, the thunder of the avalanches +was heard at rare intervals, the ice-cliffs above them glimmered faintly +and still more faintly. The dusk came. They descended in a ghostly +twilight. At times the mists would part, and below them infinite miles +away they saw the ice-fields of the Brenva glacier. The light was failing +altogether when Garratt Skinner turned to his left and began to traverse +the slopes to a small patch of rocks. + +"Here!" he said, as he reached them. "We must sit here until the +morning comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + +At the base of the rocks there was a narrow ledge on which, huddled +together, the three men could sit side by side. Garratt Skinner began to +clear the snow from the ledge with his ice-ax; but Walter Hine sank down +at once and Pierre Delouvain, who might have shown a better spirit, +promptly followed his example. + +"What is the use?" he whispered. "We shall all die to-night.... I have a +wife and family.... Let us eat what there is to eat and then die," and +drowsily repeating his words, he fell asleep. Garratt Skinner, however, +roused him, and drowsily he helped to clear the ledge. Then Walter Hine +was placed in the middle that he might get what warmth and shelter was +to be had, the rope was hitched over a spike of rock behind, so that if +any one fell asleep he might not fall off, and Delouvain and Skinner +took their places. By this time darkness had come. They sat upon the +narrow ledge with their backs to the rock and the steep snow-slopes +falling away at their feet. Far down a light or two glimmered in the +chalets of La Brenva. + +Garratt Skinner emptied the _Rücksack_ on his knees. + +"Let us see what food we have," he said. "We made a mistake in not +bringing more. But Pierre was so certain that we should reach Chamonix +to-night." + +"We shall die to-night," said Pierre. + +"Nonsense," said Garratt Skinner. "We are not the first party which has +been caught by the night." + +Their stock of food was certainly low. It consisted of a little bread, a +tin of sardines, a small pot of jam, some cold bacon, a bag of +acid-drops, a couple of cakes of chocolate, and a few biscuits. + +"We must keep some for the morning," he said. "Don't fall asleep, Wallie! +You had better take off your boots and muffle your feet in the +_Rücksack_. It will keep them warmer and save you from frost-bite. You +might as well squeeze the water out of your stockings too." + +Garratt Skinner waked Hine from his drowsiness and insisted that his +advice should be followed. It would be advisable that it should be known +afterward in Courmayeur that he had taken every precaution to preserve +his companion's life. He took off his own stockings and squeezed the +water out, replaced them, and laced on his boots. For to him, too, the +night would bring some risk. Then the three men ate their supper. A very +little wine was left in the gourd which Garratt Skinner had carried on +his back, and he filled it up with snow and thrust it inside his shirt +that it might melt the sooner. + +"You have your brandy flask, Wallie, but be sparing of it. Brandy will +warm you for the moment, but it leaves you more sensitive to the cold +than you were before. That's a known fact. And don't drink too much of +this snow-water. It may make you burn inside. At least so I have been +told," he added. + +Hine drank and passed the bottle to Pierre, who took it with his +reiterated moan: "What's the use? We shall all die to-night. Why should a +poor guide with a wife and family be tempted to ascend mountains. I will +tell you something, monsieur," he cried suddenly across Walter Hine. "I +am not fond of the mountains. No, I am not fond of them!" and he leaned +back and fell asleep. + +"Better not follow his example, Wallie. Keep awake! Slap your limbs!" + +Above the three men the stars came out very clear and bright; the tiny +lights in the chalets far below disappeared one by one; the cold became +intense. At times Garratt Skinner roused his companions, and holding each +other by the arm, they rose simultaneously to their feet and stamped upon +the ledge. But every movement hurt them, and after a while Walter Hine +would not. + +"Leave me alone," he said. "To move tortures me!" + +Garratt Skinner had his pipe and some tobacco. He lit, shading the match +with his coat; and then he looked at his watch. + +"What time is it? Is it near morning?" asked Hine, in a voice which was +very feeble. + +"A little longer to wait," said Garratt Skinner, cheerfully. + +The hands marked a quarter to ten. + +And afterward they grew very silent, except for the noise which they made +in shivering. Their teeth chattered with the chill, they shook in fits +which lasted for minutes, Walter Hine moaned feebly. All about them the +world was bound in frost; the cold stars glittered overhead; the +mountains took their toll of pain that night. Yet there was one among +those three perched high on a narrow ledge of rock amongst the desolate +heights, who did not regret. Just for a night like this Garratt Skinner +had hoped. Walter Hine, weak of frame and with little stamina, was +exposed to the rigors of a long Alpine night, thirteen thousand feet +above the level of the sea, with hardly any food, and no hope of rescue +for yet another day and yet another night. There could be but one end to +it. Not until to-morrow would any alarm at their disappearance be +awakened either at Chamonix or at Courmayeur. It would need a second +night before help reached them--so Garratt Skinner had planned it out. +There could be but one end to it. Walter Hine would die. There was a risk +that he himself might suffer the same fate--he was not blind to it. He +had taken the risk knowingly, and with a certain indifference. It was the +best plan, since, if he escaped alive, suspicion could not fall on him. +Thus he argued, as he smoked his pipe with his back to the rock and +waited for the morning. + +At one o'clock Walter Hine began to ramble. He took Garratt Skinner and +Pierre Delouvain for Captain Barstow and Archie Parminter, and complained +that it was ridiculous to sit up playing poker on so cold a night; and +while in his delirium he rambled and moaned, the morning began to break. +But with the morning came a wind from the north, whirling the snow like +smoke about the mountain-tops, and bitingly cold. Garratt Skinner with +great difficulty stood up, slowly and with pain stretched himself to his +full height, slapped his thighs, stamped with his feet, and then looked +for a long while at his victim, without remorse, and without +satisfaction. He stooped and sought to lift him. But Hine was too stiff +and numbed with the cold to be able to move. In a little while Pierre +Delouvain, who had fallen asleep, woke up. The day was upon them now, +cold and lowering. + +"We must wait for the sun," said Garratt Skinner. "Until that has risen +and thawed us it will not be safe to move." + +Pierre Delouvain looked about him, worked the stiffened muscles of his +limbs and groaned. + +"There will be little sun to-day," he said. "We shall all die here." + +Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks +of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then +tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this +way and that. + +"No one will see it," whimpered Pierre; and indeed Garratt Skinner would +never have waved that signal had he not thought the same. + +"Perhaps--one never knows," he said. "We must take all precautions, for +the day looks bad." + +The sunlight, indeed, only stayed upon the mountain-side long enough to +tantalize them with vain hopes of warmth. Gray clouds swept up low over +the crest of Mont Blanc and blotted it out. The wind moaned wildly +along the slopes. The day frowned upon them sullen and cold with a sky +full of snow. + +"We will wait a little longer," said Garratt Skinner, "then we +must move." + +He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would +lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life +upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake. +Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine. + +"Leave me alone," moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his +companions as they lifted him on to his feet. + +"Stamp your feet, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. "You will feel better in +a few moments." + +They held him up, but he repeated his cry. "Leave me alone!" and the +moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome +with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him. + +Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky. + +"We must wait till help comes," he said, + +Delouvain shook his head. + +"It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur, +to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here"; and he fell to +blubbering like a child. + +"Could you go down alone?" Garratt Skinner asked. + +"There is the glacier to cross, monsieur." + +"I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The +snow-bridges may hold." + +Pierre Delouvain hesitated. Here it seemed to him was certain death. But +if he climbed down the ice-arête, the snow-slopes, and the rocks below, +if the snow-bridges held upon the glacier, there would be life for one of +the three. Pierre Delouvain had little in common with that loyal race of +Alpine guides who hold it as their most sacred tradition not to return +home without their patrons. + +"Yes, it is our one hope," he said; and untying himself with awkward +fumbling fingers from the kinked rope, and coiling the spare rope about +his shoulders, he went down the slope. During the night the steps had +frozen and in many places it was necessary to recut them. He too was +stiff with the long vigil. He moved slowly, with numbed and frozen limbs. +But as his ax rose and fell, the blood began to burn in the tips of his +fingers, to flow within his veins; he went more and more firmly. For a +long way Garratt Skinner held him in sight. Then he turned back to Walter +Hine upon the ledge, and sat beside him. Garratt Skinner's strength had +stood him in good stead. He filled his pipe and lit it, and watched +beside his victim. The day wore on slowly. At times Garratt Skinner +rubbed Hine's limbs and stamped about the ledge to keep some warmth +within himself. Walter Hine grew weaker and weaker. At times he was +delirious; at times he came to his senses. + +"You leave me," he whispered once. "You have been a good friend to me. +You can do no more. Just leave me here, and save yourself." + +Garratt Skinner made no answer. He just looked at Hine curiously--that +was all. That was all. It was a curious thing to him that Hine should +display an unexpected manliness--almost a heroism. It could not be +pleasant even to contemplate being left alone upon these windy and +sunless heights to die. But actually to wish it! + +"How did you come by so much fortitude?" he asked; and to his +astonishment, Walter Hine replied: + +"I learnt it from you, old man." + +"From me?" + +"Yes." + +Garratt Skinner gave him some of the brandy and listened to a portrait of +himself, described in broken words, which he was at some pains to +recognize. Walter Hine had been seeking to model himself upon an +imaginary Garratt Skinner, and thus, strangely enough, had arrived at an +actual heroism. Thus would Garratt Skinner have bidden his friends leave +him, only in tones less tremulous, and very likely with a laugh, turning +back, as it were, to snap his fingers as he stepped out of the world. +Thus, therefore, Walter Hine sought to bear himself. + +"Curious," said Garratt Skinner with interest, but with no stronger +feeling at all. "Are you in pain, Wallie?" + +"Dreadful pain." + +"We must wait. Perhaps help will come!" + +The day wore on, but what the time was Garratt Skinner could not tell. +His watch and Hine's had both stopped with the cold, and the dull, +clouded sky gave him no clue. The last of the food was eaten, the last +drop of the brandy drunk. It was bitterly cold. If only the snow would +hold off till morning! Garratt Skinner had only to wait. The night would +come and during the night Walter Hine would die. And even while the +thought was in his mind, he heard voices. To his amazement, to his alarm, +he heard voices! Then he laughed. He was growing light-headed. +Exhaustion, cold and hunger were telling their tale upon him. He was not +so young as he had been twenty years before. But to make sure he rose to +his knees and peered down the slope. He had been mistaken. The steep +snow-slopes stretched downward, wild and empty. Here and there black +rocks jutted from them; a long way down four black stones were spaced; +there was no living thing in that solitude. He sank back relieved. No +living thing except himself, and perhaps his companion. He looked at Hine +closely, shook him, and Hine groaned. Yes, he still lived--for a little +time he still would live. Garratt Skinner gathered in his numbed palm the +last pipeful of tobacco in his pouch and, spilling the half of it--his +hands so shook with cold, his fingers were so clumsy--he pressed it into +his pipe and lit it. Perhaps before it was all smoked out--he thought. +And then his hallucination returned to him. Again he heard voices, very +faint, and distant, in a lull of the wind. + +It was weakness, of course, but he started up again, this time to his +feet, and as he stood up his head and shoulders showed clear against the +white snow behind him. He heard a shout--yes, an undoubted shout. He +stared down the slope and then he saw. The four black stones had moved, +were nearer to him--they were four men ascending. Garratt Skinner turned +swiftly toward Walter Hine, reached for his ice-ax, grasped it and raised +it, Walter Hine looked at him with staring, stupid eyes, but raised no +hand, made no movement. He, too, was conscious of an hallucination. It +seemed to him that his friend stood over him with a convulsed and +murderous face, in which rage strove with bitter disappointment, but that +he held his ax by the end with the adz-head swung back above his head to +give greater force to the blow, and that while he poised it there came a +cry from the confines of the world, and that upon that cry his friend +dropped the ax, and stooping down to him murmured: "There's help quite +close, Wallie!" + +Certainly those words were spoken--that at all events was no +hallucination. Walter Hine understood it clearly. For Garratt Skinner +suddenly stripped off his coat, passed it round Hine's shoulders and +then, baring his own breast, clasped Hine to it that he might impart to +him some warmth from his own body. + +Thus they were found by the rescue party; and the story of Garratt +Skinner's great self-sacrifice was long remembered in Courmayeur. + +Garratt Skinner watched the men mounting and wondered who they were. He +recognized his own guide, Pierre Delouvain, but who were the others, how +did they come there on a morning so forbidding? Who was the tall man who +walked last but one? And as the party drew nearer, he saw and understood. +But he did not change from his attitude. He waited until they were close. +Then he and Hilary Chayne exchanged a look. + +"You?" said Garratt Skinner. + +"Yes--" Chayne paused. "Yes, Mr. Strood," he said. + +And in those words all was said. Garratt Skinner knew that his plan was +not merely foiled, but also understood. He stood up and looked about him, +and even to Chayne's eyes there was a dignity in his quiet manner, his +patience under defeat. For Garratt Skinner, rogue though he was, the +mountains had their message. All through that long night, while he sat by +the side of his victim, they had been whispering it. Whether bound in +frost beneath the stars, or sparkling to the sun, or gray under a sky of +clouds, or buried deep in flakes of whirling snow, they spoke to him +always of the grandeur of their indifference. They might be traversed and +scaled, but they were unconquered always because they were indifferent. +The climber might lie in wait through the bad weather at the base of the +peak, seize upon his chance and stand upon the summit with a cry of +triumph and derision. The mountains were indifferent. As they endured +success, so they inflicted defeat--with a sublime indifference, lifting +their foreheads to the stars as though wrapt in some high communion. +Something of their patience had entered into Garratt Skinner. He did not +deny his name, he asked no question, he accepted failure and he looked +anxiously to the sky. + +"It will snow, I think." + +They made some tea, mixed it with wine and gave it first of all to Walter +Hine. Then they all breakfasted, and set off on their homeward journey, +letting Hine down with the rope from step to step. + +Gradually Hine regained a little strength. His numbed limbs began to come +painfully to life. He began to move slowly of his own accord, supported +by his rescuers. They reached the ice-ridge. It had no terrors now for +Walter Hine. + +"He had better be tied close between Pierre and myself," said Garratt +Skinner. "We came up that way." + +"Between Simond and Droz," said Chayne, quietly. + +"As you will," said Garratt Skinner with a shrug of the shoulders. + +Along the ice-ridge the party moved slowly and safely, carrying Hine +between them. As they passed behind the great rock tower at the lower +end, the threatened snow began to fall in light flakes. + +"Quickly," said Chayne. "We must reach the chalets to-night." + +They raced along the snow-slopes on the crest of the buttress and turned +to the right down the gullies and the ledges on the face of the rock. In +desperate haste they descended lowering Walter Hine from man to man, they +crawled down the slabs, dropped from shelf to shelf, wound themselves +down the gullies of ice. Somehow without injury the snow-slopes at the +foot of the rocks were reached. The snow still held off; only now and +then a few flakes fell. But over the mountain the wind was rising, it +swept down in fierce swift eddies, and drew back with a roar like the sea +upon shingle. + +"We must get off the glacier before night comes," cried Chayne, and led +by Simond the rescue party went down into the ice-fall. They stopped at +the first glacier pool and made Hine wash his hands and feet in the +water, to save himself from frost-bite; and thereafter for a little time +they rested. They went on again, but they were tired men, and before the +rocks were reached upon which two nights before Garratt Skinner had +bivouacked, darkness had come. Then Simond justified the praise of Michel +Revailloud. With the help of a folding lantern which Chayne had carried +in his pocket, he led the way through that bewildering labyrinth with +unerring judgment. Great séracs loomed up through the darkness, magnified +in size and distorted in shape. Simond went over and round them and under +them, steadily, and the rescue party followed. Now he disappeared over +the edge of a cliff into space, and in a few seconds his voice rang +upward cheerily. + +"Follow! It is safe." + +And his ice-ax rang with no less cheeriness. He led them boldly to the +brink of abysses which were merely channels in the ice, and amid towering +pinnacles which seen, close at hand, were mere blocks shoulder high. And +at last the guide at the tail of the rope heard from far away ahead +Simond's voice raised in a triumphant shout. + +"The rocks! The rocks!" + +With one accord they flung themselves, tired and panting, on the +sheltered level of the bivouac. Some sticks were found, a fire was +lighted, tea was once more made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as +the flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouching, kneeling, +sitting, and the rocks resounded with their laughter. + +"Only a little further, Wallie!" said Garratt Skinner, still true +to his part. + +They descended from the rocks, crossed a level field of ice and struck +the rock path along the slope of the Mont de la Brenva. + +"Keep on the rope," said Garratt Skinner. "Hine slipped at a corner as we +came up"; and Chayne glanced quickly at him. There were one or two +awkward corners above the lower glacier where rough footsteps had been +hewn. On one of these Walter Hine had slipped, and Garratt Skinner had +saved him--had undoubtedly saved him. At the very beginning of the climb, +the object for which it was undertaken was almost fulfilled, and would +have been fulfilled but that instinct overpowered Garratt Skinner, and +since the accident was unexpected, before he had had time to think he had +reached out his hand and saved the life which he intended to destroy. + +Along that path Hine was carefully brought to the chalets of La Brenva. +The peasants made him as comfortable as they could. + +"He will recover," said Simond. "Oh yes, he will recover. Two of us will +stay with him." + +"No need for that," replied Garratt Skinner. "Thank you very much, but +that is my duty since Hine is my friend." + +"I think not," said Chayne, standing quietly in front of Garratt Skinner. +"Walter Hine will be safe enough in Simond's hands. I want you to return +with me to Courmayeur. My wife is there and anxious." + +"Your wife?" + +"Yes, Sylvia." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"I see," he said, slowly. "Yes." + +He looked round the hut. Simond was going to watch by Hine's side. He +was defeated utterly, and recognized it. Then he looked at Chayne, and +smiled grimly. + +"On the whole, I am not sorry that you have married my daughter," he +said. "I will come down to Courmayeur. It will be pleasant to sleep +in a bed." + +And together they walked down to Courmayeur, which they reached soon +after midnight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +RUNNING WATER + + +In two days' time Walter Hine was sufficiently recovered to be carried +down to Courmayeur. He had been very near to death upon the Brenva ridge, +certainly the second night upon which Garratt Skinner had counted would +have ended his life; he was frostbitten; and for a long while the shock +and the exposure left him weak. But he gained strength with each day, and +Chayne had opportunities to admire the audacity and the subtle skill with +which Garratt Skinner had sought his end. For Walter Hine was loud in his +praises of his friend's self-sacrifice. Skinner had denied himself his +own share of food, had bared his breast to the wind that he might give +the warmth of his own body to keep his friend alive--these instances lost +nothing in the telling. And they were true! Chayne could not deny to +Garratt Skinner a certain criminal grandeur. He had placed Hine in no +peril which he had not shared himself; he had taken him, a man fitted in +neither experience nor health, on an expedition where inexperience or +weakness on the part of one was likely to prove fatal to all. There was, +moreover, one incident, not contemplated by Garratt Skinner in his plan, +which made his position absolutely secure. He had actually saved Walter +Hine's life on the rocky path of the Mont de la Brenva. There was no +doubt of it. He had reached out his hand and saved him. Chayne made much +of this incident to his wife. + +"I was wrong you see, Sylvia," he argued. "For your father could have let +him fall, and did not. I have been unjust to him, and to you, for you +have been troubled." + +But Sylvia shook her head. + +"You were not wrong," she answered. "It is only because you are very kind +that you want me to believe it. But I see the truth quite clearly"; and +she smiled at him. "If you wanted me to believe, you should never have +told me of the law, a year ago in the Chalet de Lognan. My father obeyed +the law--that was all. You know it as well as I. He had no time to think; +he acted upon the instinct of the moment; he could not do otherwise. Had +there been time to think, would he have reached out his hand? We both +know that he would not. But he obeyed the law. What he knew, that he did, +obeying the law upon the moment. He could save, and knowing it he _did_ +save, even against his will." + +Chayne did not argue the point. Sylvia saw the truth too clearly. + +"Walter Hine is getting well," he said. "Your father is still at another +hotel in Courmayeur. There's the future to be considered." + +"Yes," she said, and she waited. + +"I have asked your father to come over to-night after dinner," +said Chayne. + +And into their private sitting-room Garratt Skinner entered at eight +o'clock that evening. It was the first time that Sylvia had seen him +since she had learned the whole truth, and she found the occasion one of +trial. But Garratt Skinner carried it off. + +There was nothing of the penitent in his manner, but on the other hand he +no longer affected the manner of a pained and loving parent. He greeted +her from the door, and congratulated her quietly and simply upon her +marriage. Then he turned to Chayne. + +"You wished to speak to me? I am at your service." + +"Yes," replied Chayne. "We--and I speak for Sylvia--we wish to suggest to +you that your acquaintanceship with Walter Hine should end +altogether--that it should already have ended." + +"Really!" said Garratt Skinner, with an air of surprise. "Captain Chayne, +the laws of England, revolutionary as they have no doubt become to +old-fashioned people like myself, have not yet placed fathers under the +guardianship of their sons-in-law. I cannot accept your suggestion." + +"We insist upon its acceptance," said Chayne, quietly. + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"Insist perhaps! But how enforce it, my friend? That's another matter." + +"I think we have the means to do that," said Chayne. "We can point out to +Walter Hine, for instance, that your ascent from the Brenva Glacier was +an attempt to murder him." + +"An ugly word, Captain Chayne. You would find it difficult of proof." + +"The story is fairly complete," returned Chayne. "There is first of all a +telegram from Mr. Jarvice couched in curious language." + +Garratt Skinner's face lost its smile of amusement. + +"Indeed?" he said. He was plainly disconcerted. + +"Yes." Chayne produced the telegram from his letter case, read it aloud +with his eyes upon Garratt Skinner, and replaced it. "'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up! Jarvice.' There is no need at all events to ask +Mr. Jarvice what he was waiting for, is there? He wanted to lay his hands +upon the money for which Hine's life was insured." + +Garratt Skinner leaned back in his chair. His eyes never left Chayne's +face, his face grew set and stern. He had a dangerous look, the look of a +desperate man at bay. + +"Then there is a certain incident to be considered which took place in +the house near Weymouth. You must at times have been puzzled by +it--perhaps a little alarmed too. Do you remember one evening when a +whistle from the shadows on the road and a yokel's shout drove you out of +Walter Hine's room, sent you creeping out of it as stealthily as you +entered--nay, did more than that, for that whistle and that shout drove +you out of Dorsetshire. Ah! I see you remember." + +Garratt Skinner indeed had often enough been troubled by the recollection +of that night. The shout, the whistle ringing out so suddenly and +abruptly from the darkness and the silence had struck upon his +imagination and alarmed him by their mystery. Who was the man who had +seen? And what had he seen? Garratt Skinner had never felt quite safe +since that evening. There was some one, a stranger, going about the world +with the key to his secret, even if he had not guessed the secret. + +"It was I who whistled. I who shouted." + +"You!" cried Garratt Skinner. "You!" + +"Yes. Sylvia was with me. You thought to do that night what you thought +to do a few days ago above the Brenva ridge. Both times together we were +able to hinder you. But once Sylvia hindered you alone. There is the +affair of the cocaine." + +Chayne looked toward his wife with a look of great pride for the bravery +which she had shown. She was sitting aloof in the embrasure of the window +with her face averted and a hand pressed over her eyes and forehead. +Chayne looked back to Garratt Skinner, and there was more anger in his +face than he had ever shown. + +"I will never forgive you the distress you have caused to Sylvia," he +said. + +But Garratt Skinner's eyes were upon Sylvia, and in his face, too, there +was a humorous look of pride. She had courage. He remembered how she had +confronted him when Walter Hine lay sick. He said no word to her, +however, and again he turned to Chayne, who went on: + +"There is also your past career to add weight to the argument, +Mr.--Strood." + +Point by point Chayne set out in detail the case for the prosecution. +Garratt Skinner listened without interruption, but he knew that he was +beaten. The evidence against him was too strong. It might not be enough +legally to secure his conviction at a public trial--though even upon that +question there would be the gravest doubt--but it would be enough to +carry certitude to every ear which listened and to every eye which read. + +"The game is played out," Chayne continued. "We have Walter Hine, and we +shall not let him slip back into your hands. How much of the story we +shall tell him we are not yet sure--but all if it be necessary. And, if +it be necessary, to others beside." + +There was a definite threat in the last words. But Garratt Skinner had +already made up his mind. Since the game was played out, since defeat had +come, he took it without anger or excuse. + +"Very well," he said. "Peace in the family circle is after all very +desirable--eh, Sylvia? I agree with the deepest regret to part from my +young friend, Walter Hine. I leave him in your hands." He was speaking +with a humorous magnanimity. But his eyes wandered back to Sylvia, who +sat some distance away in the embrasure of the window, with her face in +her hands; and his voice changed. + +"Sylvia," he said, gently, "come here." + +Sylvia rose and walked over to the table. + +The waiting, the knowledge which had come to her during the last few +days, had told their tale. She had the look which Chayne too well +remembered, the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the languor in her walk, +the pallor in her cheeks, the distress and shame in her expression. + +"Sit down," he said; and she obeyed him reluctantly, seating herself over +against him. She gazed at the table-cloth with that mutinous look upon +her face which took away from her her womanhood and gave to her the +aspect of a pretty but resentful child. Garratt Skinner for the life of +him could not but smile at her. + +"Well, Sylvia, you have beaten me. You fought your fight well, and I bear +you no malice," he said, lightly. "But," and his voice became serious +again, "you sit in judgment on me." + +Sylvia raised her eyes quickly. + +"No!" she cried. + +"I think so," he persisted. "I don't blame you. Only I should like you to +bear this in mind; that you have in your own life a reason to go gently +in your judgments of other people." + +Chayne stepped forward, as though he would interfere, but Sylvia laid her +hand upon his arm and checked him. + +"I don't think you understand, Hilary," she said, quickly. She turned to +her father and looked straight at him with an eager interest. + +"I wonder whether we are both thinking of the same thing," she said, +curiously. + +"Perhaps," replied her father. "All your life you have dreamed of +running water." + +And Sylvia nodded her head. + +"Yes, yes," she said, with a peculiar intentness. + +"The dream is part of you, part of your life. For all you know, it may +have modified your character." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. + +"It is a part of you of which you could not rid yourself if you tried. +When you are asleep, this dream comes to you. It is as much a part of you +as a limb." + +And again Sylvia answered: "Yes." + +"Well, you are not responsible for it," and Sylvia leaned forward. + +"Ah!" she said. She had been wondering whether it was to this point that +he was coming. + +"You know now why you hear it, why it's part of you. You were born to the +sound of running water in that old house in Dorsetshire. Before you were +born, in the daytime and in the stillness of the night your mother heard +it week after week. Perhaps even when she was asleep the sound rippled +through her dreams. Thus you came by it. It was born in you." + +"Yes," she answered, following his argument step by step very carefully, +but without a sign of the perplexity which was evident in Hilary Chayne. +Chayne stood a little aloof, looking from Sylvia's face to the face of +her father, in doubt whither the talk was leading. Sylvia, on the other +hand, recognized each sentence which her father spoke as the embodiment +of a thought with which she was herself familiar. + +"Well, then, here's a definite thing, an influence most likely, a +characteristic most certainly, and not of your making! One out of how +many influences, characteristics which are part of you but not of your +making! But we can lay our finger on it. Well, it is a pleasant and a +pretty quality--this dream of yours, Sylvia--yes, a very pleasant one to +be born with. But suppose that instead of that dream you had been born +with a vice, an instinct of crime, of sin, would you have been any the +more responsible for it? If you are not responsible for the good thing, +are you responsible for the bad? An awkward question, Sylvia--awkward +enough to teach you to go warily in your judgments." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. "I was amongst the fortunate. I don't deny it." + +"But that's not all," and as Chayne moved restively, Garratt Skinner +waved an indulgent hand. + +"I don't expect you, Captain Chayne, to take an interest in these +problems. For a military man, discipline and the penal code are the +obvious unalterable solutions. But it is possible that I may never see my +daughter again and--I am speaking to her"; and he went back to the old +vexed question. + +"It's not only that you are born with qualities, definite +characteristics, definite cravings, for which you are no more responsible +than the man in the moon, and which are part of you. But there's +something else. How much of your character, how much of all your life to +come is decided for you during the first ten or fifteen years of your +life--decided for you, mind, not by you? Upon my soul, I think the whole +of it. You don't agree? Well, it's an open question. I believe that at +the age of fifteen the lines along which you will move are already drawn, +your character formed, your conduct for the future a settled thing." + +To that Sylvia gave no assent. But she did not disagree. She only looked +at her father with a questioning and a troubled face. If it were so, she +asked, why had she hated from the first the circle in which her mother +and herself had moved. And the answer--or at all events _an_ answer--came +as she put the question to herself. She had lived amongst her dreams. She +was in doubt. + +"Well, hear something of my boyhood, Sylvia!" cried her father, and for +the first time his voice became embittered. "I was brought up by a +respectable father. Yes, respectable," he said, with a sneer. "Everything +about us was respectable. We lived in a respectable house in a +respectable neighborhood, and twice every Sunday we went to church and +listened to a respectable clergyman. But!--Well, here's a chapter out of +the inside. I would go to bed and read in bed by a candle. Not a very +heinous offence, but contrary to the rule of the house. Sooner or later I +would hear a faint scuffling sound in the passage. That was my father +stealing secretly along to listen at my door and see what I was doing. I +covered the light of the candle with my hand, or perhaps blew it out--but +not so quickly but that he would see the streak of light beneath the +door. Then the play would begin. 'You are not reading in bed, are you?' +he would say. 'Certainly not,' I would reply. 'You are sure?' he would +insist. 'Of course, father,' I would answer. Then back he would go, but +only for a little way, and I would hear him come stealthily scuffling +back again. Perhaps the candle would be lit again already, or at all +events uncovered. Would he say anything? Oh, no! He had found out I was +lying. He felt that he had scored a point, and he would save it up. So we +would meet the next morning at breakfast, he knowing that I was a liar, I +knowing that he knew that I was a liar, and both pretending that we were +all in all to each other. A small thing, Sylvia. But crowd your life with +such small things? Spying and deceit and a game of catch-as-catch-can +played by the father and son! My letters were read--I used to know, for +roundabout questions would be put leading up to the elucidation of a +sentence which to any one but myself would be obscure! Do you think any +child could grow up straight, if his boyhood passed in that atmosphere of +trickery? I don't know. Only I think that before I was fifteen my way of +life was a sure and settled thing. It was certain that I should develop +upon the lines on which I was trained." + +Garratt Skinner rose from his seat. + +"There, I have done," he said. He looked at his daughter for a little +while, his eyes dwelling upon her beauty with a certain pleasure, and +even a certain wistfulness; he looked at her now much as she had been +wont to look at him in the early days of the house in Dorsetshire. It was +very plain that they were father and daughter. + +"You are too good for your military man, my dear," he said, with a smile. +"Too pretty and too good. Don't you let him forget it!" And suddenly he +cried out with a burst of passion. "I wish to God you had never come near +me!" And Sylvia, hearing the cry, remembered that on the Sunday evening +when she had first come to the house in Hobart Place, her father had +shown a particular hesitation, had felt some of that remorse of which she +heard the full expression now, in welcoming her to his house and adapting +her to his ends. She raised her downcast eyes and with outstretched hands +took a step forward. + +"Father!" she said. But her father was already gone. She heard his step +upon the stairs. + +Chayne, however, followed her father from the room and caught him up as +he was leaving the hotel. + +"I want to say," he began with some difficulty, "that, if you are pressed +at all for money--" + +Garratt Skinner stopped him. He pulled some sovereigns out of one pocket +and some banknotes out of another. + +"You see, I have enough to go on with. In fact--" and he looked northward +toward the mountains. Dimly they could be seen under the sickle of a new +moon. "In fact, I propose to-morrow to take your friend Simond and cross +on the high-level to Zermatt." + +"But afterward?" asked Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laughed and laughed like a boy. There was a rich +anticipation of enjoyment in the sound. + +"Afterward? I shall have a great time. I shall squeeze Mr. Jarvice. It's +what they call in America a cinch." + +And with a cheery good-night Garratt Skinner betook himself down the +road. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12891 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c4512d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12891 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12891) diff --git a/old/12891-8.txt b/old/12891-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb332ee --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12891-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9999 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Running Water, by A. E. W. Mason + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Running Water + +Author: A. E. W. Mason + +Release Date: July 12, 2004 [eBook #12891] +[Last updated: June 6, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNNING WATER*** + + +E-text prepared by Mary Meehan and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +RUNNING WATER + +by + +A. E. W. MASON + +Author of _The Four Feathers_, etc. + +1907 + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + II INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + III THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + IV MR. JARVICE + + V MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + VI THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + VII THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE + + VIII SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + IX SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + X A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + XI SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + XII THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + XIII CHAYNE RETURNS + + XIV AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + XV KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + XVI AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + XVII SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + +XVIII BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + XIX THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + XX ON THE DOWN + + XXI CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + XXII REVAILLOUD REVISITED + +XXIII MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S _FÜHRBUCH_ + + XXIV THE BRENVA RIDGE + + XXV A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + XXVI RUNNING WATER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + +The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few +minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with +a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one +regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the +coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her +compartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep. The noise of a train had no unrest +for her. Indeed, a sleeping compartment in a Continental express was the +most permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had possessed for a good many +more years than she would have cared to acknowledge. She spent her life +in hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered companion. From a winter +in Vienna or in Rome she passed to a spring at Venice or at +Constantinople, thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at the +bathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in Paris again. But always +she came back to the sleeping-car. It was the one familiar room which was +always ready for her; and though the prospect from its windows changed, +it was the one room she knew which had always the same look, the same +cramped space, the same furniture--the one room where, the moment she +stepped into it, she was at home. + +Yet on this particular journey she woke while it was yet dark. A noise +slight in comparison to the clatter of the train, but distinct in +character and quite near, told her at once what had disturbed her. Some +one was moving stealthily in the compartment--her daughter. That was all. +But Mrs. Thesiger lay quite still, and, as would happen to her at times, +a sudden terror gripped her by the heart. She heard the girl beneath her, +dressing very quietly, subduing the rustle of her garments, even the +sound of her breathing. + +"How much does she know?" Mrs. Thesiger asked of herself; and her heart +sank and she dared not answer. + +The rustling ceased. A sharp click was heard, and the next moment through +a broad pane of glass a faint twilight crept into the carriage. The blind +had been raised from one of the windows. It was two o'clock on a morning +of July and the dawn was breaking. Very swiftly the daylight broadened, +and against the window there came into view the profile of a girl's head +and face. Seen as Mrs. Thesiger saw it, with the light still dim behind +it, it was black like an ancient daguerreotype. It was also as motionless +and as grave. + +"How much does she know?" + +The question would thrust itself into the mother's thoughts. She watched +her daughter intently from the dark corner where her head lay, thinking +that with the broadening of the day she might read the answer in that +still face. But she read nothing even when every feature was revealed in +the clear dead light, for the face which she saw was the face of one who +lived much apart within itself, building amongst her own dreams as a +child builds upon the sand and pays no heed to those who pass. And to +none of her dreams had Mrs. Thesiger the key. Deliberately her daughter +had withdrawn herself amongst them, and they had given her this return +for her company. They had kept her fresh and gentle in a circle where +freshness was soon lost and gentleness put aside. + +Sylvia Thesiger was at this time seventeen, although her mother dressed +her to look younger, and even then overdressed her like a toy. It was of +a piece with the nature of the girl that, in this matter as in the rest, +she made no protest. She foresaw the scene, the useless scene, which +would follow upon her protest, exclamations against her ingratitude, +abuse for her impertinence, and very likely a facile shower of tears at +the end; and her dignity forbade her to enter upon it. She just let her +mother dress her as she chose, and she withdrew just a little more into +the secret chamber of her dreams. She sat now looking steadily out of the +window, with her eyes uplifted and aloof, in a fashion which had become +natural to her, and her mother was seized with a pang of envy at the +girl's beauty. For beauty Sylvia Thesiger had, uncommon in its quality +rather than in its degree. From the temples to the round point of her +chin the contour of her face described a perfect oval. Her forehead was +broad and low and her hair, which in color was a dark chestnut, parted in +the middle, whence it rippled in two thick daring waves to the ears, a +fashion which noticeably became her, and it was gathered behind into a +plait which lay rather low upon the nape of her neck. Her eyes were big, +of a dark gray hue and very quiet in their scrutiny; her mouth, small and +provoking. It provoked, when still, with the promise of a very winning +smile, and the smile itself was not so frequent but that it provoked a +desire to summon it to her lips again. It had a way of hesitating, as +though Sylvia were not sure whether she would smile or not; and when she +had made up her mind, it dimpled her cheeks and transfigured her whole +face, and revealed in her tenderness and a sense of humor. Her complexion +was pale, but clear, her figure was slender and active, but without +angularities, and she was of the middle height. Yet the quality which the +eye first remarked in her was not so much her beauty, as a certain +purity, a look almost of the Madonna, a certainty, one might say, that +even in the circle in which she moved, she had kept herself unspotted +from the world. + +Thus she looked as she sat by the carriage window. But as the train drew +near to Ambérieu, the air brightened and the sunlight ministered to her +beauty like a careful handmaid, touching her pale cheeks to a rosy +warmth, giving a luster to her hair, and humanizing her to a smile. Sylvia +sat forward a little, as though to meet the sunlight, then she turned +toward the carriage and saw her mother's eyes intently watching her. + +"You are awake?" she said in surprise. + +"Yes, child. You woke me." + +"I am very sorry. I was as quiet as I could be. I could not sleep." + +"Why?" Mrs. Thesiger repeated the question with insistence. "Why couldn't +you sleep?" + +"We are traveling to Chamonix," replied Sylvia. "I have been thinking of +it all night," and though she smiled in all sincerity, Mrs. Thesiger +doubted. She lay silent for a little while. Then she said, with a +detachment perhaps slightly too marked: + +"We left Trouville in a hurry yesterday, didn't we?" + +"Yes," replied Sylvia, "I suppose we did," and she spoke as though this +was the first time that she had given the matter a thought. + +"Trouville was altogether too hot," said Mrs. Thesiger; and again silence +followed. But Mrs. Thesiger was not content. "How much does she know?" +she speculated again, and was driven on to find an answer. She raised +herself upon her elbow, and while rearranging her pillow said carelessly: + +"Sylvia, our last morning at Trouville you were reading a book which +seemed to interest you very much." + +"Yes." + +Sylvia volunteered no information about that book. + +"You brought it down to the sands. So I suppose you never noticed a +strange-looking couple who passed along the deal boards just in front of +us." Mrs. Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her pillow. But +during that movement her eyes had never left her daughter's face. "A +middle-aged man with stiff gray hair, a stiff, prim face, and a figure +like a ramrod. Oh, there never was anything so stiff." A noticeable +bitterness began to sound in her voice and increased as she went on. +"There was an old woman with him as precise and old-fashioned as himself. +But you didn't see them? I never saw anything so ludicrous as that +couple, austere and provincial as their clothes, walking along the deal +boards between the rows of smart people." Mrs. Thesiger laughed as she +recalled the picture. "They must have come from the Provinces. I could +imagine them living in a chateau on a hill overlooking some tiny village +in--where shall we say?" She hesitated for a moment, and then with an air +of audacity she shot the word from her lips--"in Provence." + +The name, however, had evidently no significance for Sylvia, and Mrs. +Thesiger was relieved of her fears. + +"But you didn't see them," she repeated, with a laugh. + +"Yes, I did," said Sylvia, and brought her mother up on her elbow again. +"It struck me that the old lady must be some great lady of a past day. +The man bowed to you and--" + +She stopped abruptly, but her mother completed the sentence with a +vindictiveness she made little effort to conceal. + +"And the great lady did not, but stared in the way great ladies have. +Yes, I had met the man--once--in Paris," and she lay back again upon her +pillow, watching her daughter. But Sylvia showed no curiosity and no +pain. It was not the first time when people passed her mother that she +had seen the man bow and the woman ignore. Rather she had come to expect +it. She took her book from her berth and opened it. + +Mrs. Thesiger was satisfied. Sylvia clearly did not suspect that it was +just the appearance of that stiff, old-fashioned couple which had driven +her out of Trouville a good month before her time--her, Mrs. Thesiger of +the many friends. She fell to wondering what in the world had brought +M. de Camours and his mother to that watering place amongst the brilliant +and the painted women. She laughed again at the odd picture they had +made, and her thoughts went back over twenty years to the time when she +had been the wife of M. de Camours in the château overlooking the village +in Provence, and M. de Camours' mother had watched her with an unceasing +jealousy. Much had happened since those days. Madame de Camours' +watchings had not been in vain, a decree had been obtained from the Pope +annulling the marriage. Much had happened. But even after twenty years +the memory of that formal life in the Provencal château was vivid enough; +and Mrs. Thesiger yawned. Then she laughed. Monsieur de Camours and his +mother had always been able to make people yawn. + +"So you are glad that we are going to Chamonix, Sylvia--so glad that you +couldn't sleep?" + +"Yes." + +It sounded rather unaccountable to Mrs. Thesiger, but then Sylvia was to +her a rather unaccountable child. She turned her face to the wall and +fell asleep. + +Sylvia's explanation, however, happened to be true. Chamonix meant the +great range of Mont Blanc, and Sylvia Thesiger had the passion for +mountains in her blood. The first appearance of their distant snows +stirred her as no emotion ever had, so that she came to date her life by +these appearances rather than by the calendar of months and days. The +morning when from the hotel windows at Glion she had first seen the twin +peaks of the Dent du Midi towering in silver high above a blue corner of +the Lake of Geneva, formed one memorable date. Once, too, in the +winter-time, as the Rome express stopped at three o'clock in the morning +at the frontier on the Italian side of the Mont Cenis tunnel, she had +carefully lifted the blind on the right-hand side of the sleeping +compartment and had seen a great wall of mountains tower up in a clear +frosty moonlight from great buttresses of black rock to delicate +pinnacles of ice soaring infinite miles away into a cloudless sky of +blue. She had come near to tears that night as she looked from the +window; such a tumult of vague longings rushed suddenly in upon her and +uplifted her. She was made aware of dim uncomprehended thoughts stirring +in the depths of her being, and her soul was drawn upward to those +glittering spires, as to enchanted magnets. Ever afterward Sylvia looked +forward, through weeks, to those few moments in her mother's annual +itinerary, and prayed with all her heart that the night might be clear of +mist and rain. + +She sat now at the window with no thought of Trouville or their hurried +flight. With each throb of the carriage-wheels the train flashed nearer +to Chamonix. She opened the book which lay upon her lap--the book in +which she had been so interested when Monsieur de Camours and his mother +passed her by. It was a volume of the "Alpine Journal," more than twenty +years old, and she could not open it but some exploit of the pioneers +took her eyes, some history of a first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Such +a history she read now. She was engrossed in it, and yet at times a +little frown of annoyance wrinkled her forehead. She gave an explanation +of her annoyance; for once she exclaimed half aloud, "Oh, if only he +wouldn't be so _funny_!" The author was indeed being very funny, and to +her thinking never so funny as when the narrative should have been most +engrossing. She was reading the account of the first ascent of an +aiguille in the Chamonix district, held by guides to be impossible and +conquered at last by a party of amateurs. In spite of its humor Sylvia +Thesiger was thrilled by it. She envied the three men who had taken part +in that ascent, envied them their courage, their comradeship, their +bivouacs in the open air beside glowing fires, on some high shelf of +rock above the snows. But most of all her imagination was touched by the +leader of that expedition, the man who sometimes alone, sometimes in +company, had made sixteen separate attacks upon that peak. He stared +from the pages of the volume--Gabriel Strood. Something of his great +reach of limb, of his activity, of his endurance, she was able to +realize. Moreover he had a particular blemish which gave to him a +particular interest in her eyes, for it would have deterred most men +altogether from his pursuit and it greatly hampered him. And yet in +spite of it, he had apparently for some seasons stood prominent in the +Alpine fraternity. Gabriel Strood was afflicted with a weakness in the +muscles of one thigh. Sylvia, according to her custom, began to picture +him, began to talk with him. + +She wondered whether he was glad to have reached that summit, or whether +he was not on the whole rather sorry--sorry for having lost out of his +life a great and never-flagging interest. She looked through the +subsequent papers in the volume, but could find no further mention of his +name. She perplexed her fancies that morning. She speculated whether +having made this climb he had stopped and climbed no more; or whether he +might not get out of this very train on to the platform at Chamonix. But +as the train slowed down near to Annemasse, she remembered that the +exploit of which she had read had taken place more than twenty years ago. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + +But though Gabriel Strood occupied no seat in that train, one of his +successors was traveling by it to Chamonix after an absence of four +years. Of those four years Captain Chayne had passed the last two among +the coal-stacks of Aden, with the yellow land of Arabia at his back, +longing each day for this particular morning, and keeping his body lithe +and strong against its coming. He left the train at Annemasse, and +crossing the rails to the buffet, sat down at the table next to that +which Mrs. Thesiger and her daughter already occupied. + +He glanced at them, placed them in their category, and looked away, +utterly uninterested. They belonged to the great class of the continental +wanderers, people of whom little is known and everything +suspected--people with no kinsfolk, who flit from hotel to hotel and +gather about them for a season the knowing middle-aged men and the +ignorant young ones, and perhaps here and there an unwary woman deceived +by the more than fashionable cut of their clothes. The mother he put down +as nearer forty than thirty, and engaged in a struggle against odds to +look nearer twenty than thirty. The daughter's face Chayne could not see, +for it was bent persistently over a book. But he thought of a big doll in +a Christmas toy-shop. From her delicate bronze shoes to her large hat of +mauve tulle everything that she wore was unsuitable. The frock with its +elaborations of lace and ribbons might have passed on the deal boards of +Trouville. Here at Annemasse her superfineness condemned her. + +Chayne would have thought no more of her, but as he passed her table on +his way out of the buffet his eyes happened to fall on the book which so +engrossed her. There was a diagram upon the page with which he was +familiar. She was reading an old volume of the "Alpine Journal." Chayne +was puzzled--there was so marked a contradiction between her outward +appearance and her intense absorption in such a subject as Alpine +adventure. He turned at the door and looked back. Sylvia Thesiger had +raised her head and was looking straight at him. Thus their eyes met, and +did more than meet. + +Chayne, surprised as he had been by the book which she was reading, was +almost startled by the gentle and rather wistful beauty of the face which +she now showed to him. He had been prepared at the best for a fresh +edition of the mother's worn and feverish prettiness. What he saw was +distinct in quality. It seemed to him that an actual sympathy and +friendliness looked out from her dark and quiet eyes, as though by +instinct she understood with what an eager exultation he set out upon his +holiday. Sylvia, indeed, living as she did within herself, was inclined +to hero-worship naturally; and Chayne was of the type to which, to some +extent through contrast with the run of her acquaintance, she gave a high +place in her thoughts. A spare, tall man, clear-eyed and clean of +feature, with a sufficient depth of shoulder and wonderfully light of +foot, he had claimed her eyes the moment that he entered the buffet. +Covertly she had watched him, and covertly she had sympathized with the +keen enjoyment which his brown face betrayed. She had no doubts in her +mind as to the intention of his holiday; and as their eyes met now +involuntarily, a smile began to hesitate upon her lips. Then she became +aware of the buffet, and her ignorance of the man at whom she looked, +and, with a sudden mortification, of her own over-elaborate appearance. +Her face flushed, and she lowered it again somewhat quickly to the pages +of her book. But it was as though for a second they had spoken. + +Chayne, however, forgot Sylvia Thesiger. As the train moved on to Le +Fayet he was thinking only of the plans which he had made, of the new +expeditions which were to be undertaken, of his friend John Lattery and +his guide Michel Revailloud who would be waiting for him upon the +platform of Chamonix. He had seen neither of them for four years. The +electric train carried the travelers up from Le Fayet. The snow-ridges +and peaks came into view; the dirt-strewn Glacier des Bossons shot out a +tongue of blue ice almost to the edge of the railway track, and a few +minutes afterward the train stopped at the platform of Chamonix. + +Chayne jumped down from his carriage and at once suffered the first of +his disappointments. Michel Revailloud was on the platform to meet +him, but it was a Michel Revailloud whom he hardly knew, a Michel +Revailloud grown very old. Revailloud was only fifty-two years of age, +but during Chayne's absence the hardships of his life had taken their +toll of his vigor remorselessly. Instead of the upright, active figure +which Chayne so well remembered, he saw in front of him a little man +with bowed shoulders, red-rimmed eyes, and a withered face seamed with +tiny wrinkles. + +At this moment, however, Michel's pleasure at once more seeing his old +patron gave to him at all events some look of his former alertness, and +as the two men shook hands he cried: + +"Monsieur, but I am glad to see you! You have been too long away from +Chamonix. But you have not changed. No, you have not changed." + +In his voice there was without doubt a note of wistfulness. "I would I +could say as much for myself." That regret was as audible to Chayne as +though it had been uttered. But he closed his ears to it. He began to +talk eagerly of his plans. There were familiar peaks to be climbed again +and some new expeditions to be attempted. + +"I thought we might try a new route up the Aiguille sans Nom," he +suggested, and Michel assented but slowly, without the old heartiness and +without that light in his face which the suggestion of something new used +always to kindle. But again Chayne shut his ears. + +"I was very lucky to find you here," he went on cheerily. "I wrote so +late that I hardly hoped for it." + +Michel replied with some embarrassment: + +"I do not climb with every one, monsieur. I hoped perhaps that one of my +old patrons would want me. So I waited." + +Chayne looked round the platform for his friend. + +"And Monsieur Lattery?" he asked. + +The guide's face lit up. + +"Monsieur Lattery? Is he coming too? It will be the old days once more." + +"Coming? He is here now. He wrote to me from Zermatt that he +would be here." + +Revailloud shook his head. + +"He is not in Chamonix, monsieur." + +Chayne experienced his second disappointment that morning, and it quite +chilled him. He had come prepared to walk the heights like a god in the +perfection of enjoyment for just six weeks. And here was his guide grown +old; and his friend, the comrade of so many climbs, so many bivouacs +above the snow-line, had failed to keep his tryst. + +"Perhaps there will be a letter from him at Couttet's," said Chayne, and +the two men walked through the streets to the hotel. There was no letter, +but on the other hand there was a telegram. Chayne tore it open. + +"Yes it's from Lattery," he said, as he glanced first at the signature. +Then he read the telegram and his face grew very grave. Lattery +telegraphed from Courmayeur, the Italian village just across the chain of +Mont Blanc: + +"Starting now by Col du Géant and Col des Nantillons." + +The Col du Géant is the most frequented pass across the chain, and no +doubt the easiest. Once past its great ice-fall, the glacier leads +without difficulty to the Montanvert hotel and Chamonix. But the Col des +Nantillons is another affair. Having passed the ice-fall, and when within +two hours of the Montanvert, Lattery had turned to the left and had made +for the great wall of precipitous rock which forms the western side of +the valley through which the Glacier du Géant flows down, the wall from +which spring the peaks of the Dent du Requin, the Aiguille du Plan, the +Aiguille de Blaitière, the Grépon and the Charmoz. Here and there the +ridge sinks between the peaks, and one such depression between the +Aiguille de Blaitière and the Aiguille du Grépon is called the Col des +Nantillons. To cross that pass, to descend on the other side of the great +rock-wall into that bay of ice facing Chamonix, which is the Glacier des +Nantillons, had been Lattery's idea. + +Chayne turned to the porter. + +"When did this come?" + +"Three days ago." + +The gravity on Chayne's face changed into a deep distress. Lattery's +party would have slept out one night certainly. They would have made a +long march from Courmayeur and camped on the rocks at the foot of the +pass. It was likely enough that they should have been caught upon that +rock-wall by night upon the second day. The rock-wall had never been +ascended, and the few who had descended it bore ample testimony to its +difficulties. But a third night, no! Lattery should have been in Chamonix +yesterday, without a doubt. He would not indeed have food for three +nights and days. + +Chayne translated the telegram into French and read it out to Michel +Revailloud. + +"The Col des Nantillons," said Michel, with a shake of the head, and +Chayne saw the fear which he felt himself looking out from his +guide's eyes. + +"It is possible," said Michel, "that Monsieur Lattery did not start +after all." + +"He would have telegraphed again." + +"Yes," Michel agreed. "The weather has been fine too. There have been no +fogs. Monsieur Lattery could not have lost his way." + +"Hardly in a fog on the Glacier du Géant," replied Chayne. + +Michel Revailloud caught at some other possibility. + +"Of course, some small accident--a sprained ankle--may have detained him +at the hut on the Col du Géant. Such things have happened. It will be as +well to telegraph to Courmayeur." + +"Why, that's true," said Chayne, and as they walked to the post-office he +argued more to convince himself than Michel Revailloud. "It's very +likely--some quite small accident--a sprained ankle." But the moment +after he had sent the telegram, and when he and Michel stood again +outside the post-office, the fear which was in him claimed utterance. + +"The Col des Nantillons is a bad place, Michel, that's the truth. Had +Lattery been detained in the hut he would have found means to send us +word. In weather like this, that hut would be crowded every night; every +day there would be some one coming from Courmayeur to Chamonix. No! I am +afraid of the steep slabs of that rock-wall." + +And Michael Revailloud said slowly: + +"I, too, monsieur. It is a bad place, the Col des Nantillons; it is not a +quick way or a good way to anywhere, and it is very dangerous. And yet I +am not sure. Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rocks. Ice, that is +another thing. But he would be on rock." + +It was evident that Michel was in doubt, but it seemed that Chayne could +not force himself to share it. + +"You had better get quietly together what guides you can, Michel," he +said. "By the time a rescue party is made up the answer will have come +from Courmayeur." + +Chayne walked slowly back to the hotel. All those eager anticipations +which had so shortened his journey this morning, which during the last +two years had so often raised before his eyes through the shimmering heat +of the Red Sea cool visions of ice-peaks and sharp spires of rock, had +crumbled and left him desolate. Anticipations of disaster had taken their +place. He waited in the garden of the hotel at a spot whence he could +command the door and the little street leading down to it. But for an +hour no messenger came from the post-office. Then, remembering that a +long sad work might be before him, he went into the hotel and +breakfasted. It was twelve o'clock and the room was full. He was shown a +place amongst the other newcomers at one of the long tables, and he did +not notice that Sylvia Thesiger sat beside him. He heard her timid +request for the salt, and passed it to her; but he did not speak, he did +not turn; and when he pushed back his chair and left the room, he had no +idea who had sat beside him, nor did he see the shadow of disappointment +on her face. It was not until later in the afternoon when at last the +blue envelope was brought to him. He tore it open and read the answer of +the hotel proprietor at Courmayeur: + +"Lattery left four days ago with one guide for Col du Géant." + +He was standing by the door of the hotel, and looking up he saw Michel +Revailloud and a small band of guides, all of whom carried ice-axes and +some _Rücksacks_ on their backs, and ropes, come tramping down the +street toward him. + +Michel Revailloud came close to his side and spoke with excitement. + +"He has been seen, monsieur. It must have been Monsieur Lattery with his +one guide. There were two of them," and Chayne interrupted him quickly. + +"Yes, there were two," he said, glancing at his telegram. "Where were +they seen?" + +"High up, monsieur, on the rocks of the Blaitiere. Here, Jules"; and in +obedience to Michel's summons, a young brown-bearded guide stepped out +from the rest. He lifted his hat and told his story: + +"It was on the Mer de Glace, monsieur, the day before yesterday. I was +bringing a party back from the Jardin, and just by the Moulin I saw two +men very high up on the cliffs of the Blaitiere. I was astonished, for I +had never seen any one upon those cliffs before. But I was quite sure. +None of my party could see them, it is true, but I saw them clearly. They +were perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge between the Blaitiere and +the Grépon and to the left of the Col." + +"What time was this?" + +"Four o'clock in the afternoon." + +"Yes," said Chayne. The story was borne out by the telegram. Leaving +Courmayeur early, Lattery and his guide would have slept the night on +the rocks at the foot of the Blaitiere, they would have climbed all +the next day and at four o'clock had reached within two hundred feet +of the ridge, within two hundred feet of safety. Somewhere within +those last two hundred feet the fatal slip had been made; or perhaps a +stone had fallen. + +"For how long did you watch them?" asked Chayne. + +"For a few minutes only. My party was anxious to get back to Chamonix. +But they seemed in no difficulty, monsieur. They were going well." + +Chayne shook his head at the hopeful words and handed his telegram to +Michel Revailloud. + +"The day before yesterday they were on the rocks of the Blaitière," he +said. "I think we had better go up to the Mer de Glace and look for them +at the foot of the cliffs." + +"Monsieur, I have eight guides here and two will follow in the evening +when they come home. We will send three of them, as a precaution, up the +Mer de Glace. But I do not think they will find Monsieur Lattery there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I believe Monsieur Lattery has made the first passage of the +Col des Nantillons from the east," he said, with a peculiar solemnity. "I +think we must look for them on the western side of the pass, in the +crevasses of the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Surely not," cried Chayne. True, the Glacier des Nantillons in places +was steep. True, there were the séracs--those great slabs and pinnacles +of ice set up on end and tottering, high above, where the glacier curved +over a brow of rock and broke--one of them might have fallen. But Lattery +and he had so often ascended and descended that glacier on the way to the +Charmoz and the Grépon and the Plan. He could not believe his friend had +come to harm that way. + +Michel, however, clung to his opinion. + +"The worst part of the climb was over," he argued. "The very worst pitch, +monsieur, is at the very beginning when you leave the glacier, and then +it is very bad again half way up when you descend into a gully; but +Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rock, and having got so high, I think +he would have climbed the last rocks with his guide." + +Michel spoke with so much certainty that even in the face of his +telegram, in the face of the story which Jules had told, hope sprang up +within Chayne's heart. + +"Then he may be still up there on some ledge. He would surely not have +slipped on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +That hope, however, was not shared by Michel Revailloud. + +"There is very little snow this year," he said. "The glaciers are +uncovered as I have never seen them in all my life. Everywhere it is ice, +ice, ice. Monsieur Lattery had only one guide with him and he was not so +sure on ice. I am afraid, monsieur, that he slipped out of his steps on +the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"And dragged his guide with him?" exclaimed Chayne. His heart rather than +his judgment protested against the argument. It seemed to him disloyal to +believe it. A man should not slip from his steps on the Glacier des +Nantillons. He turned toward the door. + +"Very well," he said. "Send three guides up the Mer de Glace. We will go +up to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He went up to his room, fetched his ice-ax and a new club-rope with the +twist of red in its strands, and came down again. The rumor of an +accident had spread. A throng of tourists stood about the door and +surrounded the group of guides, plying them with questions. One or two +asked Chayne as he came out on what peak the accident had happened. He +did not reply. He turned to Michel Revailloud and forgetful for the +moment that he was in Chamonix, he uttered the word so familiar in the +High Alps, so welcome in its sound. + +"_Vorwärts_, Michel," he said, and the word was the Open Sesame to a +chamber which he would gladly have kept locked. There was work to do +now; there would be time afterward to remember--too long a time. But in +spite of himself his recollections rushed tumultuously upon him. Up to +these last four years, on some day in each July his friend and he had +been wont to foregather at some village in the Alps, Lattery coming from +a Government Office in Whitehall, Chayne now from some garrison town in +England, now from Malta or from Alexandria, and sometimes from a still +farther dependency. Usually they had climbed together for six weeks, +although there were red-letter years when the six weeks were extended to +eight, six weeks during which they lived for the most part on the high +level of the glaciers, sleeping in huts, or mountain inns, or beneath +the stars, and coming down only for a few hours now and then into the +valley towns. _Vorwärts_! The months of their comradeship seemed to him +epitomized in the word. The joy and inspiration of many a hard climb +came back, made bitter with regret for things very pleasant and now done +with forever. Nights on some high ledge, sheltered with rocks and set in +the pale glimmer of snow-fields, with a fire of brushwood lighting up +the faces of well-loved comrades; half hours passed in rock chimneys +wedged overhead by a boulder, or in snow-gullies beneath a bulge of ice, +when one man struggled above, out of sight, and the rest of the party +crouched below with what security it might waiting for the cheery cry, +"_Es geht. Vorwärts_!"; the last scramble to the summit of a virgin +peak; the swift glissade down the final snow-slopes in the dusk of the +evening with the lights of the village twinkling below; his memories +tramped by him fast and always in the heart of them his friend's face +shone before his eyes. Chayne stood for a moment dazed and bewildered. +There rose up in his mind that first helpless question of distress, +"Why?" and while he stood, his face puzzled and greatly troubled, there +fell upon his ears from close at hand a simple message of sympathy +uttered in a whisper gentle but distinct: + +"I am very sorry." + +Chayne looked up. It was the overdressed girl of the Annemasse buffet, +the girl who had seemed to understand then, who seemed to understand now. +He raised his hat to her with a sense of gratitude. Then he followed the +guides and went up among the trees toward the Glacier des Nantillons. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + +The rescue party marched upward between the trees with the measured pace +of experience. Strength which would be needed above the snow-line was not +to be wasted on the lower slopes. But on the other hand no halts were +made; steadily the file of men turned to the right and to the left and +the zigzags of the forest path multiplied behind them. The zigzags +increased in length, the trees became sparse; the rescue party came out +upon the great plateau at the foot of the peaks called the Plan des +Aiguilles, and stopped at the mountain inn built upon its brow, just over +Chamonix. The evening had come, below them the mists were creeping along +the hillsides and blotting the valley out. + +"We will stop here," said Michel Revailloud, as he stepped on to the +little platform of earth in front of the door. "If we start again at +midnight, we shall be on the glacier at daybreak. We cannot search the +Glacier des Nantillons in the dark." + +Chayne agreed reluctantly. He would have liked to push on if only to lull +thought by the monotony of their march. Moreover during these last two +hours, some faint rushlight of hope had been kindled in his mind which +made all delay irksome. He himself would not believe that his friend John +Lattery, with all his skill, his experience, had slipped from his +ice-steps like any tyro; Michel, on the other hand, would not believe +that he had fallen from the upper rocks of the Blaitière on the far side +of the Col. From these two disbeliefs his hope had sprung. It was +possible that either Lattery or his guide lay disabled, but alive and +tended, as well as might be, by his companion on some insecure ledge of +that rock-cliff. A falling stone, a slip checked by the rope might have +left either hurt but still living. It was true that for two nights and a +day the two men must have already hung upon their ledge, that a third +night was to follow. Still such endurance had been known in the annals of +the Alps, and Lattery was a hard strong man. + +A girl came from the chalet and told him that his dinner was ready. +Chayne forced himself to eat and stepped out again on to the platform. A +door opened and closed behind him. Michel Revailloud came from the +guides' quarters at the end of the chalet and stood beside him in the +darkness, saying nothing since sympathy taught him to be silent, and when +he moved moving with great gentleness. + +"I am glad, Michel, that we waited here since we had to wait," +said Chayne. + +"This chalet is new to you, monsieur. It has been built while you +were away." + +"Yes. And therefore it has no associations, and no memories. Its bare +whitewashed walls have no stories to tell me of cheery nights on the eve +of a new climb when he and I sat together for a while and talked eagerly +of the prospects of to-morrow." + +The words ceased. Chayne leaned his elbows on the wooden rail. The mists +in the valley below had been swept away; overhead the stars shone out of +an ebony sky very bright as on some clear winter night of frost, and of +all that gigantic amphitheater of mountains which circled behind them +from right to left there was hardly a hint. Perhaps here some extra cube +of darkness showed where a pinnacle soared, or there a vague whiteness +glimmered where a high glacier hung against the cliff, but for the rest +the darkness hid the mountains. A cold wind blew out of the East and +Chayne shivered. + +"You are cold, monsieur?" said Michel. "It is your first night." + +"No, I am not cold," Chayne replied, in a low and quiet voice. "But I am +thinking it will be deadly cold up there in the darkness on the rocks of +the Blaitiere." + +Michel answered him in the same quiet voice. On that broad open plateau +both men spoke indeed as though they were in a sick chamber. + +"While you were away, monsieur, three men without food sat through a +night on a steep ice-sheltered ice-slope behind us, high up on the +Aiguille du Plan, as high up as the rocks of the Blaitiere. And not one +of them came to any harm." + +"I know. I read of it," said Chayne, but he gathered little comfort from +the argument. + +Michel fumbled in his pocket and drew out a pipe. "You do not smoke any +more?" he asked. "It is a good thing to smoke." + +"I had forgotten," said Chayne. + +He filled his pipe and then took a fuse from his match-box. + +"No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he could strike it. "I +remember your fuses, monsieur." + +Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it spluttered, and frizzled, +in the hollow of his great hands. The flame burnt up. He held it first to +Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a moment his face was lit +with the red glow. Its age thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, +shocked Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on the +platform at Chamonix. Not merely were its deep lines shown up, but all +the old humor and alertness had gone. The face had grown mask-like and +spiritless. Then the match went out. + +Chayne leaned upon the rail and looked downward. A long way below him, in +the clear darkness of the valley the lights of Chamonix shone bright and +very small. Chayne had never seen them before so straight beneath him. As +he looked he began to notice them; as he noticed them, more and more they +took a definite shape. He rose upright, and pointing downward with one +hand he said in a whisper, a whisper of awe-- + +"Do you see, Michel? Do you see?" + +The great main thoroughfare ran in a straight line eastward through the +town, and, across it, intersecting it at the little square where the +guides gather of an evening, lay the other broad straight road from the +church across the river. Along those two roads the lights burned most +brightly, and thus there had emerged before Chayne's eyes a great golden +cross. It grew clearer and clearer as he looked; he looked away and then +back again, and now it leapt to view, he could not hide it from his +sight, a great cross of light lying upon the dark bosom of the valley. + +"Do you see, Michel?" + +"Yes." The answer came back very steadily. "But so it was last night +and last year. Those three men on the Plan had it before their eyes +all night. It is no sign of disaster." For a moment he was silent, and +then he added timidly: "If you look for a sign, monsieur, there is a +better one." + +Chayne turned toward Michel in the darkness rather quickly. + +"As we set out from the hotel," Michel continued, "there was a young girl +upon the steps with a very sweet and gentle face. She spoke to you, +monsieur. No doubt she told you that her prayers would be with you +to-night." + +"No, Michel," Chayne replied, and though the darkness hid his face, +Michel knew that he smiled. "She did not promise me her prayers. She +simply said: 'I am sorry.'" + +Michel Revailloud was silent for a little while, and when he spoke again, +he spoke very wistfully. One might almost have said that there was a note +of envy in his voice. + +"Well, that is still something, monsieur. You are very lonely to-night, +is it not so? You came back here after many years, eager with hopes and +plans and not thinking at all of disappointments. And the disappointments +have come, and the hopes are all fallen. Is not that so, too? Well, it is +something, monsieur--I, who am lonely too, and an old man besides, so +that I cannot mend my loneliness, I tell you--it is something that there +is a young girl down there with a sweet and gentle face who is sorry for +you, who perhaps is looking up from among those lights to where we stand +in the darkness at this moment." + +But it seemed that Chayne did not hear, or, if he heard, that he paid no +heed. And Michel, knocking the tobacco from his pipe, said: + +"You will do well to sleep. We may have a long day before us"; and he +walked away to the guides' quarters. + +But Chayne could not sleep; hope and doubt fought too strongly within +him, wrestling for the life of his friend. At twelve o'clock Michel +knocked upon his door. Chayne got up from his bed at once, drew on his +boots, and breakfasted. At half past the rescue party set out, following +a rough path through a wilderness of boulders by the light of a lantern. +It was still dark when they came to the edge of the glacier, and they sat +down and waited. In a little while the sky broke in the East, a twilight +dimly revealed the hills, Michel blew out the lantern, the blurred +figures of the guides took shape and outline, and silently the morning +dawned upon the world. + +The guides moved on to the glacier and spread over it, ascending as +they searched. + +"You see, monsieur, there is very little snow this year," said +Michel, chipping steps so that he and Chayne might round the corner +of a wide crevasse. + +"Yes, but it does not follow that he slipped," said Chayne, hotly, for +he was beginning to resent that explanation as an imputation against +his friend. + +Slowly the party moved upward over the great slope of ice into the +recess, looking for steps abruptly ending above a crevasse or for signs +of an avalanche. They came level with the lower end of a long rib of +rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise bisects the glacier. +Here the search ended for a while. The rib of rocks is the natural path, +and the guides climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier and +spread out once more, roped in couples. They were now well within the +great amphitheater. On their left the cliffs of the Charmoz overlapped +them, on the right the rocks of the Blaitière. For an hour they +advanced, cutting steps since the glacier was steep, and then from the +center of the glacier a cry rang out. Chayne at the end of the line upon +the right looked across. A little way in front of the two men who had +shouted something dark lay upon the ice. Chayne, who was with Michel +Revailloud, called to him and began hurriedly to scratch steps +diagonally toward the object. + +"Take care, monsieur," cried Michel. + +Chayne paid no heed. Coming up from behind on the left-hand side, he +passed his guide and took the lead. He could tell now what the dark +object was, for every now and then a breath of wind caught it and whirled +it about the ice. It was a hat. He raised his ax to slice a step and a +gust of wind, stronger than the others, lifted the hat, sent it rolling +and skipping down the glacier, lifted it again and gently dropped it at +his feet. He stooped down and picked it up. It was a soft broad-brimmed +hat of dark gray felt. In the crown there was the name of an English +maker. There was something more too. There were two initials--J.L. + +Chayne turned to Michel Revailloud. + +"You were right, Michel," he said, solemnly. "My friend has made the +first passage of the Col des Nantillons from the East." + +The party moved forward again, watching with redoubled vigilance for some +spot in the glacier, some spot above a crevasse, to which ice-steps +descended and from which they did not lead down. And three hundred yards +beyond a second cry rang out. A guide was standing on the lower edge of a +great crevasse with a hand upheld above his head. The searchers converged +quickly upon him. Chayne hurried forward, plying the pick of his ax as +never in his life had he plied it. Had the guide come upon the actual +place where the accident took place, he asked himself? But before he +reached the spot, his pace slackened, and he stood still. He had no +longer any doubt. His friend and his friend's guide were not lying upon +any ledge of the rocks of the Aiguille de Blaitière; they were not +waiting for any succor. + +On the glacier, a broad track, littered with blocks of ice, stretched +upward in a straight line from the upper lip of the crevasse to the great +ice-fall on the sky-line where the huge slabs and pinnacles of ice, +twisted into monstrous shapes, like a sea suddenly frozen when a tempest +was at its height, stood marshaled in serried rows. They stood waiting +upon the sun. One of them, melted at the base, had crashed down the +slope, bursting into huge fragments as it fell, and cleaving a groove +even in that hard glacier. + +Chayne went forward and stopped at the guide's side on the lower edge +of the crevasse. Beyond the chasm the ice rose in a blue straight +wall for some three feet, and the upper edge was all crushed and +battered; and then the track of the falling sérac ended. It had +poured into the crevasse. + +The guide pointed to the left of the track. + +"Do you see, monsieur? Those steps which come downward across the glacier +and stop exactly where the track meets them? They do not go on, on the +other side of the track, monsieur." + +Chayne saw clearly enough. The two men had been descending the glacier in +the afternoon, the avalanche had fallen and swept them down. He dropped +upon his knees and peered into the crevasse. The walls of the chasm +descended smooth and precipitous, changing in gradual shades and color +from pale transparent green to the darkest blue, until all color was lost +in darkness. He bent his head and shouted into the depths: + +"Lattery! Lattery!" + +And only his voice came back to him, cavernous and hollow. He shouted +again, and then he heard Michel Revailloud saying solemnly behind him: + +"Yes, they are here." + +Suddenly Chayne turned round, moved by a fierce throb of anger. + +"It's not true, you see," he cried. "He didn't slip out of his steps and +drag his guide down with him. You were wrong, Michel." + +Michel was standing with his hat in his hand. + +"Yes, monsieur, I was quite wrong," he said, gently. He turned to a big +and strong man: + +"François, will you put on the rope and go down?" + +They knotted the rope securely about François' waist and he took his +ice-ax in his hand, sat down on the edge of the crevasse with his legs +dangling, turned over upon his face and said: + +"When I pull the rope, haul in gently." + +They lowered him carefully down for sixty feet, and at that depth the +rope slackened. François had reached the bottom of the crevasse. For a +few moments they watched the rope move this way and that, and then there +came a definite pull. + +"He has found them," said Michel. + +Some of the guides lined out with the rope in their hands. Chayne took +his position in the front, at the head of the line and nearest to the +crevasse. The pull upon the rope was repeated, and slowly the men began +to haul it in. It did not occur to Chayne that the weight upon the rope +was heavy. One question filled his mind, to the exclusion of all else. +Had François found his friend? What news would he bring of them when he +came again up to the light? François' voice was heard now, faintly, +calling from the depths. But what he said could not be heard. The line of +men hauled in the rope more and more quickly and then suddenly stopped +and drew it in very gently. For they could now hear what François said. +It was but one word, persistently repeated: + +"Gently! Gently!" + +And so gently they drew him up toward the mouth of the crevasse. Chayne +was standing too far back to see down beyond the edge, but he could hear +François' ax clattering against the ice-walls, and the grating of his +boots. Michel, who was kneeling at the edge of the chasm, held up his +hand, and the men upon the rope ceased to haul. In a minute or two he +lowered it. + +"Gently," he said, "gently," gazing downward with a queer absorption. +Chayne began to hear François' labored breathing and then suddenly at the +edge of the crevasse he saw appear the hair of a man's head. + +"Up with him," cried a guide; there was a quick strong pull upon the rope +and out of the chasm, above the white level of the glacier, there +appeared a face--not François' face--but the face of a dead man. Suddenly +it rose into the colorless light, pallid and wax-like, with open, +sightless eyes and a dropped jaw, and one horrid splash of color on the +left forehead, where blood had frozen. It was the face of Chayne's +friend, John Lattery; and in a way most grotesque and horrible it bobbed +and nodded at him, as though the neck was broken and the man yet lived. +When François just below cried, "Gently! Gently," it seemed that the dead +man's mouth was speaking. + +Chayne uttered a cry; then a deathly sickness overcame him. He dropped +the rope, staggered a little way off like a drunken man and sat down upon +the ice with his head between his hands. + +Some while later a man came to him and said: + +"We are ready, monsieur." + +Chayne returned to the crevasse. Lattery's guide had been raised from the +crevasse. Both bodies had been wrapped in sacks and cords had been fixed +about their legs. The rescue party dragged the bodies down the glacier to +the path, and placing them upon doors taken from a chalet, carried them +down to Chamonix. On the way down François talked for a while to Michel +Revailloud, who in his turn fell back to where at the end of the +procession Chayne walked alone. + +"Monsieur," he said, and Chayne looked at him with dull eyes like a +man dazed. + +"There is something which François noticed, which he wished me to tell +you. François is a good lad. He wishes you to know that your friend died +at once--there was no sign of a movement. He lay in the bottom of the +crevasse in some snow which was quite smooth. The guide--he had kicked a +little with his feet in the snow--but your friend had died at once." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, without the least emotion in his voice. But he +walked with uneven steps. At times he staggered like one overdone and +very tired. But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that +he had his friend's reputation to defend: + +"You see he didn't slip on the ice, Michel. You were quite wrong. It was +the avalanche. It was no fault of his." + +"I was wrong," said Michel, and he took Chayne by the arm lest he should +fall; and these two men came long after the others into Chamonix. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. JARVICE + + +The news of Lattery's death was telegraphed to England on the same +evening. It appeared the next morning under a conspicuous head-line in +the daily newspapers, and Mr. Sidney Jarvice read the item in the Pullman +car as he traveled from Brighton to his office in London. He removed his +big cigar from his fat red lips, and became absorbed in thought. The +train rushed past Hassocks and Three Bridges and East Croydon. Mr. +Jarvice never once looked at his newspaper again. The big cigar of which +the costliness was proclaimed by the gold band about its middle had long +since gone out, and for him the train came quite unexpectedly to a stop +at the ticket platform on Battersea Bridge. + +Mr. Jarvice was a florid person in his looks and in his dress. It was in +accordance with his floridness that he always retained the gold band +about his cigar while he smoked it. He was a man of middle age, with +thick, black hair, a red, broad face, little bright, black eyes, a black +mustache and rather prominent teeth. He was short and stout, and drew +attention to his figure by wearing light-colored trousers adorned with a +striking check. From Victoria Station he drove at once to his office in +Jermyn Street. A young and wizened-looking clerk was already at work in +the outer room. + +"I will see no one this morning, Maunders," said Mr. Jarvice as he +pressed through. + +"Very well, sir. There are a good number of letters," replied the clerk. + +"They must wait," said Mr. Jarvice, and entering his private room he shut +the door. He did not touch the letters upon his table, but he went +straight to his bureau, and unlocking a drawer, took from it a copy of +the Code Napoleon. He studied the document carefully, locked it up again +and looked at his watch. It was getting on toward one o'clock. He rang +the bell for his clerk. + +"Maunders," he said, "I once asked you to make some inquiries about a +young man called Walter Hine." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Do you remember what his habits were? Where he lunched, for instance?" + +Maunders reflected for a moment. + +"It's a little while ago, sir, since I made the inquiries. As far as I +remember, he did not lunch regularly anywhere. But he went to the +American Bar of the Criterion restaurant most days for a morning drink +about one." + +"Oh, he did? You made his acquaintance, of course?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, you might find him this morning, give him some lunch, and bring +him round to see me at three. See that he is sober." + +At three o'clock accordingly Mr. Walter Hine was shown into the inner +room of Mr. Jarvice. Jarvice bent his bright eyes upon his visitor. He +saw a young man with very fair hair, a narrow forehead, watery blue eyes +and a weak, dissipated face. Walter Hine was dressed in a cheap suit of +tweed much the worse for wear, and he entered the room with the sullen +timidity of the very shy. Moreover, he was a little unsteady as he +walked, as though he had not yet recovered from last night's +intoxication. + +Mr. Jarvice noted these points with his quick glance, but whether they +pleased him or not there was no hint upon his face. + +"Will you sit down?" he said, suavely, pointing to a chair. "Maunders, +you can go." + +Walter Hine turned quickly, as though he would have preferred Maunders to +stay, but he let him go. Mr. Jarvice shut the door carefully, and, +walking across the room, stood over his visitor with his hands in his +pockets, and renewed his scrutiny. Walter Hine grew uncomfortable, and +blurted out with a cockney twang-- + +"Maunders told me that if I came to see you it might be to my advantage." + +"I think it will," replied Mr. Jarvice. "Have you seen this +morning's paper?" + +"On'y the 'Sportsman'." + +"Then you have probably not noticed that your cousin, John Lattery, has +been killed in the Alps." He handed his newspaper to Hine, who glanced at +it indifferently. + +"Well, how does that affect me?" he asked. + +"It leaves you the only heir to your uncle, Mr. Joseph Hine, wine-grower +at Macon, who, I believe, is a millionaire. Joseph Hine is domiciled in +France, and must by French law leave a certain portion of his property to +his relations, in other words, to you. I have taken some trouble to go +into the matter, Mr. Hine, and I find that your share must at the very +least amount to two hundred thousand pounds." + +"I know all about that," Hine interrupted. "But as the old brute won't +acknowledge me and may live another twenty years, it's not much use +to me now." + +"Well," said Mr. Jarvice, smiling suavely, "my young friend, that is +where I come in." + +Walter Hine looked up in surprise. Suspicion followed quickly upon +the surprise. + +"Oh, on purely business terms, of course," said Jarvice. He took a seat +and resumed gaily. "Now I am by profession--what would you guess? I am a +money-lender. Luckily for many people I have money, and I lend it--I lend +it upon very easy terms. I make no secret of my calling, Mr. Hine. On the +contrary, I glory in it. It gives me an opportunity of doing a great deal +of good in a quiet way. If I were to show you my books you would realize +that many famous estates are only kept going through my assistance; and +thus many a farm laborer owes his daily bread to me and never knows his +debt. Why should I conceal it?" + +Mr. Jarvice turned toward his visitor with his hands outspread. Then his +voice dropped. + +"There is only one thing I hide, and that, Mr. Hine, is the easiness of +the terms on which I advance my loans. I must hide that. I should have +all my profession against me were it known. But you shall know it, Mr. +Hine." He leaned forward and patted his young friend upon the knee with +an air of great benevolence. "Come, to business! Your circumstances are +not, I think, in a very flourishing condition." + +"I should think not," said Walter Hine, sullenly. "I have a hundred and +fifty a year, paid weekly. Three quid a week don't give a fellow much +chance of a flutter." + +"Three pounds a week. Ridiculous!" cried Mr. Jarvice, lifting up his +hands. "I am shocked, really shocked. But we will alter all that. Oh yes, +we will soon alter that." + +He sprang up briskly, and unlocking once more the drawer in which he kept +his copy of the Code Napoleon, he took out this time a slip of paper. He +seated himself again, drawing up his chair to the table. + +"Will you tell me, Mr. Hine, whether these particulars are correct? We +must be business-like, you know. Oh yes," he said, gaily wagging his head +and cocking his bright little eyes at his visitor. And he began to read +aloud, or rather paraphrase, the paper which he held: + +"Your father inherited the same fortune as your uncle, Joseph Hine, but +lost almost the entire amount in speculation. In middle life he married +your mother, who was--forgive me if I wound the delicacy of your +feelings, Mr. Hine--not quite his equal in social position. The happy +couple then took up their residence in Arcade Street, Croydon, where you +were born on March 6, twenty-three years ago." + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"In Croydon you passed your boyhood. You were sent to the public school +there. But the rigorous discipline of school life did not suit your +independent character." Thus did Mr. Jarvice gracefully paraphrase the +single word "expelled" which was written on his slip of paper. "Ah, Mr. +Hine," he cried, smiling indulgently at the sullen, bemused weakling who +sat before him, stale with his last night's drink. "You and Shelley! +Rebels, sir, rebels both! Well, well! After you left school, at the age +of sixteen, you pursued your studies in a desultory fashion at home. Your +father died the following year. Your mother two years later. You have +since lived in Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on the income which remained +from your father's patrimony. Three pounds a week--to be sure, here it +is--paid weekly by trustees appointed by your mother. And you have +adopted none of the liberal professions. There we have it, I think." + +"You seem to have taken a lot of trouble to find out my history," said +Walter Hine, suspiciously. + +"Business, sir, business," said Mr. Jarvice. It was on the tip of his +tongue to add, "The early bird, you know," but he was discreet enough to +hold the words back. "Now let me look to the future, which opens out in a +brighter prospect. It is altogether absurd, Mr. Hine, that a young +gentleman who will eventually inherit a quarter of a million should have +to scrape through meanwhile on three pounds a week. I put it on a higher +ground. It is bad for the State, Mr. Hine, and you and I, like good +citizens of this great empire, must consider the State. When this great +fortune comes into your hands you should already have learned how to +dispose of it." + +"Oh, I could dispose of it all right," interrupted Mr. Hine with a +chuckle. "Don't you worry your head about that." + +Mr. Jarvice laughed heartily at the joke. Walter Hine could not but think +that he had made a very witty remark. He began to thaw into something +like confidence. He sat more easily on his chair. + +"You will have your little joke, Mr. Hine. You could dispose of it! Very +good indeed! I must really tell that to my dear wife. But business, +business!" He checked his laughter with a determined effort, and lowered +his voice to a confidential pitch. "I propose to allow you two thousand +pounds a year, paid quarterly in advance. Five hundred pounds each +quarter. Forty pounds a week, Mr. Hine, which with your three will make a +nice comfortable living wage! Ha! Ha!" + +"Two thousand a year!" gasped Mr. Hine, leaning back in his chair. "It +ain't possible. Two thou--here, what am I to do for it?" + +"Nothing, except to spend it like a gentleman," said Mr. Jarvice, beaming +upon his visitor. It did not seem to occur to either man that Mr. Jarvice +had set to his loan the one condition which Mr. Walter Hine never could +fulfil. Walter Hine was troubled with doubts of quite another kind. + +"But you come in somewhere," he said, bluntly. "On'y I'm hanged if I +see where." + +"Of course I come in, my young friend," replied Jarvice, frankly. "I or +my executors. For we may have to wait a long time. I propose that you +execute in my favor a post-obit on your uncle's life, giving me--well, we +may have to wait a long time. Twenty years you suggested. Your uncle is +seventy-three, but a hale man, living in a healthy climate. We will say +four thousand pounds for every two thousand which I lend you. Those are +easy terms, Mr. Hine. I don't make you take cigars and sherry! No! I +think such practices almost reflect discredit on my calling. Two thousand +a year! Five hundred a quarter! Forty pounds a week! Forty-three with +your little income! Well, what do you say?" + +Mr. Hine sat dazzled with the prospect of wealth, immediate wealth, +actually within his reach now. But he had lived amongst people who never +did anything for nothing, who spoke only a friendship when they proposed +to borrow money, and at the back of his mind suspicion and incredulity +were still at work. Somehow Jarvice would be getting the better of him. +In his dull way he began to reason matters out. + +"But suppose I died before my uncle, then you would get nothing," +he objected. + +"Ah, to be sure! I had not forgotten that point," said Mr. Jarvice. "It +is a contingency, of course, not very probable, but still we do right to +consider it." He leaned back in his chair, and once again he fixed his +eyes upon his visitor in a long and silent scrutiny. When he spoke again, +it was in a quieter voice than he had used. One might almost have said +that the real business of the interview was only just beginning. + +"There is a way which will save me from loss. You can insure your life as +against your uncle's, for a round sum--say for a hundred thousand pounds. +You will make over the policy to me. I shall pay the premiums, and so if +anything were to happen to you I should be recouped." + +He never once removed his eyes from Hine's face. He sat with his elbows +on the arms of his chair and his hands folded beneath his chin, quite +still, but with a queer look of alertness upon his whole person. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Hine, as he turned the proposal over in his mind. + +"Do you agree?" asked Jarvice. + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"Very well," said Jarvice, all his old briskness returning. "The sooner +the arrangement is pushed through, the better for you, eh? You will begin +to touch the dibs." He laughed and Walter Hine chuckled. "As to the +insurance, you will have to get the company's doctor's certificate, and I +should think it would be wise to go steady for a day or two, what? You +have been going the pace a bit, haven't you? You had better see your +solicitor to-day. As soon as the post-obit and the insurance policy are +in this office, Mr. Hine, your first quarter's income is paid into your +bank. I will have an agreement drawn, binding me on my side to pay you +two thousand a year until your uncle's death." + +Mr. Jarvice rose as if the interview was ended. He moved some papers on +his table, and added carelessly--"You have a good solicitor, I suppose?" + +"I haven't a solicitor at all," said Walter Hine, as he, too, rose. + +"Oh, haven't you?" said Mr. Jarvice, with all the appearance of surprise. +"Well, shall I give you an introduction to one?" He sat down, wrote a +note, placed it in an envelope, which he left unfastened, and addressed +it. Then he handed the envelope to his client. + +"Messrs. Jones and Stiles, Lincoln's Inn Fields," he said. "But ask for +Mr. Driver. Tell him the whole proposal frankly, and ask his advice." + +"Driver?" said Hine, fingering the envelope. "Hadn't I ought to see one +of the partners?" + +Mr. Jarvice smiled. + +"You have a business head, Mr. Hine, that's very clear. I'll let you into +a secret. Mr. Driver is rather like yourself--something of a rebel, Mr. +Hine. He came into disagreement with that very arbitrary body the +Incorporated Law Society, so,--well his name does not figure in the firm. +But he _is_ Jones and Stiles. Tell him everything! If he advises you +against my proposal, I shall even say take his advice. Good-morning." Mr. +Jarvice went to the door and opened it. + +"Well, this is the spider's web, you know," he said, with the +good-humored laugh of one who could afford to despise the slanders of the +ill-affected. "Not such a very uncomfortable place, eh?" and he bowed Mr. +Fly out of his office. + +He stood at the door and waited until the outer office closed. Then he +went to his telephone and rang up a particular number. + +"Are you Jones and Stiles?" he asked. "Thank you! Will you ask Mr. Driver +to come to the telephone"; and with Mr. Driver he talked genially for the +space of five minutes. + +Then, and not till then, with a smile of satisfaction, Mr. Jarvice turned +to the unopened letters which had come to him by the morning post. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + +That summer was long remembered in Chamonix. July passed with a +procession of cloudless days; valley and peak basked in sunlight. August +came, and on a hot starlit night in the first week of that month Chayne +sat opposite to Michel Revailloud in the balcony of a café which +overhangs the Arve. Below him the river tumbling swiftly amidst the +boulders flashed in the darkness like white fire. He sat facing the +street. Chamonix was crowded and gay with lights. In the little square +just out of sight upon the right, some traveling musicians were singing, +and up and down the street the visitors thronged noisily. Women in +light-colored evening frocks, with lace shawls thrown about their +shoulders and their hair; men in attendance upon them, clerks from Paris +and Geneva upon their holidays; and every now and then a climber with his +guide, come late from the mountains, would cross the bridge quickly and +stride toward his hotel. Chayne watched the procession in silence quite +aloof from its light-heartedness and gaiety. Michel Revailloud drained +his glass of beer, and, as he replaced it on the table, said wistfully: + +"So this is the last night, monsieur. It is always sad, the last night." + +"It is not exactly as we planned it," replied Chayne, and his eyes moved +from the throng before him in the direction of the churchyard, where a +few days before his friend had been laid amongst the other Englishmen who +had fallen in the Alps. "I do not think that I shall ever come back to +Chamonix," he said, in a quiet and heart-broken voice. + +Michel gravely nodded his head. + +"There are no friendships," said he, "like those made amongst the snows. +But this, monsieur, I say: Your friend is not greatly to be pitied. He +was young, had known no suffering, no ill-health, and he died at once. He +did not even kick the snow for a little while." + +"No doubt that's true," said Chayne, submitting to the commonplace, +rather than drawing from it any comfort. He called to the waiter. "Since +it is the last night, Michel," he said, with a smile, "we will drink +another bottle of beer." + +He leaned back in his chair and once more grew silent, watching the +thronged street and the twinkling lights. In the little square one of the +musicians with a very clear sweet voice was singing a plaintive song, and +above the hum of the crowd, the melody, haunting in its wistfulness, +floated to Chayne's ears, and troubled him with many memories. + +Michel leaned forward upon the table and answered not merely with +sympathy but with the air of one speaking out of full knowledge, and +speaking moreover in a voice of warning. + +"True, monsieur. The happiest memories can be very bitter--if one has no +one to share them. All is in that, monsieur. If," and he repeated his +phrase--"If one has no one to share them." Then the technical side of +Chayne's proposal took hold of him. + +"The Col Dolent? You will have to start early from the Chalet de Lognan, +monsieur. You will sleep there, of course, to-morrow. You will have to +start at midnight--perhaps even before. There is very little snow this +year. The great bergschrund will be very difficult. In any season it is +always difficult to cross that bergschrund on to the steep ice-slope +beyond. It is so badly bridged with snow. This season it will be as bad +as can be. The ice-slope up to the Col will also take a long time. So +start very early." + +As Michel spoke, as he anticipated the difficulties and set his thoughts +to overcome them, his eyes lit up, his whole face grew younger. + +Chayne smiled. + +"I wish you were coming with me Michel," he said, and at once the +animation died out of Michel's face. He became once more a sad, +dispirited man. + +"Alas, monsieur," he said, "I have crossed my last Col. I have ascended +my last mountain." + +"You, Michel?" cried Chayne. + +"Yes, monsieur, I," replied Michel, quietly. "I have grown old. My eyes +hurt me on the mountains, and my feet burn. I am no longer fit for +anything except to lead mules up to the Montanvert and conduct parties on +the Mer de Glace." + +Chayne stared at Michel Revailloud. He thought of what the guide's life +had been, of its interest, its energy, its achievement. More than one of +those aiguilles towering upon his left hand, into the sky, had been first +conquered by Michel Revailloud. And how he had enjoyed it all! What +resource he had shown, what cheerfulness. Remorse gradually seized upon +Chayne as he looked across the little iron table at his guide. + +"Yes, it is a little sad," continued Revailloud. "But I think that toward +the end, life is always a little sad, if"--and the note of warning once +more was audible--"if one has no well-loved companion to share one's +memories." + +The very resignation of Michel's voice brought Chayne to a yet deeper +compunction. The wistful melody still throbbed high and sank, and soared +again above the murmurs of the passers-by and floated away upon the clear +hot starlit night. Chayne wondered with what words it spoke to his old +guide. He looked at the tired sad face on which a smile of friendliness +now played, and his heart ached. He felt some shame that his own troubles +had so engrossed him. After all, Lattery was not greatly to be pitied. +That was true. He himself too was young. There would come other summers, +other friends. The real irreparable trouble sat there before him on the +other side of the iron table, the trouble of an old age to be lived out +in loneliness. + +"You never married, Michel?" he said. + +"No. There was a time, long ago, when I would have liked to," the guide +answered, simply. "But I think now it was as well that I did not get my +way. She was very extravagant. She would have needed much money, and +guides are poor people, monsieur--not like your professional cricketers," +he said, with a laugh. And then he turned toward the massive wall of +mountains. Here and there a slim rock spire, the Dru or the Charmoz, +pointed a finger to the stars, here and there an ice-field glimmered like +a white mist held in a fold of the hills. But to Michel Revailloud, the +whole vast range was spread out as on a raised map, buttress and peak, +and dome of snow from the Aiguille d'Argentière in the east to the summit +of Mont Blanc in the west. In his thoughts he turned from mountain to +mountain and found each one, majestic and beautiful, dear as a living +friend, and hallowed with recollections. He remembered days when they had +called, and not in vain, for courage and endurance, days of blinding +snow-storms and bitter winds which had caught him half-way up some +ice-glazed precipice of rock or on some long steep ice-slope crusted +dangerously with thin snow into which the ax must cut deep hour after +hour, however frozen the fingers, or tired the limbs. He recalled the +thrill of joy with which, after many vain attempts, he, the first of men, +had stepped on to the small topmost pinnacle of this or that new peak. He +recalled the days of travel, the long glacier walks on the high level +from Chamonix to Zermatt, and from Zermatt again to the Oberland; the +still clear mornings and the pink flush upon some high white cone which +told that somewhere the sun had risen; and the unknown ridges where +expected difficulties suddenly vanished at the climber's approach, and +others where an easy scramble suddenly turned into the most difficult of +climbs. Michel raised his glass in the air. "Here is good-by to you--the +long good-by," he said, and his voice broke. And abruptly he turned to +Chayne with his eyes full of tears and began to speak in a quick +passionate whisper, while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his +face quivered. + +"Monsieur, I told you your friend was not greatly to be pitied. I tell +you now something more. The guide we brought down with him from the +Glacier des Nantillons a fortnight back--all this fortnight I have been +envying him--yes, yes, even though he kicked the snow with his feet for a +little before he died. It is better to do so than to lead mules up to the +Montanvert." + +"I am sorry," said Chayne. + +The words sounded, as he spoke them, lame enough and trivial in the face +of Michel's passionate lament. But they had an astonishing effect upon +the guide. The flow of words stopped at once, he looked at his young +patron almost whimsically and a little smile played about his mouth. + +"'I am sorry,'" he repeated. "Those were the words the young lady spoke +to you on the steps of the hotel. You have spoken with her, monsieur, and +thanked her for them?" + +"No," said Chayne, and there was much indifference in his voice. + +Women had, as yet, not played a great part in Chayne's life. Easy to +please, but difficult to stir, he had in the main just talked with them +by the way and gone on forgetfully: and when any one had turned and +walked a little of his road beside him, she had brought to him no +thought that here might be a companion for all the way. His indifference +roused Michel to repeat, and this time unmistakably, the warning he had +twice uttered. + +He leaned across the table, fixing his eyes very earnestly on his +patron's face. "Take care, monsieur," he said. "You are lonely +to-night--very lonely. Then take good care that your old age is not one +lonely night like this repeated and repeated through many years! Take +good care that when you in your turn come to the end, and say good-by +too"--he waved his hand toward the mountains--"you have some one to share +your memories. See, monsieur!" and very wistfully he began to plead, "I +go home to-night, I go out of Chamonix, I cross a field or two, I come to +Les Praz-Conduits and my cottage. I push open the door. It is all dark +within. I light my own lamp and I sit there a little by myself. Take an +old man's wisdom, monsieur! When it is all over and you go home, take +care that there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room not empty. +Have some one to share your memories when life is nothing but memories." +He rose as he ended, and held out his hand. As Chayne took it, the guide +spoke again, and his voice shook: + +"Monsieur, you have been a good patron to me," he said, with a quiet and +most dignified simplicity, "and I make you what return I can. I have +spoken to you out of my heart, for you will not return to Chamonix and +after to-night we shall not meet again." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, and he added: "We have had many good days +together, Michel." + +"We have, monsieur." + +"I climbed my first mountain with you." + +"The Aiguille du Midi. I remember it well." + +Both were silent after that, and for the same reason. Neither could trust +his voice. Michel Revailloud picked up his hat, turned abruptly away and +walked out of the café into the throng of people. Chayne resumed his seat +and sat there, silent and thoughtful, until the street began to empty and +the musicians in the square ceased from their songs. + +Meanwhile Michel Revailloud walked slowly down the street, stopping to +speak with any one he knew however slightly, that he might defer his +entrance into the dark and empty cottage at Les Praz-Conduits. He drew +near to the hotel where Chayne was staying and saw under the lamp above +the door a guide whom he knew talking with a young girl. The young girl +raised her head. It was she who had said, "I am sorry." As Michel came +within the circle of light she recognized him. She spoke quickly to the +guide and he turned at once and called "Michel," and when Revailloud +approached, he presented him to Sylvia Thesiger. "He has made many first +ascents in the range of Mont Blanc, mademoiselle." + +Sylvia held out her hand with a smile of admiration. + +"I know," she said. "I have read of them." + +"Really?" cried Michel. "You have read of them--you, mademoiselle?" + +There was as much pleasure as wonder in his tone. After all, flattery +from the lips of a woman young and beautiful was not to be despised, he +thought, the more especially when the flattery was so very well deserved. +Life had perhaps one or two compensations to offer him in his old age. + +"Yes, indeed. I am very glad to meet you, Michel. I have known your name +a long while and envied you for living in the days when these mountains +were unknown." + +Revailloud forgot the mules to the Montanvert and the tourists on the Mer +de Glace. He warmed into cheerfulness. This young girl looked at him with +so frank an envy. + +"Yes, those were great days, mademoiselle," he said, with a thrill of +pride in his voice. "But if we love the mountains, the first ascent or +the hundredth--there is just the same joy when you feel the rough rock +beneath your fingers or the snow crisp under your feet. Perhaps +mademoiselle herself will some time--" + +At once Sylvia interrupted him with an eager happiness-- + +"Yes, to-morrow," she said. + +"Oho! It is your first mountain, mademoiselle?" + +"Yes." + +"And Jean here is your guide. Jean and his brother, I suppose?" Michel +laid his hand affectionately on the guide's shoulder. "You could not do +better, mademoiselle." + +He looked at her thoughtfully for a little while. She was fresh--fresh as +the smell of the earth in spring after a fall of rain. Her eyes, the +alertness of her face, the eager tones of her voice, were irresistible to +him, an old tired man. How much more irresistible then to a younger man. +Her buoyancy would lift such an one clear above his melancholy, though it +were deep as the sea. He himself, Michel Revailloud, felt twice the +fellow he had been when he sat in the balcony above the Arve. + +"And what mountain is it to be, mademoiselle?" he asked. + +The girl took a step from the door of the hotel and looked upward. To the +south, but quite close, the long thin ridge of the Aiguille des Charmoz +towered jagged and black against the starlit sky. On one pinnacle of that +ridge a slab of stone was poised like the top of a round table on the +slant. It was at that particular pinnacle that Sylvia looked. + +"L'Aiguille des Charmoz," said Michel, doubtfully, and Sylvia swung round +to him and argued against his doubt. + +"But I have trained myself," she said. "I have been up the Brévent and +Flégère. I am strong, stronger than I look." + +Michel Revailloud smiled. + +"Mademoiselle, I do not doubt you. A young lady who has enthusiasm is +very hard to tire. It is not because of the difficulty of that rock-climb +that I thought to suggest--the Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Sylvia turned with some hesitation to the younger guide. + +"You too spoke of that mountain," she said. + +Michel pressed his advantage. + +"And wisely, mademoiselle. If you will let me advise you, you will sleep +to-morrow night at the Pavillon de Lognan and the next day climb the +Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Sylvia looked regretfully up to the ridge of the Charmoz which during +this last fortnight had greatly attracted her. She turned her eyes from +the mountain to Revailloud and let them rest quietly upon his face. + +"And why do you advise the Aiguille d'Argentière?" she asked. + +Michel saw her eyes softly shining upon him in the darkness, and all the +more persisted. Was not his dear patron who must needs be helped to open +his eyes, since he would not open them himself, going to sleep to-morrow +in the Pavillon de Lognan? The roads to the Col Dolent and the Aiguille +d'Argentière both start from that small mountain inn. But this was hardly +the reason which Michel could give to the young girl who questioned him. +He bethought him of another argument, a subtle one which he fancied would +strongly appeal to her. Moreover, there was truth in it. + +"I will tell you why, mademoiselle. It is to be your first mountain. It +will be a day in your life which you will never forget. Therefore you +want it to be as complete as possible--is it not so? It is a good +rock-climb, the Aiguille des Charmoz--yes. But the Argentière is more +complete. There is a glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff, +and at the top of that a steep ice-slope. And that is not all. You want +your last step on to the summit to reveal a new world to you. On the +Charmoz, it is true, there is a cleft at the very top up which you +scramble between two straight walls and you pop your head out above the +mountain. Yes, but you see little that is new; for before you enter the +cleft you see both sides of the mountain. With the Argentière it is +different. You mount at the last, for quite a time behind the mountain +with your face to the ice-slope; and then suddenly you step out upon the +top and the chain of Mont Blanc will strike suddenly upon your eyes and +heart. See, mademoiselle, I love these mountains with a very great pride +and I would dearly like you to have that wonderful white revelation of a +new strange world upon your first ascent." + +Before he had ended, he knew that he had won. He heard the girl draw +sharply in her breath. She was making for herself a picture of the last +step from the ice-slope to summit ridge. + +"Very well," she said. "It shall be the Aiguille d'Argentière." + +Michel went upon his way out of Chamonix and across the fields. They +would be sure to speak, those two, to-morrow at the Pavillon de Lognan. +If only there were no other party there in that small inn! Michel's hopes +took a leap and reached beyond the Pavillon de Lognan. To ascend one's +first mountain--yes, that was enviable and good. But one should have a +companion with whom one can live over again the raptures of that day, in +the after time. Well--perhaps--perhaps! + +Michel pushed open the door of his cottage, and lit his lamp, without +after all bethinking him that the room was dark and empty. His ice-axes +stood in a corner, the polished steel of their adz-heads gleaming in the +light; his _Rücksack_ and some coils of rope hung upon pegs; his book +with the signatures and the comments of his patrons lay at his elbow on +the table, a complete record of his life. But he was not thinking that +they had served him for the last time. He sat down in his chair and so +remained for a little while. But a smile was upon his face, and once or +twice he chuckled aloud as he thought of his high diplomacy. He did not +remember at all that to-morrow he would lead mules up to the Montanvert +and conduct parties on the Mer de Glace. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + +The Pavillon de Lognan is built high upon the southern slope of the +valley of Chamonix, under the great buttresses of the Aiguille Verte. It +faces the north and from the railed parapet before its door the path +winds down through pastures bright with Alpine flowers to the pine woods, +and the village of Les Tines in the bed of the valley. But at its eastern +end a precipice drops to the great ice-fall of the Glacier d'Argentière, +and night and day from far below the roar of the glacier streams enters +in at the windows and fills the rooms with the music of a river in spate. + +At five o'clock on the next afternoon, Chayne was leaning upon the rail +looking straight down to the ice-fall. The din of the torrent was in his +ears, and it was not until a foot sounded lightly close behind him that +he knew he was no longer alone. He turned round and saw to his surprise +the over-dainty doll of the Annemasse buffet, the child of the casinos +and the bathing beaches, Sylvia Thesiger. His surprise was very +noticeable and Sylvia's face flushed. She made him a little bow and went +into the chalet. + +Chayne noticed a couple of fresh guides by the door of the guides' +quarters. He remembered the book which he had seen her reading with so +deep an interest in the buffet. And in a minute or two she came out again +on to the earth platform and he saw that she was not overdressed to-day. +She was simply and warmly dressed in a way which suggested business. On +the other hand she had not made herself ungainly. He guessed her mountain +and named it to her. + +"Yes," she replied. "Please say that it will be fine to-morrow!" + +"I have never seen an evening of better promise," returned Chayne, with a +smile at her eagerness. The brown cliffs of the Aiguille du Chardonnet +just across the glacier glowed red in the sunlight; and only a wisp of +white cloud trailed like a lady's scarf here and there in the blue of the +sky. The woman of the chalet came out and spoke to him. + +"She wants to know when we will dine," he explained to Sylvia. "There are +only you and I. We should dine early, for you will have to start early"; +and he repeated the invariable cry of that year: "There is so very little +snow. It may take you some time to get off the glacier on to your +mountain. There is always a crevasse to cross." + +"I know," said Sylvia, with a smile. "The bergschrund." + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne, and in his turn he smiled too. "Of +course you know these terms. I saw you reading a copy of the 'Alpine +Journal.'" + +They dined together an hour later with the light of the sunset reddening +the whitewashed walls of the little simple room and bathing in glory the +hills without. Sylvia Thesiger could hardly eat for wonder. Her face was +always to the window, her lips were always parted in a smile, her gray +eyes bright with happiness. + +"I have never known anything like this," she said. "It is all so strange, +so very beautiful." + +Her freshness and simplicity laid their charm on him, even as they had +done on Michel Revailloud the night before. She was as eager as a child +to get the meal done with and to go out again into the open air, before +the after-glow had faded from the peaks. There was something almost +pathetic in her desire to make the very most of such rare moments. Her +eagerness so clearly told him that such holidays came but seldom in her +life. He urged her, however, to eat, and when she had done they went out +together and sat upon the bench, watching in silence the light upon the +peaks change from purple to rose, the rocks grow cold, and the blue of +the sky deepen as the night came. + +"You too are making an ascent?" she asked. + +"No," he answered. "I am crossing a pass into Italy. I am going away from +Chamonix altogether." + +Sylvia turned to him; her eyes were gentle with sympathy. + +"Yes, I understand that," she said. "I am sorry." + +"You said that once before to me, on the steps of the hotel," said +Chayne. "It was kind of you. Though I said nothing, I was grateful"; and +he was moved to open his heart to her, and to speak of his dead friend. +The darkness gathered about them; he spoke in the curt sentences which +men use who shrink from any emotional display; he interrupted himself to +light his pipe. But none the less she understood the reality of his +distress. He told her with a freedom of which he was not himself at the +moment quite aware, of a clean, strong friendship which owed nothing to +sentiment, which was never fed by protestations, which endured through +long intervals, and was established by the memory of great dangers +cheerily encountered and overcome. It had begun amongst the mountains, +and surely, she thought, it had retained to the end something of their +inspiration. + +"We first met in the Tyrol, eight years ago. I had crossed a mountain +with a guide--the Glockturm--and came down in the evening to the +Radurschal Thal where I had heard there was an inn. The evening had +turned to rain; but from a shoulder of the mountain I had been able to +look right down the valley and had seen one long low building about four +miles from the foot of the glacier. I walked through the pastures toward +it, and found sitting outside the door in the rain the man who was to be +my friend. The door was locked, and there was no one about the house, nor +was there any other house within miles. My guide, however, went on. +Lattery and I sat out there in the rain for a couple of hours, and then +an old woman with a big umbrella held above her head came down from the +upper pastures, driving some cows in front of her. She told us that no +one had stayed at her inn for fourteen years. But she opened her door, +lit us a great fire, and cooked us eggs and made us coffee. I remember +that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. We sat in front of the +fire with the bedding and the mattresses airing behind us until late into +the night. The rain got worse too. There was a hole in the thatch +overhead, and through it I saw the lightning slash the sky, as I lay in +bed. Very few people ever came up or down that valley; and the next +morning, after the storm, the chamois were close about the inn, on the +grass. We went on together. That was the beginning." + +He spoke simply, with a deep quietude of voice. The tobacco glowed and +grew dull in the bowl of his pipe regularly; the darkness hid his face. +But the tenderness, almost the amusement with which he dwelt on the +little insignificant details of that first meeting showed her how very +near to him it was at this moment. + +"We went from the Tyrol down to Verona and baked ourselves in the sun +there for a day, under the colonnades, and then came back through the +St. Gotthard to Göschenen. Do you know the Göschenen Thal? There is a +semicircle of mountains, the Winterbergen, which closes it in at the +head. We climbed there together for a week, just he and I and no guides. +I remember a rock-ridge there. It was barred by a pinnacle which stood +up from it--'a gendarme,' as they call it. We had to leave the arête and +work out along the face of the pinnacle at right angles to the mountain. +There was a little ledge. You could look down between your feet quite +straight to the glacier, two thousand feet below. We came to a place +where the wall of the pinnacle seemed possible. Almost ten feet above +us, there was a flaw in the rock which elsewhere was quite +perpendicular. I was the lightest. So my friend planted himself as +firmly as he could on the ledge with his hands flat against the rock +face. There wasn't any handhold, you see, and I climbed out on to his +back and stood upon his shoulders. I saw that the rock sloped back from +the flaw or cleft in quite a practicable way. Only there was a big +boulder resting on the slope within reach, and which we could hardly +avoid touching. It did not look very secure. So I put out my hand and +just touched it--quite, quite gently. But it was so exactly balanced +that the least little vibration overset it, and I saw it begin to move, +very slowly, as if it meant no harm whatever. But it was moving, +nevertheless, toward me. My chest was on a level with the top of the +cleft, so that I had a good view of the boulder. I couldn't do anything +at all. It was much too heavy and big for my arms to stop and I couldn't +move, of course, since I was standing on Jack Lattery's shoulders. There +did not seem very much chance, with nothing below us except two thousand +feet of vacancy. But there was just at my side a little bit of a crack +in the edge of the cleft, and there was just a chance that the rock +might shoot out down that cleft past me. I remember standing and +watching the thing sliding down, not in a rush at all, but very +smoothly, almost in a friendly sort of way, and I wondered how long it +would be before it reached me. Luckily some irregularity in the slope of +rock just twisted it into the crack, and it suddenly shot out into the +air at my side with a whizz. It was so close to me that it cut the cloth +of my sleeve. I had been so fascinated by the gentle movement of the +boulder that I had forgotten altogether to tell Lattery what was +happening; and when it whizzed out over his head, he was so startled +that he nearly lost his balance on the little shelf and we were within +an ace of following our rock down to the glacier. Those were our early +days." And he laughed with a low deep ring of amusement in his voice. + +"We were late that day on the mountain," he resumed, "and it was dark +when we got down to a long snow-slope at its foot. It was new ground to +us. We were very tired. We saw it glimmering away below us. It might end +in a crevasse and a glacier for all we knew, and we debated whether we +should be prudent or chance it. We chanced the crevasse. We sat down and +glissaded in the dark with only the vaguest idea where we should end. +Altogether we had very good times, he and I. Well, they have come to an +end on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +Chayne became silent; Sylvia Thesiger sat at his side and did not +interrupt. In front of them the pastures slid away into darkness. Only a +few small clear lights shining in the chalets told them there were other +people awake in the world. Except for the reverberation of the torrent +deep in the gorge at their right, no sound at all broke the deep silence. +Chayne knocked the ashes from his pipe. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been talking to you about one whom +you never knew. You were so quiet that I seemed to be merely remembering +to myself." + +"I was so quiet," Sylvia explained, "because I wished you to go on. I was +very glad to hear you. It was all new and strange and very pleasant to +me--this story of your friendship. As strange and pleasant as this cool, +quiet night here, a long way from the hotels and the noise, on the edge +of the snow. For I have heard little of such friendships and I have seen +still less." + +Chayne's thoughts were suddenly turned from his dead friend to this, the +living companion at his side. There was something rather sad and pitiful +in the tone of her voice, no less than in the words she used. She spoke +with so much humility. He was aware with a kind of shock, that here was a +woman, not a child. He turned his eyes to her, as he had turned his +thoughts. He could see dimly the profile of her face. It was still as the +night itself. She was looking straight in front of her into the darkness. +He pondered upon her life and how she bore with it, and how she had kept +herself unspoiled by its associations. Of the saving grace of her dreams +he knew nothing. But the picture of her mother was vivid to his eyes, the +outlawed mother, shunned instinctively by the women, noisy and shrill, +and making her companions of the would-be fashionable loiterers and the +half-pay officers run to seed. That she bore it ill her last words had +shown him. They had thrown a stray ray of light upon a dark place which +seemed a place of not much happiness. + +"I am very glad that you are here to-night," he said. "It has been kind +of you to listen. I rather dreaded this evening." + +Though what he said was true, it was half from pity that he said it. He +wished her to feel her value. And in reply she gave him yet another +glimpse into the dark place. + +"Your friend," she said, "must have been much loved in Chamonix." + +"Why?" + +"So many guides came of their own accord to search for him." + +Again Chayne's face was turned quickly toward her. Here indeed was a sign +of the people amongst whom she lived, and of their unillumined thoughts. +There must be the personal reason always, the personal reason or money. +Outside of these, there were no motives. He answered her gently: + +"No; I think that was not the reason. How shall I put it to you?" He +leaned forward with his elbows upon his knees, and spoke slowly, choosing +his words. "I think these guides obeyed a law, a law not of any man's +making, and the one law last broken--the law that what you know, that you +must do, if by doing it you can save a life. I should think nine medals +out of ten given by the Humane Society are given because of the +compulsion of that law. If you can swim, sail a boat, or climb a +mountain, and the moment comes when a life can only be saved if you use +your knowledge--well, you have got to use it. That's the law. Very often, +I have no doubt, it's quite reluctantly obeyed, in most cases I think +it's obeyed by instinct, without consideration of the consequences. But +it _is_ obeyed, and the guides obeyed it when so many of them came with +me on to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He heard the girl at his side draw in a sharp breath. She shivered. + +"You are cold?" + +"No," she answered. "But that, too, is all strange to me. I should have +known of that law without the need to be told of it. But I shall not +forget it." + +Again humility was very audible in the quiet tone of her voice. She +understood that she had been instructed. She felt she should not have +needed it. She faced her ignorance frankly. + +"What one knows, that one must do," she repeated, fixing the words in her +mind, "if by doing it one can save a life. No, I shall not forget that." + +She rose from the seat. + +"I must go in." + +"Yes," cried Chayne, starting up. "You have stayed up too long as it is. +You will be tired to-morrow." + +"Not till to-morrow evening," she said, with a laugh. She looked upward +to the starlit sky. "It will be fine, I hope. Oh, it _must_ be fine. +To-morrow is my one day. I do so want it to be perfect," she exclaimed. + +"I don't think you need fear." + +She held out her hand to him. + +"This is good-by, I suppose," she said, and she did not hide the regret +the words brought to her. + +Chayne took her hand and kept it for a second or two. He ought to start +an hour and a half before her. That he knew very well. But he answered: + +"No. We go the same road for a little while. When do you start?" + +"At half past one." + +"I too. It will be daybreak before we say good-by. I wonder whether you +will sleep at all to-night. I never do the first night." + +He spoke lightly, and she answered him in the same key. + +"I shall hardly know whether I sleep or wake, with the noise of that +stream rising through my window. For so far back as I can remember I +always dream of running water." + +The words laid hold upon Chayne's imagination and fixed her in his +memories. He knew nothing of her really, except just this one curious +fact. She dreamed of running water. Somehow it was fitting that she +should. There was a kind of resemblance; running water was, in a way, +an image of her. She seemed in her nature to be as clear and fresh; yet +she was as elusive; and when she laughed, her laugh had a music as +light and free. + +She went into the chalet. Through the window Chayne saw her strike a +match and hold it to the candle. She stood for a moment looking out at +him gravely, with the light shining upward upon her young face. Then a +smile hesitated upon her lips and slowly took possession of her cheeks +and eyes. She turned and went into her room. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE + + +Chayne smoked another pipe alone and then walking to the end of the +little terrace looked down on to the glistening field of ice below. Along +that side of the chalet no light was burning. Was she listening? Was she +asleep? The pity which had been kindled within him grew as he thought +upon her. To-morrow she would be going back to a life she clearly hated. +On the whole he came to the conclusion that the world might have been +better organized. He lit his candle and went to bed, and it seemed that +not five minutes had passed before one of his guides knocked upon his +door. When he came into the living-room Sylvia Thesiger was already +breakfasting. + +"Did you sleep?" he asked. + +"I was too excited," she answered. "But I am not tired"; and certainly +there was no trace of fatigue in her appearance. + +They started at half past one and went up behind the hut. + +The stars shimmered overhead in a dark and cloudless sky. The night was +still; as yet there was no sign of dawn. The great rock cliffs of the +Chardonnet across the glacier and the towering ice-slopes of the Aiguille +Verte beneath which they passed were all hidden in darkness. They might +have been walking on some desolate plain of stones flat from horizon to +horizon. They walked in single file, Jean leading with a lighted lantern +in his hand, so that Sylvia, who followed next, might pick her way +amongst the boulders. Thus they marched for two hours along the left bank +of the glacier and then descended on to ice. They went forward partly on +moraine, partly on ice at the foot of the crags of the Aiguille Verte. +And gradually the darkness thinned. Dim masses of black rock began to +loom high overhead, and to all seeming very far away. The sky paled, the +dim masses of rock drew near about the climbers, and over the steep +walls, the light flowed into the white basin of the glacier as though +from every quarter of the sky. + +Sylvia stopped and Chayne came up with her. + +"Well?" he asked; and as he saw her face his thoughts were suddenly +swept back to the morning when the beauty of the ice-world was for the +first time vouchsafed to him. He seemed to recapture the fine emotion of +that moment. + +Sylvia stood gazing with parted lips up that wide and level glacier to +its rock-embattled head. The majestic silence of the place astounded her. +There was no whisper of wind, no rustling of trees, no sound of any bird. +As yet too there was no crack of ice, no roar of falling stones. And as +the silence surprised her ears, so the simplicity of color smote upon her +eyes. There were no gradations. White ice filled the basin and reached +high into the recesses of the mountains, hanging in rugged glaciers upon +their flanks, and streaking the gullies with smooth narrow ribands. And +about the ice, and above it, circling it in, black walls of rock towered +high, astonishingly steep and broken at the top into pinnacles of an +exquisite beauty. + +"I shall be very glad to have seen this," said Sylvia, as she stored the +picture in her mind, "more glad than I am even now. It will be a good +memory to fall back upon when things are troublesome." + +"Must things be troublesome?" he asked. + +"Don't let me spoil my one day," she said, with a smile. + +She moved on, and Chayne, falling back, spoke for a little with his +guides. A little further on Jean stopped. + +"That is our mountain, mademoiselle," he said, pointing eastward across +the glacier. + +Sylvia turned in that direction. + +Straight in front of her a bay of ice ran back, sloping ever upward, and +around the bay there rose a steep wall of cliffs which in the center +sharpened precipitously to an apex. The apex was not a point but a +rounded level ridge of snow which curved over on the top of the cliffs +like a billow of foam. A tiny black tower of rock stood alone on the +northern end of the snow-ridge. + +"That, mademoiselle, is the Aiguille d'Argentière. We cross the +glacier here." + +Jean put the rope about her waist, fixing it with the fisherman's bend, +and tied one end about his own, using the overhand knot, while his +brother tied on behind. They then turned at right angles to their former +march and crossed the glacier, keeping the twenty feet of rope which +separated each person extended. Once Jean looked back and uttered an +exclamation of surprise. For he saw Chayne and his guides following +across the glacier behind, and Chayne's road to the Col Dolent at the +head of the glacier lay straight ahead upon their former line of advance. +However he said nothing. + +They crossed the bergschrund with less difficulty than they had +anticipated, and ascending a ridge of debris, by the side of the lateral +glacier which descended from the cliffs of the Aiguille d'Argentière, +they advanced into the bay under the southern wall of the Aiguille du +Chardonnet. On the top of this moraine Jean halted, and the party +breakfasted, and while they breakfasted Chayne told Sylvia something of +that mountain's history. "It is not the most difficult of peaks," said +he, "but it has associations, which some of the new rock-climbs have not. +The pioneers came here." Right behind them there was a gap, the pass +between their mountain and the Aiguille du Chardonnet. "From that pass +Moore and Whymper first tried to reach the top by following the crest of +the cliffs, but they found it impracticable. Whymper tried again, but +this time up the face of the cliffs further on to the south and just to +the left of the summit. He failed, came back again and conquered. We +follow his road." + +And while they looked up the dead white of that rounded summit ridge +changed to a warm rosy color and all about that basin the topmost peaks +took fire. + +"It is the sun," said he. + +Sylvia looked across the valley. The great ice-triangle of the Aiguille +Verte flashed and sparkled. The slopes of the Les Droites and Mont Dolent +were hung with jewels; even the black precipices of the Tour Noir grew +warm and friendly. But at the head of the glacier a sheer unbroken wall +of rock swept round in the segment of a circle, and this remained still +dead black and the glacier at its foot dead white. At one point in the +knife-like edge of this wall there was a depression, and from the +depression a riband of ice ran, as it seemed from where they sat, +perpendicularly down to the Glacier d'Argentière. + +"That is the Col Dolent," said Chayne. "Very little sunlight ever creeps +down there." + +Sylvia shivered as she looked. She had never seen anything so somber, so +sinister, as that precipitous curtain of rock and its riband of ice. It +looked like a white band painted on a black wall. + +"It looks very dangerous," she said, slowly. + +"It needs care," said Chayne. + +"Especially this year when there is so little snow," added Sylvia. + +"Yes. Twelve hundred feet of ice at an angle of fifty degrees." + +"And the bergschrund's just beneath." + +"Yes, you must not slip on the Col Dolent," said he, quietly. + +Sylvia was silent a little while. Then she said with a slight hesitation: + +"And you cross that pass to-day?" + +There was still more hesitation in Chayne's voice as he answered: + +"Well, no! You see, this is your first mountain. And you have only +two guides." + +Sylvia looked at him seriously. + +"How many should I have taken for the Aiguille d'Argentière? Twelve?" + +Chayne smiled feebly. + +"Well, no," and his confusion increased. "Two, as a rule, are +enough--unless--" + +"Unless the amateur is very clumsy," she added. "Thank you, +Captain Chayne." + +"I didn't mean that," he cried. He had no idea whether she was angry or +not. She was just looking quietly and steadily into his face and waiting +for his explanation. + +"Well, the truth is," he blurted out, "I wanted to go up the Aiguille +d'Argentière with you," and he saw a smile dimple her cheeks. + +"I am honored," she said, and the tone of her voice showed besides that +she was very glad. + +"Oh, but it wasn't only for the sake of your company," he said, and +stopped. "I don't seem to be very polite, do I?" he said, lamentably. + +"Not very," she replied. + +"What I mean is this," he explained. "Ever since we started this morning, +I have been recapturing my own sensations on my first ascent. Watching +you, your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every moment of this +day, I almost feel as if I too had come fresh to the mountains, as if the +Argentière were my first peak." + +He saw the blood mount into her cheeks. + +"Was that the reason why you questioned me as to what I thought and +felt?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"I thought you were testing me," she said, slowly. "I thought you +were trying whether I was--worthy"; and once again humility had +framed her words and modulated their utterance. She recognized +without rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to look on +her as without the pale. + +The guides packed up the _Rücksacks_, and they started once more up the +moraine. In a little while they descended on to the lateral glacier which +descending from the recesses of the Aiguille d'Argentière in front of +them flowed into the great basin behind. They roped together now in one +party and ascended the glacier diagonally, rounding a great buttress +which descends from the rock ledge and bisects the ice, and drawing close +to the steep cliffs. In a little while they crossed the bergschrund from +the glacier on to the wall of mountain, and traversing by easy rocks at +the foot of the cliffs came at last to a big steep gully filled with hard +ice which led up to the ridge just below the final peak. + +"This is our way" said Jean. "We ascend by the rocks at the side." + +They breakfasted again and began to ascend the rocks to the left of the +great gully, Sylvia following second behind her leading guide. The rocks +were not difficult, but they were very steep and at times loose. +Moreover, Jean climbed fast and Sylvia had much ado to keep pace with +him. But she would not call on him to slacken his pace, and she was most +anxious not to come up on the rope but to climb with her own hands and +feet. This they ascended for the better part of an hour and Jean halted +on a convenient ledge. Sylvia had time to look down. She had climbed +with her face to the wall of rock, her eyes searching quickly for her +holds, fixing her feet securely, gripping firmly with her hands, +avoiding the loose boulders. Moreover, the rope had worried her. When +she had left it at its length between herself and the guide in front of +her, it would hang about her feet, threatening to trip her, or catch as +though in active malice in any crack which happened to be handy. If she +shortened it and held it in her hands, there would come a sudden tug +from above as the leader raised himself from one ledge to another which +almost overset her. + +Now, however, flushed with her exertion and glad to draw her breath +at her ease, she looked down and was astonished. So far below her +already seemed the glacier she had left, so steep the rocks up which +she had climbed. + +"You are not tired?" said Chayne. + +Sylvia laughed. Tired, when a dream was growing real, when she was +actually on the mountain face! She turned her face again to the rock-wall +and in a little more than an hour after leaving the foot of the gully she +stepped out on to a patch of snow on the shoulder of the mountain. She +stood in sunlight, and all the country to the east was suddenly unrolled +before her eyes. A moment before and her face was to the rock, now at her +feet the steep snow-slopes dropped to the Glacier of Saleinaz. The crags +of the Aiguille Dorées, and some green uplands gave color to the +glittering world of ice, and far away towered the white peaks of the +Grand Combin and the Weisshorn in a blue cloudless sky, and to the left +over the summit of the Grande Fourche she saw the huge embattlements of +the Oberland. She stood absorbed while the rest of the party ascended to +her side. She hardly knew indeed that they were there until Chayne +standing by her asked: + +"You are not disappointed?" + +She made no reply. She had no words wherewith to express the emotion +which troubled her to the depths. + +They rested for a while on this level patch of snow. To their right the +ridge ran sharply up to the summit. But not by that ridge was the summit +to be reached. They turned over on to the eastern face of the mountain +and traversed in a straight line across the great snow-slope which sweeps +down in one white unbroken curtain toward the Glacier of Saleinaz. Their +order had been changed. First Jean advanced. Chayne followed and after +him came Sylvia. + +The leading guide kicked a step or two in the snow. Then he used the adz +of his ax. A few steps still, and he halted. + +"Ice," he said, and from that spot to the mountain top he used the pick. + +The slope was at a steep angle, the ice very hard, and each step had to +be cut with care, especially on the traverse where the whole party moved +across the mountain upon the same level, and there was no friendly hand +above to give a pull upon the rope. The slope ran steeply down beneath +them, then curved over a brow and steepened yet more. + +"Are the steps near enough together?" Chayne asked. + +"Yes," she replied, though she had to stretch in her stride. + +And upon that Jean dug his pick in the slope at his side and +turned round. + +"Lean well way from the slope, mademoiselle, not toward it. There is less +chance then of slipping from the steps," he said anxiously, and there +came a look of surprise upon his face. For he saw that already of her own +thought she was standing straight in her steps, thrusting herself out +from the slope by pressing the pick of her ax against it at the level of +her waist. And more than once thereafter Jean turned about and watched +her with a growing perplexity. Chayne looked to see whether her face +showed any sign of fear. On the contrary she was looking down that great +sweep of ice with an actual exultation. And it was not ignorance which +allowed her to exult. The evident anxiety of Chayne's words, and the +silence which since had fallen upon one and all were alone enough to +assure her that here was serious work. But she had been reading deeply of +the Alps, and in all the histories of mountain exploits which she had +read, of climbs up vertical cracks in sheer walls of rocks, balancings +upon ridges sharp as a knife edge, crawlings over smooth slabs with +nowhere to rest the feet or hands, it was the ice-slope which had most +kindled her imagination. The steep, smooth, long ice-slope, white upon +the surface, grayish-green or even black where the ax had cut the step, +the place where no slip must be made. She had lain awake at nights +listening to the roar of the streets beneath her window and picturing it, +now sleeping in the sunlight, now enwreathed in mists which opened and +showed still higher heights and still lower depths, now whipped angrily +with winds which tore off the surface icicles and snow, and sent them +swirling like smoke about the shoulders of the peak. She had dreamed +herself on to it, half shrinking, half eager, and now she was actually +upon one and she felt no fear. She could not but exult. + +The sunlight was hot upon this face of the mountain; yet her feet grew +cold, as she stood patiently in her steps, advancing slowly as the man +before her moved. Once as she stood, she moved her foot and scratched the +sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once +she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard +into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon +the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was +safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne +polishing them behind him. + +In a little while the guide turned his face to the slope and cut upward +instead of across. The slope was so steep that instead of cutting zigzags +across its face, he chopped pigeon holes straight up. They moved from one +to the other as on a ladder, and their knees touched the ice as they +stood upright in the steps. For a couple of hours the axes never ceased, +and then the leader made two or three extra steps at the side of the +staircase. On to one of them he moved out, Chayne went up and joined him. + +"Come, mademoiselle," he said, and he drew in the rope as Sylvia +advanced. She climbed up level with them on the ladder and waited, not +knowing why they stood aside. + +"Go on, mademoiselle," said the guide. She took another step or two upon +snow and uttered a cry. She had looked suddenly over the top of the +mountain on to the Aiguille Verte and the great pile of Mont Blanc, even +as Revailloud had told her that she would. The guide had stood aside that +she might be the first to step out upon the summit of the mountain. She +stood upon the narrow ridge of snow, at her feet the rock-cliffs +plastered with bulging masses of ice fell sheer to the glacier. + +Her first glance was downward to the Col Dolent. Even at this hour when +the basin of the valley was filled with sunshine that one corner at the +head of the Glacier d'Argentière was still dead white, dead black. She +shivered once more as she looked at it--so grim and so menacing the +rock-wall seemed, so hard and steep the riband of ice. Then Chayne joined +her on the ridge. They sat down and ate their meal and lay for an hour +sunning themselves in the clear air. + +"You could have had no better day," said Chayne. + +Only a few white scarfs of cloud flitted here and there across the sky +and their shadows chased each other across the glittering slopes of ice +and snow. The triangle of the Aiguille Verte was over against her, the +beautiful ridges of Les Courtes and Les Droites to her right and beyond +them the massive domes and buttresses of the great white mountain. Sylvia +lay upon the eastern slope of the Argentière looking over the brow, not +wanting to speak, and certainly not listening to any word that was +uttered. Her soul was at peace. The long-continued tension of mind and +muscle, the excitement of that last ice-slope, both were over and had +brought their reward. She looked out upon a still and peaceful world, +wonderfully bright, wonderfully beautiful, and wonderfully colored. Here +a spire would pierce the sunlight with slabs of red rock interspersed +amongst its gray; there ice-cliffs sparkled as though strewn with jewels, +bulged out in great green knobs, showed now a grim gray, now a +transparent blue. At times a distant rumble like thunder far away told +that the ice-fields were hurling their avalanches down. Once or twice she +heard a great roar near at hand, and Chayne pointing across the valleys +would show her what seemed to be a handful of small stones whizzing down +the rocks and ice-gullies of the Aiguille Verte. But on the whole this +new world was silent, communing with the heavens. She was in the hushed +company of the mountains. Days there would be when these sunlit ridges +would be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would shriek about +the gullies, and dark mists swirl around the peaks. But on this morning +there was no anger on the heights. + +"Yes--you could have had no better day for your first mountain, +mademoiselle," said Jean, as he stood beside her. "But this is not your +first mountain." + +She turned to him. + +"Yes, it is." + +Her guide bowed to her. + +"Then, mademoiselle, you have great gifts. For you stood upon that +ice-slope and moved along and up it, as only people of experience stand +and move. I noticed you. On the rocks, too, you had the instinct for the +hand-grip and the foothold and with which foot to take the step. And that +instinct, mademoiselle, comes as a rule only with practice." He paused +and looked at her perplexity. + +"Moreover, mademoiselle, you remind me of some one," he added. "I cannot +remember who it is, or why you remind me of him. But you remind me of +some one very much." He picked up the _Rücksack_ which he had taken from +his shoulders. + +It was half past eleven. Sylvia took a last look over the wide prospect +of jagged ridge, ice pinnacles and rock spires. She looked down once +more upon the slim snow peak of Mont Dolent and the grim wall of rocks +at the Col. + +"I shall never forget this," she said, with shining eyes. "Never." + +The fascination of the mountains was upon her. Something new had come +into her life that morning which would never fail her to the very end, +which would color all her days, however dull, which would give her +memories in which to find solace, longings wherewith to plan the future. +This she felt and some of this her friend understood. + +"Yes," he said. "You understand the difference it makes to one's whole +life. Each year passes so quickly looking back and looking forward." + +"Yes, I understand," she said. + +"You will come back?" + +But this time she did not answer at once. She stood looking thoughtfully +out over the bridge of the Argentière. It seemed to Chayne that she was +coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her +life. Then she said--and it seemed to him that she had made her decision: + +"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back." + +They turned away and went carefully down the slope. Again her leading +guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that +instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him. The technique +came to her so naturally. She turned her back to the slope, and thus +descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of +her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder. +Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, +he cried out: + +"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you remind me of. I have been +watching you. I know now." + +She looked up. + +"Who is it?" + +"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a whole season many years +ago. A great climber, mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name. +Gabriel Strood." + +"Gabriel Strood!" she cried, and then she laughed. "I too know his name. +You are flattering me, Jean." + +But Jean would not admit it. + +"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. "I do not say you have his +skill--how should you? But there are certain movements, certain neat ways +of putting the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind me of him." + +Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment. They reached the +lateral glacier, descended it and crossed the Glacier d'Argentière. They +found their stone-encumbered pathway of the morning and at three o'clock +stood once more upon the platform in front of the Pavillon de Lognan. +Then she rested for a while, saying very little. + +"You are tired?" he said. + +"No," she replied. "But this day has made a great difference to me." + +Her guides approached her and she said no more upon the point. But Chayne +had no doubt that she was referring to that decision which she had taken +on the summit of the peak. She stood up to go. + +"You stay here to-night?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?" + +"Yes." + +She looked at him quickly and then away. + +"You will be careful? In the shadow there?" + +"Yes." + +She was silent for a moment or two, looking up the glacier toward the +Aiguille d'Argentière. + +"I thank you very much for coming with me," and again the humility in +her voice, as of one outside the door, touched and hurt him. "I am +very grateful," and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am +rather proud!" + +"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me," he answered, as they shook +hands. "I shall cross the Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow." + +They shook hands, and he asked: + +"Shall I see no more of you?" + +"That is as you will," she replied, simply. + +"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever you are likely to be. I +am on leave now for some months." + +She thought for a second or two. Then she said: + +"If you will give me your address, I will write to you. I think I shall +be in England." + +"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs." + +She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille +d'Argentière. + +"I shall dream of that to-night." + +"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden +balustrade. "You will dream of running water." + +She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this +strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine +woods and the village of Les Tines. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + +Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in +the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent +amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached +idlers of various nationalities. + +"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over +the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so +appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the +eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her +complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She +came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the +evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the +Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could +hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of +her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days. + +"Sylvia won't fit in." + +Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and +with ever more reason. Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs. +Thesiger's scheme of life. It was not that the girl resisted or +complained. Mrs. Thesiger would have understood objections and +complaints. She would not have minded them; she could have coped with +them. There would have been little scenes, with accusations of +ingratitude, of undutifulness, and Mrs. Thesiger was not averse to the +excitement of little scenes. But Sylvia never complained; she maintained +a reserve, a mystery which her mother found very uncomfortable. "She has +no sympathy," said Mrs. Thesiger. Moreover, she would grow up, and she +would grow up in beauty and in freshness. Mrs. Thesiger did her best. She +kept her dressed in a style which suited a younger girl, or rather, which +would have suited a younger girl had it been less decorative and extreme. +Again Sylvia did not complain. She followed her usual practice and shut +her mind to the things which displeased her so completely, that they +ceased to trouble her. But Mrs. Thesiger never knew that secret; and +often, when in the midst of her chatter she threw a glance at the +elaborate figure of her daughter, sitting apart with her lace skirts too +short, her heels too high, her hat too big and too fancifully trimmed, +she would see her madonna-like face turned toward her, and her dark eyes +thoughtfully dwelling upon her. At such times there would come an +uncomfortable sensation that she was being weighed and found wanting; or +a question would leap in her mind and bring with it fear, and the same +question which she had asked herself in the train on the way to Chamonix. + +"You ask me about my daughter?" she once exclaimed pettishly to +Monsieur Pettigrat. "Upon my word, I really know nothing of her except +one ridiculous thing. She always dreams of running water. Now, I ask +you, what can you do with a daughter so absurd that she dreams of +running water?" + +Monsieur Pettigrat was a big, broad, uncommon man; he knew that he was +uncommon, and dressed accordingly in a cloak and a brigand's hat; he saw +what others did not, and spoke in a manner suitably impressive. + +"I will tell you, madame, about your daughter," he said somberly. "To me +she has a fated look." + +Mrs. Thesiger was a little consoled to think that she had a daughter with +a fated look. + +"I wonder if others have noticed it," she said, cheerfully. + +"No," replied Monsieur Pettigrat. "No others. Only I." + +"There! That's just like Sylvia," cried Mrs. Thesiger, in exasperation. +"She has a fated look and makes nothing of it." + +But the secret of her discontent was just a woman's jealousy of a younger +rival. Men were beginning to turn from her toward her daughter. That +Sylvia never competed only made the sting the sharper. The grave face +with its perfect oval, which smiled so rarely, but in so winning a way, +its delicate color, its freshness, were points which she could not +forgive her daughter. She felt faded and yellow beside her, she rouged +more heavily on account of her, she looked with more apprehension at the +crow's-feet which were beginning to show about the corners of her eyes, +and the lines which were beginning to run from the nostrils to the +corners of her mouth. + +Sylvia reached the hotel in time for dinner, and as she sat with her +mother, drinking her coffee in the garden afterward, Monsieur Pettigrat +planted himself before the little iron table. + +He shook his head, which was what his friends called "leonine." + +"Mademoiselle," he said, in his most impressive voice, "I envy you." + +Sylvia looked up at him with a little smile of mischief upon her lips. + +"And why, monsieur?" + +He waved his arm magnificently. + +"I watched you at dinner. You are of the elect, mademoiselle, for whom +the snow peaks have a message." + +Sylvia's smile faded from her face. + +"Perhaps so, monsieur," she said, gravely, and her mother +interposed testily: + +"A message! Ridiculous! There are only two words in the message, my dear. +Cold-cream! and be sure you put it on your face before you go to bed." + +Sylvia apparently did not hear her mother's comment. At all events she +disregarded it, and Monsieur Pettigrat once again shook his head at +Sylvia with a kindly magnificence. + +"They have no message for me, mademoiselle," he said, with a sigh, as +though he for once regretted that he was so uncommon. "I once went up +there to see." He waved his hand generally to the chain of Mont Blanc and +drifted largely away. + +Mrs. Thesiger, however, was to hear more definitely of that message two +days later. It was after dinner. She was sitting in the garden with her +daughter on a night of moonlight; behind them rose the wall of +mountains, silent and shadowed, in front were the lights of the little +town, and the clatter of its crowded streets. Between the town and the +mountains, at the side of the hotel this garden lay, a garden of grass +and trees, where the moonlight slept in white brilliant pools of light, +or dripped between the leaves of the branches. It partook alike of the +silence of the hills and the noise of the town, for a murmur of voices +was audible from this and that point, and under the shadows of the trees +could be seen the glimmer of light-colored frocks and the glow of cigars +waxing and waning. A waiter came across the garden with some letters for +Mrs. Thesiger. There were none for Sylvia and she was used to none, for +she had no girl friends, and though at times men wrote her letters she +did not answer them. + +A lamp burned near at hand. Mrs. Thesiger opened her letters and read +them. She threw them on to the table when she had read them through. +But there was one which angered her, and replacing it in its envelope, +she tossed it so petulantly aside that it slid off the iron table and +fell at Sylvia's feet. Sylvia stooped and picked it up. It had fallen +face upward. + +"This is from my father." + +Mrs. Thesiger looked up startled. It was the first time that Sylvia had +ever spoken of him to her. A wariness come into her eyes. + +"Well?" she asked. + +"I want to go to him." + +Sylvia spoke very simply and gently, looking straight into her mother's +face with that perplexing steadiness of gaze which told so very little of +what thoughts were busy behind it. Her mother turned her face aside. She +was rather frightened. For a while she made no reply at all, but her face +beneath its paint looked haggard and old in the white light, and she +raised her hand to her heart. When she did speak, her voice shook. + +"You have never seen your father. He has never seen you. He and I parted +before you were born." + +"But he writes to you." + +"Yes, he writes to me," and for all that she tried, she could not +altogether keep a tone of contempt out of her voice. She added with some +cruelty: "But he never mentions you. He has never once inquired after +you, never once." + +Sylvia looked very wistfully at the letter, but her purpose was +not shaken. + +"Mother, I want to go to him," she persisted. Her lips trembled a little, +and with a choke of the voice, a sob half caught back, she added: "I am +most unhappy here." + +The rarity of a complaint from Sylvia moved her mother strangely. There +was a forlornness, moreover, in her appealing attitude. Just for a moment +Mrs. Thesiger began to think of early days of which the memory was at +once a pain and a reproach. A certain little village underneath the great +White Horse on the Dorsetshire Downs rose with a disturbing vividness +before her eyes. She almost heard the mill stream babble by. In that +village of Sutton Poyntz she had herself been born, and to it she had +returned, caught back again for a little while by her own country and her +youth, that Sylvia might be born there too. These months had made a kind +of green oasis in her life. She had rested there in a farm-house, after a +time of much turbulence, with the music of running water night and day in +her ears, a high-walled garden of flowers and grass about her, and the +downs with the shadow-filled hollows, and brown treeless slopes rising up +from her very feet. She could not but think of that short time of peace, +and her voice softened as she answered her daughter. + +"We don't keep step, Sylvia," she said, with an uneasy laugh. "I know +that. But, after all, would you be happier with your father, even if he +wants to keep you! You have all you want here--frocks, amusement, +companions. Try to be more friendly with people." + +But Sylvia merely shook her head. + +"I can't go on any longer like this," she said, slowly. "I can't, mother. +If my father won't have me, I must see what I can do. Of course, I can't +do much. I don't know anything. But I am too unhappy here. I cannot +endure the life we are living without a home or--respect,--" Sylvia had +not meant to use that word. But it had slipped out before she was aware. +She broke off and turned her eyes again to her mother. They were very +bright, for the moonlight glistened upon tears. But the softness had gone +from her mother's face. She had grown in a moment hard, and her voice +rang hard as she asked: + +"Why do you think that your father and I parted? Come, let me hear!" + +Sylvia turned her head away. + +"I don't think about it," she said, gently. "I don't want to think about +it. I just think that he left you, because you did not keep step either." + +"Oh, he left me? Not I him? Then why does he write to me?" + +The voice was growing harder with every word. + +"I suppose because he is kind"; and at that simple explanation Sylvia's +mother laughed with a bitter amusement. Sylvia sat scraping the gravel +with her slipper. + +"Don't do that!" cried her mother, irritably. Then she asked suddenly a +question which startled her daughter. + +"Did you meet any one last night on the mountain, at the inn?" + +Sylvia's face colored, but the moonlight hid the change. + +"Yes," she said. + +"A man?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was it?" + +"A Captain Chayne. He was at the hotel all last week. It was his friend +who was killed on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Were you alone at the inn, you and he?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he know your father?" + +Sylvia stared at her mother. + +"I don't know. I suppose not. How should he?" + +"It's not impossible," replied Mrs. Thesiger. Then she leaned on the +table. "It was he who put these ideas into your head about going away, +about leaving me." She made an accusation rather than put a question, and +made it angrily. + +"No, mother," Sylvia replied. "He never spoke of you. The ideas have been +growing in my mind for a long time, and to-day--" She raised her head, +and turning slightly, looked up to where just behind her the ice-peaks of +the Aiguilles du Midi and de Blaitière soared into the moonlit sky. +"To-day the end came. I became certain that I must go away. I am very +sorry, mother." + +"The message of the mountains!" said her mother with a sneer, and Sylvia +answered quietly: + +"Yes." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Thesiger. She had been deeply stung by her +daughter's words, by her wish to go, and if she delayed her consent, it +was chiefly through a hankering to punish Sylvia. But the thought came to +her that she would punish Sylvia more completely if she let her go. She +smiled cruelly as she looked at the girl's pure and gentle face. And, +after all, she herself would be free--free from Sylvia's unconscious +rivalry, free from the competition of her freshness and her youth, free +from the grave criticism of her eyes. + +"Very well, you shall go to your father. But remember! You have made your +choice. You mustn't come whining back to me, because I won't have you," +she said, brutally. "You shall go to-morrow." + +She took the letter from its envelope but she did not show it to +her daughter. + +"I don't use your father's name," she said. "I have not used it +since"--and again the cruel smile appeared upon her lips--"since he left +me, as you say. He is called Garratt Skinner, and he lives in a little +house in Hobart Place. Yes, you shall start for your home to-morrow." + +Sylvia stood up. + +"Thank you," she said. She looked wistfully at her mother, asking her +pardon with the look. But she did not approach her. She stood sadly in +front of her. Mrs. Thesiger made no advance. + +"Well?" she asked, in her hard, cold voice. + +"Thank you, mother," Sylvia repeated, and she walked slowly to the door +of the hotel. She looked up to the mountains. Needle spires of rock, +glistening pinnacles of ice, they stood dreaming to the moonlight and the +stars. The great step had been taken. She prayed for something of their +calm, something of their proud indifference to storm and sunshine, +solitude and company. She went up to her room and began to pack her +trunks. And as she packed, the tears gathered in her eyes and fell. + +Meanwhile, her mother sat in the garden. So Sylvia wanted a home; she +could not endure the life she lived with her mother. Afar off a band +played; the streets beyond were noisy as a river; beneath the trees of +the garden here people talked quietly. Mrs. Thesiger sat with a little +vindictive smile upon her face. Her rival was going to be punished. Mrs. +Thesiger had left her husband, not he her. She read through the letter +which she had received from him this evening. It was a pressing request +for money. She was not going to send him money. She wondered how he would +appreciate the present of a daughter instead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + +Sylvia left Chamonix the next afternoon. It was a Saturday, and she +stepped out of her railway-carriage on to the platform of Victoria +Station at seven o'clock on the Sunday evening. She was tired by her long +journey, and she felt rather lonely as she waited for her trunks to be +passed by the officers of the custom-house. It was her very first visit +to London, and there was not one person to meet her. Other travelers were +being welcomed on all sides by their friends. No one in all London +expected her. She doubted if she had one single acquaintance in the whole +town. Her mother, foreseeing this very moment, had with a subtlety of +malice refrained from so much as sending a telegram to the girl's father; +and Sylvia herself, not knowing him, had kept silence too. Since he did +not expect her, she thought her better plan was to see him, or rather, +since her thoughts were frank, to let him see her. Her mirror had assured +her that her looks would be a better introduction than a telegram. + +She had her boxes placed upon a cab and drove off to Hobart Place. The +sense of loneliness soon left her. She was buoyed up by excitement. The +novelty of the streets amused her. Moreover, she had invented her father, +clothed him with many qualities as with shining raiment, and set him high +among the persons of her dreams. Would he be satisfied with his daughter? +That was her fear, and with the help of the looking-glass at the side of +her hansom, she tried to remove the traces of travel from her young face. + +The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between two houses, and she +got out. Over the wall she saw the green leaves and branches of a few +lime trees which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the garden, +in the far recess between the two side walls, the upper windows of a +little neat white house. Sylvia was charmed with it. She rang the bell, +and a servant came to the door. + +"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia. + +"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but--" + +Sylvia, however, had made her plans. + +"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the cabman, and walked on +through the doorway into a little garden of grass with a few flowers on +each side against the walls. A tiled path led through the middle of the +grass to the glass door of the house. Sylvia walked straight down, +followed by the cabman who brought her boxes in one after the other. The +servant, giving way before the composure of this strange young visitor, +opened the door of a sitting-room upon the left hand, and Sylvia, +followed by her trunks, entered and took possession. + +"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in perplexity. She had had no +orders to expect a visitor. Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she +heard the garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was driven +away. Then, and not till then, she answered the question. + +"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some one would like to see +him." + +The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia seated herself firmly +upon one of the boxes. In spite of her composed manner, her heart was +beating wildly. She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man along +the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After all she was in the house, she +and her baggage. The door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who +seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared at her. Then he +saw her boxes, and he frowned in perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he +was a man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-lined aquiline +face. He had thick, dark brown hair, a mustache of a lighter brown and +eyes of the color of hers--a man rather lean but of an athletic build. +Sylvia watched him intently, but the only look upon his face was one of +absolute astonishment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him, perched +upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his house. + +"You wanted to see me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She looked at him gravely. "I +am Sylvia," she said. + +A smile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about his mouth. + +"And-- + +"Who is Sylvia? What is she? +Her trunks do not proclaim her!" + +he said. "Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to stay, I am rather in +the dark." + +"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?" + +"Yes." + +"I am your daughter Sylvia." + +"My daughter Sylvia!" he exclaimed in a daze. Then he sat down and held +his head between his hands. + +"Yes, by George. I _have_ got a daughter Sylvia," he said, obviously +recollecting the fact with surprise. "But you are at Chamonix." + +"I was at Chamonix yesterday." + +Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia. + +"Did your mother send you to me?" + +"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came of my own accord. A letter +came from you--" + +"Did you see it?" interrupted her father. "Did she show it you?" + +"No, but she gave me your address when I told her that I must come away." + +"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that kindly act," he said, with +a sudden bitterness. Then he looked curiously at his daughter. + +"Why did you want to come away?" + +"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been thinking over this. I hated it +all--the people we met, the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether. +Then at Chamonix I went up a mountain." + +"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you went up a mountain? +Which one?" + +"The Aiguille d'Argentière. Do you know it, father?" + +"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner. + +"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is difficult to explain. But I +felt the difference. I felt something had happened to me which I had to +recognize--a new thing. Climbing that mountain, staying for an hour upon +its summit in the sunlight with all those great still pinnacles and +ice-slopes about me--it was just like hearing very beautiful music." She +was sitting now leaning forward with her hands clasped in front of her +and speaking with great earnestness. "All the vague longings which had +ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond, came +back upon me in a tumult. There was a place in shadow at my feet far +below, the only place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col +Dolent. It seemed to me that I was living in that cold shadow. I wanted +to get up on the ridge, with the sunlight. So I came to you." + +It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her words were and must +be elusive to another, unless that other had felt what she felt or were +moved by sympathy to feel it. Her father listened without ridicule, +without a smile. Indeed, once or twice he nodded his head to her words. +Was it comprehension, she wondered, or was it only patience? + +"When I came down from that summit, I felt that what I had hated before +was no longer endurable at all. So I came to you." + +Her father got up from his chair and stood for a little while looking out +of the window. He was clearly troubled by her words. He turned away with +a shrug of his shoulders. + +"But--but--what can I do for you here?" he cried. "Sylvia, I am a very +poor man. Your mother, on the other hand, has some money." + +"Oh, father, I shan't cost you much," she replied, eagerly. "I might +perhaps by looking after things save you money. I won't cost you much." + +Garratt Skinner looked at her with a rueful smile. + +"You look to me rather an expensive person to keep up," he said. + +"Mother dressed me like this. It's not my choice," she said. "I let her +do as she wished. It did not seem to matter much. Really, if you will let +me stay, you will find me useful," she said, in a pathetic appeal. + +"Useful?" said Garratt Skinner, suddenly. He again took stock of her, but +now with a scrutiny which caused her a vague discomfort. He seemed to be +appraising her from the color of her hair and eyes to the prettiness of +her feet, almost as though she was for sale, and he a doubtful purchaser. +She looked down on the carpet and slowly her blood colored her neck and +rose into her face. "Useful," he said, slowly. "Perhaps so, yes, perhaps +so." And upon that he changed his tone. "We will see, Sylvia. You must +stay here for the present, at all events. Luckily, there is a spare room. +I have some friends here staying to supper--just a bachelor's friends, +you know, taking pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not +polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl, sound of heart." +All his perplexity had vanished; he had taken his part; and he rattled +along with a friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from Sylvia's +thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare and winning smile. He rang +the bell for the housemaid. + +"My daughter will stay here," he said, to the servant's astonishment. +"Get the spare room ready at once. You will be hostess to-night, Sylvia, +and sit at the head of the table. I become a family man. Well, well!" + +He took Sylvia up-stairs and showed her a little bright room with a big +window which looked out across the garden. He carried her boxes up +himself. "We don't run to a butler," he said. "Got everything you want? +Ring if you haven't. We have supper at eight and we shan't dress. +Only--well, you couldn't look dowdy if you tried." + +Sylvia had not the slightest intention to try. She put on a little frock +of white lace, high at the throat, dressed her hair, and then having a +little time to spare she hurriedly wrote a letter. This letter she gave +to the servant and she ran down-stairs. + +"You will be careful to have it posted, please!" she said, and at that +moment her father came out into the passage, so quickly that he might +have been listening for her approach. + +She stopped upon the staircase, a few steps above him. The evening was +still bright, and the daylight fell upon her from a window above the +hall door. + +"Shall I do?" she asked, with a smile. + +The staircase was paneled with a dark polished wood, and she stood out +from that somber background, a white figure, delicate and dainty and +wholesome, from the silver buckle on her satin slipper to the white +flower she had placed in her hair. Her face, with its remarkable +gentleness, its suggestion of purity as of one unspotted by the world, +was turned to him with a confident appeal. Her clear gray eyes rested +quietly on his. Yet she saw his face change. It seemed that a spasm of +pain or revolt shook him. Upon her face there came a blank look. Why was +he displeased? But the spasm passed. He shrugged his shoulders and threw +off his doubt. + +"You are very pretty," he said. + +Sylvia's smile just showed about the corners of her lips and her +face cleared. + +"Yes," she said, with satisfaction. + +Garratt Skinner laughed. + +"Oh, you know that?" + +"Yes," she replied, nodding her head at him. + +He led the way down the passage toward the back of the house, and +throwing open a door introduced her to his friends. + +"Captain Barstow," he said, and Sylvia found herself shaking hands with a +little middle-aged man with a shiny bald head and a black square beard. +He had an eye-glass screwed into his right eye, and that whole side of +his face was distorted by the contraction of the muscles and drawn upward +toward the eye. He did not look at her directly, but with an oblique and +furtive glance he expressed his sense of the honor which the introduction +conferred on him. However, Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. +She turned to the next of her father's guests. + +"Mr. Archie Parminter." + +He at all events looked her straight in the face. He was a man of +moderate height, youthful in build, but old of face, upon which there sat +always a smirk of satisfaction. He was of those whom no beauty in others, +no grace, no sweetness, could greatly impress, so filled was he with +self-complacency. He had no time to admire, since always he felt that he +was being admired, and to adjust his pose, and to speak so that his +words, carried to the right distance, occupied too much of his attention. +He seldom spoke to the person he talked with but generally to some other, +a woman for choice, whom he believed to be listening to the important +sentences he uttered. For the rest, he had grown heavy in jaw and his +face (a rather flat face in which were set a pair of sharp dark eyes) +narrowed in toward the top of his head like a pear. + +He bowed suavely to Sylvia, with the air of one showing to the room how a +gentleman performed that ceremony, but took little note of her. + +But Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. + +Her father took her by the elbow and turned her about. + +"Mr. Hine." + +Sylvia was confronted with a youth who reddened under her greeting and +awkwardly held out a damp coarse hand, a poor creature with an insipid +face, coarse hair, and manner of great discomfort. He was as tall as +Parminter, but wore his good clothes with Sunday air, and having been +introduced to Sylvia could find no word to say to her. + +"Well, let us go in to supper," said her father, and he held open the +door for her to pass. + +Sylvia went into the dining-room across the narrow hall, where a cold +supper was laid upon a round table. In spite of her resolve to see all +things in a rosy light, she grew conscious, in spite of herself, that she +was disappointed in her father's friends. She was perplexed, too. He was +so clearly head and shoulders above his associates, that she wondered at +their presence in his house. Yet he seemed quite content, and in a most +genial mood. + +"You sit here, Sylvia, my dear," he said, pointing to a chair. +"Wallie"--this to the youth Hine--"sit beside my daughter and keep her +amused. Barstow, you on the other side; Parminter next to me." + +He sat opposite Sylvia and the rest took their places, Hine sidling +timidly into his chair and tortured by the thought that he had to amuse +this delicate being at his side. + +"The supper is on the table," said Garratt Skinner. "Parminter, will you +cut up this duck? Hine, what have you got in front of you? Really, this +is so exceptional an occasion that I think--" he started up suddenly, as +a man will with a new and happy idea--"I certainly think that for once in +a way we might open a bottle of champagne." + +Surprise and applause greeted this brilliant idea, and Hine cried out: + +"I think champagne fine, don't you, Miss Skinner?" + +He collapsed at his own boldness. Parminter shrugged his shoulders to +show that champagne was an every-day affair with him. + +"It's drunk a good deal at the clubs nowadays," he said. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner had not moved. He stood looking across the +table to his daughter. + +"What do you say, Sylvia? It's an extravagance. But I don't have such +luck every day. It's in your honor. Shall we? Yes, then!" + +He did not wait for an answer, but opened the door of a cupboard in the +sideboard, and there, quite ready, stood half a dozen bottles of +champagne. A doubt flashed into Sylvia's mind--a doubt whether her +father's brilliant idea was really the inspiration which his manner had +suggested. Those bottles looked so obviously got in for the occasion. +But Garratt Skinner turned to her apologetically, as though he divined +her thought. + +"We don't run to a wine cellar, Sylvia. We have to keep what little stock +we can afford in here." + +Her doubt vanished, but in an instant it returned again, for as her +father came round the table with the bottle in his hand, she noticed that +shallow champagne glasses were ready laid at every place. Garratt Skinner +filled the glasses and returned to his place. + +"Sylvia," he said, and, smiling, he drank to her. He turned to his +companions. "Congratulate me!" Then he sat down. + +The champagne thawed the tongues of the company, and as they spoke +Sylvia's heart sank more and more. For in word and thought and manner her +father's guests were familiar to her. She refused to acknowledge it, but +the knowledge was forced upon her. She had thought to step out of a world +which she hated, against which her delicacy and her purity revolted, and +lo! she had stepped out merely to take a stride and step down into it +again at another place. + +The obsequious attentiveness of Captain Barstow, the vanity of Mr. +Parminter and his affected voice, suggesting that he came out of the +great world to this little supper party, really without any sense of +condescension at all, and the behavior of Walter Hine, who, to give +himself courage, gulped down his champagne--it was all horribly familiar. +Her one consolation was her father. He sat opposite to her, his strong +aquiline face a fine contrast to the faces of the others; he had an ease +of manner which they did not possess; he talked with a quietude of his +own, and he had a watchful eye and a ready smile for his daughter. +Indeed, it seemed that what she felt his guests felt too. For they spoke +to him with a certain deference, almost as if they spoke to their master. +He alone apparently noticed no unsuitability in his guests. He sat at his +ease, their bosom friend. + +Meanwhile, plied with champagne by Archie Parminter, who sat upon the +other side of him, "Wallie" Hine began to boast. Sylvia tried to check +him, but he was not now to be stopped. His very timidity pricked him on +to extravagance, and his boasting was that worst form of boasting--the +vaunt of the innocent weakling anxious to figure as a conqueror of women. +With a flushed face he dropped his foolish hints of Mrs. This and Lady +That, with an eye upon Sylvia to watch the impression which he made, and +a wise air which said "If only I were to tell you all." + +Garratt Skinner opened a fresh bottle of champagne--the supply by now was +getting low--and came round the table with it. As he held the neck of the +bottle to the brim of Hine's glass he caught an appealing look from his +daughter. At once he lifted the bottle and left the glass unfilled. As he +passed Sylvia, she said in a low voice: + +"Thank you," and he whispered back: + +"You are quite right, my dear. Interest him so that he doesn't notice +that I have left his glass empty." + +Sylvia set herself then to talk to Wallie Hine. But he was intent on +making her understand what great successes had been his. He _would_ talk, +and it troubled her that all listened, and listened with an air of +admiration. Even her father from his side of the table smiled +indulgently. Yet the stories, or rather the hints of stories, were +certainly untrue. For this her wanderings had taught her--the man of many +successes never talks. It seemed that there was a conspiracy to flatter +the wretched youth. + +"Yes, yes. You have been a devil of a fellow among the women, Wallie," +said Captain Barstow. But at once Garratt Skinner interfered and sharply: + +"Come, come, Barstow! That's no language to use before my daughter." + +Captain Barstow presented at the moment a remarkable gradation of color. +On the top was the bald head, very shiny and white, below that a face +now everywhere a deep red except where the swollen veins stood out upon +the surface of his cheeks, and those were purple, and this in its turn +was enclosed by the black square beard. He bowed at once to Garratt +Skinner's rebuke. + +"I apologize. I do indeed, Miss Sylvia! But when I was in the service we +still clung to the traditions of Wellington by--by George. And it's hard +to break oneself of the habit. 'Red-hot,'" he said, with a chuckle. +"That's what they called me in the regiment. Red-hot Barstow. I'll bet +that Red-hot Barstow is still pretty well remembered among the boys at +Cheltenham." + +"Swearing's bad form nowadays," said Archie Parminter, superciliously. +"They have given it up at the clubs." + +Sylvia seized the moment and rose from the table. Her father sprang +forward and opened the door. + +"We will join you in a few minutes," he said. + +Sylvia went down the passage to the room at the back of the house in +which she had been presented by her father to his friends. She rang the +bell at once and when the servant came she said: + +"I gave you a letter to post this evening. I should like to have it +back." + +"I am sorry, miss, but it's posted." + +"I am sorry, too," said Sylvia, quietly. + +The letter had been written to Chayne, and gave him the address of this +house as the place where he might find her if he called. She had no +thought of going away. She had made her choice for good or ill and must +abide by it. That she knew. But she was no longer sure that she wished +Captain Chayne to come and find her there. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + +Sylvia sat down in a chair and waited. She waited impatiently, for she +knew that she had almost reached the limits of her self-command, and +needed the presence of others to keep her from breaking down. But her +native courage came to her aid, and in half an hour she heard the steps +of her father and his guests in the passage. She noticed that her father +looked anxiously toward her as he came in. + +"Do you mind if we bring in our cigars?" he asked. + +"Not at all," said she; and he came in, carrying in his hand a box of +cigars, which he placed in the middle of the table. Wallie Hine at +once stumbled across the room to Sylvia; he walked unsteadily, his +features were more flushed than before. She shrank a little from him. +But he had not the time to sit down beside her, for Captain Barstow +exclaimed jovially: + +"I say, Garratt, I have an idea. There are five of us here. Let us have a +little round game of cards." + +Sylvia started. In her heart she knew that just some such proposal as +this she had been dreading all the evening. Her sinking hopes died away +altogether. + +This poor witless youth, plied with champagne; the older men who +flattered him with lies; the suggestion of champagne made as though it +were a sudden inspiration, and the six bottles standing ready in the +cupboard; and now the suggestion of a little round game of cards made in +just the same tone! Sylvia had a feeling of horror. She had kept herself +unspotted from her world, but not through ignorance. She knew it. She +knew those little round games of cards and what came of them, sometimes +merely misery and ruin, sometimes a pistol shot in the early morning. She +turned very pale, but she managed to say: + +"Thank you. I don't play cards." + +And then she heard a sudden movement by her father, who at the moment +when Barstow spoke had been lighting a fresh cigar. She looked up. +Garratt Skinner was staring in astonishment at Captain Barstow. + +"Cards!" he cried. "In my house? On a Sunday evening?" + +With each question his amazement grew, and he ended in a tone of +remonstrance. + +"Come, Barstow, you know me too well to propose that. I am rather hurt. A +friendly talk, and a smoke, yes. Perhaps a small whisky and soda. I don't +say no. But cards on a Sunday evening! No indeed." + +"Oh, I say, Skinner," objected Wallie Hine. "There's no harm in a +little game." + +Garratt Skinner shook his head at Hine in a grave friendly way. + +"Better leave cards alone, Wallie, always. You are young, you know." + +Hine flushed. + +"I am old enough to hold my own against any man," he cried, hotly. He +felt that Garratt Skinner had humiliated him, and before this wonderful +daughter of his in whose good favors Mr. Hine had been making such +inroads during supper. Barstow apologized for his suggestion at once, but +Hine was now quite unwilling that he should withdraw it. + +"There's no harm in it," he cried. "I really think you are too +Puritanical, isn't he, Miss--Miss Sylvia?" + +Hine had been endeavoring to pluck up courage to use her Christian name +all the evening. His pride that he had actually spoken it was so great +that he did not remark at all her little movement of disgust. + +Garratt Skinner seemed to weaken in his resolution. + +"Well, of course, Wallie," he said, "I want you to enjoy yourselves. And +if you especially want it--" + +Did he notice that Sylvia closed her eyes and really shivered? She could +not tell. But he suddenly spoke in a tone of revolt: + +"But card-playing on Sunday. Really no!" + +"It's done nowadays at the West-End Clubs," said Archie Parminter. + +"Oh, is it?" said Garratt Skinner, again grown doubtful. "Is it, +indeed? Well, if they do it in the Clubs--" And then with an +exclamation of relief--"I haven't got a pack of cards in the house. +That settles the point." + +"There's a public house almost next door," replied Barstow. "If you send +out your servant, I am sure she could borrow one." + +"No," said Garratt Skinner, indignantly. "Really, Barstow, your bachelor +habits have had a bad effect on you. I would not think of sending a girl +out to a public house on any consideration. It might be the very first +step downhill for her, and I should be responsible." + +"Oh well, if you are so particular, I'll go myself," cried Barstow, +petulantly. He got up and walked to the door. + +"I don't mind so much if you go yourself. Only please don't say you come +from this house," said Garratt Skinner, and Barstow went out from the +room. He came back in a very short time, and Sylvia noticed at once that +he held two quite new and unopened packs of cards in his hand. + +"A stroke of luck," he cried. "The landlord had a couple of new packs, +for he was expecting to give a little party to-night. But a relation of +his wife died rather suddenly yesterday, and he put his guests off. A +decent-minded fellow, I think. What?" + +"Yes. It's not every one who would have shown so much good feeling," said +Garratt Skinner, seriously. "One likes to know that there are men about +like that. One feels kindlier to the whole world"; and he drew up his +chair to the table. + +Sylvia was puzzled. Was this story of the landlord a glib lie of Captain +Barstow's to account, with a detail which should carry conviction, for +the suspiciously new pack of cards? And if so, did her father believe in +its truth? Had the packs been waiting in Captain Barstow's coat pocket in +the hall until the fitting moment for their appearance? If so, did her +father play a part in the conspiracy? His face gave no sign. She was +terribly troubled. + +"Penny points," said Garratt Skinner. "Nothing more." + +"Oh come, I say," cried Hine, as he pulled out a handful of sovereigns. + +"Nothing more than penny points in my house. Put that money away, Wallie. +We will use counters." + +Garratt Skinner had a box of counters if he had no pack of cards. + +"Penny points, a sixpenny ante and a shilling limit," he said. "Then no +harm will be done to any one. The black counters a shilling, the red +sixpence, and the white ones a penny. You have each a pound's worth," he +said as he dealt them out. + +Sylvia rose from her chair. + +"I think I will go to bed." + +Wallie Hine turned round in his chair, holding his counters in his +hand. "Oh, don't do that, Miss Sylvia. Sit beside me, please, and +bring me luck." + +"You forget, Wallie, that my daughter has just come from a long journey. +No doubt she is tired," said Garratt Skinner, with a friendly reproach in +his voice. He got up and opened the door for his daughter. After she had +passed out he followed her. + +"I shall take a hand for a little while, Sylvia, to see that they keep to +the stakes. I think young Hine wants looking after, don't you? He doesn't +know any geography. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well!" + +He took her by the elbow and drew her toward him. He stooped to her, +meaning to kiss her. Sylvia did not resist, but she drooped her head so +that her forehead, not her lips, was presented to his embrace. And the +kiss was never given. She remained standing, her face lowered from his, +her attitude one of resignation and despondency. She felt her father's +hand shake upon her arm, and looking up saw his eyes fixed upon her in +pity. He dropped her arm quickly, and said in a sharp voice: + +"There! Go to bed, child!" + +He watched her as she went up the stairs. She went up slowly and without +turning round, and she walked like one utterly tired out. Garratt +Skinner waited until he heard her door close. "She should never have +come," he said. "She should never have come." Then he went slowly back +to his friends. + +Sylvia went to bed, but she did not sleep. The excitement which had +buoyed her up had passed; and her hopes had passed with it. She recalled +the high anticipations with which she had set out from Chamonix only +yesterday--yes, only yesterday. And against them in a vivid contrast she +set the actual reality, the supper party, Red-hot Barstow, Archie +Parminter, and the poor witless Wallie Hine, with his twang and his silly +boasts. She began to wonder whether there was any other world than that +which she knew, any other people than those with whom she had lived. Her +father was different--yes, but--but--Her father was too perplexing a +problem to her at this moment. Why had he so clearly pitied her just now +in the passage? Why had he checked himself from the kiss? She was too +tired to reason it out. She was conscious that she was very wretched, and +the tears gathered in her eyes; and in the darkness of her room she cried +silently, pressing the sheet to her lips lest a sob should be heard. Were +all her dreams mere empty imaginings? she asked. If so, why should they +ever have come to her? she inquired piteously; why should she have found +solace in them--why should they have become her real life? Did no one +walk the earth of all that company which went with her in her fancies? + +Upon that her thoughts flew to the Alps, to the evening in the Pavillon +de Lognan, the climb upon the rocks and the glittering ice-slope, the +perfect hour upon the sunlit top of the Aiguille d'Argentière. The +memory of the mountains brought her consolation in her bad hour, as her +friend had prophesied it would. Her tears ceased to flow, she lived that +day--her one day--over again, jealous of every minute. After all that +had been real, and more perfect than any dream. Moreover, there had been +with her through the day a man honest and loyal as any of her imagined +company. She began to take heart a little; she thought of the Col Dolent +with its broad ribbon of ice set in the sheer black rocks, and always in +shadow. She thought of herself as going up some such hard, cold road in +the shadow, and remembered that on the top of the Col one came out into +sunlight and looked southward into Italy. So comforted a little, she +fell asleep. + +It was some hours before she woke. It was already day, and since she had +raised her blinds before she had got into bed, the light streamed into +the room. She thought for a moment that it was the light which had waked +her. But as she lay she heard a murmur of voices, very low, and a sound +of people moving stealthily. She looked out of the window. The streets +were quite empty and silent. In the houses on the opposite side the +blinds were drawn; a gray clear light was spread over the town; the sun +had not yet risen. She looked at her watch. It was five o'clock. She +listened again, gently opening her door for an inch or so. She heard the +low voices more clearly now. Those who spoke were speaking almost in +whispers. She thought that thieves had broken in. She hurried on a few +clothes, cautiously opened her door wider, slipped through, and crept +with a beating heart down the stairs. + +Half way down the stairs she looked over the rail of the banister, +turning her head toward the back part of the house whence the murmurs +came. At the end of the passage was the little room in which the round +game of cards was played the night before. The door stood open now, and +she looked right into the room. + +And this is what she saw: + +Wallie Hine was sitting at the table. About him the carpet was strewn +with crumpled pieces of paper. There was quite a number of them littered +around his chair. He was writing, or rather, trying to write. For Archie +Parminter leaning over the back of the chair held his hand and guided it. +Captain Barstow stood looking intently on, but of her father there was no +sign. She could not see the whole room, however. A good section of it was +concealed from her. Wallie Hine was leaning forward on the table, with +his head so low and his arms so spread that she could not see in what +book he was writing. But apparently he did not write to the satisfaction +of his companions. In spite of Parminter's care his pen spluttered. +Sylvia saw Archie look at Barstow, and she heard Barstow answer "No, that +won't do." Archie Parminter dropped Hine's hand, tore a slip of paper out +of the book, crumpled it, and threw it down with a gesture of anger on to +the carpet. + +"Try again, old fellow," said Barstow, eagerly, bending down toward Hine +with a horrid smile upon his face, a smile which tried to conceal an +intense exasperation, an intense desire to strike. Again Parminter leaned +over the chair, again he took Wallie Hine's hand and guided the pen, very +carefully lifting it from the paper at the end of an initial or a word, +and spacing the letters. This time he seemed content. + +"That will do, I think," he said, in a whisper. + +Captain Barstow bent down and examined the writing carefully with his +short-sighted eyes. + +"Yes, that's all right." + +Parminter tore the leaf out, but this time he did not crumple it. He +blotted it carefully, folded it, and laid it on the mantle-shelf. + +"Let us get him up," he said, and with Barstow's help they lifted Hine +out of his chair. Sylvia caught a glimpse of his face. His mouth was +loose, his eyes half shut, and the lids red; he seemed to be in a stupor. +His head rolled upon his shoulders. He swayed as his companions held him +up; his knees gave under him. He began incoherently to talk. + +"Hush!" said Parminter. "You'll wake the house. You don't want that +pretty girl to see you in this state, do you, Wallie? After the +impression you made on her, too! Get his hat and coat out of the +passage, Barstow." + +He propped Hine against the table, and holding him upright turned to the +door. He saw "the pretty girl" leaning over the banister and gazing with +horror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back on the instant. +With a gesture of his hand, Archie Parminter stopped Barstow on his way +to the door. + +Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the staircase, holding her +breath, and tightly pressing a hand upon her heart. Had they seen her? +Would they come out into the passage? What would happen? Would they kill +her? The questions raced through her mind. She could not have moved, she +thought, had Death stood over her. But nothing happened. She could not +now see into the room, and she heard no whisper, no footsteps creeping +stealthily along the passage toward her, no sound at all. Presently she +recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once in her room, with great +care she locked the door, and sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling. +There she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very gently +roused her. She crept along the wall till she was by the side of the +window. Then she raised herself against the wall and peered out. She saw +Barstow and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each with an arm +through his. A hansom-cab drove up, they lifted Hine into it, got in +themselves, and drove off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced +up to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind the curtains at +the side. He could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the +panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a +movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound +of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left +behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat +against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his +room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long +while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from +that room, she would just wait until he was asleep, and then she would +go--anywhere. She could not go back to her mother, that she knew. She +had no one to go to; nevertheless, she would go. + +But no sound reached her. Her father was not in the room below. He must +have gone to bed and left the others to themselves. The pigeon had been +plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her father had had no hand +in the plucking. She laid herself down upon her bed, exhausted, and +again sleep came to her. And in a moment the sound of running water was +in her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + +Sylvia did not wake again until the maid brought in her tea and told her +that it was eight o'clock. When she went down-stairs, her father was +already in the dining-room. She scanned him closely, but his face bore no +sign whatever of a late and tempestuous night; and a great relief +enheartened her. He met her with an open smile. + +"Did you sleep well, Sylvia?" + +"Not very well, father," she answered, as she watched his face. "I woke +up in the early morning." + +But nothing could have been more easy or natural than his comment on +her words. + +"Yet you look like a good sleeper. A strange house, I suppose, Sylvia." + +"Voices in the strange house," she answered. + +"Voices?" + +Garratt Skinner's face darkened. + +"Did those fellows stay so late?" he asked with annoyance. "What time was +it when they woke you up, Sylvia?" + +"A little before five." + +Garratt Skinner's annoyance increased. + +"That's too bad," he cried. "I left them and went to bed. But they +promised me faithfully only to stay another half-hour. I am very sorry, +Sylvia." And as she poured out the tea, he continued: "I will speak +pretty sharply to Barstow. It's altogether too bad." + +Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the clock, and as soon as the +hands pointed to five minutes to nine, he rose from the table. + +"I must be off--business, my dear." He came round the table to her and +gently laid a hand upon her shoulder. "It makes a great difference, +Sylvia, to have a daughter, fresh and young and pretty, sitting opposite +to me at the breakfast table--a very great difference. I shall cut work +early to-day on account of it; I'll come home and fetch you, and we'll go +out and lunch somewhere together." + +He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and Sylvia, looking up into +his face, was moved by what he said. He smiled down at her, with her own +winning smile; he looked her in the face with her own frankness, her own +good humor. + +"I have been a lonely man for a good many years, Sylvia," he said, "too +lonely. I am glad the years have come to an end"; and this time he did +what yesterday night he had checked himself from doing. He stooped down +and kissed her on the forehead. Then he went from the room, took his hat, +and letting himself out of the house closed the door behind him. He +called a passing cab, and, as he entered it, he said to the driver: + +"Go to the London and County Bank in Victoria Street," and gaily waving +his hand to his daughter, who stood behind the window, he drove off. + +At one o'clock he returned in the same high spirits. Sylvia had spent the +morning in removing the superfluous cherries and roses from her best hat +and making her frock at once more simple and more suitable to her years. +Garratt Skinner surveyed her with pride. + +"Come on," he said. "I have kept the cab waiting." + +For a poor man he seemed to Sylvia rather reckless. They drove to the +Savoy Hotel and lunched together in the open air underneath the glass +roof, with a bank of flowers upon one side of them and the windows of the +grill-room on the other. The day was very hot, the streets baked in an +arid glare of sunlight; a dry dust from the wood pavement powdered those +who passed by in the Strand. Here, however, in this cool and shaded place +the pair lunched happily together. Garratt Skinner had the tact not to +ask any questions of his daughter about her mother, or how they had fared +together. He talked easily of unimportant things, and pointed out from +time to time some person of note or some fashionable actress who happened +to pass in or out of the hotel. He could be good company when he chose, +and he chose on this morning. It was not until coffee was set before +them, and he had lighted a cigar, that he touched upon themselves, and +then not with any paternal tone, but rather as one comrade conferring +with another. There, indeed, was his great advantage with Sylvia. Her +mother had either disregarded her or treated her as a child. She could +not but be won by a father who laid bare his plans to her and asked for +her criticism as well as her assent. Her suspicions of yesterday died +away, or, at all events, slept so soundly that they could not have +troubled her less had they been dead. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I think London in August, and in such an August, is +too hot. I don't want to see you grow pale, and for myself I haven't had +a holiday for a long time. You see there is not much temptation for a +lonely man to go away by himself." + +For the second time that day he appealed to her on the ground of his +loneliness; and not in vain. She began even to feel remorseful that she +had left him to his loneliness so long. There rose up within her an +almost maternal feeling of pity for her father. She did not stop to think +that he had never sent for her; had never indeed shown a particle of +interest in her until they had met face to face. + +"But since you are here," he continued, "well--I have been doing fairly +well in my business lately, and I thought we might take a little holiday +together, at some quiet village by the sea. You know nothing of England. +I have been thinking it all out this morning. There is no country more +beautiful or more typical than Dorsetshire. Besides, you were born there. +What do you say to three weeks or so in Dorsetshire? We will stay at an +hotel in Weymouth for a few days and look about for a house." + +"Father!" exclaimed Sylvia, leaning forward with shining eyes. "It will +be splendid. Just you and I!" + +"Well, not quite," he answered, slowly; and as he saw his daughter sink +back with a pucker of disappointment on her forehead, he knocked the ash +off his cigar and in his turn leaned forward over the table. + +"Sylvia, I want to talk to you seriously," he said, and glanced around to +make sure that no one overheard him. "I should very much like one person +to come and stay with us." + +Sylvia made no answer. Her face was grave and very still, her eyes dwelt +quietly upon him and betrayed nothing of what she thought. + +"You have guessed who the one person is?" + +Again Sylvia did not answer. + +"Yes. It is Wallie Hine," he continued. + +Her suspicions were stirring again from their sleep. She waited in fear +upon his words. She looked out, through the opening at the mouth of the +court into the glare of the Strand. The bright prospect which her vivid +fancies had pictured there a minute since, transforming the dusky street +into fields of corn and purple heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn +by teams of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark. A real +horror was gripping her. But she turned her eyes quietly back upon her +father's face and waited. + +"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Garratt Skinner continued +with an easy assurance. "You saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last +night--a weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward, with graces +of neither mind nor body, and in the hands of two scoundrels." + +Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain +to see in her dark eyes. + +"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia. He has come into a little money, and he +is in the hands of two scoundrels who are leading him by the nose. My +poor girl," he cried, suddenly breaking off, "you must have found +yourself in very strange and disappointing company last night. I was very +sorry for you, and sorry for myself, too. All the evening I was saying to +myself, 'I wonder what my little girl is thinking of me.' But I couldn't +help it. I had not the time to explain. I had to sit quiet, knowing that +you must be unhappy, certain that you must be despising me for the +company I kept." + +Sylvia blushed guiltily. + +"Despising you? No, father," she said, in a voice of apology. "I saw how +much above the rest you were." + +"Blaming me, then," interrupted Garratt Skinner, with an easy smile. He +was not at all offended. "Let us say blaming me. And it was quite natural +that you should, judging by the surface. And there was nothing but the +surface for you to judge by." + +While in this way defending Sylvia against her own self-reproach, he only +succeeded in making her feel still more that she had judged hastily where +she should have held all judgment in abeyance, that she had lacked faith +where by right she should have shown most faith. But he wished to spare +her from confusion. + +"I was so proud of you that I could not but suffer all the more. However, +don't let us talk of it, my dear"; and waving with a gesture of the hand +that little misunderstanding away forever, he resumed: + +"Well, I am rather fond of Wallie Hine. I don't know why, perhaps because +he is so helpless, because he so much stands in need of a steady mentor +at his elbow. There is, after all, no accounting for one's likings. Logic +and reason have little to do with them. As a woman you know that. And +being rather fond of Wallie Hine, I have tried to do my best for him. It +would not have been of any use to shut my door on Barstow and Archie +Parminter. They have much too firm a hold on the poor youth. I should +have been shutting it on Wallie Hine, too. No, the only plan was to +welcome them all, to play Parminter's game of showing the youth about +town, and Barstow's game of crude flattery, and gradually, if possible, +to dissociate him from his companions, before they had fleeced him +altogether. So you were let in, my dear, for that unfortunate evening. Of +course I was quite sure that you would not attribute to me designs upon +Wallie Hine, otherwise I should have turned them all out at once." + +He spoke with a laugh, putting aside, as it were, a quite incredible +suggestion. But he looked at her sharply as he laughed. Sylvia's face +grew crimson, her eyes for once wavered from his face, and she lowered +her head. Garratt Skinner, however, seemed not to notice her confusion. + +"You remember," he continued, "that I tried to stop them playing cards at +the beginning. I yielded in the end, because it became perfectly clear +that if I didn't they would go away and play elsewhere, while I at all +events could keep the points down in my own house. I ought to have stayed +up, I suppose, until they went away. I blame myself there a little. But I +had no idea they would stay so late. Are you sure it was their voices you +heard and not the servants moving?" + +He asked the question almost carelessly, but his eyes rather belied his +tone, for they watched her intently. + +"Quite sure," she answered. + +"You might have made a mistake." + +"No; for I saw them." + +Garratt Skinner covered his mouth with his hand. It seemed to Sylvia that +he smiled. A suspicion flashed across her mind, in spite of herself. Was +he merely testing her to see whether she would speak the truth or not? +Did he know that she had come down the stairs in the early morning? She +thrust the suspicion aside, remembering the self-reproach which suspicion +had already caused her at this very luncheon table. If it were true that +her father knew, why then Barstow or Parminter must have told him this +very morning. And if he had seen either of them this morning, all his +talk to her in this cool and quiet place was a carefully prepared +hypocrisy. No, she would not believe that. + +"You saw them?" he exclaimed. "Tell me how." + +She told him the whole story, how she had come down the staircase, +what she had seen, as she leaned over the balustrade, and how +Parminter had turned. + +"Do you think he saw you?" asked her father. + +Sylvia looked at him closely. But he seemed really anxious to know. + +"I think he saw something," she answered. "Whether he knew that it was I +whom he saw, I can't tell." + +Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his cigar in short, +angry puffs. + +"I wouldn't have had that happen for worlds," he said, with a frown. "I +have no doubt whatever that the slips of paper on which poor Hine was +trying to write were I.O.U's. Heaven knows what he lost last night." + +"I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost £480 last night." + +"Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much violence that the +people lunching at the tables near-by looked up at the couple with +surprise. "Oh, no! I'll not believe it, Sylvia." And as he lowered his +voice, he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back upon her words, +so distressed was he at the thought that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed +out of so much money at his house. + +"Four hundred and eighty pounds," Sylvia repeated. + +Garratt Skinner caught at a comforting thought. + +"Well, it's only in I.O.U's. That's one thing. I can stop the redemption +of them. You see, he has been robbed--that's the plain English of +it--robbed." + +"Mr. Hine was not writing an I.O.U. He was writing a check, and Mr. +Parminter was guiding his hand as he wrote the signature." + +Garratt Skinner fell back in his chair. He looked about him with a dazed +air, as though he expected the world falling to pieces around him. + +"Why, that's next door to forgery!" he whispered, in a voice of horror. +"Guiding the hand of a man too drunk to write! I knew Archie Parminter +was pretty bad, but I never thought that he would sink to that. I am not +sure that he could not be laid by the heels for forgery." And then he +recovered a little from the shock. "But you can't be sure, Sylvia! This +is guesswork of yours--yes, guesswork." + +"It's not," she answered. "I told you that the floor was littered with +slips of the paper on which Mr. Hine had been trying to write." + +"Yes." + +There came an indefinable change in Garratt Skinner's face. He leaned +forward with his mouth sternly set and his eyes very still. One might +almost have believed that for the first time during that luncheon he was +really anxious, really troubled. + +"Well, this morning the carpet had been swept. The litter had gone. But +just underneath the hearth-rug one of those crumpled slips of paper lay +not quite hidden. I picked it up. It was a check." + +"Have you got it? Sylvia, have you got it?" and Garratt Skinner's voice +in steady quietude matched his face. + +"Yes." + +Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her wrist and took out +the slip of paper. She unfolded it and spread it on the table before her. +The inside was pink. + +"A check for £480 on the London and County Bank, Victoria Street," she +said. + +Garrett Skinner looked over the table at the paper. There was Wallie +Hine's wavering, unfinished signature at the bottom right-hand corner. +Parminter had guided his hand as far as the end of the Christian name, +before he tore the check out and threw it away. The amount of the body of +the check had been filled in in Barstow's hand. + +"You had better give it to me, Sylvia," he said, his fingers moving +restlessly on the table-cloth. "That check would be a very dangerous +thing if Parminter ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me." + +He leaned over and took it gently from before her, and put it carefully +away in his pocket. + +"Now, you see, there's more reason ever why we should get Wallie Hine +away from those two men. He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the +country may set his thoughts in a different grove. Will you make this +sacrifice, Sylvia? Will you let me ask him? It will be a good action. You +see he doesn't know any geography." + +"Very well; ask him, father." + +Garrett Skinner reached over the table and patted her hand. + +"Thank you, my dear! Then that's settled. I propose that you and I go +down this afternoon. Can you manage it? We might catch the four o'clock +train from Waterloo if you go home now, pack up your traps and tell the +housemaid to pack mine. I will just wind up my business and come home in +time to pick you and the luggage up." + +He rose from the table, and calling a hansom, put Sylvia into it. He +watched the cab drive out into the Strand and turn the corner. Then he +went back to the table and asked for his bill. While he waited for it, he +lit a match and drawing from his pocket the crumpled check, he set fire +to it. He held it by the corner until the flame burnt his fingers. Then +he dropped it in his plate and pounded it into ashes with a fork. + +"That was a bad break," he said to himself. "Left carelessly under the +edge of the hearth-rug. A very bad break." + +He paid his bill, and taking his hat, sauntered out into the Strand. The +carelessness which had left the check underneath the hearth-rug was not, +however, the only bad break made in connection with this affair. At a +certain moment during luncheon Garratt Skinner had unwisely smiled and +had not quite concealed the smile with his hand. Against her every wish, +that smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she drove home. +She tried to interpret it in every pleasant sense, but it kept its true +character in her thoughts, try as she might. It remained vividly a very +hateful thing--the smile of the man who had gulled her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + +A week later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and her father drove +northward out of Weymouth between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was +silent and looked about her with expectant eyes. + +"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her father had said to her. "I have secured +for our summer holiday the very house in which you were born. It cost me +some trouble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I had an +idea that you would be pleased. However, you are not to see it until it +is quite ready." + +There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought which greatly +appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it with a smile of tenderness. +Affection, surely, could alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very +gratefully. They were now upon their way to take possession. A little +white house set back under a hill and looking out across the bay from a +thick cluster of trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she +wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed the white house, and half +a mile further on turned again eastward along the road to Wareham, +following the valley, which runs parallel to the sea. They ascended the +long steep hill which climbs to Osmington, until upon their left hand a +narrow road branched off between hawthorn hedges to the downs. The road +dipped to a little hollow and in the hollow a little village nestled. A +row of deep-thatched white cottages with leaded window-panes opened on to +a causeway of stone flags which was bordered with purple phlox and raised +above the level of the road. Farther on, the roof of a mill rose high +among trees, and an open space showed to Sylvia the black massive wheel +against the yellow wall. And then the carriage stopped at a house on the +left-hand side, and Garratt Skinner got out. + +"Here we are," he said. + +It was a small square house of the Georgian days, built of old brick, +duskily red. You entered it at the side and the big level windows of the +living rooms looked out upon a wide and high-walled garden whence a +little door under a brick archway in the wall gave a second entrance on +to the road. Into this garden Sylvia wandered. If she had met with but +few people who matched the delicate company of her dreams, here, at all +events, was a mansion where that company might have fitly gathered. Great +elms and beeches bent under their load of leaves to the lawn; about the +lawn, flowers made a wealth of color, and away to the right of the house +twisted stems and branches, where the green of the apples was turning to +red, stood evenly spaced in a great orchard. And the mill stream +tunneling under the road and the wall ran swiftly between green banks +through the garden and the orchard, singing as it ran. There lingered, +she thought, an ancient grace about this old garden, some flavor of +forgotten days, as in a room scented with potpourri; and she walked the +lawn in a great contentment. + +The house within charmed her no less. It was a place of many corners and +quaint nooks, and of a flooring so unlevel that she could hardly pass +from one room to another without taking a step up or a step down. Sylvia +went about the house quietly and with a certain thoughtfulness. Here she +had been born and a mystery of her life was becoming clear to her. On +this summer evening the windows were set wide in every room, and thus in +every room, as she passed up and down, she heard the liquid music of +running water, here faint, like a whispered melody, there pleasant, like +laughter, but nowhere very loud, and everywhere quite audible. In one of +these rooms she had been born. In one of these rooms her mother had slept +at nights during the weeks before she was born, with that music in her +ears at the moment of sleep and at the moment of her waking. Sylvia +understood now why she had always dreamed of running water. She wondered +in which room she had been born. She tried to remember some corner of the +house, some nook in its high-walled garden; and that she could not awoke +in her a strange and almost eery feeling. She had come back to a house in +which she had lived, to a scene on which her eyes had looked, to sounds +which had murmured in her ears, and everything was as utterly new to her +and unimagined as though now for the first time she had crossed the +threshold. Yet these very surroundings to which her memory bore no +testimony had assuredly modified her life, had given to her a particular +possession, this dream of running water, and had made it a veritable +element of her nature. She could not but reflect upon this new knowledge, +and as she walked the garden in the darkness of the evening, she built +upon it, as will be seen. + +As she stepped back over the threshold into the library where her father +sat, she saw that he was holding a telegram in his hand. + +"Wallie Hine comes to-morrow, my dear," he said. + +Sylvia looked at her father wistfully. + +"It is a pity," she said, "a great pity. It would have been pleasant if +we could have been alone." + +The warmth of her gladness had gone from her; she walked once more in +shadows; there was in her voice a piteous appeal for affection, for love, +of which she had had too little in her life and for which she greatly +craved. She stood by the door, her lips trembling and her dark eyes for a +wonder glistening with tears. She had always, even to those who knew her +to be a woman, something of the child in her appearance, which made a +plea from her lips most difficult to refuse. Now she seemed a child on +whom the world pressed heavily before her time for suffering had come; +she had so motherless a look. Even Garratt Skinner moved uncomfortably in +his chair; even that iron man was stirred. + +"I, too, am sorry, Sylvia," he said, gently; "but we will make the best +of it. Between us"--and he laughed gaily, setting aside from him his +momentary compassion--"we will teach poor Wallie Hine a little geography, +won't we?" + +Sylvia had no smile ready for a reply. But she bowed her head, and into +her face and her very attitude there came an expression of patience. She +turned and opened the door, and as she opened it, and stood with her back +toward her father, she said in a quiet and clear voice, "Very well," and +so passed up the stairs to her room. + +It might, after all, merely be kindness in her father which had led him +to insist on Wallie Hine's visit. So she argued, and the more +persistently because she felt that the argument was thin. He could be +kind. He had been thoughtful for her during the past week in the small +attentions which appeal so much to women. Because he saw that she loved +flowers, he had engaged a new gardener for their stay; and he had shown, +in one particular instance, a quite surprising thoughtfulness for a class +of unhappy men with whom he could have had no concern, the convicts in +Portland prison. That instance remained for a long time vividly in her +mind, and at a later time she spoke of it with consequences of a +far-reaching kind. She thought then, as she thought now, only of the +kindness of her father's action, and for the first week of Hine's visit +that thought remained with her. She was on the alert, but nothing +occurred to arouse in her a suspicion. There were no cards, little wine +was drunk, and early hours were kept by the whole household. Indeed, +Garratt Skinner left entirely to his daughter the task of entertaining +his guest; and although once he led them both over the great down to +Dorchester and back, at a pace which tired his companions out, he +preferred, for the most part, to smoke his pipe in a hammock in the +garden with a novel at his side. The morning after that one expedition, +he limped out into the garden, rubbing the muscles of his thigh. + +"You must look after Wallie, my dear," he said. "Age is beginning to find +me out. And after all, he will learn more of the tact and manners which +he wants from you than from a rough man like me," and it did not occur to +Sylvia, who was of a natural modesty of thought, that he had any other +intention of throwing them thus together than to rid himself of a guest +with whom he had little in common. + +But a week later she changed her mind. She was driving Walter Hine +one morning into Weymouth, and as the dog-cart turned into the road +beside the bay, and she saw suddenly before her the sea sparkling in +the sunlight, the dark battle-ships at their firing practice, and +over against her, through a shimmering haze of heat, the crouching +mass of Portland, she drew in a breath of pleasure. It seemed to her +that her companion gave the same sign of enjoyment, and she turned to +him with some surprise. But Walter Hine was looking to the wide +beach, so black with holiday makers that it seemed at that distance a +great and busy ant-heap. + +"That's what I like," he said, with a chuckle of anticipation. "Lot's o' +people. I've knocked about too long in the thick o' things, you see, Miss +Sylvia, kept it up--I have--seen it right through every night till three +o'clock in the morning, for months at a time. Oh, that's the real thing!" +he broke off. "It makes you feel good." + +Sylvia laughed. + +"Then if you dislike the country," she said, and perhaps rather eagerly, +"why did you come to stay with us at all?" + +And suddenly Hine leered at her. + +"Oh, you know!" he said, and almost he nudged her with his elbow. "I +wouldn't have come, of course, if old Garratt hadn't particularly told +me that you were agreeable." Sylvia grew hot with shame. She drew +away, flicked the horse with her whip and drove on. Had she been used, +she wondered, to lure this poor helpless youth to the sequestered +village where they stayed?--and a chill struck through her even on +that day of July. The plot had been carefully laid if that were so; +she was to be hoodwinked no less than Wallie Hine. What sinister thing +was then intended? + +She tried to shake off the dread which encompassed her, pleading to +herself that she saw perils in shadows like the merest child. But +she had not yet shaken it off when Walter Hine cried out excitedly +to her to stop. + +"Look!" he said, and he pointed toward an hotel upon the sea-front which +at that moment they were passing. + +Sylvia looked, and saw obsequiously smirking upon the steps of the hotel, +with his hat lifted from his shiny head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. +Fortunately she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just acknowledging +his salute. It needed but this meeting to confirm her fears. It was not +coincidence which had brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth. +He had come with knowledge and a definite purpose. + +"Oh, I say," protested Wallie Hine, "you might have stopped, Miss Sylvia, +and let me pass the time of day with old Barstow." + +Sylvia stopped the trap at once. + +"I am sorry," she said. "You will find your own way home. We lunch at +half past one." + +Hine looked doubtfully at her and then back toward the hotel. + +"I didn't mean that I wanted to leave you, Miss Sylvia," he said. "Not by +a long chalk." + +"But you must leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, looking at him with serious +eyes, "if you want to pass the time of day with your 'red-hot' friend." + +There was no hint of a smile about her lips. She waited for his answer. +It came accompanied with a smile which aimed at gallantry and was +merely familiar. + +"Of course I stay where I am. What do _you_ think?" + +Sylvia hurried over her shopping and drove homeward. She went at once to +her father, who lay in the hammock in the shade of the trees, reading a +book. She came up from behind him across the grass, and he was not aware +of her approach until she spoke. + +"Father!" she said, and he started up. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he said, and just for a second there was a palpable +uneasiness in his manner. He had not merely started. He seemed also to +her to have been startled. But he recovered his composure. + +"You see, my dear, I have been thinking of you," he said, and he pointed +to a man at work among the flower-beds. "I saw how you loved flowers, +how you liked to have the rooms bright with them. So I hired a new +gardener as a help. It is a great extravagance, Sylvia, but you are to +blame, not I." + +He smiled, confident of her gratitude, and had it been but yesterday he +would have had it offered to him in full measure. To-day, however, all +her thoughts were poisoned by suspicion. She knew it and was distressed. +She knew how much happiness so simple a forethought would naturally have +brought to her. She did not indeed suspect any new peril in her father's +action. She barely looked toward the new gardener, and certainly +neglected to note whether he worked skilfully or no. But the fears of the +morning modified her thanks. Moreover the momentary uneasiness of her +father had not escaped her notice and she was wondering upon its cause. + +"Father," she resumed, "I saw Captain Barstow in Weymouth this morning." + +Though her eyes were on his face, and perhaps because her eyes were +resting there with so quiet a watchfulness, she could detect no +self-betrayal now. Garratt Skinner stared at her in pure astonishment. +Then the astonishment gave place to annoyance. + +"Barstow!" he said angrily. He lay back in the hammock, looking up to the +boughs overhead, his face wrinkled and perplexed. "He has found us out +and followed us, Sylvia. I would not have had it happen for worlds. Did +he see you?" + +"Yes." + +"And I thought that here, at all events, we were safe from him. I wonder +how he found us out! Bribed the caretaker in Hobart Place, I suppose." + +Sylvia did not accept this suggestion. She sat down upon a chair in a +disconcerting silence, and waited. Garratt Skinner crossed his arms +behind his head and deliberated. + +"Barstow's a deep fellow, Sylvia," he said. "I am afraid of him." + +He was looking up to the boughs overhead, but he suddenly glanced toward +her and then quietly removed one of his hands and slipped it down to the +book which was lying on his lap. Sylvia took quiet note of the movement. +The book had been lying shut upon his lap, with its back toward her. +Garratt Skinner did not alter its position; but she saw that his hand now +hid from her the title on the back. It was a big, and had the appearance +of an expensive, book. She noticed the binding--green cloth boards and +gold lettering on the back. She was not familiar with the look of it, and +it seemed to her that she might as well know--and as quickly as +possible--what the book was and the subject with which it dealt. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner repeated: + +"A deep fellow--Captain Barstow," and anxiously Garratt Skinner debated +how to cope with that deep fellow. He came at last to his conclusion. + +"We can't shut our doors to him, Sylvia." + +Even though she had half expected just that answer, Sylvia flinched as +she heard it uttered. + +"I understand your feelings, my dear," he continued in tones of +commiseration, "for they are mine. But we must fight the Barstows with +the Barstows' weapons. It would never do for us to close our doors. He +has far too tight a hold of Wallie Hine as yet. He has only to drop a +hint to Wallie that we are trying to separate him from his true friends +and keep him to ourselves--and just think, my dear, what a horrible set +of motives a mean-minded creature like Barstow could impute to us! Let us +be candid, you and I," cried Garratt Skinner, starting up, as though +carried away by candor. "Here am I, a poor man--here are you, my +daughter, a girl with the charm and the beauty of the spring, and here's +Wallie Hine, rich, weak, and susceptible. Oh, there's a story for a +Barstow to embroider! But, Sylvia, he shall not so much as hint at the +story. For your sake, my dear, for your sake," cried Garratt Skinner, +with all the emphasis of a loving father. He wiped his forehead with his +handkerchief. + +"I was carried away by my argument," he went on in a calmer voice. Sylvia +for her part had not been carried away at all, and no doubt her watchful +composure helped him to subdue as ineffective the ardor of his tones. +"Barstow has only to drop this hint to Wallie Hine, and Wallie will be +off like a rabbit at the sound of a gun. And there's our chance gone of +helping him to a better life. No, we must welcome Barstow, if he comes +here. Yes, actually welcome him, however repugnant it may be to our +feelings. That's what we must do, Sylvia. He must have no suspicion that +we are working against him. We must lull him to sleep. That is our only +way to keep Wallie Hine with us. So that, Sylvia, must be our plan of +campaign." + +The luncheon bell rang as he ended his oration. He got out of the hammock +quickly, as if to prevent discussion of his plan; and the book which he +was carrying caught in the netting of the hammock and fell to the ground. +Sylvia could read the title now. She did read it, hastily, as Garratt +Skinner stooped to pick it up. It was entitled "The Alps in 1864." + +She knew the book by repute and was surprised to find it in her father's +hands. She was surprised still more that he should have been at so much +pains to conceal the title from her notice. After all, what could it +matter? she wondered. + +Sylvia lay deep in misery that night. Her father had failed her utterly. +All the high hopes with which she had set out from Chamonix had fallen, +all the rare qualities with which her dreams had clothed him as in +shining raiment must now be stripped from him. She was not deceived. +Parminter, Barstow, Garratt Skinner--there was one "deep fellow" in that +trio, but it was neither Barstow nor Parminter. It was her father. She +had but to set the three faces side by side in her thoughts, to remember +the differences of manner, mind and character. Garratt Skinner was the +master in the conspiracy, the other two his mere servants. It was he who +to some dark end had brought Barstow down from London. He loomed up in +her thoughts as a relentless and sinister figure, unswayed by affection, +yet with the power to counterfeit it, long-sighted for evil, sparing no +one--not even his daughter. She recalled their first meeting in the +little house in Hobart Place, she remembered the thoughtful voice with +which, as he had looked her over, he had agreed that she might be +"useful." She thought of his caresses, his smile of affection, his +comradeship, and she shuddered. Walter Hine's words had informed her +to-day to what use her father had designed her. She was his decoy. + +She lay upon her bed with her hands clenched, repeating the word in +horror. His decoy! The moonlight poured through the open window, the +music of the stream filled the room. She was in the house in which she +had been born, a place mystically sacred to her thoughts; and she had +come to it to learn that she was her father's decoy in a vulgar +conspiracy to strip a weakling of his money. The stream sang beneath her +windows, the very stream of which the echo had ever been rippling through +her dreams. Always she had thought that it must have some particular +meaning for her which would be revealed in due time. She dwelt bitterly +upon her folly. There was no meaning in its light laughter. + +In a while she was aware of a change. There came a grayness in the room. +The moonlight had lost its white brilliance, the night was waning. Sylvia +rose from her bed, and slowly like one very tired she began to gather +together and pack into a bag such few clothes as she could carry. She had +made up her mind to go, and to go silently before the house waked. +Whither she was to go, and what she was to do once she had gone, she +could not think. She asked herself the questions in vain, feeling very +lonely and very helpless as she moved softly about the room by the light +of her candle. Her friend might write to her and she would not receive +his letter. Still she must go. Once or twice she stopped her work, and +crouching down upon the bed allowed her tears to have their way. When she +had finished her preparations she blew out her candle, and leaning upon +the sill of the open window, gave her face to the cool night air. + +There was a break in the eastern sky; already here and there a blackbird +sang in the garden boughs, and the freshness, the quietude, swept her +thoughts back to the Chalet de Lognan. With a great yearning she recalled +that evening and the story of the great friendship so quietly related to +her in the darkness, beneath the stars. The world and the people of her +dreams existed; only there was no door of entrance into that world for +her. Below her the stream sang, even as the glacier stream had sung, +though without its deep note of thunder. As she listened to it, certain +words spoken upon that evening came back to her mind and gradually began +to take on a particular application. + +"What you know, that you must do, if by doing it you can save a life or +save a soul." + +That was the law. "If you can save a life or save a soul." And she _did_ +know. Sylvia raised herself from the window and stood in thought. + +Garratt Skinner had made a great mistake that day. He had been misled by +the gentleness of her ways, the sweet aspect of her face, and by a look +of aloofness in her eyes, as though she lived in dreams. He had seen +surely that she was innocent, and since he believed that knowledge must +needs corrupt, he thought her ignorant as well. But she was not ignorant. +She had detected his trickeries. She knew of the conspiracy, she knew of +the place she filled in it herself; and furthermore she knew that as a +decoy she had been doing her work. Only yesterday, Walter Hine had been +forced to choose between Barstow and herself and he had let Barstow go. +It was a small matter, no doubt. Still there was promise in it. What if +she stayed, strengthened her hold on Walter Hine and grappled with the +three who were ranged against him? + +Walter Hine was, of course, and could be, nothing to her. He was the mere +puppet, the opportunity of obedience to the law. It was of the law that +she was thinking--and of the voice of the man who had uttered it. She +knew--by using her knowledge, she could save a soul. She did not think at +this time that she might be saving a life too. + +Quietly she undressed and slipped into her bed. She was comforted. A +smile had come upon her lips. She saw the face of her friend in the +darkness, very near to her. She needed sleep to equip herself for the +fight, and while thinking so she slept. The moonlight faded altogether, +and left the room dark. Beneath the window the stream went singing +through the lawn. After all, its message had been revealed to her in its +due season. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAYNE RETURNS + + +"Hullo," cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered round the library after +luncheon. "Here's a scatter-gun." + +He took the gun from a corner where it stood against the wall, opened the +breech, shut it again, and turning to the open window lifted the stock to +his shoulder. + +"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays," he said, taking careful +aim at a tulip in the garden. "Any cartridges, Skinner?" + +"I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied, testily. The +newspapers had only this moment been brought into the room, and he did +not wish to be disturbed. Sylvia had never noticed that double-barreled +gun before; and she wondered whether it had been brought into the room +that morning. She watched Captain Barstow bustle into the hall and back +again. Finally he pounced upon an oblong card-box which lay on the top of +a low book-case. He removed the lid and pulled out a cartridge. + +"Hullo!" said he. "No. 6. The very thing! I am going to take a pot at the +starlings, Skinner. There are too many of them about for your +fruit-trees." + +"Very well," said Garratt Skinner, lazily lifting his eyes from his +newspaper and looking out across the lawn. "Only take care you don't wing +my new gardener." + +"No fear of that," said Barstow, and filling his pockets with cartridges +he took the gun in his hand and skipped out into the garden. In a moment +a shot was heard, and Walter Hine rose from his chair and walked to the +window. A second shot followed. + +"Old Barstow can't shoot for nuts," said Hine, with a chuckle, and in his +turn he stepped out into the garden. Sylvia made no attempt to hinder +him, but she took his place at the window ready to intervene. A flight of +starlings passed straight and swift over Barstow's head. He fired both +barrels and not one of the birds fell. Hine spoke to him, and the gun at +once changed hands. At the next flight Hine fired and one of the birds +dropped. Barstow's voice was raised in jovial applause. + +"That was a good egg, Wallie. A very good egg. Let me try now!" and so +alternately they shot as the birds darted overhead across the lawn. +Sylvia waited for the moment when Barstow's aim would suddenly develop a +deadly precision, but that moment did not come. If there was any betting +upon this match, Hine would not be the loser. She went quietly back to a +writing-desk and wrote her letters. She had no wish to rouse in her +father's mind a suspicion that she had guessed his design and was +setting herself to thwart it. She must work secretly, more secretly than +he did himself. Meanwhile the firing continued in the garden; and +unobserved by Sylvia, Garratt Skinner began to take in it a stealthy +interest. His chair was so placed that, without stirring, he could look +into the garden and at the same time keep an eye on Sylvia; if she moved +an elbow or raised her head, Garratt Skinner was at once reading his +paper with every appearance of concentration. On the other hand, her +back was turned toward him, so that she saw neither his keen gaze into +the garden nor the good-tempered smile of amusement with which he turned +his eyes upon his daughter. + +In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no more. Sylvia had, in +fact, almost come to the end of her letters, when Garratt Skinner +suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. At the noise, abrupt as a +startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round. She saw that her father was +gazing with a look of perplexity into the garden, and that for the moment +he had forgotten her presence. She crossed the room quickly and +noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow, saw what he saw. The +blood flushed her throat and mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened, +and a smile of welcome transfigured her grave face. Her friend Hilary +Chayne was standing under the archway of the garden door. He had closed +the door behind him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not +looking toward the house. His attention was riveted upon the +shooting-match. Sylvia gave no thought to his attitude at the moment. He +had come--that was enough. And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the +light in his daughter's face. + +"You know him!" he cried, roughly. + +"Yes." + +"He has come to see you?" + +"Yes." + +"You should have told me," said Garratt Skinner, angrily. "I dislike +secrecies." Sylvia raised her eyes and looked her father steadily in the +face. But Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed. He returned her look +as steadily. + +"Who is he?" he continued, in a voice of authority. + +"Captain Hilary Chayne." + +It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely familiar to Garratt +Skinner, and Sylvia added: + +"I met him this summer in Switzerland." + +"Oh, I see," said her father, and he looked with a new interest across +the garden to the door. "He is a great friend." + +"My only friend," returned Sylvia, softly; and her father stepped forward +and called aloud, holding up his hand: + +"Barstow! Barstow!" + +Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the coming of her friend +was not the only change which had taken place since she had last looked +out upon the garden. The new gardener was now shooting alternately with +Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow, standing a few feet behind them, +recorded the hits in a little book. He looked up at the sound of +Garratt Skinner's voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a stop to the +match. Garratt Skinner turned again to his daughter, and spoke now +without any anger at all. There was just a hint of reproach in his +voice, but as though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand +affectionately upon her arm. + +"Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my dear. But you might have +told me that you expected him. Let us have no secrets from each other +in the future? Now bring him in, and we will see if we can give him a +cup of tea." + +He rang the bell. Sylvia did not think it worth while to argue that +Chayne's coming was a surprise to her as much as to her father. She +crossed the garden toward her friend. But she walked slowly and still +more slowly. Her memories had flown back to the evening when they had +bidden each other good-by on the little platform in front of the Chalet +de Lognan. Not in this way had she then planned that they should meet +again, nor in such company. The smile had faded from her lips, the light +of gladness had gone from her eyes. Barstow and Walter Hine were moving +toward the house. It mortified her exceedingly that her friend should +find her amongst such companions. She almost wished that he had not found +her out at all. And so she welcomed him with a great restraint. + +"It was kind of you to come," she said. "How did you know I was here?" + +"I called at your house in London. The caretaker gave me the address," he +replied. He took her hand and, holding it, looked with the careful +scrutiny of a lover into her face. + +"You have needed those memories of your one day to fall back upon," he +said, regretfully. "Already you have needed them. I am very sorry." + +Sylvia did not deny the implication of the words that "troubles" had +come. She turned to him, grateful that he should so clearly have +remembered what she had said upon that day. + +"Thank you," she answered, gently. "My father would like to know you. I +wrote to you that I had come to live with him." + +"Yes." + +"You were surprised?" she asked. + +"No," he answered, quietly. "You came to some important decision on the +very top of the Aiguille d'Argentière. That I knew at the time, for I +watched you. When I got your letter, I understood what the decision was." + +To leave Chamonix--to break completely with her life--it was just to that +decision she would naturally have come just on that spot during that one +sunlit hour. So much his own love of the mountains taught him. But Sylvia +was surprised at his insight; and what with that and the proof that their +day together had remained vividly in his thoughts, she caught back +something of his comradeship. As they crossed the lawn to the house her +embarrassment diminished. She drew comfort, besides, from the thought +that whatever her friend might think of Captain Barstow and Walter Hine, +her father at all events would impress him, even as she had been +impressed. Chayne would see at once that here was a man head and +shoulders above his companions, finer in quality, different in speech. + +But that afternoon her humiliation was to be complete. Her father had no +fancy for the intrusion of Captain Chayne into his quiet and sequestered +house. The flush of color on his daughter's face, the leap of light into +her eyes, had warned him. He had no wish to lose his daughter. Chayne, +too, might be inconveniently watchful. Garratt Skinner desired no spy +upon his little plans. Consequently he set himself to play the host with +an offensive geniality which was calculated to disgust a man with any +taste for good manners. He spoke in a voice which Sylvia did not know, so +coarse it was in quality, so boisterous and effusive; and he paraded +Walter Hine and Captain Barstow with the pride of a man exhibiting his +dearest friends. + +"You must know 'red-hot' Barstow, Captain Chayne," he cried, slapping the +little man lustily on the back. "One of the very best. You are both +brethren of the sword." + +Barstow sniggered obsequiously and screwed his eye-glass into his eye. + +"Delighted, I am sure. But I sheathed the sword some time ago, +Captain Chayne." + +"And exchanged it for the betting book," Chayne added, quietly. + +Barstow laughed nervously. + +"Oh, you refer to our little match in the garden," he said. "We dragged +the gardener into it." + +"So I saw," Chayne replied. "The gardener seemed to be a remarkable shot. +I think he would be a match for more than one professional." + +And turning away he saw Sylvia's eyes fixed upon him, and on her face an +expression of trouble and dismay so deep that he could have bitten off +his tongue for speaking. She had been behind him while he had spoken; and +though he had spoken in a low voice, she had heard every word. She bent +her head over the tea-table and busied herself with the cups. But her +hands shook; her face burned, she was tortured with shame. She had set +herself to do battle with her father, and already in the first skirmish +she had been defeated. Chayne's indiscreet words had laid bare to her the +elaborate conspiracy. The new gardener, the gun in the corner, the +cartridges which had to be looked for, Barstow's want of skill, Hine's +superiority which had led Barstow so naturally to offer to back the +gardener against him--all was clear to her. It was the little round game +of cards all over again; and she had not possessed the wit to detect the +trick! And that was not all. Her friend had witnessed it and understood! + +She heard her father presenting Walter Hine, and with almost intolerable +pain she realized that had he wished to leave Chayne no single +opportunity of misapprehension, he would have spoken just these words and +no others. + +"Wallie is the grandson--and indeed the heir--of old Joseph Hine. You +know his name, no doubt. Joseph Hine's Château Marlay, what? A warm man, +Joseph Hine. I don't know a man more rich. Treats his grandson handsomely +into the bargain, eh, Wallie?" + +Sylvia felt that her heart would break. That Garrett Skinner's admission +was boldly and cunningly deliberate did not occur to her. She simply +understood that here was the last necessary piece of evidence given to +Captain Chayne which would convince him that he had been this afternoon +the witness of a robbery and swindle. + +She became aware that Chayne was standing beside her. She did not lift +her face, for she feared that it would betray her. She wished with all +her heart that he would just replace his cup upon the tray and go away +without a word. He could not want to stay; he could not want to return. +He had no place here. If he would go away quietly, without troubling to +take leave of her, she would be very grateful and do justice to him for +his kindness. + +But though he had the mind to go, it was not without a word. + +"I want you to walk with me as far as the door," he said, gently. + +Sylvia rose at once. Since after all there must be words, the sooner they +were spoken the better. She followed him into the garden, making her +little prayer that they might be very few, and that he would leave her to +fight her battle and to hide her shame alone. + +They crossed the lawn without a word. He held open the garden door for +her and she passed into the lane. He followed and closed the door behind +them. In the lane a hired landau was waiting. Chayne pointed to it. + +"I want you to come away with me now," he said, and since she looked at +him with the air of one who does not understand, he explained, standing +quietly beside her with his eyes upon her face. And though he spoke +quietly, there was in his eyes a hunger which belied his tones, and +though he stood quietly, there was a tension in his attitude which +betrayed extreme suspense. "I want you to come away with me, I want you +never to return. I want you to marry me." + +The blood rushed into her cheeks and again fled from them, leaving her +very white. Her face grew mutinous like an angry child's, but her eyes +grew hard like a resentful woman's. + +"You ask me out of pity," she said, in a low voice. + +"That's not true," he cried, and with so earnest a passion that she could +not but believe him. "Sylvia, I came here meaning to ask you to marry me. +I ask you something more now, that is all. I ask you to come to me a +little sooner--that is all. I want you to come with me now." + +Sylvia leaned against the wall and covered her face with her hands. + +"Please!" he said, making his appeal with a great simplicity. "For I love +you, Sylvia." + +She gave him no answer. She kept her face still hid, and only her heaving +breast bore witness to her stress of feeling. Gently he removed her +hands, and holding them in his, urged his plea. + +"Ever since that day in Switzerland, I have been thinking of you, Sylvia, +remembering your looks, your smile, and the words you spoke. I crossed +the Col Dolent the next day, and all the time I felt that there was some +great thing wanting. I said to myself, 'I miss my friend.' I was wrong, +Sylvia. I missed you. Something ached in me--has ached ever since. It was +my heart! Come with me now!" + +Sylvia had not looked at him, though she made no effort to draw her hands +away, and still not looking at him, she answered in a whisper: + +"I can't, I can't." + +"Why?" he asked, "why? You are not happy here. You are no happier than +you were at Chamonix. And I would try so very hard to make you happy. I +can't leave you here--lonely, for you are lonely. I am lonely too; all +the more lonely because I carry about with me--you--you as you stood in +the chalet at night looking through the open window, with the +candle-light striking upward on your face, and with your reluctant smile +upon your lips--you as you lay on the top of the Aiguille d'Argentière +with the wonder of a new world in your eyes--you as you said good-by in +the sunset and went down the winding path to the forest. If you only +knew, Sylvia!" + +"Yes, but I don't know," she answered, and now she looked at him. "I +suppose that, if I loved, I should know, I should understand." + +Her hands lay in his, listless and unresponsive to the pressure of his. +She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes. + +"Yet you were glad to see me when I came," he urged. + +"Glad, yes! You are my friend, my one friend. I was very glad. But the +gladness passed. When you asked me to come with you across the garden, I +was wanting you to go away." + +The words hurt him. They could not but hurt him. But she was so plainly +unconscious of offence, she was so plainly trying to straighten out her +own tangled position, that he could feel no anger. + +"Why?" he asked; and again she frankly answered him. + +"I was humbled," she replied, "and I have had so much humiliation +in my life." + +The very quietude of her voice and the wistful look upon the young tired +face hurt him far more than her words had done. + +"Sylvia," he cried, and he drew her toward him. "Come with me now! My +dear, there will be an end of all humiliation. We can be married, we can +go down to my home on the Sussex Downs. That old house needs a mistress, +Sylvia. It is very lonely." He drew a breath and smiled suddenly. "And I +would like so much to show you it, to show you all the corners, the +bridle-paths across the downs, the woods, and the wide view from Arundel +to Chichester spires. Sylvia, come!" + +Just for a moment it seemed that she leaned toward him. He put his arm +about her and held her for a moment closer. But her head was lowered, not +lifted up to his; and then she freed herself gently from his clasp. + +She faced him with a little wrinkle of thought between her brows and +spoke with an air of wisdom which went very prettily with the childlike +beauty of her face. + +"You are my friend," she said, "a friend I am very grateful for, but you +are not more than that to me. I am frank. You see, I am thinking now of +reasons which would not trouble me if I loved you. Marriage with me would +do you no good, would hurt you in your career." + +"No," he protested. + +"But I am thinking that it would," she replied, steadily, "and I do not +believe that I should give much thought to it, if I really loved you. I +am thinking of something else, too--" and she spoke more boldly, +choosing her words with care--"of a plan which before you came I had +formed, of a task which before you came I had set myself to do. I am +still thinking of it, still feeling that I ought to go on with it. I do +not think that I should feel that if I loved. I think nothing else would +count at all except that I loved. So you are still my friend, and I +cannot go with you." + +Chayne looked at her for a moment sadly, with a mist before his eyes. + +"I leave you to much unhappiness," he said, "and I hate the +thought of it." + +"Not quite so much now as before you came," she answered. "I am proud, +you know, that you asked me," and putting her troubles aside, she smiled +at him bravely, as though it was he who needed comforting. "Good-by! Let +me hear of you through your success." + +So again they said good-by at the time of sunset. Chayne mounted into +the landau and drove back along the road to Weymouth. "So that's the +end," said Sylvia. She opened the door and passed again into the garden. +Through the window of the library she saw her father and Walter Hine, +watching, it seemed, for her appearance. It was borne in upon her +suddenly that she could not meet them or speak with them, and she ran +very quickly round the house to the front door, and escaped unaccosted +to her room. + +In the library Hine turned to Garratt Skinner with one of his rare +flashes of shrewdness. + +"She didn't want to meet us," he said, jealously. "Do you think she +cares for him?" + +"I think," replied Garratt Skinner with a smile, "that Captain Chayne +will not trouble us with his company again." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + +Garratt Skinner, however, was wrong. He was not aware of the great +revolution which had taken place in Chayne; and he misjudged his +tenacity. Chayne, like many another man, had mapped out his life only to +find that events would happen in a succession different to that which he +had ordained. He had arranged to devote his youth and the earlier part of +his manhood entirely to his career, if the career were not brought to a +premature end in the Alps. That possibility he had always foreseen. He +took his risks with full knowledge, setting the gain against them, and +counting them worth while. If then he lived, he proposed at some +indefinite time, in the late thirties, to fall in love and marry. He had +no parents living; there was the empty house upon the Sussex Downs; and +the small estate which for generations had descended from father to son. +Marriage was thus a recognized event. Only it was thrust away into an +indefinite future. But there had come an evening which he had not +foreseen, when, sorely grieved by the loss of his great friend, he had +fallen in with a girl who gave with open hands the sympathy he needed, +and claimed, by her very reticence and humility, his sympathy in return. +A day had followed upon that evening; and thenceforth the image of Sylvia +standing upon the snow-ridge of the Aiguille d'Argentière, with a few +strips of white cloud sailing in a blue sky overhead, the massive pile of +Mont Blanc in front, freed to the sunlight which was her due, remained +fixed and riveted in his thoughts. He began in imagination to refer +matters of moment to her judgment; he began to save up little events of +interest that he might remember to tell them to her. He understood that +he had a companion, even when he was alone, a condition which he had not +anticipated even for his late thirties. And he came to the conclusion +that he had not that complete ordering of his life on which he had +counted. He was not, however, disappointed. He seized upon the good thing +which had come to him with a great deal of wonder and a very thankful +heart; and he was not disposed to let it lightly go. + +Thus the vulgarity which Garratt Skinner chose to assume, the +unattractive figure of "red-hot" Barstow, and the obvious swindle which +was being perpetrated on Walter Hine, had the opposite effect to that +which Skinner expected. Chayne, instead of turning his back upon so +distasteful a company, frequented it in the resolve to take Sylvia out of +its grasp. It did not need a lover to see that she slept little of nights +and passed distressful days. She had fled from her mother's friends at +Chamonix, only to find herself helpless amongst a worse gang in her +father's house. Very well. She must be released. He had proposed to take +her away then and there. She had refused. Well, he had been blunt. He +would go about the business in the future in a more delicate way. And so +he came again and again to the little house under the hill where the +stream babbled through the garden, and every day the apples grew redder +upon the boughs. + +But it was disheartening work. His position indeed became difficult, and +it needed all his tenacity to enable him to endure it. The difficulty +became very evident one afternoon early in August, and the afternoon was, +moveover, remarkable in that Garratt Skinner was betrayed into a +revelation of himself which was to bear consequences of gravity in a +future which he could not foresee. Chayne rode over upon that afternoon, +and found Garratt Skinner alone and, according to his habit, stretched at +full-length in his hammock with a cigar between his lips. He received +Captain Chayne with the utmost geniality. He had long since laid aside +his ineffectual vulgarity of manner. + +"You must put up with me, Captain Chayne," he said. "My daughter is out. +However, she--I ought more properly to say, they--will be back no doubt +before long." + +"They being--" + +"Sylvia and Walter Hine." + +Chayne nodded his head. He had known very well who "they" must be, but he +had not been able to refrain from the question. Jealousy had hold of him. +He knew nothing of Sylvia's determination to acquire a power greater than +her father's over the vain and defenceless youth. The words with which +she had hinted her plan to him had been too obscure to convey their +meaning. He was simply aware that Sylvia more and more avoided him, more +and more sought the companionship of Walter Hine; and such experience as +he had, taught him that women were as apt to be blind in their judgment +of men as men in their estimation of women. + +He sought now to enlist Garratt Skinner on his side, and drawing a chair +nearer to the hammock he sat down. + +"Mr. Skinner," he said, speaking upon an impulse, "you have no doubt in +your mind, I suppose, as to why I come here so often." + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I make a guess, I admit." + +"I should be very glad if your daughter would marry me," Chayne +continued, "and I want you to give me your help. I am not a poor man, Mr. +Skinner, and I should certainly be willing to recognize that in taking +her away from you I laid myself under considerable obligations." + +Chayne spoke with some natural hesitation, but Garratt Skinner was not in +the least offended. + +"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," he replied. "Indeed, I like +your frankness. Please take what I say in the same spirit. I cannot give +you any help, Captain Chayne." + +"Why?" + +Garratt Skinner raised himself upon his elbow, and fixing his eyes upon +his companion's face, said distinctly and significantly: + +"Because Sylvia has her work to do here." + +Chayne in his turn made no pretence to misunderstand. He was being told +clearly that Sylvia was in league with her father and Captain Barstow to +pluck Walter Hine. But he was anxious to discover how far Garratt +Skinner's cynicism would carry him. + +"Will you define the work?" he asked. + +"If you wish it," replied Garratt Skinner, falling back in his hammock. +"I should have thought it unnecessary myself. The work is the reclaiming +of Wallie Hine from the very undesirable company in which he has mixed. +Do you understand?" + +"Quite," said Chayne. He understood very well. He had been told first the +real design--to pluck Walter Hine--and then the excuse which was to cloak +it. He understood, too, the reason why this information had been given to +him with so cynical a frankness. He, Chayne, was in the way. Declare the +swindle and persuade him that Sylvia was a party to it--what more likely +way could be discovered for getting rid of Captain Chayne? He looked at +his smiling companion, took note of his strong aquiline face, his clear +and steady eyes. He recognized a redoubtable antagonist, but he leaned +forward and said with a quiet emphasis: + +"Mr. Skinner, I have, nevertheless, not lost heart." + +Garratt Skinner laughed in a friendly way. + +"I suppose not. It is only in the wisdom of middle age that we lose +heart. In youth we lose our hearts--a very different thing." + +"I propose still to come to this house." + +"As often as you will, Captain Chayne," said Garratt Skinner, gaily. "My +doors are always open to you. I am not such a fool as to give you a +romantic interest by barring you out." + +Garratt Skinner had another reason for his hospitality which he kept to +himself. He was inclined to believe that a few more visits from Captain +Chayne would settle his chances without the necessity of any +interference. It was Garratt Skinner's business, as that of any other +rogue, to play with simple artifices upon the faults and vanities of men. +He had, therefore, cultivated a habit of observation; he had become +naturally attentive to trifles which others might overlook; and he was +aware that he needed to go very warily in the delicate business on which +he was now engaged. He was fighting Sylvia for the possession of Walter +Hine--that he had recognized--and Chayne for the possession of Sylvia. It +was a three-cornered contest, and he had in consequence kept his eyes +alert. He had noticed that Chayne was growing importunate, and that his +persistence was becoming troublesome to Sylvia. She gave him a less warm +welcome each time that he came to the house. She made plans to prevent +herself being left alone with him, and if by chance the plans failed she +listened rather than talked and listened almost with an air of boredom. + +"Come as often as you please!" consequently said Garratt Skinner from his +hammock. "And now let us talk of something else." + +He talked of nothing for a while. But it was plain that he had a subject +in his thoughts. For twice he turned to Chayne and was on the point of +speaking; but each time he thought silence the better part and lay back +again. Chayne waited and at last the subject was broached, but in a +queer, hesitating, diffident way, as though Garratt Skinner spoke rather +under a compulsion of which he disapproved. + +"Tell me!" he said. "I am rather interested. A craze, an infatuation +which so masters people must be interesting even to the stay-at-homes +like myself. But I am wrong to call it a craze. From merely reading books +I think it a passion which is easily intelligible. You are wondering what +I am talking about. My daughter tells me that you are a famous climber. +The Aiguille d'Argentière, I suppose, up which you were kind enough to +accompany her, is not a very difficult mountain." + +"It depends upon the day," said Chayne, "and the state of the snow." + +"Yes, that is what I have gathered from the books. Every mountain may +become dangerous." + +"Yes." + +"Each mountain," said Garratt Skinner, thoughtfully, "may reward its +conquerors with death"; and for a little while he lay looking up to the +green branches interlaced above his head. "Thus each mountain on the +brightest day holds in its recesses mystery, and also death." + +There had come a change already in the manner of the two men. They found +themselves upon neutral ground. Their faces relaxed from wariness; they +were no longer upon their guard. It seemed that an actual comradeship had +sprung up between them. + +"There is a mountain called the Grépon," said Skinner. "I have seen +pictures of it--a strange and rather attractive pinnacle, with its +knife-like slabs of rock, set on end one above the other--black rock +splashed with red--and the overhanging boulder on the top. Have you +climbed it?" + +"Yes." + +"There is a crack, I believe--a good place to get you into training." + +Chayne laughed with the enjoyment of a man who recollects a stiff +difficulty overcome. + +"Yes, to the right of the Col between the Grépon and the Charmoz. There +is a step half way up--otherwise there is very little hold and the crack +is very steep." + +They talked of other peaks, such as the Charmoz, where the first lines of +ascent had given place to others more recently discovered, of new +variations, new ascents and pinnacles still unclimbed; and then Garratt +Skinner said: + +"I saw that a man actually crossed the Col des Nantillons early this +summer. It used to be called the Col de Blaitière. He was killed with +his guide, but after the real dangers were passed. That seems to happen +at times." + +Chayne looked at Garratt Skinner in surprise. + +"It is strange that you should have mentioned John Lattery's death," he +said, slowly. + +"Why?" asked Garratt Skinner, turning quietly toward his companion. "I +read of it in 'The Times.'" + +"Oh, yes. No doubt it was described. What I meant was this. John Lattery +was my great friend, and he was a distant kind of cousin to your friend +Walter Hine, and indeed co-heir with him to Joseph Hine's great fortune. +His death, I suppose, has doubled your friend's inheritance." + +Garratt Skinner raised himself up on his elbow. The announcement was +really news to him. + +"Is that so?" he asked. "It is true, then. The mountains hold death too +in their recesses--even on the clearest day--yes, they hold death too!" +And letting himself fall gently back upon his cushions, he remained for a +while with a very thoughtful look upon his face. Twice Chayne spoke to +him, and twice he did not hear. He lay absorbed. It seemed that a new and +engrossing idea had taken possession of his mind, and when he turned his +eyes again to Chayne and spoke, he appeared to be speaking with reference +to that idea rather than to any remarks of his companion. + +"Did you ever ascend Mont Blanc by the Brenva route?" he asked. "There's +a thin ridge of ice--I read an account in Moore's 'Journal'--you have to +straddle across the ridge with a leg hanging down either precipice." + +Chayne shook his head. + +"Lattery and I meant to try it this summer. The Dent du Requin as well." + +"Ah, that is one of the modern rock scrambles, isn't it? The last two or +three hundred feet are the trouble, I believe." + +And so the talk went on and the comradeship grew. But Chayne noticed that +always Garratt Skinner came back to the great climbs of the earlier +mountaineers, the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc, the Col Dolent, the two +points of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. + +"But you, too, have climbed," Chayne cried at length. + +"On winter nights by my fireside," replied Garratt Skinner, with a smile. +"I have a lame leg which would hinder me." + +"Nevertheless, you left Miss Sylvia and myself behind when you led us +over the hills to Dorchester." + +It was Walter Hine who interrupted. He had come across the grass from +behind, and neither of the two men had noticed his approach. But the +moment when he did interrupt marked a change in their demeanor. The +comradeship which had so quickly bloomed as quickly faded. It was the +flower of an idle moment. Antagonism preceded and followed it. Thus, one +might imagine, might sentries at the outposts of opposing armies pile +their arms for half an hour and gossip of their homes or their children, +or of something dear to both of them and separate at the bugle sound. +Garratt Skinner swung himself out of his hammock. + +"Where's Sylvia, Wallie?" + +"She went up to her room." + +Chayne waited for ten minutes, and for another ten, and still Sylvia did +not appear. She was avoiding him. She could spend the afternoon with +Walter Hine, but she must run to her room when he came upon the scene. +Jealousy flamed up in him. Every now and then a whimsical smile of +amusement showed upon Garratt Skinner's face and broadened into a grin. +Chayne was looking a fool, and was quite conscious of it. He rose +abruptly from his chair. + +"I must be going," he said, over loudly, and Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I'm afraid she won't hear that," he said softly, measuring with his eyes +the distance between the group and the house. "But come again, Captain +Chayne, and sit it out." + +Chayne flushed with anger. He said, "Thank you," and tried to say it +jauntily and failed. He took his leave and walked across the lawn to the +garden, trying to assume a carriage of indifference and dignity. But +every moment he expected to hear the two whom he had left laughing at his +discomfiture. Neither, however, did laugh. Walter Hine was, indeed, +indignant. + +"Why did you ask him to come again?" he asked, angrily, as the garden +door closed upon Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laid his hand on Walter Hine's arm. + +"Don't you worry, Wallie," he said, confidentially. "Every time Chayne +comes here he loses ten marks. Give him rope! He does not, after all, +know a great deal of geography." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + +Chayne returned to London on the following day, restless and troubled. +Jealousy, he knew, was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should +have to be jealous of a Walter Hine--there was the sting. He asked the +old question over and over again, the old futile question which the +unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the +ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see +in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature +to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal. +Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their +proper proportions in Sylvia's eyes. Meanwhile there was something to be +done--a doubt to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made. + +His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject which Garratt Skinner +had chosen, and the knowledge with which he had spoken, had seemed to +Chayne rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and follow with +interest, nay almost with the passion of the mountaineer, the history of +Alpine exploration and adventure. That had happened before now. And very +likely Chayne would have troubled himself no more about Garratt Skinner's +introduction of the theme but for one or two circumstances which the more +he reflected upon them became the more significant. For instance: Garratt +Skinner had spoken and had asked questions about the new ascents made, +the new passes crossed within the last twenty years, just as a man would +ask who had obtained his knowledge out of books. But of the earlier +ascents he had spoken differently, though the difference was subtle and +hard to define. He seemed to be upon more familiar ground. He left in +Chayne's mind a definite suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of +books, but from an intimate personal knowledge, the knowledge of actual +experience. The suspicion had grown up gradually, but it had strengthened +almost into a conviction. + +It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's conversation perpetually +recurred--the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Petit Dru and the +traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the +Brenva route--yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc. Moreover, +how in the world should he know that those slabs of black granite on the +top of the Grépon were veined with red--splashed with red as he described +them? Unless he had ascended them, or the Aiguille des Charmoz +opposite--how should he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel +Revailloud flashed across Chayne's mind. "One needs some one with whom to +exchange one's memories." + +Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with so much compulsion +that he must satisfy it in spite of himself? Yet why should he practise +concealment at all? There certainly had been concealment. Chayne +remembered how more than once Garratt Skinner had checked himself before +at last he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he had spoken. +And then suddenly as the train drew up at Vauxhall Station for the +tickets to be collected, Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of +the Argentière, beside the great gully, as they descended to the glacier, +Sylvia's guide had spoken words which came flying back into Chayne's +thoughts. She had climbed that day, though it was her first mountain, as +if knowledge of the craft had been born in her. How to stand upon an +ice-slope, how to hold her ax--she had known. On the rocks, too! Which +foot to advance, with which hand to grasp the hold--she had known. +Suppose that knowledge _had_ been born in her! Why, then those words of +her guide began to acquire significance. She had reminded him of some +one--some one whose name he could not remember--but some one with whom +years ago he had climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance movement +of Sylvia's, some way in which she moved from ledge to ledge, had +revealed to him the name--Gabriel Strood. + +Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark thing was there in the +record of Strood's life that he must change his name, disappear from the +world, and avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and storm on the +high rock-ledges and the ice-slope? + +Chayne was minded to find an answer to that question. Sylvia was in +trouble; that house under the downs was no place for her. He himself was +afraid of what was being planned there. It might help him if he knew +something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew at present. And it seemed +to him that there was just a chance of acquiring that knowledge. + +He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up St. James' Street. +The street was empty. It was a hot starlit night of the first week in +August, and there came upon him a swift homesickness for the world above +the snow-line. How many of his friends were sleeping that night in +mountain huts high up on the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs +open to the stars with a rock-cliff at their backs and a fire of pine +wood blazing at their feet. Most likely amongst those friends was the +one he sought to-night. + +"Still there's a chance that I may find him," he pleaded, and +crossing Piccadilly passed into Dover Street. Half way along the +street of milliners, he stopped before a house where a famous scholar +had his lodging. + +"Is Mr. Kenyon in London?" he asked, and the man-servant replied to his +great relief: + +"Yes, sir, but he is not yet at home." + +"I will wait for him," said Chayne. + +He was shown into the study and left there with a lighted lamp. The +room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a +ladder and took down from a high corner some volumes bound simply in +brown cloth. They were volumes of the "Alpine Journal." He had chosen +those which dated back from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He +drew a chair up beside the lamp and began eagerly to turn over the +pages. Often he stopped, for the name of which he was in search often +leaped to his eyes from the pages. Chayne read of the exploits in the +Alps of Gabriel Strood. More than one new expedition was described, +many variations of old ascents, many climbs already familiar. It was +clear that the man was of the true brotherhood. A new climb was very +well, but the old were as good to Gabriel Strood, and the climb which +he had once made he had the longing to repeat with new companions. None +of the descriptions were written by Strood himself but all by +companions whom he had led, and most of them bore testimony to an +unusual endurance, an unusual courage, as though Strood triumphed +perpetually over a difficulty which his companions did not share and of +which only vague hints were given. At last Chayne came to that very +narrative which Sylvia had been reading on her way to Chamonix--and +there the truth was bluntly told for the first time. + +Chayne started up in that dim and quiet room, thrilled. He had the proof +now, under his finger--the indisputable proof. Gabriel Strood suffered +from an affection of the muscles in his right thigh, and yet managed to +out-distance all his rivals. Hine's words drummed in Chayne's ears: + +"Nevertheless he left us all behind." + +Garratt Skinner: Gabriel Strood. Surely, surely! He replaced the volumes +and took others down. In the first which he opened--it was the autumn +number of nineteen years ago--there was again mention of the man; and the +climb described was the ascent of Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier. +Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It +was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back. +The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the +Blaitière--yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back, +with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arête of the +Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages. But there was nowhere +in any volume on which he laid his hands any further record of his +exploits. Others who followed in his steps mentioned his name, but of the +man himself there was no word more. No one had climbed with him, no one +had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For five or six seasons +he had flashed through the Alps. Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the +Concordia hut--all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just +under twenty years ago he had come no more. + +Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down +again in the arm-chair before the empty grate. It was a strange and a +haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts. +Men like Gabriel Strood _always_ come back to the Alps. They sleep too +restlessly at nights, they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed +away. There must have been some great impediment. He fell into another +train of thought. Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel +Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the +Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was still not unraveled, and +while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and +a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold. He was a +man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and +his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an +aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone--until he smiled. And +in the smile there was much companionship and love. He smiled now as he +stretched out his long, finely-molded hand. + +"I am very glad to see you, Chayne," he said, in a voice remarkable for +its gentleness, "although in another way I am sorry. I am sorry because, +of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps." + +Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder +and forced him down again with a friendly pressure. "I read of Lattery's +death. I am grieved about it--for you as much as for Lattery. I know just +what that kind of loss means. It means very much," said he, letting his +deep-set eyes rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man. Kenyon +put a whisky and soda by Chayne's elbow, and setting the tobacco jar on a +little table between them, sat down and lighted his pipe. + +"You came back at once?" he asked. + +"I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into Italy," replied Chayne. + +"Yes, yes," said Kenyon, nodding his head. "But you will go back next +year, or the year after." + +"Perhaps," said Chayne; and for a little while they smoked their pipes in +silence. Then Chayne came to the object of his visit. + +"Kenyon," he asked, "have you any photographs of the people who went +climbing twenty to twenty-five years ago? I thought perhaps you might +have some groups taken in Switzerland in those days. If you have, I +should like to see them." + +"Yes, I think I have," said Kenyon. He went to his writing-desk and +opening a drawer took out a number of photographs. He brought them back, +and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light fell clear and strong +upon the little table, laid them down. + +Chayne bent over them with a beating heart. Was his suspicion to be +confirmed or disproved? + +One by one he took the photographs, closely examined them, and laid +them aside while Kenyon stood upright on the other side of the table. +He had turned over a dozen before he stopped. He held in his hand the +picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open space before the door. In the +open space men were gathered. They were talking in groups; some of them +leaned upon ice-axes, some carried _Rücksacks_ upon their backs, as +though upon the point of starting for the hills. As he held the +photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and bent his head a little +lower, Kenyon made a slight uneasy movement. But Chayne did not notice. +He sat very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. On the +outskirts of the group stood Sylvia's father. Younger, slighter of +build, with a face unlined and a boyish grace which had long since +gone--but undoubtedly Sylvia's father. + +The contours of the mountains told Chayne clearly enough in what valley +the hotel stood. + +"This is Zermatt," he said, without lifting his eyes. + +"Yes," replied Kenyon, quietly, "a Zermatt you are too young to know," +and then Chayne's forefinger dropped upon the figure of Sylvia's father. + +"Who is this?" he asked. + +Kenyon made no answer. + +"It is Gabriel Strood," Chayne continued. + +There was a pause, and then Kenyon confirmed the guess. + +"Yes," he said, and some hint of emotion in his voice made Chayne lift +his eyes. The light striking upward through the green shade gave to +Kenyon's face an extraordinary pallor. But it seemed to Chayne that not +all the pallor was due to the lamp. + +"For six seasons," Chayne said, "Gabriel Strood came to the Alps. In his +first season he made a great name." + +"He was the best climber I have ever seen," replied Kenyon. + +"He had a passion for the mountains. Yet after six years he came back no +more. He disappeared. Why?" + +Kenyon stood absolutely silent, absolutely still. Perhaps the trouble +deepened a little on his face; but that was all. Chayne, however, was +bent upon an answer. For Sylvia's sake alone he must have it, he must +know the father into whose clutches she had come. + +"You knew Gabriel Strood. Why?" + +Kenyon leaned forward and gently took the photograph out of Chayne's +hand. He mixed it with the others, not giving to it a single glance +himself, and then replaced them all in the drawer from which he had taken +them. He came back to the table and at last answered Chayne: + +"John Lattery was your friend. Some of the best hours of your life were +passed in his company. You know that now. But you will know it still +more surely when you come to my age, whatever happiness may come to you +between now and then. The camp-fire, the rock-slab for your floor and +the black night about you for walls, the hours of talk, the ridge and +the ice-slope, the bad times in storm and mist, the good times in the +sunshine, the cold nights of hunger when you were caught by the +darkness, the off-days when you lounged at your ease. You won't forget +John Lattery." + +Kenyon spoke very quietly but with a conviction, and, indeed, a certain +solemnity, which impressed his companion. + +"No," said Chayne, gently, "I shall not forget John Lattery." But his +question was still unanswered, and by nature he was tenacious. His eyes +were still upon Kenyon's face and he added: "What then?" + +"Only this," said Kenyon. "Gabriel Strood was my John Lattery," and +moving round the table he dropped his hand upon Chayne's shoulder. "You +will ask me no more questions," he said, with a smile. + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne. + +He had his answer. He knew now that there was something to conceal, that +there was a definite reason why Gabriel Strood disappeared. + +"Good-night," he said; and as he left the room he saw Kenyon sink down +into his arm-chair. There seemed something sad and very lonely in the +attitude of the older man. Once more Michel Revailloud's warning rose up +within his mind. + +"When it is all over, and you go home, take care that there is a lighted +lamp in the room and the room not empty. Have some one to share your +memories when life is nothing but memories." + +At every turn the simple philosophy of Michel Revailloud seemed to obtain +an instance and a confirmation. Was that to be his own fate too? Just for +a moment he was daunted. He closed the door noiselessly, and going down +the stairs let himself out into the street. The night was clear above his +head. How was it above the Downs of Dorsetshire, he wondered. He walked +along the street very slowly. Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood. There +was clearly a dark reason for the metamorphosis. It remained for Chayne +to discover that reason. But he did not ponder any more upon that problem +to-night. He was merely thinking as he walked along the street that +Michel Revailloud was a very wise man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + +"Between gentlemen," said Wallie Hine. "Yes, between gentlemen." + +He was quoting from a letter which he held in his hand, as he sat at the +breakfast table, and, in his agitation, he had quoted aloud. Garratt +Skinner looked up from his plate and said: + +"Can I help you, Wallie?" + +Hine flushed red and stammered out: "No, thank you. I must run up to town +this morning--that's all." + +"Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-cart after breakfast," +said Garratt Skinner, and he made no further reference to the journey. +But he glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with some +perplexity at Walter Hine. "You will be back this evening, I suppose?" + +"Rather," said Walter Hine, with a smile across the table at Sylvia; but +his agitation got the better of his gallantry, and as she drove him into +Weymouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for protection. "I +don't want to go one little bit, Miss Sylvia. But between gentlemen. Yes, +I mustn't forget that. Between gentlemen." He clung to the phrase, +finding some comfort in its reiteration. + +"You have given me your promise," said Sylvia. "There will be no +cards, no bets." + +Walter Hine laughed bitterly. + +"I shan't break it. I have had my lesson. By Jove, I have." + +Walter Hine traveled to Waterloo and drove straight to the office of +Mr. Jarvice. + +"I owe some money," he began, bleating the words out the moment he was +ushered into the inner office. + +Mr. Jarvice grinned. + +"This interview is concluded," he said. "There's the door." + +"I owe it to a friend, Captain Barstow," Hine continued, in desperation. +"A thousand pounds. He has written for it. He says that debts of honor +between gentlemen--" But he got no further, for Mr. Jarvice broke in upon +his faltering explanations with a snarl of contempt. + +"Barstow! You poor little innocent. I have something else to do with my +money than to pour it into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send him to +me to-morrow, and I'll talk to him--as between gentlemen." + +Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed to deference and flatteries +in the household of Garratt Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr. +Jarvice stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong element of his +character. He was in the mind hotly to defend Captain Barstow from Mr. +Jarvice's insinuations, but he refrained. + +"Then Barstow will know that I draw my allowance from you, and not from +my grandfather," he stammered. There was the trouble for Walter Hine. +If Barstow knew, Garratt Skinner would come to know. There would be an +end to the deference and the flatteries. He would no longer be able to +pose as the favorite of the great millionaire, Joseph Hine. He would +sink in Sylvia's eyes. At the cost of any humiliation that downfall +must be avoided. + +His words, however, had an immediate effect upon Mr. Jarvice, though for +quite other reasons. + +"Why, that's true," said Mr. Jarvice, slowly, and in a voice suddenly +grown smooth. "Yes, yes, we don't want to mix up my name in the affair at +all. Sit down, Mr. Hine, and take a cigar. The box is at your elbow. +Young men of spirit must have some extra license allowed to them for the +sake of the promise of their riper years. I was forgetting that. No, we +don't want my name to appear at all, do we?" + +Publicity had no charms for Mr. Jarvice. Indeed, on more than one +occasion he had found it quite a hindrance to the development of his +little plans. To go his own quiet way, unheralded by the press and +unacclaimed of men--that was the modest ambition of Mr. Jarvice. + +"However, I don't look forward to handing over a thousand pounds to +Captain Barstow," he continued, softly. "No, indeed. Did you lose any of +your first quarter's allowance to him besides the thousand?" + +Walter Hine lit his cigar and answered reluctantly: + +"Yes." + +"All of it?" + +"Oh no, no, not all of it." + +Jarvice did not press for the exact amount. He walked to the window and +stood there with his hands in his pockets and his back toward his +visitor. Walter Hine watched his shoulders in suspense and apprehension. +He would have been greatly surprised if he could have caught a glimpse at +this moment of Mr. Jarvice's face. There was no anger, no contempt, +expressed in it at all. On the contrary, a quiet smile of satisfaction +gave to it almost a merry look. Mr. Jarvice had certain plans for Walter +Hine's future--so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of the +phrase--and fate seemed to be helping toward their fulfilment. + +"I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said Jarvice, turning back +to his table. "The means I must think over, but I can do it. Only there's +a condition. You need not be alarmed. A little condition which a loving +father might impose upon his only son," and Mr. Jarvice beamed paternally +as he resumed his seat. + +"What is the condition?" asked Walter Hine. + +"That you travel for a year, broaden your mind by visiting the great +countries and capitals of Europe, take a little trip perhaps into the +East and return a cultured gentleman well equipped to occupy the high +position which will be yours when your grandfather is in due time +translated to a better sphere." + +Mr. Jarvice leaned back in his chair, and with a confident wave of his +desk ruler had the air of producing the startling metamorphosis like some +heavy but benevolent fairy. Walter Hine, however, was not attracted by +the prospect. + +"But--" he began, and at once Mr. Jarvice interrupted him. + +"I anticipate you," he said, with a smile. "Standing at the window there, +I foresaw your objection. But--it would be lonely. Quite true. Why should +you be lonely? And so I am going to lay my hands on some pleasant and +companionable young fellow who will go with you for his expenses. An +Oxford man, eh? Fresh from Alma Mater with a taste for pictures and +statuettes and that sort of thing! Upon my word, I envy you, Mr. Hine. If +I were young, bless me, if I wouldn't throw my bonnet over the mill, as +after a few weeks in La Ville Lumière you will be saying, and go with +you. You will taste life--yes, life." + +And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died suddenly out of the +face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his eyes somberly upon his visitor and a +queer inscrutable smile played about his lips. But Walter Hine had no +eyes for Mr. Jarvice. He was nerving himself to refuse the proposal. + +"I can't go," he blurted out, with the ungracious stubbornness of a weak +mind which fears to be over-persuaded. Afraid lest he should consent, he +refused aggressively and rudely. + +Mr. Jarvice repressed an exclamation of anger. "And why?" he asked, +leaning forward on his elbows and fixing his bright, sharp eyes on Walter +Hine's face. + +Walter Hine shifted uncomfortably in his chair but did not answer. + +"And why can't you go?" he repeated. + +"I can't tell you." + +"Oh, surely," said Mr. Jarvice, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "Come +now! Between gentlemen! Well?" + +Walter Hine yielded to Jarvice's insistence. + +"There's a girl," he said, with a coy and odious smile. + +Mr. Jarvice beat upon his desk with his fists in a savage anger. His +carefully calculated plan was to be thwarted by a girl. + +"She's a dear," cried Walter Hine. Having made the admission, he let +himself go. His vanity pricked him to lyrical flights. "She's a dear, +she's a sob, she would never let me go, she's my little girl." + +Such was Sylvia's reward for engaging in a struggle which she loathed for +the salvation of Walter Hine. She was jubilantly claimed by him as his +little girl in a money-lender's office. Mr. Jarvice swore aloud. + +"Who is she?" he asked, sternly. + +A faint sense of shame came over Walter Hine. He dimly imagined what +Sylvia would have thought and said, and what contempt her looks would +have betrayed, had she heard him thus boast of her goodwill. + +"You are asking too much, Mr. Jarvice," he said. + +Mr. Jarvice waved the objection aside. + +"Of course I ask it as between gentlemen," he said, with an ironical +politeness. + +"Well, then, as between gentlemen," returned Walter Hine, seriously. "She +is the daughter of a great friend of mine, Mr. Garratt Skinner. What's +the matter?" he cried; and there was reason for his cry. + +It had been an afternoon of surprises for Mr. Jarvice, but this simple +mention of the name of Garratt Skinner was more than a surprise. Mr. +Jarvice was positively startled. He leaned back in his chair with his +mouth open and his eyes staring at Walter Hine. The high color paled in +his face and his cheeks grew mottled. It seemed that fear as well as +surprise came to him in the knowledge that Garratt Skinner was a friend +of Walter Hine. + +"What is the matter?" repeated Hine. + +"It's nothing," replied Mr. Jarvice, hastily. "The heat, that is all." +He crossed the room, and throwing up the window leaned for a few moments +upon the sill. Yet even when he spoke again, there was still a certain +unsteadiness in his voice. "How did you come across Mr. Garratt +Skinner?" he asked. + +"Barstow introduced me. I made Barstow's acquaintance at the Criterion +Bar, and he took me to Garratt Skinner's house in Hobart Place." + +"I see," said Mr. Jarvice. "It was in Garratt Skinner's house that you +lost your money, I suppose." + +"Yes, but he had no hand in it," exclaimed Walter Hine. "He does not know +how much I lost. He would be angry if he did." + +A faint smile flickered across Jarvice's face. + +"Quite so," he agreed, and under his deft cross-examination the whole +story was unfolded. The little dinner at which Sylvia made her +appearance and at which Walter Hine was carefully primed with drink; the +little round game of cards which Garratt Skinner was so reluctant to +allow in his house on a Sunday evening, and from which, being an early +riser, he retired to bed, leaving Hine in the hands of Captain Barstow +and Archie Parminter; the quiet secluded house in the country; the new +gardener who appeared for one day and shot with so surprising an +accuracy, when Barstow backed him against Walter Hine, that Hine lost a +thousand pounds; the incidents were related to Mr. Jarvice in their +proper succession, and he interpreted them by his own experience. +Captain Barstow, who was always to the fore, counted for nothing in the +story as Jarvice understood it. He was the mere creature, the servant. +Garratt Skinner, who was always in the background, prepared the swindle +and pocketed the profits. + +"You are staying at the quiet house in Dorsetshire now, I suppose. Just +you and Garratt Skinner and the pretty daughter, with occasional visits +from Barstow?" + +"Yes," answered Hine. "Garratt Skinner does not care to see much +company." + +Once more the smile of amusement played upon Mr. Jarvice's face. + +"No, I suppose not," he said, quietly. There were certain definite +reasons of which he was aware, to account for Garratt Skinner's +reluctance to appear in a general company. He turned back from the window +and returned to his table. He had taken his part. There was no longer +either unsteadiness or anger in his voice. + +"I quite understand your reluctance to leave your new friends," he said, +with the utmost friendliness. "I recognize that the tour abroad on which +I had rather set my heart must be abandoned. But I have no regrets. For I +think it possible that the very object which I had in mind when proposing +that tour may be quite as easily effected in the charming country house +of Garratt Skinner." + +He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, looking benevolently at his +visitor. If the words were capable of another and a more sinister meaning +than they appeared to convey, Walter Hine did not suspect it. He took +them in their obvious sense. + +"Yes, I shall gain as much culture in Garratt Skinner's house as I should +by seeing picture-galleries abroad," he said eagerly, and then Mr. +Jarvice smiled. + +"I think that very likely," he said. "Meanwhile, as to Barstow and his +thousand pounds. I must think the matter over. Barstow will not press you +for a day or two. Just leave me your address--the address in +Dorsetshire." + +He dipped a pen in the ink and handed it to Hine. Hine took it and drew a +sheet of paper toward him. But he did not set the pen to the paper. He +looked suddenly up at Jarvice, who stood over against him at the other +side of the table. + +"Garratt Skinner's address?" he said, with one of his flashes of cunning. + +"Yes, since you are staying there. I shall want to write to you." + +Walter Hine still hesitated. + +"You won't peach to Garratt Skinner about the allowance, eh?" + +"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Jarvice. He was more hurt than offended. "To +put it on the lowest ground, what could I gain?" + +Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once the clerk appeared at the +door and handed Jarvice a card. + +"I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine: "Our business is +over, I think." + +Jarvice opened a second door which led from the inner office straight +down a little staircase into the street. "Good-by. You shall hear from +me," he said, and Walter Hine went out. + +Jarvice closed the door and turned back to his clerk. + +"That will do," he said. + +There was no client waiting at all. Mr. Jarvice had an ingenious +contrivance for getting rid of his clients at the critical moment after +they had come to a decision and before they had time to change their +minds. By pressing a particular button in the leather covering of the +right arm of his chair, he moved an indicator above the desk of his clerk +in the outer office. The clerk thereupon announced a visitor, and the one +in occupation was bowed out by the private staircase. By this method +Walter Hine had been dismissed. + +Jarvice had the address of Garratt Skinner. But he sat with it in front +of him upon his desk for a long time before he could bring himself to use +it. All the amiability had gone from his expression now that he was +alone. He was in a savage mood, and every now and then a violent gesture +betrayed it. But it was with himself that he was angry. He had been a +fool not to keep a closer watch on Walter Hine. + +"I might have foreseen," he cried in his exasperation. "Garratt Skinner! +If I had not been an ass, I _should_ have foreseen." + +For Mr. Jarvice was no stranger to Walter Hine's new friend. More than +one young buck fresh from the provinces, heir to the great factory or the +great estate, had been steered into this inner office by the careful +pilotage of Garratt Skinner. In all the army of the men who live by their +wits, there was not one to Jarvice's knowledge who was so alert as +Garratt Skinner to lay hands upon the new victim or so successful in +lulling his suspicions. He might have foreseen that Garratt Skinner would +throw his net over Walter Hine. But he had not, and the harm was done. + +Mr. Jarvice took the insurance policy from his safe and shook his head +over it sadly. He had seen his way to making in his quiet fashion, and at +comparatively little cost, a tidy little sum of one hundred thousand +pounds. Now he must take a partner, so that he might not have an enemy. +Garratt Skinner with Barstow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for +his decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded. Jarvice must +share with Garratt Skinner--unless he preferred to abandon his scheme +altogether; and that Mr. Jarvice would not do. + +There was no other way. Jarvice knew well that he could weaken Garratt +Skinner's influence over Walter Hine by revealing to the youth certain +episodes in the new friend's life. He might even break the +acquaintanceship altogether. But Garratt Skinner would surely discover +who had been at work. And then? Why, then, Mr. Jarvice would have upon +his heels a shrewd and watchful enemy; and in this particular business, +such an enemy Mr. Jarvice could not afford to have. Jarvice was not an +impressionable man, but his hands grew cold while he imagined Garratt +Skinner watching the development of his little scheme--the tour abroad +with the pleasant companion, the things which were to happen on the +tour--watching and waiting until the fitting moment had come, when all +was over, for him to step in and demand the price of his silence and hold +Mr. Jarvice in the hollow of his hand for all his life. No, that would +never do. Garratt Skinner must be a partner so that also he might be an +accessory. + +Accordingly, Jarvice wrote his letter to Garratt Skinner, a few lines +urging him to come to London on most important business. Never was +there a letter more innocent in its appearance than that which Jarvice +wrote in his inner office on that summer afternoon. Yet even at the +last he hesitated whether he should seal it up or no. The sun went +down, shadows touched with long cool fingers the burning streets; +shadows entered into that little inner office of Mr. Jarvice. But still +he sat undecided at his desk. + +The tour upon the Continent must be abandoned, and with it the journey +under canvas to the near East--a scheme so simple, so sure, so safe. +Still Garratt Skinner might confidently be left to devise another. And he +had always kept faith. To that comforting thought Mr. Jarvice clung. He +sealed up his letter in the end, and stood for a moment or two with the +darkness deepening about him. Then he rang for his clerk and bade him +post it, but the voice he used was one which the clerk did not know, so +that he pushed his head forward and peered through the shadows to make +sure that it was his master who spoke. + +Two days afterward Garratt Skinner paid a long visit to Mr. Jarvice, and +that some agreement was reached between the two men shortly became +evident. For Walter Hine received a letter from Captain Barstow which +greatly relieved him. + +"Garratt Skinner has written to me," wrote the 'red-hot' Captain, "that +he has discovered that the gardener, whom he engaged for a particular +job, is notorious as a poacher and a first-class shot. Under these +circumstances, my dear old fellow, the red-hot one cannot pouch your +pennies. As between gentlemen, the bet must be considered o-p-h." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + + +Hilary Chayne stayed away from Dorsetshire for ten complete days; and +though the hours crept by, dilatory as idlers at a street corner, he +obtained some poor compensation by reflecting upon his fine diplomacy. In +less than a week he would surely be missed; by the time that ten days had +passed the sensation might have become simply poignant. So for ten days +he wandered about the Downs of Sussex with an aching heart, saying the +while, "It serves her right." On the morning of the eleventh he received +a letter from the War Office, bidding him call on the following +afternoon. + +"That will just do," he said. "I will go down to Weymouth to-day, and I +will return to London to-morrow." And with an unusual lightness of +spirit, which he ascribed purely to his satisfaction that he need punish +Sylvia no longer, he started off upon his long journey. He reached the +house of the Running Water by six o'clock in the evening; and at the +outset it seemed that his diplomacy had been sagacious. + +He was shown into the library, and opposite to him by the window +Sylvia stood alone. She turned to him a white terror-haunted face, +gazed at him for a second like one dazed, and then with a low cry of +welcome came quickly toward him. Chayne caught her outstretched hands +and all his joy at her welcome lay dead at the sight of her distress. +"Sylvia!" he exclaimed in distress. He was hurt by it as he had never +thought to be hurt. + +"I am afraid!" she said, in a trembling whisper. He drew her toward him +and she yielded. She stood close to him and very still, touching him, +leaning to him like a frightened child. "Oh, I am afraid," she repeated; +and her voice appealed piteously for sympathy and a little kindness. + +In Chayne's mind there was suddenly painted a picture of the ice-slope on +the Aiguille d'Argentière. A girl had moved from step to step, across +that slope, looking down its steep glittering incline without a tremor. +It was the same girl who now leaned to him and with shaking lips and eyes +tortured with fear cried, "I am afraid." By his recollection of that day +upon the heights Chayne measured the greatness of her present trouble. + +"Why, Sylvia? Why are you afraid?" + +For answer she looked toward the open window. Chayne followed her glance +and this was what he saw: The level stretch of emerald lawn, the stream +running through it and catching in its brown water the red light of the +evening sun, the great beech trees casting their broad shadows, the high +garden walls with the dusky red of their bricks glowing amongst fruit +trees, and within that enclosure pacing up and down, in and out among the +shadows of the trees, Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine. Yet that sight she +must needs have seen before. Why should it terrify her beyond reason now? + +"Do you see?" Sylvia said in a low troubled voice. For once distress had +mastered her and she spoke without her usual reticence. "There can be no +friendship between those two. No real friendship! You have but to see +them side by side to be sure of it. It is pretence." + +Yet that too she must have known before. Why then should the pretence now +so greatly trouble her? Chayne watched the two men pacing in the garden. +Certainly he had never seen them in so intimate a comradeship. Garratt +Skinner had passed his arm through Walter Hine's and held him so, plying +him with stories, bending down his keen furrowed aquiline face toward him +as though he had no thought in the world but to make him his friend and +bind him with affection; and Walter Hine looked up and listened and +laughed, a vain, weak wisp of a creature, flattered to the skies and +defenceless as a rabbit. + +"Why the pretence?" said Sylvia. "Why the linked arms? The pretence has +grown during these last days. What new thing is intended?" Her eyes were +on the garden, and as she looked it seemed that her terror grew. "My +father went away a week ago. Since he has returned the pretence has +increased. I am afraid! I am afraid!" + +Garratt Skinner turned in his walk and led Walter Hine back toward the +house. Sylvia shrank from his approach as from something devilish. When +he turned again, she drew her breath like one escaped from sudden peril. + +"Sylvia! Of what are you afraid?" + +"I don't know!" she cried. "That's just the trouble. I don't know!" She +clenched her hands together at her breast. Chayne caught them in his and +was aware that in one shut palm she held something which she concealed. +Her clasp tightened upon it as his hands touched hers. Sylvia had more +reason for her fears than she had disclosed. Barstow came no more. There +were no more cards, no more bets; and this change taken together with +Garratt Skinner's increased friendship added to her apprehensions. She +dreaded some new plot more sinister, more terrible than that one of which +she was aware. + +"If only I knew," she cried. "Oh, if only I knew!" + +Archie Parminter had paid one visit to the house, had stayed for one +night; and he and Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine had sat up till +morning, talking together in the library. Sylvia waking up from a fitful +sleep, had heard their voices again and again through the dark hours; and +when the dawn was gray, she had heard them coming up to bed as on the +first night of her return; and as on that night there was one who +stumbled heavily. It was since that night that terror had distracted her. + +"I have no longer any power," she said. "Something has happened to +destroy my power. I have no longer any influence. Something was done upon +that night," and she shivered as though she guessed; and she looked at +her clenched hand as though the clue lay hidden in its palm. There lay +her great trouble. She had lost her influence over Walter Hine. She had +knowledge of the under side of life--yes, but her father had a greater +knowledge still. He had used his greater knowledge. Craftily and with a +most ingenious subtlety he had destroyed her power, he had blunted her +weapons. Hine was attracted by Sylvia, fascinated by her charm, her +looks, and the gentle simplicity of her manner. Very well. On the other +side Garratt Skinner had held out a lure of greater attractions, greater +fascination; and Sylvia was powerless. + +"He has changed," Sylvia went on, with her eyes fixed on Walter Hine. +"Oh, not merely toward me. He has changed physically. Can you understand? +He has grown nervous, restless, excitable, a thing of twitching limbs. +Oh, and that's not all. I will tell you. This morning it seemed to me +that the color of his eyes had changed." + +Chayne stared at her. "Sylvia!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, I have not lost my senses," she answered, and she resumed: "I only +noticed that there was an alteration at first. I did not see in what the +alteration lay. Then I saw. His eyes used to be light in color. This +morning they were dark. I looked carefully to make sure, and so I +understood. The pupils of his eyes were so dilated that they covered the +whole eyeball. Can you think why?" and even as she asked, she looked at +that clenched hand of hers as though the answer to that question as well +lay hidden there. "I am afraid," she said once more; and upon that Chayne +committed the worst of the many indiscretions which had signalized his +courtship. + +"You are afraid? Sylvia! Then let me take you away!" + +At once Sylvia drew back. Had Chayne not spoken, she would have told him +all that there was to tell. She was in the mood at this unguarded moment. +She would have told him that during these last days Walter Hine had taken +to drink once more. She would have opened that clenched fist and showed +the thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her father beyond all +hope of exculpation. But Chayne had checked her as surely as though he +had laid the palm of his hand upon her lips. He would talk of love and +flight, and of neither had she any wish to hear. She craved with a great +yearning for sympathy and a little kindness. But Chayne was not content +to offer what she needed. He would add more, and what he added marred the +whole gift for Sylvia. She shook her head, and looking at him with a sad +and gentle smile, said: + +"Love is for the happy people." + +"That is a hard saying, Sylvia," Chayne returned, "and not a true one." + +"True to me," said Sylvia, with a deep conviction, and as he advanced to +her she raised her hand to keep him off. "No, no," she cried, and had he +listened, he might have heard a hint of exasperation in her voice. But he +would not be warned. + +"You can't go on, living here, without sympathy, without love, without +even kindness. Already it is evident. You are ill, and tired. And you +think to go on all your life or all your father's life. Sylvia, let me +take you away!" + +And each unwise word set him further and further from his aim. It seemed +to her that there was no help anywhere. Chayne in front of her seemed to +her almost as much her enemy as her father, who paced the lawn behind her +arm in arm with Walter Hine. She clasped her hands together with a quick +sharp movement. + +"I will not let you take me away," she cried. "For I do not love you"; +and her voice had lost its gentleness and grown cold and hard. Chayne +began again, but whether it was with a renewal of his plea, she did not +hear. For she broke in upon him quickly: + +"Please, let me finish. I am, as you said, a little over-wrought! Just +hear me out and leave me to bear my troubles by myself. You will make it +easier for me"; she saw that the words hurt her lover. But she did not +modify them. She was in the mood to hurt. She had been betrayed by her +need of sympathy into speaking words which she would gladly have +recalled; she had been caught off her guard and almost unawares; and she +resented it. Chayne had told her that she looked ill and tired; and she +resented that too. No wonder she looked tired when she had her father +with his secret treacheries on one side and an importunate lover upon +the other! She thought for a moment or two how best to put what she had +still to stay: + +"I have probably said to you," she resumed, "more than was right or +fair--I mean fair to my father. I have no doubt exaggerated things. I +want you to forget what I have said. For it led you into a mistake." + +Chayne looked at her in perplexity. + +"A mistake?" + +"Yes," she answered. She was standing in front of him with her forehead +wrinkled and a somber, angry look in her eyes. "A mistake which I must +correct. You said that I was living here without kindness. It is not +true. My father is kind!" And as Chayne raised his eyes in a mute +protest, she insisted on the word. "Yes, kind and thoughtful--thoughtful +for others besides myself." A kind of obstinacy forced her on to enlarge +upon the topic. "I can give you an instance which will surprise you." + +"There is no need," Chayne said, gently, but Sylvia was implacable. + +"But there is need," she returned. "I beg you to hear me. When my father +and I were at Weymouth we drove one afternoon across the neck of the +Chesil beach to Portland." + +Chayne looked at Sylvia quickly. + +"Yes?" he said, and there was an indefinable change in his voice. He had +consented to listen, because she wished it. Now he listened with a keen +attention. For a strange thought had crept into his mind. + +"We drove up the hill toward the plateau at the top of the island, but as +we passed through the village--Fortune's Well I think they call it--my +father stopped the carriage at a tobacconist's, and went into the shop. +He came out again with some plugs of tobacco--a good many--and got into +the carriage. You won't guess why he bought them. I didn't." + +"Well?" said Chayne, and now he spoke with suspense. Suspense, too, was +visible in his quiet attitude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's +sake he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now call himself +Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery. But he must unravel it without +doing any hurt to Sylvia. He could not go too warily--of that he had been +sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak of it. There might be some +hidden thing which for Sylvia's sake must not be brought to light. +Therefore he must find out the truth without help from any one. He +wondered whether unconsciously Sylvia herself was going to give him the +clue. Was she to tell him what she did not know herself--why Gabriel +Strood was now Garratt Skinner? "Well?" he repeated. + +"As we continued up the hill," she resumed, "my father cut up the tobacco +into small pieces with his pocket knife. 'Why are you doing that?' I +asked, and he laughed and said, 'Wait, you will see.' At the top of the +hill we got out of the carriage and walked across the open plateau. In +front of us, rising high above a little village, stood out a hideous +white building. My father asked if I knew what it was. I said I guessed." + +"It was the prison," Chayne interrupted, quickly. + +"Yes." + +"You went to it?" + +Upon the answer to the question depended whether or no Chayne was to +unravel his mystery, to-day. + +"No," replied Sylvia, and Chayne drew a breath. Had she answered "Yes," +the suspicion which had formed within his mind must needs be set aside, +as clearly and finally disproved. Since she answered "No," the suspicion +gathered strength. "We went, however, near to it. We went as close to it +as the quarries. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and as we came to +the corner of the wall which surrounds the quarries, my father said, +'They have stopped work now.'" + +"He knew that?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. We turned into a street which runs down toward the prison. On one +side are small houses, on the other the long wall of the Government +quarries. The street was empty; only now and then--very seldom--some one +passed along it. On the top of the wall, there were sentry-boxes built at +intervals, for the warders to overlook the convicts. But these were empty +too. The wall is not high; I suppose--in fact my father said--the quarry +was deep on the other side." + +"Yes," said Chayne, quietly. "And then?" + +"Then we walked slowly along the street, and whenever there was no one +near, my father threw some tobacco over the wall. 'I don't suppose they +have a very enjoyable time,' he said. 'They will be glad to find the +tobacco there to-morrow.' We walked up the street and turned and came +back, and when we reached the corner he said with a laugh, 'That's all, +Sylvia. My pockets are empty.' We walked back to the carriage and drove +home again to Weymouth." + +Sylvia had finished her story, and the mystery was clear to Chayne. She +had told him the secret which she did not know herself. He was sure now +why Gabriel Strood had changed his name; he knew now why Gabriel Strood +no longer climbed the Alps; and why Kenyon would answer no question as to +the disappearance of his friend. + +"I have told you this," said Sylvia, "because you accused my father of +unkindness and want of thought. Would you have thought of those poor +prisoners over there in the quarries? If you had, would you have taken so +much trouble just to give them a small luxury? I think they must have +blessed the unknown man who thought for them and showed them what so many +want--a little sympathy and a little kindness." + +Chayne bowed his head. + +"Yes," he said, gently. "I was unjust." + +Indeed even to himself he acknowledged that Garratt Skinner had shown an +unexpected kindness, although he was sure of the reason for the act. He +had no doubt that Garratt Skinner had labored in those quarries himself, +and perhaps had himself picked up in bygone days, as he stooped over his +work, tobacco thrown over the walls by some more fortunate man. + +"I am glad you acknowledge that," said Sylvia, but her voice did not +relent from its hostility. She stood without further word, expecting him +to take his leave. Chayne recollected with how hopeful a spirit he had +traveled down from London. His fine diplomacy had after all availed him +little. He had gained certainly some unexpected knowledge which convinced +him still more thoroughly that the sooner he took Sylvia away from her +father and his friends the better it would be. But he was no nearer to +his desire. It might be that he was further off than ever. + +"You are returning to London?" she asked. + +"Yes. I have to call at the War Office to-morrow." + +Sylvia had no curiosity as to that visit. She took no interest in it +whatever, he noticed with a pang. + +"And then?" she asked slowly, as she crossed the hall with him to the +door. "You will go home?" + +Chayne smiled rather bitterly. + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"Into Sussex?" + +"Yes." + +She opened the door, and as he came out on to the steps she looked at him +with a thoughtful scrutiny for a few moments. But whether her thoughts +portended good or ill for him, he could not tell. + +"When I was a boy," he said abruptly, "I used to see from the garden of +my house, far away in a dip of the downs, a dark high wall standing up +against the sky. I never troubled myself as to how it came to have been +built there. But I used to wonder, being a boy, whether it could be +scaled or no. One afternoon I rode my pony over to find out, and I +discovered--What do you think?--that my wall was a mere hedge just three +feet high, no more." + +"Well!" said Sylvia. + +"Well, I have not forgotten--that's all," he replied. + +"Good-by," she said, and he learned no more from her voice than he had +done from her looks. He walked away down the lane, and having gone a few +yards he looked back. Sylvia was still standing in the doorway, watching +him with grave and thoughtful eyes. But there was no invitation to him to +return, and turning away again he walked on. + +Sylvia went up-stairs to her room. She unclenched her hand at last. In +its palm there lay a little phial containing a colorless solution. But +there was a label upon the phial, and on the label was written "cocaine." +It was that which had struck at her influence over Walter Hine. It was to +introduce this drug that Archie Parminter had been brought down from +London and the West End clubs. + +"It's drunk a good deal in a quiet way," Archie had said, as he made a +pretence himself to drink it. + +"You leave such drugs to the aristocracy, Walter," Garratt Skinner had +chimed in. "Just a taste if you like. But go gently." + +Sylvia had not been present. But she conjectured the scene, and her +conjecture was not far from the truth. But why? she asked, and again fear +took hold of her. "What was to be gained?" There were limits to Sylvia's +knowledge of the under side of life. She did not guess. + +She turned to her mirror and looked at herself. Yes, she looked tired, +she looked ill. But she was not grateful for having the fact pointed out +to her. And while she still looked, she heard her father's voice calling +her. She shivered, as though her fear once more laid hold on her. Then +she locked the bottle of cocaine away in a drawer and ran lightly down +the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + +Chayne's house stood high upon a slope of the Sussex Downs. Built of +stone two centuries ago, it seemed gradually to have taken on the brown +color of the hill behind it, subduing itself to the general scheme, even +as birds and animals will do; so that strangers who searched for it in +the valley discovered it by the upward swirl of smoke from its wide +chimneys. On its western side and just beneath the house, there was a +cleft in the downs through which the high road ran and in the cleft the +houses of a tiny village clustered even as at the foot of some old castle +in Picardy. On the east the great ridge with its shadow-holding hollows, +its rounded gorse-strewn slopes of grass, rolled away for ten miles and +then dipped suddenly to the banks of the River Arun. The house faced the +south, and from its high-terraced garden, a great stretch of park and +forest land was visible, where amidst the green and russet of elm and +beach, a cluster of yews set here and there gave the illusion of a black +and empty space. Beyond the forest land a lower ridge of hills rose up, +and over that ridge one saw the spires of Chichester and the level flats +of Selsea reaching to the sea. + +Into this garden Chayne came on the next afternoon, and as he walked +along its paths alone he could almost fancy that his dead father paced +with the help of his stick at his side, talking, as had been his wont, of +this or that improvement needed by the farms, pointing out to him a +meadow in the hollow beneath which might soon be coming into the market, +and always ending up with the same plea. + +"Isn't it time, Hilary, that you married and came home to look after it +all yourself?" + +Chayne had turned a deaf ear to that plea, but it made its appeal to him +to-night. Wherever his eyes rested, he recaptured something of his +boyhood; the country-side was alive with memories. He looked south, and +remembered how the perished cities of history had acquired reality for +him by taking on the aspect of Chichester lying low there on the flats; +and how the spires of the fabled towns of his storybooks had caught the +light of the setting sun, just as did now the towers of the cathedral. +Eastward, in the dip between the shoulder of the downs, and the trees of +Arundel Park, a long black hedge stood out with a remarkable definition +against the sky--the hedge of which he had spoken to Sylvia--the great +dark wall of brambles guarding the precincts of the Sleeping Beauty. He +recalled the adventurous day when he had first ridden alone upon his pony +along the great back of the downs and had come down to it through a +sylvan country of silence and ferns and open spaces; and had discovered +it to be no more than a hedge waist-high. The dusk came upon him as he +loitered in that solitary garden; the lights shone out in cottage and +farm-house; and more closely still his memories crowded about him weaving +spells. Some one to share them with! Chayne had no need to wait for old +age before he learnt the wisdom of Michel Revailloud. For his heart +leaped now, as he dreamed of exploring once more with Sylvia at his side +the enchanted country of his boyhood; gallops in the quiet summer +mornings along that still visible track across the downs, by which the +Roman legions had marched in the old days from London straight as a die +to Chichester; winter days with the hounds; a rush on windy afternoons in +a sloop-rigged boat down the Arun to Littlehampton. Chayne's heart leaped +with a passionate longing as he dreamed, and sank as he turned again to +the blank windows of the empty house. + +He dined alone, and while he dined evoked Sylvia's presence at the +table, setting her, not at the far end, but at the side and close, so +that a hand might now and then touch hers; calling up into her face her +slow hesitating smile; seeing her still gray eyes grow tender; in a word +watching the Madonna change into the woman. He went into the library +where, since the night had grown chilly, a fire was lit. It was a place +of comfort, with high bookshelves, deep-cushioned chairs, and dark +curtains. But, no less than the dining-room it needed another presence, +and lacking that lacked everything. It needed the girl with the tired +and terror-haunted face. Here, surely the fear would die out of her +soul, the eyes would lose their shadows, the feet regain the lightness +of their step. + +Chayne took down his favorite books, but they failed him. Between the +pages and his eyes one face would shape itself. He looked into the fire +and sought as of old to picture in the flames some mountain on which his +hopes were set and to discover the right line for its ascent. But even +that pastime brought no solace for his discontent. The house oppressed +him. It was empty, it was silent. He drew aside the curtains and looking +down into the valley through the clear night air watched the lights in +cottage and farm with the envy born of his loneliness. + +In spite of the brave words he had used, he wondered to-night whether the +three-foot hedge was not after all to prove the unassailable wall. And it +was important that he should know. For if it were so, why then he had not +called at the War Office in vain. A proposal had been made to him--that +he should join a commission for the delimitation of a distant frontier. A +year's work and an immediate departure--those were the conditions. Within +two days he must make up his mind--within ten days he must leave England. + +Chayne pondered over the decision which he must make. If he had lost +Sylvia, here was the mission to accept. For it meant complete severance, +a separation not to be measured by miles alone, but by the nature of the +work, and the comrades, and even the character of the vegetation. He went +to bed in doubt, thinking that the morning might bring him counsel. It +brought him a letter from Sylvia instead. + +The letter was long; it was written in haste, it was written in great +distress, so that words which were rather unkind were written down. But +the message of the letter was clear. Chayne was not to come again to the +House of the Running Water; nor to the little house in London when she +returned to it. They were not to meet again. She did not wish for it. + +Chayne burnt the letter as soon as he had read it, taking no offence at +the hasty words. "I seem to have worried her more than I thought," he +said to himself with a wistful smile. "I am sorry," and again as the +sparks died out from the black ashes of the letter he repeated: "Poor +little girl. I am very sorry." + +So the house would always be silent and empty. + +Sylvia had written the letter in haste on the very evening of Chayne's +visit, and had hurried out to post it in fear lest she might change her +mind in the morning. But in the morning she was only aware of a great +lightness of spirit. She could now devote herself to the work of her +life; and for two long tiring days she kept Walter Hine at her side. But +now he sought to avoid her. The little energy he had ever had was gone, +he alternated between exhilaration and depression; he preferred, it +seemed, to be alone. For two days, however, Sylvia persevered, and on the +third her lightness of spirit unaccountably deserted her. + +She drove with Walter Hine that morning, and something of his own +irritability seemed to have passed into her; so that he turned to her +and asked: + +"What have I done? Aren't you pleased with me? Why are you angry?" + +"I am not angry," she replied, turning her great gray eyes upon him. "But +if you wish to know, I miss something." + +So much she owned. She missed something, and she knew very well what it +was that she missed. Even as Chayne in his Sussex home had ached to know +that the house lacked a particular presence, so it began to be with +Sylvia in Dorsetshire. + +"Yet he has been absent for a longer time," she argued with herself, "and +I have not missed him. Indeed, I have been glad of his absence." And the +answer came quickly from her thoughts. + +"At any time you could have called him to your side, and you knew it. Now +you have sent him away for always." + +During the week the sense of loss, the feeling that everything was +unbearably incomplete, grew stronger and stronger within her. She had no +heart for the losing battle in which she was engaged. A dangerous +question began to force itself forward in her mind whenever her eyes +rested upon Walter Hine. "Was he worth while?" she asked herself: though +as yet she did not define all that the "while" connoted. The question was +most prominent in her mind on the seventh day after the letter had been +sent. She had persuaded Walter Hine to mount with her on to the down +behind the house; they came to the great White Horse, and Hine, pleading +fatigue, a plea which during these last days had been ever on his lips, +flung himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly +watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an +afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the +distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, +coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a +roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of +heat--heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to +dream of the cool glaciers; and the Chalet de Lognan suddenly stood +visible before her eyes. She watched the sunlight die off the red rocks +of the Chardonnet, the evening come with silent feet across the snow, and +the starlit night follow close upon its heels; night fled as she dreamed. +She saw the ice-slope on the Aiguille d'Argentière, she could almost hear +the chip-chip of the axes as the steps were cut and the perpetual hiss as +the ice-fragments streamed down the slope. Then she looked toward Walter +Hine with the speculative inquiry which had come so often into her eyes +of late. And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from a pocket a +tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into his mouth. + +"How long have you been taking cocaine?" she asked, suddenly. + +Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with a shrinking look. + +"I don't," he stammered. + +"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found it." + +"That was not mine," said he, still more confused. "That was Archie +Parminter's. He left it behind." + +"Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion confirmed. "But he left +it for you?" + +"And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably to her, "what can it +matter to you? I believe that what your father says is true." + +"What does he say?" + +"That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it's no use for any one else +to think of you." + +Sylvia started. + +"Oh, he says that!" + +She understood now one of the methods of the new intrigue. Sylvia was in +love with Chayne; therefore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine. +It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it. Oh, no! But Archie Parminter +is invited for the night, takes the drug himself, or pretends to take it, +praises it, describes how the use of it has grown in the West End and +amongst the clubs, and then conveniently leaves the drug behind, and no +doubt supplies it as it is required. + +Sylvia began to dilate upon its ill-effects, and suddenly broke off. A +great disgust was within her and stopped her speech. She got to her feet. +"Let us go home," she said, and she went very quickly down the hill. When +she came to the house she ran up-stairs to her room, locked the door and +flung herself upon her bed. Walter Hine, her father, their plots and +intrigues, were swept clean from her mind as of no account. Her struggle +for the mastery became unimportant in her thoughts--a folly, a waste. For +what her father had said was true; she cared for Chayne. And what she +herself had said to Chayne when first he came to the House of the Running +Water was no less true. "If I loved, I think nothing else would count at +all except that I loved." + +She had judged herself aright. She knew that, as she lay prone upon +her bed, plunged in misery, while the birds called upon the boughs in +the garden and the mill stream filled the room with its leaping music. +In a few minutes a servant knocked upon the door and told her that tea +was ready in the library; but she returned no answer. And in a few +minutes more--or so it seemed, but meanwhile the dusk had come--there +came another knock and she was told that dinner had been served. But +to that message again she returned no answer. The noises of the busy +day ceased in the fields, the birds were hushed upon the branches, +quiet and darkness took and refreshed the world. Only the throbbing +music of the stream beat upon the ears, and beat with a louder +significance, since all else was still. Sylvia lay staring wide-eyed +into the darkness. To the murmur of this music, in perhaps this very +room, she had been born. "Why," she asked piteously, "why?" Of what +use was it that she must suffer? + +Of all the bad hours of her life, these were the worst. For the yearning +for happiness and love throbbed and cried at her heart, louder and +louder, just as the music of the stream swelled to importance with the +coming of the night. And she learned that she had had both love and +happiness within her grasp and that she had thrown them away for a +shadow. She thought of the letter which she had written, recalling its +phrases with a sinking heart. + +"No man could forgive them. I must have been mad," she said, and she +huddled herself upon her bed and wept aloud. + +She ran over in her mind the conversations which she and Hilary Chayne +had exchanged, and each recollection accused her of impatience and paid a +tribute to his gentleness. On the very first day he had asked her to go +with him and her heart cried out now: + +"Why didn't I go?" + +He had been faithful and loyal ever since, and she had called his +faithfulness importunity and his loyalty a humiliation. She struck a +match and looked at her watch and by habit wound it up. And she drearily +wondered on how many, many nights she would have to wind it up and +speculate in ignorance what he, her lover, was doing and in what corner +of the world, before the end of her days was reached. What would become +of her? she asked. And she raised the corner of a curtain and glanced at +the bright picture of what might have been. And glancing at it, the +demand for happiness raised her in revolt. + +She lit her candle and wrote another letter, of the shortest. It +contained but these few words: + +"Oh, please forgive me! Come back and forgive. Oh, you must!--SYLVIA." + +And having written them, Sylvia stole quietly down-stairs, let herself +out at the door and posted them. + +Two nights afterward she leaned out of her window at midnight, wondering +whether by the morrow's post she would receive an answer to her message. +And while she wondered she understood that the answer would not come that +way. For suddenly in the moonlit road beneath her, she saw standing the +one who was to send it. Chayne had brought his answer himself. For a +moment she distrusted her own eyes, believing that her thoughts had +raised this phantom to delude her. But the figure in the road moved +beneath her window and she heard his voice call to her: + +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + +Sylvia raised her hand suddenly, enjoining silence, and turned back into +the room. She had heard a door slam violently within the house; and now +from the hall voices rose. Her father and Walter Hine were coming up +early to-night from the library, and it seemed in anger. At all events +Walter Hine was angry. His voice rang up the stairway shrill and violent. + +"Why do you keep it from me? I will have it, I tell you. I am not a +child," and an oath or two garnished the sentences. + +Sylvia heard her father reply with the patronage which never failed to +sting the vanity of his companion, which was the surest means to provoke +a quarrel, if a quarrel he desired. + +"Go to bed, Wallie! Leave such things to Archie Parminter! You are +too young." + +His voice was friendly, but a little louder than he generally used, so +that Sylvia clearly distinguished every word; so clearly indeed, that had +he wished her to hear, thus he would have spoken. She heard the two men +mount the stairs, Hine still protesting with the violence which had grown +on him of late; Garratt Skinner seeking apparently to calm him, and +apparently oblivious that every word he spoke inflamed Walter Hine the +more. She had a fear there would be blows--blows struck, of course, by +Hine. She knew the reason of the quarrel. Her father was depriving Hine +of his drug. They passed up-stairs, however, and on the landing above she +heard their doors close. Then coming back to the window she made a sign +to Chayne, slipped a cloak about her shoulders and stole quietly down the +dark stairs to the door. She unlocked the door gently and went out to her +lover. Upon the threshold she hesitated, chilled by a fear as to how he +would greet her. But he turned to her and in the moonlight she saw his +face and read it. There was no anger there. She ran toward him. + +"Oh, my dear," she cried, in a low, trembling voice, and his arms +enclosed her. As she felt them hold her to him, and knew indeed that it +was he, her lover, whose lips bent down to hers, there broke from her a +long sigh of such relief and such great uplifting happiness as comes but +seldom, perhaps no more than once, in the life of any man or woman. Her +voice sank to a whisper, and yet was very clear and, to the man who heard +it, sweet as never music was. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear! You have come then?" and she stroked his face, and +her hands clung about his neck to make very sure. + +"Were you afraid that I wouldn't come, Sylvia?" he asked, with a low, +quiet laugh. + +She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he saw at once the tears +bright in her eyes and the smile trembling upon her lips. + +"No," she said, "I rather thought that you would come," and she laughed +as she spoke. Or did she sob? He could hardly tell, so near she was to +both. "Oh, but I could not be sure! I wrote with so much unkindness," and +her eyes dropped from his in shame. + +"Hush!" he said, and he held her close. + +"Have you forgiven me? Oh, please forgive me!" + +"Long since," said he. + +But Sylvia was not reassured. + +"Ah, but you won't forget," she said, ruefully. "One can forgive, but one +can't forget what one forgives," and then since, even in her remorse, +hope was uppermost with her that night, she cried, "Oh, Hilary, do you +think you ever will forget what I wrote to you?" + +And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears. + +"What does it matter what you wrote a week ago, since to-night we are +here, you and I--together, in the moonlight, for all the world to see +that we are lovers." + +She drew him quickly aside into the shadow of the wall. + +"Are you afraid we should be seen?" he asked. + +"No, but afraid we may be interrupted," she replied, with a clear trill +of laughter which showed to her lover that her fears had passed. + +"The whole village is asleep, Sylvia," he said in a whisper; and as he +spoke a blind was lifted in an upper story of the house, a window was +flung wide, and the light streamed out from it into the moonlit air and +spread over their heads like a great, yellow fan. Walter Hine leaned his +elbows on the sill and looked out. + +Sylvia moved deeper into the shadow. + +"He cannot see us," said Chayne, with a smile, and he set his arm about +her waist; and so they stood very quietly. + +The house was built a few yards back from the road, and on each side of +it the high wall of the garden curved in toward it, making thus an open +graveled space in front of its windows. Sylvia and her lover stood at one +of the corners where the wall curved in; the shadow reached out beyond +their feet and lay upon the white road in a black triangle; they could +hardly be seen from any window of the house, and certainly they could not +be recognized. But on the other hand they could see. From behind Walter +Hine the light streamed out clear. The ceiling of the room was visible +and the shadow of the lamp upon it, and even the top part of the door in +the far corner. + +"We will wait until he turns back into the room," Sylvia whispered; and +for a little while they stood and watched. Then she felt Chayne's arm +tighten about her and hold her still. + +"Do you see?" he cried, in a low, quick voice. "Sylvia, do you see?" + +"What?" + +"The door. Look! Behind him! The door!" And Sylvia, looking as he bade +her, started, and barely stifled the cry which rose to her lips. For +behind Walter Hine, the door in the far corner of the room was +opening--very slowly, very stealthily, as though the hand which opened it +feared to be detected. So noiselessly had the latch been loosed that +Walter Hine did not so much as turn his head. Nor did he turn it now. He +heard nothing. He leaned from the window with his elbows on the sill, and +behind him the gap between the door and the wall grew wider and wider. +The door opened into the room and toward the window, so that the two +people in the shadow below could see nothing of the intruder. But the +secrecy of his coming had something sinister and most alarming. Sylvia +joined her hands above her lover's arm, holding her breath. + +"Shout to him!" she whispered. "Cry out that there's danger." + +"Not yet!" said Chayne, with his eyes fixed upon the lighted room; and +then, in spite of herself, a low and startled cry broke from Sylvia's +lips. A great shadow had been suddenly flung upon the ceiling of the +room, the shadow of a man, bloated and made monstrous by the light. The +intruder had entered the room; and with so much stealth that his +presence was only noticed by the two who watched in the road below. But +even they could not see who the intruder was, they only saw the shadow +on the ceiling. + +Walter Hine, however, heard Sylvia's cry, faint though it was. He leaned +forward from the window and peered down. + +"Now!" said Sylvia. "Now!" + +But Chayne did not answer. He was watching with an extraordinary +suspense. He seemed not to hear. And on the ceiling the shadow moved, and +changed its shape, now dwindling, now growing larger again, now +disappearing altogether as though the intruder stooped below the level of +the lamp; and once there was flung on the white plaster the huge image of +an arm which had something in its hand. Was the arm poised above the +lamp, on the point of smashing it with the thing it held? Chayne waited, +with a cry upon his lips, expecting each moment that the room would be +plunged in darkness. But the cry was not uttered, the arm was withdrawn. +It had not been raised to smash the lamp, the thing which the hand held +was for some other purpose. And once more the shadow appeared moving and +changing as the intruder crept nearer to the window. Sylvia stood +motionless. She had thought to cry out, now she was fascinated. A spell +of terror constrained her to silence. And then, suddenly, behind Walter +Hine there stood out clearly in the light the head and shoulders of +Garratt Skinner. + +"My father," said Sylvia, in relief. Her clasp upon Chayne's arm relaxed; +her terror passed from her. In the revulsion of her feelings she laughed +quietly at her past fear. Chayne looked quickly and curiously at her. +Then as quickly he looked again to the window. Both men in the room were +now lit up by the yellow light; their attitudes, their figures were very +clear but small, like marionettes upon the stage of some tiny theater. +Chayne watched them with no less suspense now that he knew who the +intruder was. Unlike Sylvia he had betrayed no surprise when he had seen +Garratt Skinner's head and shoulders rise into view behind Walter Hine; +and unlike Sylvia, he did not relax his vigilance. Suddenly Garratt +Skinner stepped forward, very quickly, very silently. With one step he +was close behind his friend; and then just as he was about to move +again--it seemed to Sylvia that he was raising his arm, perhaps to touch +his friend upon the shoulder--Chayne whistled--whistled sharply, shrilly +and with a kind of urgency which Sylvia did not understand. + +Walter Hine leaned forward out of the window. That was quite natural. But +on the other hand Garratt Skinner did nothing of the kind. To Sylvia's +surprise he stepped back, and almost out of sight. Very likely he thought +that he was out of sight. But to the watchers in the road his head was +just visible. He was peering over Walter Hine's shoulder. + +Again Chayne whistled and, not content with whistling, he cried out in a +feigned bucolic accent: + +"I see you." + +At once Garratt Skinner's head disappeared altogether. + +Walter Hine peered down into the darkness whence the whistle came, +curving his hands above his forehead to shut out the light behind him; +and behind him once more the shadow appeared upon the ceiling and the +wall. A third time Chayne whistled; and Walter Hine cried out: + +"What is it?" + +And behind him the shadow vanished from the ceiling and the door began to +close, softly and stealthily, just as softly and stealthily as it had +been opened. + +Again, Hine cried out: + +"Who's there? What is it?" + +And Chayne laughed aloud derisively, as though he were some yokel +practising a joke. Hine turned back into the room. The room was empty, +but the door was unlatched. He disappeared from the window, and the +watchers below saw the door slammed to, heard the sound of the slamming +and then another sound, the sound of a key turning in the lock. + +It seemed almost that Chayne had been listening for that sound. For he +turned at once to Sylvia. + +"We puzzled them fairly, didn't we?" he said, with a smile. But the smile +somehow seemed hardly real, and his face was very white. + +"It's the moonlight," he explained. "Come!" + +They walked quietly through the silent village where the thick eaves of +the cottages threw their black shadows on the white moonlit road, past +the mill and the running water, to a gate which opened on the down. +They unlatched the gate noiselessly and climbed the bare slope of +grass. Half way up Chayne turned and looked down upon the house. There +was no longer any light in any window. He turned to Sylvia and slipped +his arm through hers. + +"Come close," said he, and now there was no doubt the smile was real. +"Shall we keep step, do you think?" + +"If we go always like this, we might," said Sylvia, with a smile. + +"At times there will be a step to be cut, no doubt," said he. + +"You once said that I could stand firm while the step was being cut," she +answered. Always at the back of both their minds, evident from time to +time in some such phrase as this, was the thought of the mountain upon +which their friendship had been sealed. Friendship had become love here +in the quiet Dorsetshire village, but in both their thoughts it had +another background--ice-slope and rock-spire and the bright sun over all. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ON THE DOWN + + +Sylvia led the way to a little hollow just beneath the ridge of the +downs, a sheltered spot open to the sea. On the three other sides bushes +grew about it and dry branches and leaves deeply carpeted the floor. Here +they rested and were silent. Upon Sylvia's troubled heart there had +fallen a mantle of deep peace. The strife, the fears, the torturing +questions had become dim like the small griefs of childhood. Even the +incident of the lighted window vexed her not at all. + +"Hilary," she said softly, lingering on the name, since to frame it and +utter it and hear her lips speaking it greatly pleased her, "Hilary," and +her hand sought his, and finding it she was content. + +It was a warm night of August. Overhead the moon sailed in a cloudless +summer sky, drowning the stars. To the right, far below, the lamps of +Weymouth curved about the shore; and in front the great bay shimmered +like a jewel. Seven miles across it the massive bluff of Portland pushed +into the sea; and even those rugged cliffs were subdued to the beauty of +the night. Beneath them the riding-lights shone steady upon the masts of +the battle ships. Sylvia looked out upon the scene with an overflowing +heart. Often she had gazed on it before, and she marveled now how quickly +she had turned aside. Her eyes were now susceptible to beauty as they had +never been. There was a glory upon land and sea, a throbbing tenderness +in the warm air of which she had not known till now. It seemed to her +that she had lived until this night in a prison. Once the doors had been +set ajar for a little while--just for a night and a day in the quiet of +the High Alps. But only now had they been opened wide. Only to-night had +she passed through and looked forth with an unhindered vision upon the +world; and she discovered it to be a place of wonders and sweet magic. + +"They were true, then," she said, with a smile on her lips. + +"Of what do you speak?" asked Chayne. + +"My dreams," Sylvia answered, knowing that she was justified of them. +"For I have come awake into the land of my dreams, and I know it at last +to be a real land, even to the sound of running water." + +For from the hollow at her feet the music of the mill stream rose to her +ears through the still night, very clear and with a murmur of laughter. +Sylvia looked down toward it. She saw it flashing like a riband of silver +in the garden of the dark quiet house. There was no breath of wind in +that garden, and all the great trees were still. She saw the intricate +pattern of their boughs traced upon the lawn in black and silver. + +"In that house I was born," she said softly, "to the noise of that +stream. I am very glad to know that in that house, too, my great +happiness has come to me." + +Chayne leaned forward, and sitting side by side with Sylvia, gazed down +upon it with rapture. Oh, wonderful house where Sylvia was born! How much +the world owed to it! + +"It was there!" he said with awe. + +"Yes," replied Sylvia. She was not without a proper opinion of herself, +and it seemed rather a wonderful house to her, too. + +"Perhaps on some such night as this," he said, and at once took the words +back. "No! You were born on a sunny morning of July and the blackbirds on +the branches told the good news to the blackbirds on the lawn, and the +stream took up the message and rippled it out to the ships upon the sea. +There were no wrecks that day." + +Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a smile, her dark eyes kind +and bright. + +"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!" + +"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And Sylvia laughed with the +clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon +those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of +contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more +dropped to the still garden and the dark square house at the down's foot. + +"There you asked me to marry you, to go away with you," she said, and she +caught his hand and held it close against her breast. + +"Yes, there I first asked you," he said, and some distress, forgotten in +these first perfect moments, suddenly found voice. "Sylvia, why didn't +you come with me then? Oh, my dear, if you only had!" + +But Sylvia's happiness was as yet too fresh, too loud at her throbbing +heart for her to mark the jarring note. + +"I did not want to then," she replied lightly, and then tightening her +clasp upon his hand. "But now I do. Oh, Hilary, I do!" + +"If only you had wanted then!" + +Though he spoke low, the anguish of his voice was past mistaking. Sylvia +looked at him quickly and most anxiously; and as quickly she looked away. + +"Oh, no," she whispered hurriedly. + +Her happiness could not be so short-lived a thing. Her heart stood still +at the thought. It could not be that she had set foot actually within the +dreamland, to be forthwith cast out again. She thought of the last week, +its aching lonely hours. She needed her lover at her side, longed for him +with a great yearning, and would not let him go. + +"I'll not listen, Hilary," she said stubbornly. "I will not hear! No"; +and Chayne drew her close to his side. + +"There is bad news, Sylvia." + +The outcry died away upon her lips. The words crushed the rebellion in +her heart, they were so familiar. It seemed to her that all her life +bad news had been brought to her by every messenger. She shivered and +was silent, looking straight out across the moonlit sea. Then in a +small trembling voice, like a child's, she pleaded, still holding her +face averted: + +"Don't go away from me, Hilary! Oh, please! Don't go away from me now!" + +Her voice, her words, went to Chayne's heart. He knew that pride and a +certain reticence were her natural qualities. That she should throw aside +the one, break through the other, proved to him indeed how very much she +cared, how very much she needed him. + +"Sylvia," he cried, "it will only be for a little while"; and again +silence followed upon his words. + +Since bad news was to be imparted, strength was needed to bear it; and +habit had long since taught Sylvia that silence was the best nurse of +strength. She did not turn her face toward her lover; but she drooped her +head and clenched her hands tightly together upon her knees, nerving +herself for the blow. The movement, slight though it was, stirred Chayne +to pity and hurt him with an intolerable pain. It betrayed so +unmistakably the long habit of suffering. She sat silent, motionless, +with the dumb patience of a wounded animal. + +"Oh, Sylvia, why did you not come with me on that first day?" he cried. + +"Tell me your bad news, dear," she replied, gently. + +"I cannot help it," he began in broken tones. "Sylvia, you will see that +there is no escape, that I must go. An appointment was offered to me--by +the War Office. It was offered to me, pressed on me, the day after I last +came here, the day after we were together in the library. I did not know +what to do. I did not accept it. But it seemed to me that each time I +came to see you we became more and more estranged. I was given two days +to make up my mind, and within the two days, my dear, your letter came, +telling me you did not wish to see me any more." + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered. + +"I accepted the appointment at once. There were reasons why I welcomed +it. It would take me abroad!" + +"Abroad!" she cried. + +"Yes, I welcomed that. To be near you and not to see you--to be near you +and know that others were talking with you, any one, every one except +me--to be near you and know that you were unhappy and in trouble, and +that I could not even tell you how deeply I was sorry--I dreaded that, +Sylvia. And yet I dreaded one thing more. Here, in England, at each turn +of the street, I should think to come upon you suddenly. To pass you as a +stranger, or almost as a stranger. No! I could not do it!" + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered, and lifting his hand she laid it against +her cheek. + +"So for a week I was glad. But this morning I received your second +letter, Sylvia. It came too late, my dear. There was no time to obtain a +substitute." + +Sylvia turned to him with a startled face. + +"When do you go?" + +"Very soon." + +"When?" + +The words had to be spoken. + +"To-morrow morning. I catch the first train from Weymouth to Southampton. +We sail from Southampton at noon." + +Habit came again to her assistance. She turned away from him so that he +might not see her face, and he went on: + +"Had there been more time, I could have made arrangements. Some one else +could have gone. As it is--" He broke off suddenly, and bending toward +her cried: "Sylvia, say that I must go." + +But she could not bring herself to that. She was minded to hold with both +hands the good thing which had come to her this night. She shook her +head. He sought to turn her face to his, but she looked stubbornly away. + +"And when will you return?" she asked. + +"In a few months, Sylvia." + +"When?" + +"In June." And she counted off the months upon her fingers. + +"So after to-night," she said, in a low voice, "I shall not see you any +more for all these months. The winter must pass, and the spring, too. Oh, +Hilary!" and she turned to him with a quivering face and whispered +piteously: "Don't go, my dear. Don't go!" + +"Say that I must go!" he insisted, and she laughed with scorn. Then the +laughter ceased and she said: + +"There will be danger?" + +"None," he cried. + +"Yes--from sickness, and--" her voice broke in a sob--"I shall not be +near." + +"I will take great care, Sylvia. Be sure of that," he answered. "Now that +I have you, I will take great care," and leaning toward her, as she sat +with her hands clasped upon her knees, he touched her hair with his lips +very tenderly. + +"Oh, Hilary, what will I do? Till you come back to me! What will I do?" + +"I have thought of it, Sylvia. I thought this. It might be better if, for +these months--they will not pass quickly, my dear, either for you or me. +They will be long slow months for both of us. That's the truth, my dear. +But since they must be got through, I thought it might be better if you +went back to your mother." + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"It would be better," he urged, with a look toward the house. + +"I can't do that. Afterward, in a year's time--when we are together, I +should like very much for us both to go to her. But my mother forbade it +when I went away from Chamonix. I was not to come whining back to her, +those were her words. We parted altogether that night." + +She spoke with an extreme simplicity. There was neither an appeal for +pity nor a hint of any bitterness in her voice. But the words moved +Chayne all the more on that account. He would be leaving a very lonely, +friendless girl to battle through the months of his absence by herself; +and to battle with what? He was not sure. But he had not taken so lightly +the shadow on the ceiling and the opening door. + +"If only you had come with me on that first day," he cried. + +"I will have to-night to look back upon, my dear," she said. "That will +be something. Oh, if I had not asked you to come back! If you had gone +away and said nothing! What would I have done then? As it is, I will know +that you are thinking of me--" and suddenly she turned to him, and held +him away from her in a spasm of fear while her eyes searched his face. +But in a moment they melted and a smile made her lips beautiful. "Oh, +yes, I can trust you," she said, and she nestled against him contentedly +like a child. + +For a little while they sat thus, and then her eyes sought the garden and +the house at her feet. It seemed that the sinister plot was not, after +all, to develop in that place of quiet and old peace without her for its +witness. It seemed that she was to be kept by some fatality +close-fettered to the task, the hopeless task, which she would now gladly +have foregone. And she wondered whether, after all, she was in some way +meant to watch the plot, perhaps, after all, to hinder it. + +"Hilary," she said, "you remember that evening at the Chalet de Lognan?" + +"Do I remember it?" + +"You explained to me a law--that those who know must use their knowledge, +if by using it they can save a soul, or save a life." + +"Yes," he said, vaguely remembering that he had spoken in this strain. + +"Well, I have been trying to obey that law. Do you understand? I want you +to understand. For when I have been unkind, as I have been many times, it +was, I think, because I was not obeying it with very much success. And I +should like you to believe and know that. For when you are away, you will +remember, in spite of yourself, the times when I was bitter." + +Her words made clear to him many things which had perplexed him during +these last weeks. Her friendship for Walter Hine became intelligible, and +as though to leave him no shadow of doubt, she went on. + +"You see, I knew the under side of things, and I seemed to see the +opportunity to use the knowledge. So I tried to save"; and whether it was +life or soul, or both, she did not say. She did not add that so far she +had tried in vain; she did not mention the bottle of cocaine, or the +dread which of late had so oppressed her. She was careful of her lover. +Since he had to go, since he needs must be absent, she would spare him +anxieties and dark thoughts which he could do nothing to dispel. But even +so, he obtained a clearer insight into the distress which she had +suffered in that house, and the bravery with which she had borne it. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I had no thought, no wish, that what I said should +stay with you." + +"Yet it did," she answered, "and I was thankful. I am thankful even now. +For though I would gladly give up all the struggle now, if I had you +instead; since I have not you, I am thankful for the law. It was your +voice which spoke it, it came from you. It will keep you near to me all +through the black months until you come back. Oh, Hilary!" and the brave +argument spoken to enhearten herself and him ended suddenly in a most +wistful cry. Chayne caught her to him. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" and he added: "The life is not yet saved!" + +"Perhaps I am given to the summer," she answered, and then, with a +whimsical change of humor, she laughed tenderly. "Oh, but I wish I +wasn't. You will write? Letters will come from you." + +"As often as possible, my dear. But they won't come often." + +"Let them be long, then," she whispered, "very long," and she leaned her +head against his shoulder. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "Lie close!" + +For a while longer they talked in low voices to one another, the words +which lovers know and keep fragrant in their memories. The night, warm +and clear, drew on toward morning, and the passage of the hours was +unremarked. For both of them there was a glory upon the moonlit land and +sea which made of it a new world. And into this new world both walked for +the first time--walked in their youth and hand in hand. Each for the +first time knew the double pride of loving and being loved. In spite of +their troubles they were not to be pitied, and they knew it. The gray +morning light flooded the sky and turned the moon into a pale white disk. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "It is not time." + +In the trees in the garden below the blackbirds began to bustle amongst +the leaves, and all at once their clear, sweet music thrilled upward to +the lovers in the hollow of the down. + +"Lie close, my dear," he repeated. + +They watched the sun leap into the heavens and flash down the Channel in +golden light. + +"The night has gone," said Chayne. + +"Nothing can take it from us while we live," answered Sylvia, very +softly. She raised herself from her couch of leaves. + +Then from one of the cottages in the tiny village a blue coil of smoke +rose into the air. + +"It is time," said Chayne, and they rose and hand in hand walked down the +slope of the hill to the house. Sylvia unlatched the door noiselessly and +went in. Chayne stepped in after her; and in the silent hall they took +farewell of one another. + +"Good-by, my dear," she whispered, with the tears in her eyes and in her +voice, and she clung to him a little and so let him go. She held the door +ajar until the sound of his footsteps had died away--and after that. For +she fancied that she heard them still, since, she so deeply wished to +hear them. Then with a breaking heart she went up the stairs to her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + +"Six weeks ago I said good-by to the French Commission on the borders of +a great lake in Africa. A month ago I was still walking to the rail head +through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said Chayne, and he looked +about the little restaurant in King Street, St. James', as though to make +sure that the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the red +benches against the walls, the women in their delicate gowns of lace, and +the jingle of harness in the streets without, made their appeal to one +who for the best part of a year had lived within the dark walls of a +forest. June had come round again, and Sylvia sat at his side. + +"You shall tell me how these months have gone with you while we dine," +said he. "Your letters told me nothing of your troubles." + +"I did not mean them to," replied Sylvia. + +"I guessed that, my dear. It was like you. Yet I would rather have +known." + +Only a few hours before he had stood upon the deck of the Channel packet +and had seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the +pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster +of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing +quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the +first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage +to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew +was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little house in +Hobart Place. + +"One thing I see," he said. "You are not as troubled as you were. The +look of fear--that has gone from your eyes. Sylvia, I am glad!" + +"There, were times," she answered--and as she thought upon them, terror +once more leapt into her face--"times when I feared more than ever, when +I needed you very much. But they are past now, Hilary," and her hand +dropped for a moment upon his, and her eyes brightened with a smile. As +they dined she told the story of those months. + +"We returned to London very suddenly after you had gone away," she began. +"We were to have stayed through September. But my father said that +business called him back, and I noticed that he was deeply troubled." + +"When did you notice that?" asked Chayne, quickly. "When did you first +notice it?" + +Sylvia reflected for a moment. + +"The day after you had gone." + +"Are you sure?" asked Chayne, with a certain intensity. + +"Quite." + +Chayne nodded his head. + +"I did not understand the reason of the hurry. And I was perplexed--and +also a little alarmed. Everything which I did not understand frightened +me in those days." She spoke as if "those days" and all their dark events +belonged to some dim period of which no consequence could reach her now. +"Our departure had almost the look of a flight." + +"Yes," said Chayne. For his part he was not surprised at their flight. He +had passed more than one wakeful night during the last few months arguing +and arguing again whether or no he should have disclosed to Sylvia the +meaning of that softly opening door and the shadow on the ceiling as he +read it. He might have been wrong; if so, he would have added to Sylvia's +burden of troubles yet another, and one more terrible than all the rest. +He might have been right; and if so, he might have enabled Sylvia to +avert a tragedy. Thus the argument had revolved in a circle and left him +always in the same doubt. Now he understood that his explanation of the +incident had been confirmed. The loud whistle from the darkness of the +road, the yokel's cry, which had driven Garratt Skinner from the room, as +noiselessly as he had entered it, had done more than that--they had +driven him from the neighborhood altogether. Some one had seen him--had +seen him standing just behind Walter Hine in the lighted room--and on the +next day he had fled! + +"I was right," he said, absently, "right to keep silent." For here was +Sylvia at his side and the dreaded peril unfulfilled. "Well, you returned +to London?" he added, hastily. + +"Yes. There is something of which I did not tell you, that night when we +were together on the downs. Walter Hine had begun to take cocaine." + +Chayne started. + +"Cocaine!" he cried. + +"Yes. My father taught him to take it." + +"Your father," said Chayne, slowly, trying to fit this new and astounding +fact in with the rest. "But why?" + +"I think I can tell you," said Sylvia. "My father knew quite well that he +had me working against him, trying to rescue Walter Hine out of his +hands. And I was beginning to get some power. He understood that, and +destroyed it. I was no match for him. I thought that I knew something of +the under side of life. But he knew more, ever so much more, and my +knowledge was of no avail. He taught Walter Hine the craving for cocaine, +and he satisfied the craving--there was his power. He provided the drug. +I do not know--I might perhaps have fought against my father and won. But +against my father and a drug I was helpless. My father obtained it in +sufficient quantity, withheld it at times, gave it at other times, played +with him, tantalized him, gratified him. You can understand there was +only one possible result. Walter Hine became my father's slave, his dog. +I no longer counted in his thoughts at all. I was nothing." + +"Yes," said Chayne. + +The device was subtle, diabolically subtle. But he wondered whether it +was only to counterbalance and destroy Sylvia's influence that Garratt +Skinner had introduced cocaine to Hine's notice; whether he had not had +in view some other end, even still more sinister. + +"I saw very little of Mr. Hine after our return to London," she +continued. "He did not come often to the house, but when he did come, +each time I saw that he had changed. He had grown nervous and violent of +temper. Even before we left Dorsetshire the violence had become +noticeable." + +"Oh!" said Chayne, looking quickly at Sylvia. "Before you left +Dorsetshire?" + +"Yes; and my father seemed to me to provoke it, though I could not guess +why. For instance--" + +"Yes?" said Chayne. "Tell me!" + +He spoke quietly enough, but once again there was audible a certain +intensity in his voice. There had been an occasion when Sylvia had given +to him more news of Garratt Skinner than she had herself. Was she to do +so once more? He leaned forward with his eyes on hers. + +"The night when you came back to me. Do you remember, Hilary?" and a +smile lightened his face. + +"I shall forget no moment of that night, sweetheart, while I live," he +whispered; and blushes swept prettily over her face, and in a sweet +confusion she smiled back at him. + +"Oh, Hilary!" she said. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he mimicked; and as they laughed together, it seemed there +was a danger that the story of the months of separation would never be +completed. But Chayne brought her back to it. + +"Well? On that night when I came back?" + +"I saw you in the road from my window, and then motioning you to be +silent, I disappeared from the window." + +"Yes, I remember," said Chayne, eagerly. He began to think that the +cocaine was after all going to fit in with the incidents of that night. + +"Walter Hine and my father were going up to bed. I heard them on the +stairs. They were going earlier than usual." + +"You are sure?" interrupted Chayne. "Think well!" + +"Much earlier than usual, and they were quarreling. At least, Walter Hine +was quarreling; and my father was speaking to him as if he were a child. +That hurt his vanity and made him worse." + +"Your father was provoking him?" + +Sylvia's forehead puckered. + +"I could not say that, and be sure of it. But I can say this. If my +father had wished to provoke him to a greater anger, it's in that way +that he would have done it." + +"Yes. I see." + +"They were speaking loudly--even my father was--more loudly than +usual--especially at that time. For when they went up-stairs, they +usually went very quietly"; and again Chayne interrupted her. + +"Your father might have wanted you to hear the quarrel?" he suggested. + +Sylvia turned to him curiously. + +"Why should he wish that?" she asked, and considered the point. "He might +have. Only, on the other hand, they were earlier than usual. They would +not be so careful to go quietly; I was likely to be still awake." + +"Exactly," said Chayne. + +For in the probability that Sylvia would be still awake, would hear the +violent words of Hine, and would therefore be an available witness +afterward, Chayne found the reason both of the loudness of Garratt +Skinner's tones and his early retirement for the night. + +"Did you hear what was said? Can you repeat the words?" he asked. + +"Yes. My father was keeping something from Mr. Hine which he wanted. I +have no doubt it was the cocaine," and she repeated the words. + +"Yes," said Chayne. "Yes," in the tone of one who is satisfied. The +incident of the lighted room and the shadow on the ceiling were clear to +him now. A quarrel of which there was a witness, a quarrel all to the +credit of Garratt Skinner since it arose from his determination to hinder +Walter Hine from poisoning himself with drugs--at least, that is how the +evidence would work out; the quarrel continued in Walter Hine's bedroom, +whither Garratt Skinner had accompanied his visitor, a struggle begun for +the possession of the drug, begun by a man half crazy for want of it, a +blow in self-defence delivered by Garratt Skinner, perhaps a fall from +the window--that is how Chayne read the story of that night, as fashioned +by the ingenuity of Garratt Skinner. + +But on one point he was still perplexed. The story had not been told out +to its end that night: there had come an unexpected shout, which had +interrupted it, and indeed forever had prevented its completion on that +spot. But why had it not been completed afterward, during the next few +months, somewhere else? It had not been completed. For here was Sylvia +with all her fears allayed, continuing the story of those months. + +"But violence was not the only change in Walter Hine. There were some +physical alterations which frightened me. Mr. Hine, as I say, came very +seldom to our house, though my father saw a great deal of him. Otherwise +I should have noticed them before. But early this year he came and--you +remember he was fair--well, his skin had grown dark, quite dark, his +complexion had changed altogether. And there was something else which +shocked me. His tongue was black, really black. I asked him what was the +matter? He grew restless and angry and lied to me, and then he broke down +and told me he could not sleep. He slept for a few minutes only at a +time. He really was ill--very ill." + +Was this the explanation, Chayne asked himself? Having failed at the +quick process, the process of the lighted room and the open window, had +Garratt Skinner left the drug to do its work slowly and surely? + +"He was so weak, so broken in appearance, that I was alarmed. My father +was not in the house. I sent for a cab and I took Mr. Hine myself to a +doctor. The doctor knew at once what was amiss. For a time Mr. Hine said +'No,' but he gave in at the last. He was in the habit of taking thirty +grains of cocaine a day." + +"Thirty grains!" exclaimed Chayne. + +"Yes. Of course it could not go on. Death or insanity would surely +follow. He was warned of it, and for a while he went into a home. Then he +got better, and he determined to go abroad and travel." + +"Who suggested that?" asked Chayne. + +"I do not know. I know only that he refused to go without my father, and +that my father consented to accompany him." + +Chayne was startled. + +"They are away together now?" he cried. A look of horror in his eyes +betrayed his fear. He stared at Sylvia. Had she no suspicion--she +who knew something of the under side of life? But she quietly +returned his look. + +"I took precautions. I told my father what I knew--not merely that Mr. +Hine had acquired the habit of taking cocaine, but who had taught him the +habit. Yes, I did that," she said simply, answering his look of +astonishment. "It was difficult, my dear, and I would very much have +liked to have had you there to help me through with it. But since you +were not there, since I was alone, I did it alone. I thought of you, +Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say. I tried to hear your voice +speaking again outside the Chalet de Lognan. 'What you know, that you +must do.' I warned my father that if any harm came to Walter Hine from +taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I +would not keep silent." + +Chayne leaned back in his seat. + +"You said that--to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!" and the warmth of pride and +admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated +her for that bad hour. "You stood up alone and braved him out! My dear, +if I had only been there! And you never wrote to me a word of it!" + +"It would only have troubled you," she answered. "It would not have +helped me to know that you were troubled!" + +"And he--your father?" he asked. "How did he receive it?" + +Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she +could not for the moment trust her voice. Then she shuddered and said in +a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour: + +"I thought that I should never see you again." + +She said no more. From those few words, and from the manner in which she +uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken +place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house +in Hobart Place. He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple +of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes. +There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which +he had heard which shocked him. + +"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said. "Trust me, I will! There +shall be good hours, now. I'll watch you, till I know surely without +a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting. Trust +me, dearest!" + +"With all my heart and the rest of my life," she answered, a smile +responding to his words, and she resumed her story: + +"I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to +me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were. And to that--at +last--he consented. They have been away together for two months, and +every week I have heard. So I think there is no danger." + +Chayne did not disagree. But, on the other hand, he did not assent. + +"I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?" he said, doubtfully. + +"No," replied Sylvia. "That's another reason why--I am not afraid." She +chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate +charge against her father. "I used to think that he was--in the +beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him. But when the bets +ceased and no more cards were played--I used to puzzle over why they +ceased last year. But I think I have hit upon the explanation. My +father discovered then what I only found out a few weeks ago. I wrote +to Mr. Hine's grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill, and +asking him whether he would not send for him. I thought that would be +the best plan." + +"Yes, well?" + +"Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly that he did not know his +grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to +do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to +think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, +"and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I +suppose that it was natural he should think so. And I am so glad that I +wrote. For he told me that although Mr. Hine must eventually have a +fortune, it would not be until he himself died and that he was a very +healthy man. So you see, there could be no advantage to any one--" and +she did not finish the sentence. + +But Chayne could finish it for himself. There could be no advantage to +any one if Walter Hine died. But then why the cocaine? Why the incident +of the lighted window? + +"Yes," he said, in perplexity, "I can corroborate that. It happened that +my friend John Lattery, who was killed in Switzerland, was also +connected with Joseph Hine. He also would have inherited; and I knew +from him that the old man did not recognize his heirs. But--but Walter +Hine had money--some money, at all events. And he earned none. From whom +did he get it?" + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"I do not know." + +"Had he no other relations, no friends?" + +"None who would have made him an allowance." + +Chayne pondered over that question. For in the answer to it he was +convinced he would find the explanation of the mystery. If money was +given to Walter Hine, who had apparently no rich relations but his +grandfather, and certainly no rich friends, it would have been given with +some object. To discover the giver and his object--that was the problem. + +"Think! Did he never speak of any one?" + +Sylvia searched her memories. + +"No," she said. "He never spoke of his private affairs. He always led us +to understand that he drew an allowance from his grandfather." + +"But your father found that that was untrue when you were in Dorsetshire, +ten months ago. For the card-playing and the bets ceased." + +"Yes," Sylvia agreed thoughtfully. Then her face brightened. "I +remember a morning when Mr. Hine was in trouble. Wait a moment! He had +a letter. We were at breakfast and the letter came from Captain +Barstow. There was some phrase in the letter which Mr. Hine repeated. +'As between gentlemen'--that was it! I remember thinking at the time +what in the world Captain Barstow could know about gentlemen; and +wondering why the phrase should trouble Mr. Hine. And that morning Mr. +Hine went to London." + +"Oh, did he?" cried Chayne. "'As between gentlemen.' Had Hine been losing +money lately to Captain Barstow?" + +"Yes, on the day when you first came." + +"The starlings," exclaimed Chayne in some excitement. "That's it--Walter +Hine owes money to Captain Barstow which he can't pay. Barstow writes for +it--a debt of honor between gentlemen--one can imagine the letter. Hine +goes up to London. Well, what then?" + +Sylvia started. + +"My father went to London two days afterward." + +"Are you sure?" + +It seemed to Chayne that they were getting hot in their search. + +"Quite sure. For I remember that after his return his manner changed. +What I thought to be the new plot was begun. The cards disappeared, the +bets ceased, Mr. Parminter was brought down with the cocaine. I remember +it all clearly. For I always associated the change with my father's +journey to London. You came one evening--do you remember? You found me +alone and afraid. My father and Walter Hine were walking arm-in-arm in +the garden. That was afterward." + +"Yes, you were afraid because there was no sincerity in that friendship. +Now let me get this right!" + +He remained silent for a little while, placing the events in their due +order and interpreting them, one by the other. + +"This is what I make of it," he said at length. "The man in London who +supplies Walter Hine with money finds that Walter Hine is spending too +much. He therefore puts himself into communication with Garratt Skinner, +of whom he has doubtless heard from Walter Hine. Garratt Skinner travels +to London, has an interview, and a concerted plan of action is agreed +upon, which Garratt Skinner proceeds to put in action." + +He spoke so gravely that Sylvia turned anxiously toward him. + +"What do you infer, then?" she asked. + +"That we are in very deep and troubled waters, my dear," he replied, but +he would not be more explicit. He had no doubt in his mind that the +murder of Walter Hine had been deliberately agreed upon by Garratt +Skinner and the unknown man in London. But just as Sylvia had spared him +during his months of absence, so now he was minded to spare Sylvia. Only, +in order that he might spare her, in order that he might prevent shame +and distress greater than she had known, he must needs go on with his +questioning. He must discover, if by any means he could, the identity of +the unknown man who was so concerned in the destiny of Walter Hine. + +"Of your father's friends, was there one who was rich? Who came to the +house? Who were his companions?" + +"Very few people came to the house. There was no one amongst them who +fits in"; and upon that she started. "I wonder--" she said, thoughtfully, +and she turned to her lover. "After my father had gone away, I found a +telegram in a drawer in one of the rooms. There was no envelope, there +was just the telegram. So I opened it. It was addressed to my father. I +remember the words, for I did not know whether there was not something +which needed attention. It ran like this: 'What are you waiting for? +Hurry up.'" + +"Was it signed?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. 'Jarvice,'" replied Sylvia. + +"Jarvice," Chayne repeated; and he spoke it yet again, as though in some +vague way it was familiar to him. "What was the date of the telegram?" + +"It had been sent a month before I found it. So I put it back into +the drawer." + +"'What are you waiting for? Hurry up. Jarvice,'" said Chayne, slowly, and +then he remembered how and when he had come across the name of Jarvice +before. His face grew very grave. + +"We are in deep waters, my dear," he said. + +There had been trouble in his regiment, some years before, in which the +chief figures had been a subaltern and a money-lender. Jarvice was the +name of the money-lender--an unusual name. Just such a man would be +likely to be Garratt Skinner's confederate and backer. Chayne ran over +the story in his mind again, by this new light. It certainly strengthened +the argument that the Mr. Jarvice who sent the telegram was Mr. Jarvice, +the money-lender. Thus did Chayne work it out in his thoughts: + +"Jarvice, for some reason unknown, pays Walter Hine an allowance. Walter +Hine gives it out that he receives it from his grandfather, whose heir +he undoubtedly is, and being a vain person much exaggerates the amount. +He falls into Garratt Skinner's hands, who, with the help of Barstow and +others, proceeds to pluck him. Walter Hine loses more than he has and +applies to Jarvice for more. Jarvice elicits the facts, and instead of +disclosing who Garratt Skinner is, and the obvious swindle of which Hine +is the victim, takes Garratt Skinner into his confidence. What happened +at the interview between Mr. Jarvice and Garratt Skinner in London the +subsequent facts make plain. At Jarvice's instigation the plot to +swindle Walter Hine becomes a cold-blooded plan to murder him. That plan +has been twice frustrated, once by me in Dorsetshire, and a second time +by Sylvia." + +So far the story worked out naturally, logically. But there remained two +questions. For what reason did Mr. Jarvice make Walter Hine an allowance? +And how would Walter Hine's death profit him? Chayne pondered over those +two questions and then the truth flashed upon him. He remembered how the +subaltern had been extracted from his difficulties. Money had been raised +by a life insurance. Again Chayne ranged his facts in order. + +"Walter Hine is the heir to great wealth. But he has no money now. Mr. +Jarvice makes him an allowance, the money to be repaid with a handsome +interest on the grandfather's death. But in order to insure Jarvice +from loss, if Walter Hine should die first, Walter Hine's life is +insured for a large sum. Thus Mr. Jarvice makes his position tenable +should his conduct be called in question. Having insured Walter Hine's +life, he arranges with Garratt Skinner to murder him. The attempt +failed the first time, the slower method is then adopted by Garratt +Skinner, and as a result comes the impatient telegram: 'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up!'" + +The case was thus so far clear. But anxiety remained. Was the plan +abandoned altogether, now that Sylvia had stood bravely up and warned her +father that she would not keep silent? So certainly Sylvia thought. But +then she did not know all that Chayne knew. It seemed that she had not +understood the incident of the lighted window. Nor was Chayne surprised. +For she was unaware of what was in Chayne's eyes the keystone of the +whole argument. She did not know that her father had worked as a convict +in the Portland quarries. + +"So they are abroad together, your father and Walter Hine," said +Chayne, slowly. + +"Yes!" replied Sylvia, with a smile. "Guess where they are now!" and she +turned to him with a tender look upon her face which he did not +understand. + +"I can't guess." + +"At Chamonix!" + +She saw her lover flinch, his face grow white, his eyes stare in horror. +And she wondered. For her the little town, overtopped by its tumbled +glittering fields of snow and tall rock spires was a place apart. She +cherished it in her memories, keeping clear and distinct the windings of +its streets, where they narrowed, where they broadened into open spaces; +yet all the while her thoughts transformed it, and made of its mere +stones and bricks a tiny city magical with light and grace. For while she +stayed in it her happiness had dawned and she saw it always roseate with +that dawn. It seemed to her that plots and thoughts of harm could there +hardly outlive one starlit night, one sunlit day. Had she mapped out her +father's itinerary, thither and nowhere else would she have sent him. + +"You are afraid?" she asked. "Hilary, why?" + +Chayne did not answer her question. He was minded to spare her, even as +she had spared him. He talked of other things until the restaurant grew +empty and the waiters began to turn out the lights as a hint to these two +determined loiterers. Then in the darkness, for now there was but one +light left, and that at a little distance from their table, Chayne leaned +forward and turning to Sylvia, as they sat side by side: + +"You have been happy to-night?" + +"Very," she answered, and there was a thrill of joyousness in her clear, +low voice, as though her heart sang within her. Her eyes rested on his +with pride. "No man could quite understand," she said. + +"Well then, why should we wait longer, Sylvia?" he said. "We have waited +long enough, my dear. We have after all no one but ourselves to please. I +should like our marriage to take place as soon as possible." + +Sylvia answered him without affectation. + +"I, too," she whispered. + +"To-morrow then! I'll get a special license to-morrow morning, and make +the arrangements. We can go away together at once." + +Sylvia smiled, and the smile deepened into a laugh. + +"Where shall we go, Hilary?" she cried. "To some perfect place." + +"To Chamonix," he answered. "That was where we first met. There could be +no better place. We can just go and tell your father what we have done +and then go up into the hills." + +It was well done. He spoke without wakening Sylvia's suspicions. She had +never understood the episode of the lighted window; she did not know +that her father was Gabriel Strood, of whose exploits in the Alps she +had read; she believed that all danger to Walter Hine was past. Chayne +on the other hand knew that hardly at any time could Hine have stood in +greater peril. To Chamonix he must go; and to Chamonix he must take +Sylvia too. For by the time when he could reach Chamonix, he might +already be too late. There might be publicity, inquiries, and for +Garratt Skinner ruin, and worse than ruin. Would Sylvia let her lover +share the dishonor of her name? He knew very surely she would not. +Therefore he would have the marriage. + +"By the way," he said, as he draped her cloak about her shoulders. "You +have that telegram from Jarvice?" + +"Yes." + +"That's good," he said. "It might be useful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +REVAILLOUD REVISITED + + +Never that familiar journey across France seemed to Chayne so slow. Would +he be in time? Would he arrive too late? The throb of the wheels beat out +the questions in a perpetual rhythm and gave him no answer. The words of +Jarvice's telegram were ever present in his mind, and grew more sinister, +the more he thought upon them. "What are you waiting for? Hurry up!" +Once, when the train stopped over long as it seemed to him he muttered +the words aloud and then glanced in alarm at his wife, lest perchance she +had overheard them. But she had not. She was remembering her former +journey along this very road. Then it had been night; now it was day. +Then she had been used to seek respite from her life in the shelter of +her dreams. Now the dreams were of no use, since what was real made them +by comparison so pale and thin. The blood ran strong and joyous in her +veins to-day; and looking at her, Chayne sent up his prayers that they +might not arrive in Chamonix too late. To him as to her Walter Hine was a +mere puppet, a thing without importance--so long as he lived. But he must +live. Dead, he threatened ruin and dishonor, and since from the beginning +Sylvia and he had shared--for so she would have it--had shared in the +effort to save this life, it would be well for them, he thought that they +should not fail. + +The long hot day drew to an end, and at last from the platform at the end +of the electric train they saw the snow-fields lift toward the soaring +peaks, and the peaks purple with the after glow stand solitary and +beautiful against the evening sky. + +"At last!" said Sylvia, with a catch in her breath, and the clasp of her +hand tightened upon her husband's arm. But Chayne was remembering certain +words once spoken to him in a garden of Dorsetshire, by a man who lay +idly in a hammock and stared up between the leaves. "On the most sunny +day, the mountains hold in their recesses mystery and death." + +"You know where your father is staying?" Chayne asked. + +"He wrote from the Hôtel de l'Arve," Sylvia replied. + +"We will stay at Couttet's and walk over to see him this evening," said +Chayne, and after dinner they strolled across the little town. But at +the Hôtel de l'Arve they found neither Garratt Skinner nor his friend, +Walter Hine. + +"Only the day before yesterday," said the proprietor, "they started for +the mountains. Always they make expeditions." + +Chayne drew no satisfaction from that statement. Garratt Skinner and his +friend would make many expeditions from which both men would return in +safety. Garratt Skinner was no blunderer. And when at the last he +returned alone with some flawless story of an accident in which his +friend had lost his life, no one would believe but that here was another +mishap, and another name to be added to the Alpine death-roll. + +"To what mountain have they gone?" Chayne asked. + +"To no mountain to-day. They cross the Col du Géant, monsieur, to +Courmayeur. But after that I do not know." + +"Oh, into Italy," said Chayne, in relief. So far there was no danger. The +Col du Géant, that great pass between France and Italy across the range +of Mont Blanc, was almost a highway. There would be too many parties +abroad amongst its ice séracs on these days of summer for any deed which +needed solitude and secrecy. + +"When do you expect them back?" + +"In five days, monsieur; not before." And at this reply Chayne's fears +were all renewed. For clearly the expedition was not to end with the +passage of the Col du Géant. There was to be a sequel, perhaps some +hazardous ascent, some expedition at all events which Garratt Skinner had +not thought fit to name. + +"They took guides, I suppose," he said. + +"One guide, monsieur, and a porter. Monsieur need not fear. For Monsieur +Skinner is of an excellence prodigious." + +"My father!" exclaimed Sylvia, in surprise. "I never knew." + +"What guide?" asked Chayne. + +"Pierre Delouvain"; and so once again Chayne's fears were allayed. He +turned to Sylvia. + +"A good name, sweetheart. I never climbed with him, but I know him +by report. A prudent man, as prudent as he is skilful. He would run +no risks." + +The name gave him indeed greater comfort than even his words expressed. +Delouvain's mere presence would prevent the commission of any crime. His +great strength would not be needed to hinder it. For he would be there, +to bear witness afterward. Chayne was freed from the dread which during +the last two days had oppressed him. Perhaps after all Sylvia was right +and the plot was definitely abandoned. Chayne knew very well that Garratt +Skinner's passion for the Alps was a deep and real one. Perhaps it was +that alone which had brought him back to Chamonix. Perhaps one day in the +train, traveling northward from Italy, he had looked from the window and +seen the slopes of Monte Rosa white in the sun--white with the look of +white velvet--and all the last twenty years had fallen from him like a +cloak, and he had been drawn back as with chains to the high playground +of his youth. Chayne could very well understand that possibility, and +eased of his fears he walked away with Sylvia back to the open square in +the middle of the town. Darkness had come, and both stopped with one +accord and looked upward to the massive barrier of hills. The rock peaks +stood sharply up against the clear, dark sky, the snow-slopes glimmered +faintly like a pale mist, and incredibly far, incredibly high, underneath +a bright and dancing star, shone a dim and rounded whiteness, the +snow-cap of Mont Blanc. + +"A year ago," said Sylvia, drawing a breath and bethinking her of the +black shadows which during those twelve months had lain across her path. + +"Yes, a year ago we were here," said Chayne. The little square was +thronged, the hotels and houses were bright with lights, and from here +and from there music floated out upon the air, the light and lilting +melodies of the day. "Sylvia, you see the café down the street there by +the bridge?" + +"Yes." + +"A year ago, on just such a night as this, I sat with my guide, Michel +Revailloud. I was going to cross the Col Dolent on the morrow. He had +made his last ascent. We were not very cheerful. And he gave me as a +parting present the one scrap of philosophy his life had taught him. He +said: 'Take care that when the time comes for you to get old that you +have some one to share your memories. Take care that when you go home in +the end, there shall be some one waiting in the room and the lamp lit +against your coming.'" + +Sylvia pressed against her side the hand which he had slipped +through her arm. + +"But he did more than give advice," Chayne continued, "for as he went +away to his home in the little village of Les Praz-Conduits, just across +the fields, he passed Couttet's Hotel and saw you under the lamp talking +to a guide he knew. You were making your arrangements to ascend the +Charmoz. But he dissuaded you." + +"Yes." + +"He convinced you that your first mountain should be the Aiguille +d'Argentière. He gave you no doubt many reasons, but not the real one +which he had in his thoughts." + +Sylvia looked at Chayne in surprise. + +"He sent you to the Aiguille d'Argentière, because he knew that so you +and I would meet at the Pavilion de Lognan." + +"But he had never spoken to me until that night," exclaimed Sylvia. + +"Yet he had noticed you. When I went up to fetch down my friend Lattery, +you were standing on the hotel step. You said to me, 'I am sorry.' Michel +heard you speak, and that evening talked of you. He had the thought that +you and I were matched." + +Sylvia looked back to the night before her first ascent. She pictured +to herself the old guide coming down the narrow street and out of the +darkness into the light of the lamp above the doorway. She recalled +how he had stopped at the sight of her, how cunningly he had spoken. +He had desired that her last step on to her first summit should bring +to her eyes and soul a revelation which no length of after years could +dim. That was the argument, and it was just the argument which would +prevail with her. + +"So it was his doing," she cried, with a laugh, and at once grew serious, +dwelling, as lovers will, upon the small accident which had brought them +together, and might so easily never have occurred. An unknown guide +speaks to her in a doorway, and lo! for her the world is changed, dark +years come to an end, the pathway broadens to a road; she walks not +alone. Whatever the future may hold--she walks not alone. Suppose there +had been no lamp above the doorway! Suppose there had been a lamp and she +not there! Suppose the guide had passed five minutes sooner or five +minutes later! + +"Oh, Hilary!" she cried, and put the thought from her. + +"I was thinking," he said, "that if you were not tired we might walk +across the fields to Michel's house. He would, I think, be very happy +if we did." + +A few minutes later they knocked upon Michel's door. Michel Revailloud +opened it himself and stood for a moment peering at the dim figures in +the darkness of the road. + +"It is I, Michel," said Chayne, and at the sound of his voice Michel +Revailloud drew him with a cry of welcome into the house. + +"So you have come back to Chamonix, monsieur! That is good"; and he +looked his "monsieur" over from head to foot and shook him warmly by the +hand. "Ah, you have come back!" + +"And not alone, Michel," said Chayne. + +Revailloud turned to the door and saw Sylvia standing there. She was on +the threshold and the light reached to her. Sylvia moved into the +low-roofed room. It was a big, long room, bare, and with a raftered +ceiling, and since one oil lamp lighted it, it was full of shadows. To +Chayne it had a lonely and a dreary look. He thought of his own house in +Sussex and of the evening he had passed there, thinking it just as +lonely. He felt perhaps at this moment, more than at any, the value of +the great prize which he had won. He took her hand in his, and, turning +to Michel, said simply: + +"We are married, Michel. We reached Chamonix only this evening. You are +the first of our friends to know of our marriage." + +Michel's face lighted up. He looked from one to the other of his visitors +and nodded his head once or twice. Then he blew his nose vigorously. "But +I let you stand!" he cried, in a voice that shook a little, and he +bustled about pushing chairs forward, and of a sudden stopped. He came +forward to Sylvia very gravely and held out his hand. She put her hand +into his great palm. + +"Madame, I will not pretend to you that I am not greatly moved. This is a +great happiness to me," he said with simplicity. He made no effort to +hide either the tears which filled his eyes or the unsteadiness of his +voice. "I am very glad for the sake of Monsieur Chayne. But I know him +well. We have been good friends for many a year, madame." + +"I know, Michel," she said. + +"And I can say therefore with confidence I am very glad for your sake +too. I am also very glad for mine. A minute ago I was sitting here +alone--now you are both here and together. Madame, it was a kind thought +which brought you both here to me at once." + +"To whom else should we come?" said Sylvia with a smile, "since it was +you, Michel, who would not let me ascend the Aiguille des Charmoz when I +wanted to." + +Michel was taken aback for a moment; then his wrinkled and +weatherbeaten face grew yet more wrinkled and he broke into a low and +very pleasant laugh. + +"Since my diplomacy has been so successful, madame, I will not deny it. +From the first moment when I heard you with your small and pretty voice +say on the steps of the hotel 'I am sorry' to my patron in his great +distress, and when I saw your face, too thoughtful for one so young, I +thought it would be a fine thing if you and he could come together. In +youth to be lonely--what is it? You slip on your hat and your cloak and +you go out. But when you are old, and your habits are settled, and you do +not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to +have a companion. And it is well to choose your companion in your youth, +madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together +when the good of life is chiefly recollection." + +He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered +them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true +gentleman he was. It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that +he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his +eyes than he had been last year. But at all events to-night he had the +spirit, the good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits upon peaks +then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's book, in which his messieurs +had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the +photographs which they had sent to him. + +"There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame," he said, +proudly, "with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and +the Alps were all young together. But it is not only the famous who are +interesting. Look, madame! Here is your husband's friend, Monsieur +Lattery--a good climber but not always very sure on ice." + +"You always will say that, Michel," protested Chayne. "I never knew a man +so obstinate." + +Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia: + +"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say a word against Monsieur +Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you +good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man. +Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and +nodded emphatically: "It is true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on +ice. And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt +known to you in London--Professor Kenyon." + +Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide's little book, +looked up at the photograph. + +"It was taken many years ago," she said. + +"Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Michel, with a shrug of the +shoulders, "when he and I and the Alps were young." + +Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the +table. If Kenyon's portrait was amongst Revailloud's small treasures, +there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the +portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon's "John +Lattery." There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in +Zermatt which he himself had seen in Kenyon's rooms. Fortunately however, +or so it seemed to him, Sylvia was engrossed in Michel's little book. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FÜHRBUCH + + +The book indeed was of far more interest to her than the portrait of any +mountaineer. It had a romance, a glamour of its own. It was just a +little note-book with blue-lined pages and an old dark-red soiled +leather cover which could fit into the breast pocket and never be +noticed there. But it went back to the early days of mountaineering when +even the passes were not all discovered and many of them were still +uncrossed, when mythical peaks were still gravely allotted their +positions and approximate heights in the maps; and when the easy +expedition of the young lady of to-day was the difficult achievement of +the explorer. It was to the early part of the book to which she turned. +Here she found first ascents of which she had read with her heart in her +mouth, ascents since made famous, simply recorded in the handwriting of +the men who had accomplished them--the dates, the hours of starting and +returning, a word or two perhaps about the condition of the snow, a warm +tribute to Michel Revailloud and the signatures. The same names recurred +year after year, and often the same hand recorded year after year +attempts on one particular pinnacle, until at the last, perhaps after +fifteen or sixteen failures, weather and snow and the determination of +the climbers conspired together, and the top was reached. + +"Those were the grand days," cried Sylvia. "Michel, you must be proud of +this book." + +"I value it very much, madame," he said, smiling at her enthusiasm. +Michel was a human person; and to have a young girl with a lovely face +looking at him out of her great eyes in admiration, and speaking almost +in a voice of awe, was flattery of a soothing kind. "Yes, many have +offered to buy it from me at a great price--Americans and others. But I +would not part with it. It is me. And when I am inclined to grumble, as +old people will, and to complain that my bones ache too sorely, I have +only to turn over the pages of that book to understand that I have no +excuse to grumble. For I have the proof there that my life has been very +good to live. No, I would not part with that little book." + +Sylvia turned over the pages slowly, naming now this mountain, now that, +and putting a question from time to time as to some point in a climb +which she remembered to have read and concerning which the narrative had +not been clear. And then a cry of surprise burst from her lips. + +Chayne had just assured himself that there was no portrait of Gabriel +Strood amongst those spread out upon the table. + +"What is it, madame?" asked Michel. + +Sylvia did not answer, but stared in bewilderment at the open page. +Chayne saw the book which she was reading and knew that his care lest she +should come across her father's portrait was of no avail. He crossed +round behind her chair and looked over her shoulder. There on the page in +her father's handwriting was the signature: "Gabriel Strood." + +Sylvia raised her face to Hilary's, and before she could put her question +he answered it quietly with a nod of the head. + +"Yes, that is so," he said. + +"You knew?" + +"I have known for a long time," he replied. + +Sylvia was lost in wonder. Yet there was no doubt in her mind. Gabriel +Strood, of whom she had made a hero, whose exploits she knew almost by +heart, had suffered from a physical disability which might well have +kept the most eager mountaineer to the level. It was because of his +mastery over his disability that she had set him so high in her esteem. +Well, there had been a day when her father had tramped across the downs +to Dorchester and had come back lame and in spite of his lameness had +left his companions behind. Other trifles recurred to her memory. She +had found him reading "The Alps in 1864," and yes--he had tried to hide +from her the title of the book. On their first meeting he had understood +at once when she had spoken to him of the emotion which her first +mountain peak had waked in her. And before that--yes, her guide had +cried aloud to her, "You remind me of Gabriel Strood." She owed it to +him that she had turned to the Alps as to her heritage, and that she had +brought to them an instinctive knowledge. Her first feeling was one of +sheer pride in her father. Then the doubts began to thicken. He called +himself Garratt Skinner. + +"Why? But why?" she cried, impulsively, and Chayne, still leaning on her +chair, pressed her arm with his hand and warned her to be silent. + +"I will tell you afterward," he said, quietly, and then he suddenly drew +himself upright. The movement was abrupt like the movement of a man +thoroughly startled--more startled even than she had been by the +unexpected sight of her father's handwriting. She looked up into his +face. He was staring at the open page of Michel's book. She turned back +to it herself and saw nothing which should so trouble him. Over Gabriel +Strood's signature there were just these words written in his hand and +nothing more: + +"Mont Blanc by the Brenva route. July, 1868." + +Yet it was just that sentence which had so startled Hilary. Gabriel +Strood _had_ then climbed Mont Blanc from the Italian side--up from the +glacier to the top of the great rock-buttress, then along the +world-famous ice-arête, thin as a knife edge, and to right and left +precipitous as a wall, and on the far side above the ice-ridge up the +hanging glaciers and the ice-cliffs to the summit of the Corridor. From +the Italian side of the range of Mont Blanc! And the day before yesterday +Gabriel Strood had crossed with Walter Hine to Italy, bound upon some +expedition which would take five days, five days at the least. + +It was to the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc that Garratt Skinner was +leading Walter Hine! The thought flashed upon Chayne swift as an +inspiration and as convincing. Chayne was sure. The Brenva route! It +was to this climb Garratt Skinner's thoughts had perpetually recurred +during that one summer afternoon in the garden in Dorsetshire, when he +had forgotten his secrecy and spoken even with his enemy of the one +passion they had in common. Chayne worked out the dates and they fitted +in with his belief. Two days ago Garratt Skinner started to cross the +Col du Géant. He would sleep very likely in the hut on the Col, and go +down the next morning to Courmayeur and make his arrangements for the +Brenva climb. On the third day, to-day, he would set out with Walter +Hine and sleep at the gîte on the rocks in the bay to the right of the +great ice-fall of the Brenva glacier. To-morrow he would ascend the +buttress, traverse the ice-ridge with Walter Hine--perhaps--yes, only +perhaps--and at that thought Chayne's heart stood still. And even if he +did, there were the hanging ice-cliffs above, and yet another day would +pass before any alarm at his absence would be felt. Surely, it would be +the Brenva route! + +Garratt Skinner himself would run great risk upon this hazardous +expedition--that was true. But Chayne knew enough of the man to be +assured that he would not hesitate on that account. The very audacity of +the exploit marked it out as Gabriel Strood's. Moreover, there would be +no other party on the Brenva ridge to spy upon his actions. There was +just one fact so far as Chayne could judge to discredit his +inspiration--the inconvenient presence of a guide. + +"Do you know a guide Delouvain, Michel?" + +"Indeed, yes! A good name, monsieur, and borne by a man worthy of it." + +"So I thought," said Chayne. "Pierre Delouvain," and Michel laughed +scornfully and waved the name away. + +"Pierre! No, indeed!" he cried. "Monsieur, never engage Pierre Delouvain +for your guide. I speak solemnly. Joseph--yes, and whenever you can +secure him. I thought you spoke of him. But Pierre, he is a cousin who +lives upon Joseph's name, a worthless fellow, a drunkard. Monsieur, never +trust yourself or any one whom you hold dear with Pierre Delouvain!" + +Chayne's last doubt was dispelled. Garratt Skinner had laid his plans for +the Brenva route. Somewhere on that long and difficult climb the accident +was to take place. The very choice of a guide was in itself a +confirmation of Chayne's fears. It was a piece of subtlety altogether in +keeping with Garratt Skinner. He had taken a bad and untrustworthy guide +on one of the most difficult expeditions in the range of Mont Blanc. Why, +he would be asked? And the answer was ready. He had confused Pierre +Delouvain with Joseph, his cousin, as no doubt many another man had done +before. Did not Pierre live on that very confusion? The answer was not +capable of refutation. + +Chayne was in despair. Garratt Skinner had started two days before from +Chamonix, was already, now, at this moment, asleep, with his unconscious +victim at his side, high up on the rocks of the upper Brenva glacier. +There was no way to hinder him--no way unless God helped. He asked +abruptly of Michel: + +"Have you climbed this season, Michel?" + +Michel laughed grimly. + +"Indeed, yes, to the Montanvert, monsieur. And beyond--yes, beyond, to +the Jardin." + +Chayne broke in upon his bitter humor. + +"I want the best guide in Chamonix. I want him at once. I must start by +daylight." + +Michel glanced up in surprise. But what he saw in Chayne's face stopped +all remonstrance. + +"For what ascent, monsieur?" he asked. + +"The Brenva route." + +"Madame will not go!" + +"No, I go alone. I must go quickly. There is very much at stake. I beg +you to help me." + +In answer Michel took his hat down from a peg, and while he did so Chayne +turned quickly to his wife. She had risen from her chair, but she had not +interrupted him, she had asked no questions, she had uttered no prayer. +She stood now, waiting upon him with a quiet and beautiful confidence +which deeply stirred his heart. + +"Thank you, sweetheart!" he said, quietly. "You can trust. I thank you," +and he added, gravely: "Whatever happens--you and I--there is no +altering that." + +Michel opened the door. + +"I will walk with you into Chamonix, and I will bring the best guides I +can find to your hotel." + +They passed out, and crossed the fields quickly to Chamonix. + +"Do you go to your hotel, monsieur," said Revailloud, "and leave the +choice to me. I must go about it quietly. If you were to come with me, we +should have to choose the first two guides upon the rota and that would +not do for the Brenva climb." + +He left them at the door of the hotel and went off upon his errand. +Sylvia turned at once to Hilary; her face was very pale, her voice shook. + +"You will tell me everything now. Something terrible has happened. No +doubt you feared it. You came to Chamonix because you feared it, and now +you know that it has happened." + +"Yes," said Chayne. "I hid it from you even as you spared me your bad +news all this last year." + +"Tell me now, please. If it is to be 'you and I,' as you said just now, +you will tell me." + +Chayne led the way into the garden, and drawing a couple of chairs apart +from the other visitors told her all that he knew and she did not. He +explained the episode of the lighted window, solved for her the riddle of +her father's friendship for Walter Hine, and showed her the reason for +this expedition to the summit of Mont Blanc. + +She uttered one low cry of horror. "Murder!" she whispered. + +"To think that we are two days behind, that even now they are sleeping on +the rocks, _he_ and Walter Hine, sleeping quite peacefully and quietly. +Oh, it's horrible!" he cried, beating his hands upon his forehead in +despair, and then he broke off. He saw that Sylvia was sitting with her +hands covering her face, while every now and then a shudder shook her and +set her trembling. + +"I am so sorry, Sylvia," he cried. "Oh, my dear, I had so hoped we should +be in time. I would have spared you this knowledge if I could. Who knows? +We may be still in time," and as he spoke Michel entered the garden with +one other man and came toward him. + +"Henri Simond!" said Michel, presenting his companion. "You will know +that name. Simond has just come down from the Grépon, monsieur. He will +start with you at daylight." + +Chayne looked at Simond. He was of no more than the middle height, but +broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and long of arm. His strength was well +known in Chamonix--as well known as his audacity. + +"I am very glad that you can come, Simond," said Chayne. "You are the +very man;" and then he turned to Michel. "But we should have another +guide. I need two men." + +"Yes," said Michel. "Three men are needed for that climb," and Chayne +left him to believe that it was merely for the climb that he needed +another guide. "But there is André Droz already at Courmayeur," he +continued. "His patron was to leave him there to-day. A telegram can be +sent to him to-morrow bidding him wait. If he has started, we shall meet +him to-morrow on the Col du Géant. And Droz, monsieur, is the man for +you. He is quick, as quick as you and Simond. The three of you together +will go well. As for to-morrow, you will need no one else. But if you do, +monsieur, I will go with you." + +"There is no need, Michel," replied Chayne, gratefully, and thereupon +Sylvia plucked him by the sleeve. + +"I must go with you to-morrow, Hilary," she pleaded, wistfully. "Oh, you +won't leave me here. Let me come with you as far as possible. Let me +cross to Italy. I will go quick. If I get tired, you shall not know." + +"It will be a long day, Sylvia." + +"It cannot be so long as the day I should pass waiting here." + +She wrung her hands as she spoke. The light from a lamp fixed in the +hotel wall fell upon her upturned face. It was white, her lips trembled, +and in her eyes Chayne saw again the look of terror which he had hoped +was gone forever. "Oh, please," she whispered. + +"Yes," he replied, and he turned again to Simond. "At two o'clock then. +My wife will go, so bring a mule. We can leave it at the Montanvert." + +The guides tramped from the garden. Chayne led his wife toward the hotel, +slipping his arm through hers. + +"You must get some sleep, Sylvia." + +"Oh, Hilary," she cried. "I shall bring shame on you. We should never +have married," and her voice broke in a sob. + +"Hush!" he replied. "Never say that, my dear, never think it! Sleep! You +will want your strength to-morrow." + +But Sylvia slept little, and before the time she was ready with her +ice-ax in her hand. At two o'clock they came out from the hotel in the +twilight of the morning. There were two men there. + +"Ah! you have come to see us off, Michel," said Chayne. + +"No, monsieur, I bring my mule," said Revailloud, with a smile, and he +helped Sylvia to mount it. "To lead mules to the Montanvert--is not that +my business? Simond has a rope," he added, as he saw Chayne sling a coil +across his shoulder. + +"We may need an extra one," said Chayne, and the party moved off upon +its long march. At the Montanvert hotel, on the edge of the Mer de +Glace, Sylvia descended from her mule, and at once the party went down +on to the ice. + +"Au revoir!" shouted Michel from above, and he stood and watched them, +until they passed out of his sight. Sylvia turned and waved her hand to +him. But he made no answering sign. For his eyes were no longer good. + +"He is very kind," said Sylvia. "He understood that there was some +trouble, and while he led the mule he sought to comfort me," and then +between a laugh and a sob she added: "You will never guess how. He +offered to give me his little book with all the signatures--the little +book which means so much to him." + +It was the one thing which he had to offer her, as Sylvia understood, and +always thereafter she remembered him with a particular tenderness. He had +been a good friend to her, asking nothing and giving what he had. She saw +him often in the times which were to come, but when she thought of him, +she pictured him as on that early morning standing on the bluff of cliff +by the Montanvert with the reins of his mule thrown across his arm, and +straining his old eyes to hold his friends in view. + +Later during that day amongst the séracs of the Col du Géant, Simond +uttered a shout, and a party of guides returning to Chamonix changed +their course toward him. Droz was amongst the number, and consenting +at once to the expedition which was proposed to him, he tied himself +on to the rope. + +"Do you know the Brenva ascent?" Chayne asked of him. + +"Yes, monsieur. I have crossed Mont Blanc once that way. I shall be very +glad to go again. We shall be the first to cross for two years. If only +the weather holds." + +"Do you doubt that?" asked Chayne, anxiously. The morning had broken +clear, the day was sunny and cloudless. + +"I think there may be wind to-morrow," he replied, raising his face and +judging by signs unappreciable to other than the trained eyes of a guide. +"But we will try, eh, monsieur?" he cried, recovering his spirits. "We +will try. We will be the first on the Brenva ridge for two years." + +But there Chayne knew him to be wrong. There was another party somewhere +on the great ridge at this moment. "Had _it_ happened?" he asked himself. +"How was it to happen?" What kind of an accident was it to be which could +take place with a guide however worthless, and which would leave no +suspicion resting on Garratt Skinner? There would be no cutting of the +rope. Of that he felt sure. That method might do very well for a +melodrama, but actually--no! Garratt Skinner would have a better plan +than that. And indeed he had, a better plan and a simpler one, a plan +which not merely would give to any uttered suspicion the complexion of +malignancy, but must even bring Mr. Garratt Skinner honor and great +praise. But no idea of the plan occurred either to Sylvia or to Chayne as +all through that long hot day they toiled up the ice-fall of the Col du +Géant and over the passes. It was evening before they came to the +pastures, night before they reached Courmayeur. + +There Chayne found full confirmation of his fears. In spite of effort to +dissuade them, Garratt Skinner, Walter Hine and Pierre Delouvain had +started yesterday for the Brenva climb. They had taken porters with them +as far as the sleeping-place upon the glacier rocks. The porters had +returned. Chayne sent for them. + +"Yes," they said. "At half past two this morning, the climbing party +descended from the rocks on to the ice-fall of the glacier. They should +be at the hut at the Grands Mulets now, on the other side of the +mountain, if not already in Chamonix. Perhaps monsieur would wish for +porters to-morrow." + +"No," said Chayne. "We mean to try the passage in one day"; and he turned +to his guides. "I wish to start at midnight. It is important. We shall +reach the glacier by five. Will you be ready?" + +And at midnight accordingly he set out by the light of a lantern. Sylvia +stood outside the hotel and watched the flame diminish to a star, dance +for a little while, and then go out. For her, as for all women, the bad +hour had struck when there was nothing to do but to sit and watch and +wait. Perhaps her husband, after all, was wrong, she said to herself, +and repeated the phrase, hoping that repetition would carry conviction +to her heart. + +But early on that morning Chayne had sure evidence that he was right. For +as he, Simond and André Droz were marching in single file through the +thin forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd lad came running +down toward them. He was so excited that he could hardly tell the story +with which he was hurrying to Courmayeur. Only an hour before he had +seen, high up on the Brenva ridge, a man waving a signal of distress. +Both Simond and Droz discredited the story. The distance was too great; +the sharpest eyes could not have seen so far. But Chayne believed, and +his heart sank within him. The puppet and Garratt Skinner--what did they +matter? But he turned his eyes down toward Courmayeur. It was Sylvia upon +whom the blow would fall. + +"The story cannot be true," cried Simond. + +But Chayne bethought him of another day long ago, when a lad had burst +into the hotel at Zermatt and told with no more acceptance for his story +of an avalanche which he had seen fall from the very summit of the +Matterhorn. Chayne looked at his watch. It was just four o'clock. + +"There has been an accident," he said. "We must hurry." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE BRENVA RIDGE + + +The peasant was right. He _had_ seen a man waving a signal of distress on +the slopes of Mont Blanc above the great buttress. And this is how the +signal came to be waved. + +An hour before Chayne and Sylvia set out from Chamonix to cross the Col +du Géant, and while it was yet quite dark, a spark glowed suddenly on an +island of rocks set in the great white waste of the Brenva glacier. The +spark was a fire lit by Pierre Delouvain. For Garratt Skinner's party had +camped upon those rocks. The morning was cold, and one by one the +porters, Garratt Skinner, and Walter Hine, gathered about the blaze. +Overhead the stars glittered in a clear, dark sky. It was very still; no +sound was heard at all but the movement in the camp; even on the glacier +a thousand feet below, where all night long the avalanches had thundered, +in the frost of the early morning there was silence. + +Garratt Skinner looked upward. + +"We shall have a good day," he said; and then he looked quickly toward +Walter Hine. "How did you sleep, Wallie?" + +"Very little. The avalanches kept me awake. Besides, I slipped and fell a +hundred times at the corner of the path," he said, with a shiver. "A +hundred times I felt emptiness beneath my feet." + +He referred to a mishap of the day before. On the way to the gîte after +the chalets and the wood are left behind, a little path leads along the +rocks of the Mont de la Brenva high above the glacier. There are one or +two awkward corners to pass where rough footsteps have been hewn in the +rock. At one of these corners Walter Hine had slipped. His side struck +the step; he would have dropped to the glacier, but Garratt Skinner had +suddenly reached out a hand and saved him. + +Garratt Skinner's face changed. + +"You are not afraid," he said. + +"You think we can do it?" asked Hine, nervously, and Garratt +Skinner laughed. + +"Ask Pierre Delouvain!" he said, and himself put the question. Pierre +laughed in his turn. + +"Bah! I snap my fingers at the Brenva climb," said he. "We shall be +in Chamonix to-night"; and Garratt Skinner translated the words to +Walter Hine. + +Breakfast was prepared and eaten. Walter Hine was silent through the +meal. He had not the courage to say that he was afraid; and Garratt +Skinner played upon his vanity. + +"We shall be in Chamonix to-night. It will be a fine feather in your cap, +Wallie. One of the historic climbs!" + +Walter Hine drew a deep breath. If only the day were over, and the party +safe on the rough path through the woods on the other side of the +mountain! But he held his tongue. Moreover, he had great faith in his +idol and master, Garratt Skinner. + +"You saved my life yesterday," he said; and upon Garratt Skinner's face +there came a curious smile. He looked steadily into the blaze of the fire +and spoke almost as though he made an apology to himself. + +"I saw a man falling. I saw that I could save him. I did not think. My +hand had already caught him." + +He looked up with a start. In the east the day was breaking, pale and +desolate; the lower glacier glimmered into view beneath them; the +gigantic amphitheater of hills which girt them in on three sides loomed +out of the mists from aerial heights and took solidity and shape, +westward the black and rugged Peuteret ridge, eastward the cliffs of Mont +Maudit, and northward sweeping around the head of the glacier, the great +ice-wall of Mont Blanc with its ruined terraces and inaccessible cliffs. + +"Time, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, and he rose to his feet and called +to Pierre Delouvain. "There are only three of us. We shall have to go +quickly. We do not want to carry more food than we shall need. The rest +we can send back with our blankets by the porters." + +Pierre Delouvain justified at once the ill words which had been spoken of +him by Michel Revailloud. He thought only of the burden which through +this long day he would have to carry on his back. + +"Yes, that is right," he said. "We will take what we need for the day. +To-night we shall be in Chamonix." + +And thus the party set off with no provision against that most probable +of all mishaps--the chance that sunset might find them still upon the +mountain side. Pierre Delouvain, being lazy and a worthless fellow, as +Revailloud had said, agreed. But the suggestion had been made by Garratt +Skinner. And Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood, who knew--none +better--the folly of such light traveling. + +The rope was put on; Pierre Delouvain led the way, Walter Hine as the +weakest of the party was placed in the middle, Garratt Skinner came last; +the three men mounted by a snow-slope and a gully to the top of the rocks +which supported the upper Brenva glacier. + +"That's our road, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. He pointed to a great +buttress of rock overlain here and there with fields of snow, which +jutted out from the ice-wall of the mountain, descended steeply, bent to +the west in a curve, and then pushed far out into the glacier as some +great promontory pushes out into the sea. "Do you see a hump above the +buttress, on the crest of the ridge and a little to the right? And to the +right of the hump, a depression in the ridge? That's what they call the +Corridor. Once we are there our troubles are over." + +But between the party and the buttress stretched the great ice-fall of +the upper Brenva glacier. Crevassed, broken, a wilderness of towering +séracs, it had the look of a sea in a gale whose breakers had been frozen +in the very act of over toppling. + +"Come," said Pierre. + +"Keep the rope stretched tight, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner; and they +descended into the furrows of that wild and frozen sea. The day's work +had begun in earnest; and almost at once they began to lose time. + +Now it was a perilous strip of ice between unfathomable blue depths along +which they must pass, as bridge-builders along their girders, yet without +the bridge-builders' knowledge that at the end of the passage there was a +further way. Now it was some crevasse into which they must descend, +cutting their steps down a steep rib of ice; now it was a wall up which +the leader must be hoisted on the shoulders of his companions, and even +so as likely as not, his fingers could not reach the top, but hand holds +and foot holds must be hewn with the ax till a ladder was formed. Now it +was some crevasse gaping across their path; they must search this way and +that for a firm snow-bridge by which to overpass it. It was difficult, as +Pierre Delouvain discovered, to find a path through that tangled +labyrinth without some knowledge of the glacier. For, only at rare times, +when he stood high on a sérac, could he see his way for more than a few +yards ahead. Pierre aimed straight for the foot of the buttress, working +thus due north. And he was wrong. Garratt Skinner knew it, but said not a +word. He stood upon insecure ledges and supported Delouvain upon his +shoulders, and pushed him up with his ice-ax into positions which only +involved the party in further difficulties. He took his life in his hands +and risked it, knowing the better way. Yet all the while the light +broadened, the great violet shadows crept down the slopes and huddled at +the bases of the peaks. Then the peaks took fire, and suddenly along the +dull white slopes of ice in front of them the fingers of the morning +flashed in gold. Over the eastern rocks the sun had leaped into the sky. +For a little while longer they advanced deeper into the entanglement, and +when they were about half way across they came to a stop. They were on a +tongue of ice which narrowed to a point; the point abutted against a +perpendicular ice-wall thirty feet high. Nowhere was there any break in +that wall, and at each side of the tongue the ice gaped in chasms. + +"We must go back," said Pierre. "I have forgotten the way." + +He had never known it. Seduced by a treble fee, he had assumed an +experience which he did not possess. Garratt Skinner looked at his watch, +and turning about led the party back for a little while. Then he turned +to his right and said: + +"I think it might go in this direction," and lo! making steadily across +some difficult ground, no longer in a straight line northward to Mont +Blanc, but westward toward the cliffs of the Peuteret ridge under Garratt +Skinner's lead, they saw a broad causeway of ice open before them. The +causeway led them to steep slopes of snow, up which it was just possible +to kick steps, and then working back again to the east they reached the +foot of the great buttress on its western side just where it forms a +right angle with the face of the mountain. Garratt Skinner once more +looked at his watch. It had been half-past two when they had put on the +rope, it was now close upon half-past six. They had taken four hours to +traverse the ice-fall, and they should have taken only two and a half. +Garratt Skinner, however, expressed no anxiety. On the contrary, one +might have thought that he wished to lose time. + +"There's one of the difficulties disposed of," he said, cheerily. "You +did very well, Wallie--very well. It was not altogether nice, was it? But +you won't have to go back." + +Walter Hine had indeed crossed the glacier without complaint. There had +been times when he had shivered, times when his heart within him had +swelled with a longing to cry out, "Let us go back!" But he had not +dared. He had been steadied across the narrow bridge with the rope, +hauled up the ice-walls and let down again on the other side. But he had +come through. He took some pride in the exploit as he gazed back from the +top of the snow-slope across the tumult of ice to the rocks on which he +had slipped. He had come through safely, and he was encouraged to go on. + +"We won't stop here, I think," said Garratt Skinner. They had already +halted upon the glacier for a second breakfast. The sun was getting hot +upon the slopes above, and small showers of snow and crusts of ice were +beginning to shoot down the gullies of the buttress at the base of which +they stood. "We will have a third breakfast when we are out of range." He +called to Delouvain who was examining the face of the rock-buttress up +which they must ascend to its crest and said: "It looks as if we should +do well to work out to the right I think." + +The rocks were difficult, but their difficulty was not fully appreciated +by Walter Hine. Nor did he understand the danger. There were gullies in +which new snow lay in a thin crust over hard ice. He noticed that in +those gullies the steps were cut deep into the ice below, that Garratt +Skinner bade him not loiter, and that Pierre Delouvain in front made +himself fast and drew in the rope with a particular care when it came to +his turn to move. But he did not know that all that surface snow might +peel off in a moment, and swish down the cliffs, sweeping the party from +their feet. There were rounded rocks and slabs with no hold for hand or +foot but roughness, roughness in the surface, and here and there a +wrinkle. But the guide went first, as often as not pushed up by Garratt +Skinner, and Walter Hine, like many another inefficient man before him, +came up, like a bundle, on the rope afterward. Thus they climbed for +three hours more. Walter Hine, nursed by gradually lengthening +expeditions, was not as yet tired. Moreover the exhilaration of the air, +and excitement, helped to keep fatigue aloof. They rested just below the +crest of the ridge and took another meal. + +"Eat often and little. That's the golden rule," said Garratt Skinner. "No +brandy, Wallie. Keep that in your flask!" + +Pierre Delouvain, however, followed a practice not unknown amongst +Chamonix guides. + +"Absinthe is good on the mountains," said he. + +When they rose, the order of going was changed. Pierre Delouvain, who +had led all the morning, now went last, and Garratt Skinner led. He led +quickly and with great judgment or knowledge--Pierre Delouvain at the +end of the rope wondered whether it was judgment or knowledge--and +suddenly Walter Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt +Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a glacier far below, which +flows from the Mur de la Côte on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the +Brenva glacier. + +"That's famous," cried Garratt Skinner, looking once more at his watch. +He did not say that they had lost yet another hour upon the face of the +buttress. It was now half past nine in the morning. "We are twelve +thousand feet up, Wallie," and he swung to his left, and led the party up +the ridge of the buttress. + +As they went along this ridge, Wallie Hine's courage rose. It was narrow +but not steep, nor was it ice. It was either rock or snow in which steps +could be kicked. He stepped out with a greater confidence. If this were +all, the Brenva climb was a fraud, he exclaimed to himself in the vanity +of his heart. Ahead of them a tall black tower stood up, hiding what lay +beyond, and up toward this tower Garratt Skinner led quickly. He no +longer spoke to his companions, he went forward, assured and inspiring +assurance; he reached the tower, passed it and began to cut steps. His ax +rang as it fell. It was ice into which he was cutting. + +This was the first warning which Walter Hine received. But he paid no +heed to it. He was intent upon setting his feet in the steps; he found +the rope awkward to handle and keep tight, his attention was absorbed in +observing his proper distance. Moreover, in front of him the stalwart +figure of Garratt Skinner blocked his vision. He went forward. The snow +on which he walked became hard ice, and instead of sloping upward ran +ahead almost in a horizontal line. Suddenly, however, it narrowed; Hine +became conscious of appalling depths on either side of him; it narrowed +with extraordinary rapidity; half a dozen paces behind him he had been +walking on a broad smooth path; now he walked on the width of the top of +a garden wall. His knees began to shake; he halted; he reached out +vainly into emptiness for some support on which his shaking hands might +clutch. And then in front of him he saw Garratt Skinner sit down and +bestride the wall. Over Garratt Skinner's head, he now saw the path by +which he needs must go. He was on the famous ice-ridge; and nothing so +formidable, so terrifying, had even entered into his dreams during his +sleep upon the rocks where he had bivouacked. It thinned to a mere sharp +edge, a line without breadth of cold blue ice, and it stretched away +through the air for a great distance until it melted suddenly into the +face of the mountain. On the left hand an almost vertical slope of ice +dropped to depths which Hine did not dare to fathom with his eyes; on +the right there was no slope at all; a wall of crumbling snow descended +from the edge straight as a weighted line. On neither side could the +point of the ax be driven in to preserve the balance. Walter Hine +uttered a whimpering cry: + +"I shall fall! I shall fall!" + +Garratt Skinner, astride of the ridge, looked over his shoulder. + +"Sit down," he cried, sharply. But Walter Hine dared not. He stood, all +his courage gone, tottering on the narrow top of the wall, afraid to +stoop, lest his knees should fail him altogether and his feet slip from +beneath him. To bend down until his hands could rest upon the ice, and +meanwhile to keep his feet--no, he could not do it. He stood trembling, +his face distorted with fear, and his body swaying a little from side to +side. Garratt Skinner called sharply to Pierre Delouvain. + +"Quick, Pierre." + +There was no time for Garratt Skinner to return; but he gathered himself +together on the ridge, ready for a spring. Had Walter Hine toppled over, +and swung down the length of the rope, as at any moment he might have +done, Garratt Skinner was prepared. He would have jumped down the +opposite side of the ice-arête, though how either he or Walter Hine could +have regained the ridge he could not tell. Would any one of the party +live to return to Courmayeur and tell the tale? But Garratt Skinner knew +the risk he took, had counted it up long before ever he brought Walter +Hine to Chamonix, and thought it worth while. He did not falter now. All +through the morning, indeed, he had been taking risks, risks of which +Walter Hine did not dream; with so firm and yet so delicate a step he had +moved from crack to crack, from ice-step up to ice-step; with so obedient +a response of his muscles, he had drawn himself up over the rounded rocks +from ledge to ledge. He shouted again to Pierre Delouvain, and at the +same moment began carefully to work backward along the ice-arête. Pierre, +however, hurried; Walter Hine heard the guide's voice behind him, felt +himself steadied by his hands. He stooped slowly down, knelt upon the +wall, then bestrode it. + +"Now, forward," cried Skinner, and he pulled in the rope. "Forward. We +cannot go back!" + +Hine clung to the ridge; behind him Pierre Delouvain sat down and held +him about the waist. Slowly they worked themselves forward, while Garratt +Skinner gathered in the rope in front. The wall narrowed as they +advanced, became the merest edge which cut their hands as they clasped +it. Hine closed his eyes, his head whirled, he was giddy, he felt sick. +He stopped gripping the slope on both sides with his knees, clutching the +sharp edge with the palms of his hands. + +"I can't go on! I can't," he cried, and he reeled like a novice on the +back of a horse. + +Garratt Skinner worked back to him. + +"Put your arms about my waist, Wallie! Keep your eyes shut! You +shan't fall." + +Walter Hine clung to him convulsively, Pierre Delouvain steadied Hine +from behind, and thus they went slowly forward for a long while. Garratt +Skinner gripped the edge with the palms of his hands--so narrow was the +ridge--the fingers of one hand pointed down one slope, the fingers of the +other down the opposite wall. Their legs dangled. + +At last Walter Hine felt Garratt Skinner loosening his clasped fingers +from about his waist. Garratt Skinner stood up, uncoiled the rope, +chipped a step or two in the ice and went boldly forward. For a yard +or two further Walter Hine straddled on, and then Garratt Skinner +cried to him: + +"Look up, Wallie. It's all over." + +Hine looked and saw Garratt Skinner standing upon a level space of snow +in the side of the mountain. A moment later he himself was lying in the +sun upon the level space. The famous ice-arête was behind them. Walter +Hine looked back along it and shuddered. The thin edge of ice curving +slightly downward, stretched away to the black rock-tower, in the bright +sunlight a thing most beautiful, but most menacing and terrible. He +seemed cut off by it from the world. They had a meal upon that level +space, and while Hine rested, Pierre Delouvain cast off the rope and went +ahead. He came back in a little while with a serious face. + +"Will it go?" asked Garratt Skinner. + +"It must," said Delouvain. "For we can never go back"; and suddenly +alarmed lest the way should be barred in front as well as behind, Walter +Hine turned and looked above him. His nerves were already shaken; at the +sight of what lay ahead of him, he uttered a cry of despair. + +"It's no use," he cried. "We can never get up," and he flung himself upon +the snow and buried his face in his arms. Garratt Skinner stood over him. + +"We must," he said. "Come! Look!" + +Walter Hine looked up and saw his companion dangling the face of his +watch before his eyes. + +"We are late. It is now twelve o'clock. We should have left this spot two +hours ago and more," he said, very gravely; and Pierre Delouvain +exclaimed excitedly: + +"Certainly, monsieur, we must go on. It will not do to loiter now," and +stooping down, he dragged rather than helped Walter Hine to his feet. The +quiet gravity of Garratt Skinner and the excitement of Delouvain +frightened Walter Hine equally. Some sense of his own insufficiency broke +in at last upon him. His vanity peeled off from him, just at the moment +when it would most have been of use. He had a glimpse of what he was--a +poor, weak, inefficient thing. + +Above them the slopes stretched upward to a great line of towering +ice-cliffs. Through and up those ice-cliffs a way had to be found. And at +any moment, loosened by the sun, huge blocks and pinnacles might break +from them and come thundering down. As it was, upon their right hand +where the snow-fields fell steeply in a huge ice gully, between a line of +rocks and the cliffs of Mont Maudit, the avalanches plunged and +reverberated down to the Brenva glacier. Pierre Delouvain took the lead +again, and keeping by the line of rocks the party ascended the steep +snow-slopes straight toward the wall of cliffs. But in a while the snow +thinned, and the ax was brought into play again. Through the thin crust +of snow, steps had to be cut into the ice beneath, and since there were +still many hundreds of feet to be ascended, the steps were cut wide +apart. With the sun burning upon his face, and his feet freezing in the +ice-steps, Walter Hine stood and moved, and stood again all through that +afternoon. Fatigue gained upon him, and fear did not let him go. "If only +I get off this mountain," he said to himself with heartfelt longing, +"never again!" When near to the cliffs Pierre Delouvain stopped. In front +of him the wall was plainly inaccessible. Far away to the left there was +a depression up which possibly a way might be forced. + +"I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said Pierre. + +"But you should _know_" said Garratt Skinner. + +"It is some time since I was here. I have forgotten;" and Pierre began to +traverse the ice-slope to the left. Garratt Skinner followed without a +word. But he knew that when he had ascended Mont Blanc by the Brenva +route twenty-three years before, he had kept to the right along the rocks +to a point where that ice-wall was crevassed, and through that crevasse +had found his path. They passed quickly beneath an overhanging rib of ice +which jutted out from the wall, and reached the angle then formed at four +o'clock in the afternoon. + +"Our last difficulty, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, as he cut a +large step in which Hine might stand. "Once up that wall, our +troubles are over." + +Walter Hine looked at the wall. It was not smooth ice, it was true; +blocks had broken loose from it, and had left it bulging out here, +there, and in places fissured. But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees. +It seemed impossible that any one should ascend it. He looked down the +slope up which they had climbed--it seemed equally impossible that any +one should return. Moreover, the sun was already in the West, and the +ice promontory under which they stood shut its warmth from them. Walter +Hine was in the shadow, and he shivered with cold as much as with fear. +For half an hour Pierre Delouvain tried desperately to work his way up +that ice wall, and failed. + +"It is too late," he said. "We shall not get up to-night." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"No, nor get down," he added, gravely. "I am sorry, Wallie. We must go +back and find a place where we can pass the night." + +Walter Hine was in despair. He was tired, he was desperately cold, his +gloves were frozen, his fingers and his feet benumbed. + +"Oh, let's stop here!" he cried. + +"We can't," said Garratt Skinner, and he turned as he spoke and led the +way down quickly. There was need for hurry. Every now and then he stopped +to cut an intervening step, where those already cut were too far apart, +and at times to give Hine a hand while Delouvain let him down with the +help of the rope from behind. + +Slowly they descended, and while they descended the sun disappeared, the +mists gathered about the precipices below, the thunder of the avalanches +was heard at rare intervals, the ice-cliffs above them glimmered faintly +and still more faintly. The dusk came. They descended in a ghostly +twilight. At times the mists would part, and below them infinite miles +away they saw the ice-fields of the Brenva glacier. The light was failing +altogether when Garratt Skinner turned to his left and began to traverse +the slopes to a small patch of rocks. + +"Here!" he said, as he reached them. "We must sit here until the +morning comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + +At the base of the rocks there was a narrow ledge on which, huddled +together, the three men could sit side by side. Garratt Skinner began to +clear the snow from the ledge with his ice-ax; but Walter Hine sank down +at once and Pierre Delouvain, who might have shown a better spirit, +promptly followed his example. + +"What is the use?" he whispered. "We shall all die to-night.... I have a +wife and family.... Let us eat what there is to eat and then die," and +drowsily repeating his words, he fell asleep. Garratt Skinner, however, +roused him, and drowsily he helped to clear the ledge. Then Walter Hine +was placed in the middle that he might get what warmth and shelter was +to be had, the rope was hitched over a spike of rock behind, so that if +any one fell asleep he might not fall off, and Delouvain and Skinner +took their places. By this time darkness had come. They sat upon the +narrow ledge with their backs to the rock and the steep snow-slopes +falling away at their feet. Far down a light or two glimmered in the +chalets of La Brenva. + +Garratt Skinner emptied the _Rücksack_ on his knees. + +"Let us see what food we have," he said. "We made a mistake in not +bringing more. But Pierre was so certain that we should reach Chamonix +to-night." + +"We shall die to-night," said Pierre. + +"Nonsense," said Garratt Skinner. "We are not the first party which has +been caught by the night." + +Their stock of food was certainly low. It consisted of a little bread, a +tin of sardines, a small pot of jam, some cold bacon, a bag of +acid-drops, a couple of cakes of chocolate, and a few biscuits. + +"We must keep some for the morning," he said. "Don't fall asleep, Wallie! +You had better take off your boots and muffle your feet in the +_Rücksack_. It will keep them warmer and save you from frost-bite. You +might as well squeeze the water out of your stockings too." + +Garratt Skinner waked Hine from his drowsiness and insisted that his +advice should be followed. It would be advisable that it should be known +afterward in Courmayeur that he had taken every precaution to preserve +his companion's life. He took off his own stockings and squeezed the +water out, replaced them, and laced on his boots. For to him, too, the +night would bring some risk. Then the three men ate their supper. A very +little wine was left in the gourd which Garratt Skinner had carried on +his back, and he filled it up with snow and thrust it inside his shirt +that it might melt the sooner. + +"You have your brandy flask, Wallie, but be sparing of it. Brandy will +warm you for the moment, but it leaves you more sensitive to the cold +than you were before. That's a known fact. And don't drink too much of +this snow-water. It may make you burn inside. At least so I have been +told," he added. + +Hine drank and passed the bottle to Pierre, who took it with his +reiterated moan: "What's the use? We shall all die to-night. Why should a +poor guide with a wife and family be tempted to ascend mountains. I will +tell you something, monsieur," he cried suddenly across Walter Hine. "I +am not fond of the mountains. No, I am not fond of them!" and he leaned +back and fell asleep. + +"Better not follow his example, Wallie. Keep awake! Slap your limbs!" + +Above the three men the stars came out very clear and bright; the tiny +lights in the chalets far below disappeared one by one; the cold became +intense. At times Garratt Skinner roused his companions, and holding each +other by the arm, they rose simultaneously to their feet and stamped upon +the ledge. But every movement hurt them, and after a while Walter Hine +would not. + +"Leave me alone," he said. "To move tortures me!" + +Garratt Skinner had his pipe and some tobacco. He lit, shading the match +with his coat; and then he looked at his watch. + +"What time is it? Is it near morning?" asked Hine, in a voice which was +very feeble. + +"A little longer to wait," said Garratt Skinner, cheerfully. + +The hands marked a quarter to ten. + +And afterward they grew very silent, except for the noise which they made +in shivering. Their teeth chattered with the chill, they shook in fits +which lasted for minutes, Walter Hine moaned feebly. All about them the +world was bound in frost; the cold stars glittered overhead; the +mountains took their toll of pain that night. Yet there was one among +those three perched high on a narrow ledge of rock amongst the desolate +heights, who did not regret. Just for a night like this Garratt Skinner +had hoped. Walter Hine, weak of frame and with little stamina, was +exposed to the rigors of a long Alpine night, thirteen thousand feet +above the level of the sea, with hardly any food, and no hope of rescue +for yet another day and yet another night. There could be but one end to +it. Not until to-morrow would any alarm at their disappearance be +awakened either at Chamonix or at Courmayeur. It would need a second +night before help reached them--so Garratt Skinner had planned it out. +There could be but one end to it. Walter Hine would die. There was a risk +that he himself might suffer the same fate--he was not blind to it. He +had taken the risk knowingly, and with a certain indifference. It was the +best plan, since, if he escaped alive, suspicion could not fall on him. +Thus he argued, as he smoked his pipe with his back to the rock and +waited for the morning. + +At one o'clock Walter Hine began to ramble. He took Garratt Skinner and +Pierre Delouvain for Captain Barstow and Archie Parminter, and complained +that it was ridiculous to sit up playing poker on so cold a night; and +while in his delirium he rambled and moaned, the morning began to break. +But with the morning came a wind from the north, whirling the snow like +smoke about the mountain-tops, and bitingly cold. Garratt Skinner with +great difficulty stood up, slowly and with pain stretched himself to his +full height, slapped his thighs, stamped with his feet, and then looked +for a long while at his victim, without remorse, and without +satisfaction. He stooped and sought to lift him. But Hine was too stiff +and numbed with the cold to be able to move. In a little while Pierre +Delouvain, who had fallen asleep, woke up. The day was upon them now, +cold and lowering. + +"We must wait for the sun," said Garratt Skinner. "Until that has risen +and thawed us it will not be safe to move." + +Pierre Delouvain looked about him, worked the stiffened muscles of his +limbs and groaned. + +"There will be little sun to-day," he said. "We shall all die here." + +Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks +of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then +tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this +way and that. + +"No one will see it," whimpered Pierre; and indeed Garratt Skinner would +never have waved that signal had he not thought the same. + +"Perhaps--one never knows," he said. "We must take all precautions, for +the day looks bad." + +The sunlight, indeed, only stayed upon the mountain-side long enough to +tantalize them with vain hopes of warmth. Gray clouds swept up low over +the crest of Mont Blanc and blotted it out. The wind moaned wildly +along the slopes. The day frowned upon them sullen and cold with a sky +full of snow. + +"We will wait a little longer," said Garratt Skinner, "then we +must move." + +He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would +lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life +upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake. +Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine. + +"Leave me alone," moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his +companions as they lifted him on to his feet. + +"Stamp your feet, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. "You will feel better in +a few moments." + +They held him up, but he repeated his cry. "Leave me alone!" and the +moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome +with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him. + +Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky. + +"We must wait till help comes," he said, + +Delouvain shook his head. + +"It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur, +to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here"; and he fell to +blubbering like a child. + +"Could you go down alone?" Garratt Skinner asked. + +"There is the glacier to cross, monsieur." + +"I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The +snow-bridges may hold." + +Pierre Delouvain hesitated. Here it seemed to him was certain death. But +if he climbed down the ice-arête, the snow-slopes, and the rocks below, +if the snow-bridges held upon the glacier, there would be life for one of +the three. Pierre Delouvain had little in common with that loyal race of +Alpine guides who hold it as their most sacred tradition not to return +home without their patrons. + +"Yes, it is our one hope," he said; and untying himself with awkward +fumbling fingers from the kinked rope, and coiling the spare rope about +his shoulders, he went down the slope. During the night the steps had +frozen and in many places it was necessary to recut them. He too was +stiff with the long vigil. He moved slowly, with numbed and frozen limbs. +But as his ax rose and fell, the blood began to burn in the tips of his +fingers, to flow within his veins; he went more and more firmly. For a +long way Garratt Skinner held him in sight. Then he turned back to Walter +Hine upon the ledge, and sat beside him. Garratt Skinner's strength had +stood him in good stead. He filled his pipe and lit it, and watched +beside his victim. The day wore on slowly. At times Garratt Skinner +rubbed Hine's limbs and stamped about the ledge to keep some warmth +within himself. Walter Hine grew weaker and weaker. At times he was +delirious; at times he came to his senses. + +"You leave me," he whispered once. "You have been a good friend to me. +You can do no more. Just leave me here, and save yourself." + +Garratt Skinner made no answer. He just looked at Hine curiously--that +was all. That was all. It was a curious thing to him that Hine should +display an unexpected manliness--almost a heroism. It could not be +pleasant even to contemplate being left alone upon these windy and +sunless heights to die. But actually to wish it! + +"How did you come by so much fortitude?" he asked; and to his +astonishment, Walter Hine replied: + +"I learnt it from you, old man." + +"From me?" + +"Yes." + +Garratt Skinner gave him some of the brandy and listened to a portrait of +himself, described in broken words, which he was at some pains to +recognize. Walter Hine had been seeking to model himself upon an +imaginary Garratt Skinner, and thus, strangely enough, had arrived at an +actual heroism. Thus would Garratt Skinner have bidden his friends leave +him, only in tones less tremulous, and very likely with a laugh, turning +back, as it were, to snap his fingers as he stepped out of the world. +Thus, therefore, Walter Hine sought to bear himself. + +"Curious," said Garratt Skinner with interest, but with no stronger +feeling at all. "Are you in pain, Wallie?" + +"Dreadful pain." + +"We must wait. Perhaps help will come!" + +The day wore on, but what the time was Garratt Skinner could not tell. +His watch and Hine's had both stopped with the cold, and the dull, +clouded sky gave him no clue. The last of the food was eaten, the last +drop of the brandy drunk. It was bitterly cold. If only the snow would +hold off till morning! Garratt Skinner had only to wait. The night would +come and during the night Walter Hine would die. And even while the +thought was in his mind, he heard voices. To his amazement, to his alarm, +he heard voices! Then he laughed. He was growing light-headed. +Exhaustion, cold and hunger were telling their tale upon him. He was not +so young as he had been twenty years before. But to make sure he rose to +his knees and peered down the slope. He had been mistaken. The steep +snow-slopes stretched downward, wild and empty. Here and there black +rocks jutted from them; a long way down four black stones were spaced; +there was no living thing in that solitude. He sank back relieved. No +living thing except himself, and perhaps his companion. He looked at Hine +closely, shook him, and Hine groaned. Yes, he still lived--for a little +time he still would live. Garratt Skinner gathered in his numbed palm the +last pipeful of tobacco in his pouch and, spilling the half of it--his +hands so shook with cold, his fingers were so clumsy--he pressed it into +his pipe and lit it. Perhaps before it was all smoked out--he thought. +And then his hallucination returned to him. Again he heard voices, very +faint, and distant, in a lull of the wind. + +It was weakness, of course, but he started up again, this time to his +feet, and as he stood up his head and shoulders showed clear against the +white snow behind him. He heard a shout--yes, an undoubted shout. He +stared down the slope and then he saw. The four black stones had moved, +were nearer to him--they were four men ascending. Garratt Skinner turned +swiftly toward Walter Hine, reached for his ice-ax, grasped it and raised +it, Walter Hine looked at him with staring, stupid eyes, but raised no +hand, made no movement. He, too, was conscious of an hallucination. It +seemed to him that his friend stood over him with a convulsed and +murderous face, in which rage strove with bitter disappointment, but that +he held his ax by the end with the adz-head swung back above his head to +give greater force to the blow, and that while he poised it there came a +cry from the confines of the world, and that upon that cry his friend +dropped the ax, and stooping down to him murmured: "There's help quite +close, Wallie!" + +Certainly those words were spoken--that at all events was no +hallucination. Walter Hine understood it clearly. For Garratt Skinner +suddenly stripped off his coat, passed it round Hine's shoulders and +then, baring his own breast, clasped Hine to it that he might impart to +him some warmth from his own body. + +Thus they were found by the rescue party; and the story of Garratt +Skinner's great self-sacrifice was long remembered in Courmayeur. + +Garratt Skinner watched the men mounting and wondered who they were. He +recognized his own guide, Pierre Delouvain, but who were the others, how +did they come there on a morning so forbidding? Who was the tall man who +walked last but one? And as the party drew nearer, he saw and understood. +But he did not change from his attitude. He waited until they were close. +Then he and Hilary Chayne exchanged a look. + +"You?" said Garratt Skinner. + +"Yes--" Chayne paused. "Yes, Mr. Strood," he said. + +And in those words all was said. Garratt Skinner knew that his plan was +not merely foiled, but also understood. He stood up and looked about him, +and even to Chayne's eyes there was a dignity in his quiet manner, his +patience under defeat. For Garratt Skinner, rogue though he was, the +mountains had their message. All through that long night, while he sat by +the side of his victim, they had been whispering it. Whether bound in +frost beneath the stars, or sparkling to the sun, or gray under a sky of +clouds, or buried deep in flakes of whirling snow, they spoke to him +always of the grandeur of their indifference. They might be traversed and +scaled, but they were unconquered always because they were indifferent. +The climber might lie in wait through the bad weather at the base of the +peak, seize upon his chance and stand upon the summit with a cry of +triumph and derision. The mountains were indifferent. As they endured +success, so they inflicted defeat--with a sublime indifference, lifting +their foreheads to the stars as though wrapt in some high communion. +Something of their patience had entered into Garratt Skinner. He did not +deny his name, he asked no question, he accepted failure and he looked +anxiously to the sky. + +"It will snow, I think." + +They made some tea, mixed it with wine and gave it first of all to Walter +Hine. Then they all breakfasted, and set off on their homeward journey, +letting Hine down with the rope from step to step. + +Gradually Hine regained a little strength. His numbed limbs began to come +painfully to life. He began to move slowly of his own accord, supported +by his rescuers. They reached the ice-ridge. It had no terrors now for +Walter Hine. + +"He had better be tied close between Pierre and myself," said Garratt +Skinner. "We came up that way." + +"Between Simond and Droz," said Chayne, quietly. + +"As you will," said Garratt Skinner with a shrug of the shoulders. + +Along the ice-ridge the party moved slowly and safely, carrying Hine +between them. As they passed behind the great rock tower at the lower +end, the threatened snow began to fall in light flakes. + +"Quickly," said Chayne. "We must reach the chalets to-night." + +They raced along the snow-slopes on the crest of the buttress and turned +to the right down the gullies and the ledges on the face of the rock. In +desperate haste they descended lowering Walter Hine from man to man, they +crawled down the slabs, dropped from shelf to shelf, wound themselves +down the gullies of ice. Somehow without injury the snow-slopes at the +foot of the rocks were reached. The snow still held off; only now and +then a few flakes fell. But over the mountain the wind was rising, it +swept down in fierce swift eddies, and drew back with a roar like the sea +upon shingle. + +"We must get off the glacier before night comes," cried Chayne, and led +by Simond the rescue party went down into the ice-fall. They stopped at +the first glacier pool and made Hine wash his hands and feet in the +water, to save himself from frost-bite; and thereafter for a little time +they rested. They went on again, but they were tired men, and before the +rocks were reached upon which two nights before Garratt Skinner had +bivouacked, darkness had come. Then Simond justified the praise of Michel +Revailloud. With the help of a folding lantern which Chayne had carried +in his pocket, he led the way through that bewildering labyrinth with +unerring judgment. Great séracs loomed up through the darkness, magnified +in size and distorted in shape. Simond went over and round them and under +them, steadily, and the rescue party followed. Now he disappeared over +the edge of a cliff into space, and in a few seconds his voice rang +upward cheerily. + +"Follow! It is safe." + +And his ice-ax rang with no less cheeriness. He led them boldly to the +brink of abysses which were merely channels in the ice, and amid towering +pinnacles which seen, close at hand, were mere blocks shoulder high. And +at last the guide at the tail of the rope heard from far away ahead +Simond's voice raised in a triumphant shout. + +"The rocks! The rocks!" + +With one accord they flung themselves, tired and panting, on the +sheltered level of the bivouac. Some sticks were found, a fire was +lighted, tea was once more made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as +the flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouching, kneeling, +sitting, and the rocks resounded with their laughter. + +"Only a little further, Wallie!" said Garratt Skinner, still true +to his part. + +They descended from the rocks, crossed a level field of ice and struck +the rock path along the slope of the Mont de la Brenva. + +"Keep on the rope," said Garratt Skinner. "Hine slipped at a corner as we +came up"; and Chayne glanced quickly at him. There were one or two +awkward corners above the lower glacier where rough footsteps had been +hewn. On one of these Walter Hine had slipped, and Garratt Skinner had +saved him--had undoubtedly saved him. At the very beginning of the climb, +the object for which it was undertaken was almost fulfilled, and would +have been fulfilled but that instinct overpowered Garratt Skinner, and +since the accident was unexpected, before he had had time to think he had +reached out his hand and saved the life which he intended to destroy. + +Along that path Hine was carefully brought to the chalets of La Brenva. +The peasants made him as comfortable as they could. + +"He will recover," said Simond. "Oh yes, he will recover. Two of us will +stay with him." + +"No need for that," replied Garratt Skinner. "Thank you very much, but +that is my duty since Hine is my friend." + +"I think not," said Chayne, standing quietly in front of Garratt Skinner. +"Walter Hine will be safe enough in Simond's hands. I want you to return +with me to Courmayeur. My wife is there and anxious." + +"Your wife?" + +"Yes, Sylvia." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"I see," he said, slowly. "Yes." + +He looked round the hut. Simond was going to watch by Hine's side. He +was defeated utterly, and recognized it. Then he looked at Chayne, and +smiled grimly. + +"On the whole, I am not sorry that you have married my daughter," he +said. "I will come down to Courmayeur. It will be pleasant to sleep +in a bed." + +And together they walked down to Courmayeur, which they reached soon +after midnight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +RUNNING WATER + + +In two days' time Walter Hine was sufficiently recovered to be carried +down to Courmayeur. He had been very near to death upon the Brenva ridge, +certainly the second night upon which Garratt Skinner had counted would +have ended his life; he was frostbitten; and for a long while the shock +and the exposure left him weak. But he gained strength with each day, and +Chayne had opportunities to admire the audacity and the subtle skill with +which Garratt Skinner had sought his end. For Walter Hine was loud in his +praises of his friend's self-sacrifice. Skinner had denied himself his +own share of food, had bared his breast to the wind that he might give +the warmth of his own body to keep his friend alive--these instances lost +nothing in the telling. And they were true! Chayne could not deny to +Garratt Skinner a certain criminal grandeur. He had placed Hine in no +peril which he had not shared himself; he had taken him, a man fitted in +neither experience nor health, on an expedition where inexperience or +weakness on the part of one was likely to prove fatal to all. There was, +moreover, one incident, not contemplated by Garratt Skinner in his plan, +which made his position absolutely secure. He had actually saved Walter +Hine's life on the rocky path of the Mont de la Brenva. There was no +doubt of it. He had reached out his hand and saved him. Chayne made much +of this incident to his wife. + +"I was wrong you see, Sylvia," he argued. "For your father could have let +him fall, and did not. I have been unjust to him, and to you, for you +have been troubled." + +But Sylvia shook her head. + +"You were not wrong," she answered. "It is only because you are very kind +that you want me to believe it. But I see the truth quite clearly"; and +she smiled at him. "If you wanted me to believe, you should never have +told me of the law, a year ago in the Chalet de Lognan. My father obeyed +the law--that was all. You know it as well as I. He had no time to think; +he acted upon the instinct of the moment; he could not do otherwise. Had +there been time to think, would he have reached out his hand? We both +know that he would not. But he obeyed the law. What he knew, that he did, +obeying the law upon the moment. He could save, and knowing it he _did_ +save, even against his will." + +Chayne did not argue the point. Sylvia saw the truth too clearly. + +"Walter Hine is getting well," he said. "Your father is still at another +hotel in Courmayeur. There's the future to be considered." + +"Yes," she said, and she waited. + +"I have asked your father to come over to-night after dinner," +said Chayne. + +And into their private sitting-room Garratt Skinner entered at eight +o'clock that evening. It was the first time that Sylvia had seen him +since she had learned the whole truth, and she found the occasion one of +trial. But Garratt Skinner carried it off. + +There was nothing of the penitent in his manner, but on the other hand he +no longer affected the manner of a pained and loving parent. He greeted +her from the door, and congratulated her quietly and simply upon her +marriage. Then he turned to Chayne. + +"You wished to speak to me? I am at your service." + +"Yes," replied Chayne. "We--and I speak for Sylvia--we wish to suggest to +you that your acquaintanceship with Walter Hine should end +altogether--that it should already have ended." + +"Really!" said Garratt Skinner, with an air of surprise. "Captain Chayne, +the laws of England, revolutionary as they have no doubt become to +old-fashioned people like myself, have not yet placed fathers under the +guardianship of their sons-in-law. I cannot accept your suggestion." + +"We insist upon its acceptance," said Chayne, quietly. + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"Insist perhaps! But how enforce it, my friend? That's another matter." + +"I think we have the means to do that," said Chayne. "We can point out to +Walter Hine, for instance, that your ascent from the Brenva Glacier was +an attempt to murder him." + +"An ugly word, Captain Chayne. You would find it difficult of proof." + +"The story is fairly complete," returned Chayne. "There is first of all a +telegram from Mr. Jarvice couched in curious language." + +Garratt Skinner's face lost its smile of amusement. + +"Indeed?" he said. He was plainly disconcerted. + +"Yes." Chayne produced the telegram from his letter case, read it aloud +with his eyes upon Garratt Skinner, and replaced it. "'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up! Jarvice.' There is no need at all events to ask +Mr. Jarvice what he was waiting for, is there? He wanted to lay his hands +upon the money for which Hine's life was insured." + +Garratt Skinner leaned back in his chair. His eyes never left Chayne's +face, his face grew set and stern. He had a dangerous look, the look of a +desperate man at bay. + +"Then there is a certain incident to be considered which took place in +the house near Weymouth. You must at times have been puzzled by +it--perhaps a little alarmed too. Do you remember one evening when a +whistle from the shadows on the road and a yokel's shout drove you out of +Walter Hine's room, sent you creeping out of it as stealthily as you +entered--nay, did more than that, for that whistle and that shout drove +you out of Dorsetshire. Ah! I see you remember." + +Garratt Skinner indeed had often enough been troubled by the recollection +of that night. The shout, the whistle ringing out so suddenly and +abruptly from the darkness and the silence had struck upon his +imagination and alarmed him by their mystery. Who was the man who had +seen? And what had he seen? Garratt Skinner had never felt quite safe +since that evening. There was some one, a stranger, going about the world +with the key to his secret, even if he had not guessed the secret. + +"It was I who whistled. I who shouted." + +"You!" cried Garratt Skinner. "You!" + +"Yes. Sylvia was with me. You thought to do that night what you thought +to do a few days ago above the Brenva ridge. Both times together we were +able to hinder you. But once Sylvia hindered you alone. There is the +affair of the cocaine." + +Chayne looked toward his wife with a look of great pride for the bravery +which she had shown. She was sitting aloof in the embrasure of the window +with her face averted and a hand pressed over her eyes and forehead. +Chayne looked back to Garratt Skinner, and there was more anger in his +face than he had ever shown. + +"I will never forgive you the distress you have caused to Sylvia," he +said. + +But Garratt Skinner's eyes were upon Sylvia, and in his face, too, there +was a humorous look of pride. She had courage. He remembered how she had +confronted him when Walter Hine lay sick. He said no word to her, +however, and again he turned to Chayne, who went on: + +"There is also your past career to add weight to the argument, +Mr.--Strood." + +Point by point Chayne set out in detail the case for the prosecution. +Garratt Skinner listened without interruption, but he knew that he was +beaten. The evidence against him was too strong. It might not be enough +legally to secure his conviction at a public trial--though even upon that +question there would be the gravest doubt--but it would be enough to +carry certitude to every ear which listened and to every eye which read. + +"The game is played out," Chayne continued. "We have Walter Hine, and we +shall not let him slip back into your hands. How much of the story we +shall tell him we are not yet sure--but all if it be necessary. And, if +it be necessary, to others beside." + +There was a definite threat in the last words. But Garratt Skinner had +already made up his mind. Since the game was played out, since defeat had +come, he took it without anger or excuse. + +"Very well," he said. "Peace in the family circle is after all very +desirable--eh, Sylvia? I agree with the deepest regret to part from my +young friend, Walter Hine. I leave him in your hands." He was speaking +with a humorous magnanimity. But his eyes wandered back to Sylvia, who +sat some distance away in the embrasure of the window, with her face in +her hands; and his voice changed. + +"Sylvia," he said, gently, "come here." + +Sylvia rose and walked over to the table. + +The waiting, the knowledge which had come to her during the last few +days, had told their tale. She had the look which Chayne too well +remembered, the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the languor in her walk, +the pallor in her cheeks, the distress and shame in her expression. + +"Sit down," he said; and she obeyed him reluctantly, seating herself over +against him. She gazed at the table-cloth with that mutinous look upon +her face which took away from her her womanhood and gave to her the +aspect of a pretty but resentful child. Garratt Skinner for the life of +him could not but smile at her. + +"Well, Sylvia, you have beaten me. You fought your fight well, and I bear +you no malice," he said, lightly. "But," and his voice became serious +again, "you sit in judgment on me." + +Sylvia raised her eyes quickly. + +"No!" she cried. + +"I think so," he persisted. "I don't blame you. Only I should like you to +bear this in mind; that you have in your own life a reason to go gently +in your judgments of other people." + +Chayne stepped forward, as though he would interfere, but Sylvia laid her +hand upon his arm and checked him. + +"I don't think you understand, Hilary," she said, quickly. She turned to +her father and looked straight at him with an eager interest. + +"I wonder whether we are both thinking of the same thing," she said, +curiously. + +"Perhaps," replied her father. "All your life you have dreamed of +running water." + +And Sylvia nodded her head. + +"Yes, yes," she said, with a peculiar intentness. + +"The dream is part of you, part of your life. For all you know, it may +have modified your character." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. + +"It is a part of you of which you could not rid yourself if you tried. +When you are asleep, this dream comes to you. It is as much a part of you +as a limb." + +And again Sylvia answered: "Yes." + +"Well, you are not responsible for it," and Sylvia leaned forward. + +"Ah!" she said. She had been wondering whether it was to this point that +he was coming. + +"You know now why you hear it, why it's part of you. You were born to the +sound of running water in that old house in Dorsetshire. Before you were +born, in the daytime and in the stillness of the night your mother heard +it week after week. Perhaps even when she was asleep the sound rippled +through her dreams. Thus you came by it. It was born in you." + +"Yes," she answered, following his argument step by step very carefully, +but without a sign of the perplexity which was evident in Hilary Chayne. +Chayne stood a little aloof, looking from Sylvia's face to the face of +her father, in doubt whither the talk was leading. Sylvia, on the other +hand, recognized each sentence which her father spoke as the embodiment +of a thought with which she was herself familiar. + +"Well, then, here's a definite thing, an influence most likely, a +characteristic most certainly, and not of your making! One out of how +many influences, characteristics which are part of you but not of your +making! But we can lay our finger on it. Well, it is a pleasant and a +pretty quality--this dream of yours, Sylvia--yes, a very pleasant one to +be born with. But suppose that instead of that dream you had been born +with a vice, an instinct of crime, of sin, would you have been any the +more responsible for it? If you are not responsible for the good thing, +are you responsible for the bad? An awkward question, Sylvia--awkward +enough to teach you to go warily in your judgments." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. "I was amongst the fortunate. I don't deny it." + +"But that's not all," and as Chayne moved restively, Garratt Skinner +waved an indulgent hand. + +"I don't expect you, Captain Chayne, to take an interest in these +problems. For a military man, discipline and the penal code are the +obvious unalterable solutions. But it is possible that I may never see my +daughter again and--I am speaking to her"; and he went back to the old +vexed question. + +"It's not only that you are born with qualities, definite +characteristics, definite cravings, for which you are no more responsible +than the man in the moon, and which are part of you. But there's +something else. How much of your character, how much of all your life to +come is decided for you during the first ten or fifteen years of your +life--decided for you, mind, not by you? Upon my soul, I think the whole +of it. You don't agree? Well, it's an open question. I believe that at +the age of fifteen the lines along which you will move are already drawn, +your character formed, your conduct for the future a settled thing." + +To that Sylvia gave no assent. But she did not disagree. She only looked +at her father with a questioning and a troubled face. If it were so, she +asked, why had she hated from the first the circle in which her mother +and herself had moved. And the answer--or at all events _an_ answer--came +as she put the question to herself. She had lived amongst her dreams. She +was in doubt. + +"Well, hear something of my boyhood, Sylvia!" cried her father, and for +the first time his voice became embittered. "I was brought up by a +respectable father. Yes, respectable," he said, with a sneer. "Everything +about us was respectable. We lived in a respectable house in a +respectable neighborhood, and twice every Sunday we went to church and +listened to a respectable clergyman. But!--Well, here's a chapter out of +the inside. I would go to bed and read in bed by a candle. Not a very +heinous offence, but contrary to the rule of the house. Sooner or later I +would hear a faint scuffling sound in the passage. That was my father +stealing secretly along to listen at my door and see what I was doing. I +covered the light of the candle with my hand, or perhaps blew it out--but +not so quickly but that he would see the streak of light beneath the +door. Then the play would begin. 'You are not reading in bed, are you?' +he would say. 'Certainly not,' I would reply. 'You are sure?' he would +insist. 'Of course, father,' I would answer. Then back he would go, but +only for a little way, and I would hear him come stealthily scuffling +back again. Perhaps the candle would be lit again already, or at all +events uncovered. Would he say anything? Oh, no! He had found out I was +lying. He felt that he had scored a point, and he would save it up. So we +would meet the next morning at breakfast, he knowing that I was a liar, I +knowing that he knew that I was a liar, and both pretending that we were +all in all to each other. A small thing, Sylvia. But crowd your life with +such small things? Spying and deceit and a game of catch-as-catch-can +played by the father and son! My letters were read--I used to know, for +roundabout questions would be put leading up to the elucidation of a +sentence which to any one but myself would be obscure! Do you think any +child could grow up straight, if his boyhood passed in that atmosphere of +trickery? I don't know. Only I think that before I was fifteen my way of +life was a sure and settled thing. It was certain that I should develop +upon the lines on which I was trained." + +Garratt Skinner rose from his seat. + +"There, I have done," he said. He looked at his daughter for a little +while, his eyes dwelling upon her beauty with a certain pleasure, and +even a certain wistfulness; he looked at her now much as she had been +wont to look at him in the early days of the house in Dorsetshire. It was +very plain that they were father and daughter. + +"You are too good for your military man, my dear," he said, with a smile. +"Too pretty and too good. Don't you let him forget it!" And suddenly he +cried out with a burst of passion. "I wish to God you had never come near +me!" And Sylvia, hearing the cry, remembered that on the Sunday evening +when she had first come to the house in Hobart Place, her father had +shown a particular hesitation, had felt some of that remorse of which she +heard the full expression now, in welcoming her to his house and adapting +her to his ends. She raised her downcast eyes and with outstretched hands +took a step forward. + +"Father!" she said. But her father was already gone. She heard his step +upon the stairs. + +Chayne, however, followed her father from the room and caught him up as +he was leaving the hotel. + +"I want to say," he began with some difficulty, "that, if you are pressed +at all for money--" + +Garratt Skinner stopped him. He pulled some sovereigns out of one pocket +and some banknotes out of another. + +"You see, I have enough to go on with. In fact--" and he looked northward +toward the mountains. Dimly they could be seen under the sickle of a new +moon. "In fact, I propose to-morrow to take your friend Simond and cross +on the high-level to Zermatt." + +"But afterward?" asked Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laughed and laughed like a boy. There was a rich +anticipation of enjoyment in the sound. + +"Afterward? I shall have a great time. I shall squeeze Mr. Jarvice. It's +what they call in America a cinch." + +And with a cheery good-night Garratt Skinner betook himself down the +road. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNNING WATER*** + + +******* This file should be named 12891-8.txt or 12891-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/8/9/12891 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/12891-8.zip b/old/12891-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f2f029 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12891-8.zip diff --git a/old/12891.txt b/old/12891.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40e35d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12891.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9999 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Running Water, by A. E. W. Mason + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Running Water + +Author: A. E. W. Mason + +Release Date: July 12, 2004 [eBook #12891] +[Last updated: June 6, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNNING WATER*** + + +E-text prepared by Mary Meehan and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +RUNNING WATER + +by + +A. E. W. MASON + +Author of _The Four Feathers_, etc. + +1907 + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + II INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + III THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + IV MR. JARVICE + + V MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + VI THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + VII THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE + + VIII SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + IX SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + X A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + XI SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + XII THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + XIII CHAYNE RETURNS + + XIV AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + XV KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + XVI AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + XVII SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + +XVIII BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + XIX THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + XX ON THE DOWN + + XXI CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + XXII REVAILLOUD REVISITED + +XXIII MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S _FUEHRBUCH_ + + XXIV THE BRENVA RIDGE + + XXV A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + XXVI RUNNING WATER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME + + +The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few +minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with +a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one +regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the +coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her +compartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep. The noise of a train had no unrest +for her. Indeed, a sleeping compartment in a Continental express was the +most permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had possessed for a good many +more years than she would have cared to acknowledge. She spent her life +in hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered companion. From a winter +in Vienna or in Rome she passed to a spring at Venice or at +Constantinople, thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at the +bathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in Paris again. But always +she came back to the sleeping-car. It was the one familiar room which was +always ready for her; and though the prospect from its windows changed, +it was the one room she knew which had always the same look, the same +cramped space, the same furniture--the one room where, the moment she +stepped into it, she was at home. + +Yet on this particular journey she woke while it was yet dark. A noise +slight in comparison to the clatter of the train, but distinct in +character and quite near, told her at once what had disturbed her. Some +one was moving stealthily in the compartment--her daughter. That was all. +But Mrs. Thesiger lay quite still, and, as would happen to her at times, +a sudden terror gripped her by the heart. She heard the girl beneath her, +dressing very quietly, subduing the rustle of her garments, even the +sound of her breathing. + +"How much does she know?" Mrs. Thesiger asked of herself; and her heart +sank and she dared not answer. + +The rustling ceased. A sharp click was heard, and the next moment through +a broad pane of glass a faint twilight crept into the carriage. The blind +had been raised from one of the windows. It was two o'clock on a morning +of July and the dawn was breaking. Very swiftly the daylight broadened, +and against the window there came into view the profile of a girl's head +and face. Seen as Mrs. Thesiger saw it, with the light still dim behind +it, it was black like an ancient daguerreotype. It was also as motionless +and as grave. + +"How much does she know?" + +The question would thrust itself into the mother's thoughts. She watched +her daughter intently from the dark corner where her head lay, thinking +that with the broadening of the day she might read the answer in that +still face. But she read nothing even when every feature was revealed in +the clear dead light, for the face which she saw was the face of one who +lived much apart within itself, building amongst her own dreams as a +child builds upon the sand and pays no heed to those who pass. And to +none of her dreams had Mrs. Thesiger the key. Deliberately her daughter +had withdrawn herself amongst them, and they had given her this return +for her company. They had kept her fresh and gentle in a circle where +freshness was soon lost and gentleness put aside. + +Sylvia Thesiger was at this time seventeen, although her mother dressed +her to look younger, and even then overdressed her like a toy. It was of +a piece with the nature of the girl that, in this matter as in the rest, +she made no protest. She foresaw the scene, the useless scene, which +would follow upon her protest, exclamations against her ingratitude, +abuse for her impertinence, and very likely a facile shower of tears at +the end; and her dignity forbade her to enter upon it. She just let her +mother dress her as she chose, and she withdrew just a little more into +the secret chamber of her dreams. She sat now looking steadily out of the +window, with her eyes uplifted and aloof, in a fashion which had become +natural to her, and her mother was seized with a pang of envy at the +girl's beauty. For beauty Sylvia Thesiger had, uncommon in its quality +rather than in its degree. From the temples to the round point of her +chin the contour of her face described a perfect oval. Her forehead was +broad and low and her hair, which in color was a dark chestnut, parted in +the middle, whence it rippled in two thick daring waves to the ears, a +fashion which noticeably became her, and it was gathered behind into a +plait which lay rather low upon the nape of her neck. Her eyes were big, +of a dark gray hue and very quiet in their scrutiny; her mouth, small and +provoking. It provoked, when still, with the promise of a very winning +smile, and the smile itself was not so frequent but that it provoked a +desire to summon it to her lips again. It had a way of hesitating, as +though Sylvia were not sure whether she would smile or not; and when she +had made up her mind, it dimpled her cheeks and transfigured her whole +face, and revealed in her tenderness and a sense of humor. Her complexion +was pale, but clear, her figure was slender and active, but without +angularities, and she was of the middle height. Yet the quality which the +eye first remarked in her was not so much her beauty, as a certain +purity, a look almost of the Madonna, a certainty, one might say, that +even in the circle in which she moved, she had kept herself unspotted +from the world. + +Thus she looked as she sat by the carriage window. But as the train drew +near to Amberieu, the air brightened and the sunlight ministered to her +beauty like a careful handmaid, touching her pale cheeks to a rosy +warmth, giving a luster to her hair, and humanizing her to a smile. Sylvia +sat forward a little, as though to meet the sunlight, then she turned +toward the carriage and saw her mother's eyes intently watching her. + +"You are awake?" she said in surprise. + +"Yes, child. You woke me." + +"I am very sorry. I was as quiet as I could be. I could not sleep." + +"Why?" Mrs. Thesiger repeated the question with insistence. "Why couldn't +you sleep?" + +"We are traveling to Chamonix," replied Sylvia. "I have been thinking of +it all night," and though she smiled in all sincerity, Mrs. Thesiger +doubted. She lay silent for a little while. Then she said, with a +detachment perhaps slightly too marked: + +"We left Trouville in a hurry yesterday, didn't we?" + +"Yes," replied Sylvia, "I suppose we did," and she spoke as though this +was the first time that she had given the matter a thought. + +"Trouville was altogether too hot," said Mrs. Thesiger; and again silence +followed. But Mrs. Thesiger was not content. "How much does she know?" +she speculated again, and was driven on to find an answer. She raised +herself upon her elbow, and while rearranging her pillow said carelessly: + +"Sylvia, our last morning at Trouville you were reading a book which +seemed to interest you very much." + +"Yes." + +Sylvia volunteered no information about that book. + +"You brought it down to the sands. So I suppose you never noticed a +strange-looking couple who passed along the deal boards just in front of +us." Mrs. Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her pillow. But +during that movement her eyes had never left her daughter's face. "A +middle-aged man with stiff gray hair, a stiff, prim face, and a figure +like a ramrod. Oh, there never was anything so stiff." A noticeable +bitterness began to sound in her voice and increased as she went on. +"There was an old woman with him as precise and old-fashioned as himself. +But you didn't see them? I never saw anything so ludicrous as that +couple, austere and provincial as their clothes, walking along the deal +boards between the rows of smart people." Mrs. Thesiger laughed as she +recalled the picture. "They must have come from the Provinces. I could +imagine them living in a chateau on a hill overlooking some tiny village +in--where shall we say?" She hesitated for a moment, and then with an air +of audacity she shot the word from her lips--"in Provence." + +The name, however, had evidently no significance for Sylvia, and Mrs. +Thesiger was relieved of her fears. + +"But you didn't see them," she repeated, with a laugh. + +"Yes, I did," said Sylvia, and brought her mother up on her elbow again. +"It struck me that the old lady must be some great lady of a past day. +The man bowed to you and--" + +She stopped abruptly, but her mother completed the sentence with a +vindictiveness she made little effort to conceal. + +"And the great lady did not, but stared in the way great ladies have. +Yes, I had met the man--once--in Paris," and she lay back again upon her +pillow, watching her daughter. But Sylvia showed no curiosity and no +pain. It was not the first time when people passed her mother that she +had seen the man bow and the woman ignore. Rather she had come to expect +it. She took her book from her berth and opened it. + +Mrs. Thesiger was satisfied. Sylvia clearly did not suspect that it was +just the appearance of that stiff, old-fashioned couple which had driven +her out of Trouville a good month before her time--her, Mrs. Thesiger of +the many friends. She fell to wondering what in the world had brought +M. de Camours and his mother to that watering place amongst the brilliant +and the painted women. She laughed again at the odd picture they had +made, and her thoughts went back over twenty years to the time when she +had been the wife of M. de Camours in the chateau overlooking the village +in Provence, and M. de Camours' mother had watched her with an unceasing +jealousy. Much had happened since those days. Madame de Camours' +watchings had not been in vain, a decree had been obtained from the Pope +annulling the marriage. Much had happened. But even after twenty years +the memory of that formal life in the Provencal chateau was vivid enough; +and Mrs. Thesiger yawned. Then she laughed. Monsieur de Camours and his +mother had always been able to make people yawn. + +"So you are glad that we are going to Chamonix, Sylvia--so glad that you +couldn't sleep?" + +"Yes." + +It sounded rather unaccountable to Mrs. Thesiger, but then Sylvia was to +her a rather unaccountable child. She turned her face to the wall and +fell asleep. + +Sylvia's explanation, however, happened to be true. Chamonix meant the +great range of Mont Blanc, and Sylvia Thesiger had the passion for +mountains in her blood. The first appearance of their distant snows +stirred her as no emotion ever had, so that she came to date her life by +these appearances rather than by the calendar of months and days. The +morning when from the hotel windows at Glion she had first seen the twin +peaks of the Dent du Midi towering in silver high above a blue corner of +the Lake of Geneva, formed one memorable date. Once, too, in the +winter-time, as the Rome express stopped at three o'clock in the morning +at the frontier on the Italian side of the Mont Cenis tunnel, she had +carefully lifted the blind on the right-hand side of the sleeping +compartment and had seen a great wall of mountains tower up in a clear +frosty moonlight from great buttresses of black rock to delicate +pinnacles of ice soaring infinite miles away into a cloudless sky of +blue. She had come near to tears that night as she looked from the +window; such a tumult of vague longings rushed suddenly in upon her and +uplifted her. She was made aware of dim uncomprehended thoughts stirring +in the depths of her being, and her soul was drawn upward to those +glittering spires, as to enchanted magnets. Ever afterward Sylvia looked +forward, through weeks, to those few moments in her mother's annual +itinerary, and prayed with all her heart that the night might be clear of +mist and rain. + +She sat now at the window with no thought of Trouville or their hurried +flight. With each throb of the carriage-wheels the train flashed nearer +to Chamonix. She opened the book which lay upon her lap--the book in +which she had been so interested when Monsieur de Camours and his mother +passed her by. It was a volume of the "Alpine Journal," more than twenty +years old, and she could not open it but some exploit of the pioneers +took her eyes, some history of a first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Such +a history she read now. She was engrossed in it, and yet at times a +little frown of annoyance wrinkled her forehead. She gave an explanation +of her annoyance; for once she exclaimed half aloud, "Oh, if only he +wouldn't be so _funny_!" The author was indeed being very funny, and to +her thinking never so funny as when the narrative should have been most +engrossing. She was reading the account of the first ascent of an +aiguille in the Chamonix district, held by guides to be impossible and +conquered at last by a party of amateurs. In spite of its humor Sylvia +Thesiger was thrilled by it. She envied the three men who had taken part +in that ascent, envied them their courage, their comradeship, their +bivouacs in the open air beside glowing fires, on some high shelf of +rock above the snows. But most of all her imagination was touched by the +leader of that expedition, the man who sometimes alone, sometimes in +company, had made sixteen separate attacks upon that peak. He stared +from the pages of the volume--Gabriel Strood. Something of his great +reach of limb, of his activity, of his endurance, she was able to +realize. Moreover he had a particular blemish which gave to him a +particular interest in her eyes, for it would have deterred most men +altogether from his pursuit and it greatly hampered him. And yet in +spite of it, he had apparently for some seasons stood prominent in the +Alpine fraternity. Gabriel Strood was afflicted with a weakness in the +muscles of one thigh. Sylvia, according to her custom, began to picture +him, began to talk with him. + +She wondered whether he was glad to have reached that summit, or whether +he was not on the whole rather sorry--sorry for having lost out of his +life a great and never-flagging interest. She looked through the +subsequent papers in the volume, but could find no further mention of his +name. She perplexed her fancies that morning. She speculated whether +having made this climb he had stopped and climbed no more; or whether he +might not get out of this very train on to the platform at Chamonix. But +as the train slowed down near to Annemasse, she remembered that the +exploit of which she had read had taken place more than twenty years ago. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS + + +But though Gabriel Strood occupied no seat in that train, one of his +successors was traveling by it to Chamonix after an absence of four +years. Of those four years Captain Chayne had passed the last two among +the coal-stacks of Aden, with the yellow land of Arabia at his back, +longing each day for this particular morning, and keeping his body lithe +and strong against its coming. He left the train at Annemasse, and +crossing the rails to the buffet, sat down at the table next to that +which Mrs. Thesiger and her daughter already occupied. + +He glanced at them, placed them in their category, and looked away, +utterly uninterested. They belonged to the great class of the continental +wanderers, people of whom little is known and everything +suspected--people with no kinsfolk, who flit from hotel to hotel and +gather about them for a season the knowing middle-aged men and the +ignorant young ones, and perhaps here and there an unwary woman deceived +by the more than fashionable cut of their clothes. The mother he put down +as nearer forty than thirty, and engaged in a struggle against odds to +look nearer twenty than thirty. The daughter's face Chayne could not see, +for it was bent persistently over a book. But he thought of a big doll in +a Christmas toy-shop. From her delicate bronze shoes to her large hat of +mauve tulle everything that she wore was unsuitable. The frock with its +elaborations of lace and ribbons might have passed on the deal boards of +Trouville. Here at Annemasse her superfineness condemned her. + +Chayne would have thought no more of her, but as he passed her table on +his way out of the buffet his eyes happened to fall on the book which so +engrossed her. There was a diagram upon the page with which he was +familiar. She was reading an old volume of the "Alpine Journal." Chayne +was puzzled--there was so marked a contradiction between her outward +appearance and her intense absorption in such a subject as Alpine +adventure. He turned at the door and looked back. Sylvia Thesiger had +raised her head and was looking straight at him. Thus their eyes met, and +did more than meet. + +Chayne, surprised as he had been by the book which she was reading, was +almost startled by the gentle and rather wistful beauty of the face which +she now showed to him. He had been prepared at the best for a fresh +edition of the mother's worn and feverish prettiness. What he saw was +distinct in quality. It seemed to him that an actual sympathy and +friendliness looked out from her dark and quiet eyes, as though by +instinct she understood with what an eager exultation he set out upon his +holiday. Sylvia, indeed, living as she did within herself, was inclined +to hero-worship naturally; and Chayne was of the type to which, to some +extent through contrast with the run of her acquaintance, she gave a high +place in her thoughts. A spare, tall man, clear-eyed and clean of +feature, with a sufficient depth of shoulder and wonderfully light of +foot, he had claimed her eyes the moment that he entered the buffet. +Covertly she had watched him, and covertly she had sympathized with the +keen enjoyment which his brown face betrayed. She had no doubts in her +mind as to the intention of his holiday; and as their eyes met now +involuntarily, a smile began to hesitate upon her lips. Then she became +aware of the buffet, and her ignorance of the man at whom she looked, +and, with a sudden mortification, of her own over-elaborate appearance. +Her face flushed, and she lowered it again somewhat quickly to the pages +of her book. But it was as though for a second they had spoken. + +Chayne, however, forgot Sylvia Thesiger. As the train moved on to Le +Fayet he was thinking only of the plans which he had made, of the new +expeditions which were to be undertaken, of his friend John Lattery and +his guide Michel Revailloud who would be waiting for him upon the +platform of Chamonix. He had seen neither of them for four years. The +electric train carried the travelers up from Le Fayet. The snow-ridges +and peaks came into view; the dirt-strewn Glacier des Bossons shot out a +tongue of blue ice almost to the edge of the railway track, and a few +minutes afterward the train stopped at the platform of Chamonix. + +Chayne jumped down from his carriage and at once suffered the first of +his disappointments. Michel Revailloud was on the platform to meet +him, but it was a Michel Revailloud whom he hardly knew, a Michel +Revailloud grown very old. Revailloud was only fifty-two years of age, +but during Chayne's absence the hardships of his life had taken their +toll of his vigor remorselessly. Instead of the upright, active figure +which Chayne so well remembered, he saw in front of him a little man +with bowed shoulders, red-rimmed eyes, and a withered face seamed with +tiny wrinkles. + +At this moment, however, Michel's pleasure at once more seeing his old +patron gave to him at all events some look of his former alertness, and +as the two men shook hands he cried: + +"Monsieur, but I am glad to see you! You have been too long away from +Chamonix. But you have not changed. No, you have not changed." + +In his voice there was without doubt a note of wistfulness. "I would I +could say as much for myself." That regret was as audible to Chayne as +though it had been uttered. But he closed his ears to it. He began to +talk eagerly of his plans. There were familiar peaks to be climbed again +and some new expeditions to be attempted. + +"I thought we might try a new route up the Aiguille sans Nom," he +suggested, and Michel assented but slowly, without the old heartiness and +without that light in his face which the suggestion of something new used +always to kindle. But again Chayne shut his ears. + +"I was very lucky to find you here," he went on cheerily. "I wrote so +late that I hardly hoped for it." + +Michel replied with some embarrassment: + +"I do not climb with every one, monsieur. I hoped perhaps that one of my +old patrons would want me. So I waited." + +Chayne looked round the platform for his friend. + +"And Monsieur Lattery?" he asked. + +The guide's face lit up. + +"Monsieur Lattery? Is he coming too? It will be the old days once more." + +"Coming? He is here now. He wrote to me from Zermatt that he +would be here." + +Revailloud shook his head. + +"He is not in Chamonix, monsieur." + +Chayne experienced his second disappointment that morning, and it quite +chilled him. He had come prepared to walk the heights like a god in the +perfection of enjoyment for just six weeks. And here was his guide grown +old; and his friend, the comrade of so many climbs, so many bivouacs +above the snow-line, had failed to keep his tryst. + +"Perhaps there will be a letter from him at Couttet's," said Chayne, and +the two men walked through the streets to the hotel. There was no letter, +but on the other hand there was a telegram. Chayne tore it open. + +"Yes it's from Lattery," he said, as he glanced first at the signature. +Then he read the telegram and his face grew very grave. Lattery +telegraphed from Courmayeur, the Italian village just across the chain of +Mont Blanc: + +"Starting now by Col du Geant and Col des Nantillons." + +The Col du Geant is the most frequented pass across the chain, and no +doubt the easiest. Once past its great ice-fall, the glacier leads +without difficulty to the Montanvert hotel and Chamonix. But the Col des +Nantillons is another affair. Having passed the ice-fall, and when within +two hours of the Montanvert, Lattery had turned to the left and had made +for the great wall of precipitous rock which forms the western side of +the valley through which the Glacier du Geant flows down, the wall from +which spring the peaks of the Dent du Requin, the Aiguille du Plan, the +Aiguille de Blaitiere, the Grepon and the Charmoz. Here and there the +ridge sinks between the peaks, and one such depression between the +Aiguille de Blaitiere and the Aiguille du Grepon is called the Col des +Nantillons. To cross that pass, to descend on the other side of the great +rock-wall into that bay of ice facing Chamonix, which is the Glacier des +Nantillons, had been Lattery's idea. + +Chayne turned to the porter. + +"When did this come?" + +"Three days ago." + +The gravity on Chayne's face changed into a deep distress. Lattery's +party would have slept out one night certainly. They would have made a +long march from Courmayeur and camped on the rocks at the foot of the +pass. It was likely enough that they should have been caught upon that +rock-wall by night upon the second day. The rock-wall had never been +ascended, and the few who had descended it bore ample testimony to its +difficulties. But a third night, no! Lattery should have been in Chamonix +yesterday, without a doubt. He would not indeed have food for three +nights and days. + +Chayne translated the telegram into French and read it out to Michel +Revailloud. + +"The Col des Nantillons," said Michel, with a shake of the head, and +Chayne saw the fear which he felt himself looking out from his +guide's eyes. + +"It is possible," said Michel, "that Monsieur Lattery did not start +after all." + +"He would have telegraphed again." + +"Yes," Michel agreed. "The weather has been fine too. There have been no +fogs. Monsieur Lattery could not have lost his way." + +"Hardly in a fog on the Glacier du Geant," replied Chayne. + +Michel Revailloud caught at some other possibility. + +"Of course, some small accident--a sprained ankle--may have detained him +at the hut on the Col du Geant. Such things have happened. It will be as +well to telegraph to Courmayeur." + +"Why, that's true," said Chayne, and as they walked to the post-office he +argued more to convince himself than Michel Revailloud. "It's very +likely--some quite small accident--a sprained ankle." But the moment +after he had sent the telegram, and when he and Michel stood again +outside the post-office, the fear which was in him claimed utterance. + +"The Col des Nantillons is a bad place, Michel, that's the truth. Had +Lattery been detained in the hut he would have found means to send us +word. In weather like this, that hut would be crowded every night; every +day there would be some one coming from Courmayeur to Chamonix. No! I am +afraid of the steep slabs of that rock-wall." + +And Michael Revailloud said slowly: + +"I, too, monsieur. It is a bad place, the Col des Nantillons; it is not a +quick way or a good way to anywhere, and it is very dangerous. And yet I +am not sure. Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rocks. Ice, that is +another thing. But he would be on rock." + +It was evident that Michel was in doubt, but it seemed that Chayne could +not force himself to share it. + +"You had better get quietly together what guides you can, Michel," he +said. "By the time a rescue party is made up the answer will have come +from Courmayeur." + +Chayne walked slowly back to the hotel. All those eager anticipations +which had so shortened his journey this morning, which during the last +two years had so often raised before his eyes through the shimmering heat +of the Red Sea cool visions of ice-peaks and sharp spires of rock, had +crumbled and left him desolate. Anticipations of disaster had taken their +place. He waited in the garden of the hotel at a spot whence he could +command the door and the little street leading down to it. But for an +hour no messenger came from the post-office. Then, remembering that a +long sad work might be before him, he went into the hotel and +breakfasted. It was twelve o'clock and the room was full. He was shown a +place amongst the other newcomers at one of the long tables, and he did +not notice that Sylvia Thesiger sat beside him. He heard her timid +request for the salt, and passed it to her; but he did not speak, he did +not turn; and when he pushed back his chair and left the room, he had no +idea who had sat beside him, nor did he see the shadow of disappointment +on her face. It was not until later in the afternoon when at last the +blue envelope was brought to him. He tore it open and read the answer of +the hotel proprietor at Courmayeur: + +"Lattery left four days ago with one guide for Col du Geant." + +He was standing by the door of the hotel, and looking up he saw Michel +Revailloud and a small band of guides, all of whom carried ice-axes and +some _Ruecksacks_ on their backs, and ropes, come tramping down the +street toward him. + +Michel Revailloud came close to his side and spoke with excitement. + +"He has been seen, monsieur. It must have been Monsieur Lattery with his +one guide. There were two of them," and Chayne interrupted him quickly. + +"Yes, there were two," he said, glancing at his telegram. "Where were +they seen?" + +"High up, monsieur, on the rocks of the Blaitiere. Here, Jules"; and in +obedience to Michel's summons, a young brown-bearded guide stepped out +from the rest. He lifted his hat and told his story: + +"It was on the Mer de Glace, monsieur, the day before yesterday. I was +bringing a party back from the Jardin, and just by the Moulin I saw two +men very high up on the cliffs of the Blaitiere. I was astonished, for I +had never seen any one upon those cliffs before. But I was quite sure. +None of my party could see them, it is true, but I saw them clearly. They +were perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge between the Blaitiere and +the Grepon and to the left of the Col." + +"What time was this?" + +"Four o'clock in the afternoon." + +"Yes," said Chayne. The story was borne out by the telegram. Leaving +Courmayeur early, Lattery and his guide would have slept the night on +the rocks at the foot of the Blaitiere, they would have climbed all +the next day and at four o'clock had reached within two hundred feet +of the ridge, within two hundred feet of safety. Somewhere within +those last two hundred feet the fatal slip had been made; or perhaps a +stone had fallen. + +"For how long did you watch them?" asked Chayne. + +"For a few minutes only. My party was anxious to get back to Chamonix. +But they seemed in no difficulty, monsieur. They were going well." + +Chayne shook his head at the hopeful words and handed his telegram to +Michel Revailloud. + +"The day before yesterday they were on the rocks of the Blaitiere," he +said. "I think we had better go up to the Mer de Glace and look for them +at the foot of the cliffs." + +"Monsieur, I have eight guides here and two will follow in the evening +when they come home. We will send three of them, as a precaution, up the +Mer de Glace. But I do not think they will find Monsieur Lattery there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I believe Monsieur Lattery has made the first passage of the +Col des Nantillons from the east," he said, with a peculiar solemnity. "I +think we must look for them on the western side of the pass, in the +crevasses of the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Surely not," cried Chayne. True, the Glacier des Nantillons in places +was steep. True, there were the seracs--those great slabs and pinnacles +of ice set up on end and tottering, high above, where the glacier curved +over a brow of rock and broke--one of them might have fallen. But Lattery +and he had so often ascended and descended that glacier on the way to the +Charmoz and the Grepon and the Plan. He could not believe his friend had +come to harm that way. + +Michel, however, clung to his opinion. + +"The worst part of the climb was over," he argued. "The very worst pitch, +monsieur, is at the very beginning when you leave the glacier, and then +it is very bad again half way up when you descend into a gully; but +Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rock, and having got so high, I think +he would have climbed the last rocks with his guide." + +Michel spoke with so much certainty that even in the face of his +telegram, in the face of the story which Jules had told, hope sprang up +within Chayne's heart. + +"Then he may be still up there on some ledge. He would surely not have +slipped on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +That hope, however, was not shared by Michel Revailloud. + +"There is very little snow this year," he said. "The glaciers are +uncovered as I have never seen them in all my life. Everywhere it is ice, +ice, ice. Monsieur Lattery had only one guide with him and he was not so +sure on ice. I am afraid, monsieur, that he slipped out of his steps on +the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"And dragged his guide with him?" exclaimed Chayne. His heart rather than +his judgment protested against the argument. It seemed to him disloyal to +believe it. A man should not slip from his steps on the Glacier des +Nantillons. He turned toward the door. + +"Very well," he said. "Send three guides up the Mer de Glace. We will go +up to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He went up to his room, fetched his ice-ax and a new club-rope with the +twist of red in its strands, and came down again. The rumor of an +accident had spread. A throng of tourists stood about the door and +surrounded the group of guides, plying them with questions. One or two +asked Chayne as he came out on what peak the accident had happened. He +did not reply. He turned to Michel Revailloud and forgetful for the +moment that he was in Chamonix, he uttered the word so familiar in the +High Alps, so welcome in its sound. + +"_Vorwaerts_, Michel," he said, and the word was the Open Sesame to a +chamber which he would gladly have kept locked. There was work to do +now; there would be time afterward to remember--too long a time. But in +spite of himself his recollections rushed tumultuously upon him. Up to +these last four years, on some day in each July his friend and he had +been wont to foregather at some village in the Alps, Lattery coming from +a Government Office in Whitehall, Chayne now from some garrison town in +England, now from Malta or from Alexandria, and sometimes from a still +farther dependency. Usually they had climbed together for six weeks, +although there were red-letter years when the six weeks were extended to +eight, six weeks during which they lived for the most part on the high +level of the glaciers, sleeping in huts, or mountain inns, or beneath +the stars, and coming down only for a few hours now and then into the +valley towns. _Vorwaerts_! The months of their comradeship seemed to him +epitomized in the word. The joy and inspiration of many a hard climb +came back, made bitter with regret for things very pleasant and now done +with forever. Nights on some high ledge, sheltered with rocks and set in +the pale glimmer of snow-fields, with a fire of brushwood lighting up +the faces of well-loved comrades; half hours passed in rock chimneys +wedged overhead by a boulder, or in snow-gullies beneath a bulge of ice, +when one man struggled above, out of sight, and the rest of the party +crouched below with what security it might waiting for the cheery cry, +"_Es geht. Vorwaerts_!"; the last scramble to the summit of a virgin +peak; the swift glissade down the final snow-slopes in the dusk of the +evening with the lights of the village twinkling below; his memories +tramped by him fast and always in the heart of them his friend's face +shone before his eyes. Chayne stood for a moment dazed and bewildered. +There rose up in his mind that first helpless question of distress, +"Why?" and while he stood, his face puzzled and greatly troubled, there +fell upon his ears from close at hand a simple message of sympathy +uttered in a whisper gentle but distinct: + +"I am very sorry." + +Chayne looked up. It was the overdressed girl of the Annemasse buffet, +the girl who had seemed to understand then, who seemed to understand now. +He raised his hat to her with a sense of gratitude. Then he followed the +guides and went up among the trees toward the Glacier des Nantillons. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY + + +The rescue party marched upward between the trees with the measured pace +of experience. Strength which would be needed above the snow-line was not +to be wasted on the lower slopes. But on the other hand no halts were +made; steadily the file of men turned to the right and to the left and +the zigzags of the forest path multiplied behind them. The zigzags +increased in length, the trees became sparse; the rescue party came out +upon the great plateau at the foot of the peaks called the Plan des +Aiguilles, and stopped at the mountain inn built upon its brow, just over +Chamonix. The evening had come, below them the mists were creeping along +the hillsides and blotting the valley out. + +"We will stop here," said Michel Revailloud, as he stepped on to the +little platform of earth in front of the door. "If we start again at +midnight, we shall be on the glacier at daybreak. We cannot search the +Glacier des Nantillons in the dark." + +Chayne agreed reluctantly. He would have liked to push on if only to lull +thought by the monotony of their march. Moreover during these last two +hours, some faint rushlight of hope had been kindled in his mind which +made all delay irksome. He himself would not believe that his friend John +Lattery, with all his skill, his experience, had slipped from his +ice-steps like any tyro; Michel, on the other hand, would not believe +that he had fallen from the upper rocks of the Blaitiere on the far side +of the Col. From these two disbeliefs his hope had sprung. It was +possible that either Lattery or his guide lay disabled, but alive and +tended, as well as might be, by his companion on some insecure ledge of +that rock-cliff. A falling stone, a slip checked by the rope might have +left either hurt but still living. It was true that for two nights and a +day the two men must have already hung upon their ledge, that a third +night was to follow. Still such endurance had been known in the annals of +the Alps, and Lattery was a hard strong man. + +A girl came from the chalet and told him that his dinner was ready. +Chayne forced himself to eat and stepped out again on to the platform. A +door opened and closed behind him. Michel Revailloud came from the +guides' quarters at the end of the chalet and stood beside him in the +darkness, saying nothing since sympathy taught him to be silent, and when +he moved moving with great gentleness. + +"I am glad, Michel, that we waited here since we had to wait," +said Chayne. + +"This chalet is new to you, monsieur. It has been built while you +were away." + +"Yes. And therefore it has no associations, and no memories. Its bare +whitewashed walls have no stories to tell me of cheery nights on the eve +of a new climb when he and I sat together for a while and talked eagerly +of the prospects of to-morrow." + +The words ceased. Chayne leaned his elbows on the wooden rail. The mists +in the valley below had been swept away; overhead the stars shone out of +an ebony sky very bright as on some clear winter night of frost, and of +all that gigantic amphitheater of mountains which circled behind them +from right to left there was hardly a hint. Perhaps here some extra cube +of darkness showed where a pinnacle soared, or there a vague whiteness +glimmered where a high glacier hung against the cliff, but for the rest +the darkness hid the mountains. A cold wind blew out of the East and +Chayne shivered. + +"You are cold, monsieur?" said Michel. "It is your first night." + +"No, I am not cold," Chayne replied, in a low and quiet voice. "But I am +thinking it will be deadly cold up there in the darkness on the rocks of +the Blaitiere." + +Michel answered him in the same quiet voice. On that broad open plateau +both men spoke indeed as though they were in a sick chamber. + +"While you were away, monsieur, three men without food sat through a +night on a steep ice-sheltered ice-slope behind us, high up on the +Aiguille du Plan, as high up as the rocks of the Blaitiere. And not one +of them came to any harm." + +"I know. I read of it," said Chayne, but he gathered little comfort from +the argument. + +Michel fumbled in his pocket and drew out a pipe. "You do not smoke any +more?" he asked. "It is a good thing to smoke." + +"I had forgotten," said Chayne. + +He filled his pipe and then took a fuse from his match-box. + +"No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he could strike it. "I +remember your fuses, monsieur." + +Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it spluttered, and frizzled, +in the hollow of his great hands. The flame burnt up. He held it first to +Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a moment his face was lit +with the red glow. Its age thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, +shocked Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on the +platform at Chamonix. Not merely were its deep lines shown up, but all +the old humor and alertness had gone. The face had grown mask-like and +spiritless. Then the match went out. + +Chayne leaned upon the rail and looked downward. A long way below him, in +the clear darkness of the valley the lights of Chamonix shone bright and +very small. Chayne had never seen them before so straight beneath him. As +he looked he began to notice them; as he noticed them, more and more they +took a definite shape. He rose upright, and pointing downward with one +hand he said in a whisper, a whisper of awe-- + +"Do you see, Michel? Do you see?" + +The great main thoroughfare ran in a straight line eastward through the +town, and, across it, intersecting it at the little square where the +guides gather of an evening, lay the other broad straight road from the +church across the river. Along those two roads the lights burned most +brightly, and thus there had emerged before Chayne's eyes a great golden +cross. It grew clearer and clearer as he looked; he looked away and then +back again, and now it leapt to view, he could not hide it from his +sight, a great cross of light lying upon the dark bosom of the valley. + +"Do you see, Michel?" + +"Yes." The answer came back very steadily. "But so it was last night +and last year. Those three men on the Plan had it before their eyes +all night. It is no sign of disaster." For a moment he was silent, and +then he added timidly: "If you look for a sign, monsieur, there is a +better one." + +Chayne turned toward Michel in the darkness rather quickly. + +"As we set out from the hotel," Michel continued, "there was a young girl +upon the steps with a very sweet and gentle face. She spoke to you, +monsieur. No doubt she told you that her prayers would be with you +to-night." + +"No, Michel," Chayne replied, and though the darkness hid his face, +Michel knew that he smiled. "She did not promise me her prayers. She +simply said: 'I am sorry.'" + +Michel Revailloud was silent for a little while, and when he spoke again, +he spoke very wistfully. One might almost have said that there was a note +of envy in his voice. + +"Well, that is still something, monsieur. You are very lonely to-night, +is it not so? You came back here after many years, eager with hopes and +plans and not thinking at all of disappointments. And the disappointments +have come, and the hopes are all fallen. Is not that so, too? Well, it is +something, monsieur--I, who am lonely too, and an old man besides, so +that I cannot mend my loneliness, I tell you--it is something that there +is a young girl down there with a sweet and gentle face who is sorry for +you, who perhaps is looking up from among those lights to where we stand +in the darkness at this moment." + +But it seemed that Chayne did not hear, or, if he heard, that he paid no +heed. And Michel, knocking the tobacco from his pipe, said: + +"You will do well to sleep. We may have a long day before us"; and he +walked away to the guides' quarters. + +But Chayne could not sleep; hope and doubt fought too strongly within +him, wrestling for the life of his friend. At twelve o'clock Michel +knocked upon his door. Chayne got up from his bed at once, drew on his +boots, and breakfasted. At half past the rescue party set out, following +a rough path through a wilderness of boulders by the light of a lantern. +It was still dark when they came to the edge of the glacier, and they sat +down and waited. In a little while the sky broke in the East, a twilight +dimly revealed the hills, Michel blew out the lantern, the blurred +figures of the guides took shape and outline, and silently the morning +dawned upon the world. + +The guides moved on to the glacier and spread over it, ascending as +they searched. + +"You see, monsieur, there is very little snow this year," said +Michel, chipping steps so that he and Chayne might round the corner +of a wide crevasse. + +"Yes, but it does not follow that he slipped," said Chayne, hotly, for +he was beginning to resent that explanation as an imputation against +his friend. + +Slowly the party moved upward over the great slope of ice into the +recess, looking for steps abruptly ending above a crevasse or for signs +of an avalanche. They came level with the lower end of a long rib of +rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise bisects the glacier. +Here the search ended for a while. The rib of rocks is the natural path, +and the guides climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier and +spread out once more, roped in couples. They were now well within the +great amphitheater. On their left the cliffs of the Charmoz overlapped +them, on the right the rocks of the Blaitiere. For an hour they +advanced, cutting steps since the glacier was steep, and then from the +center of the glacier a cry rang out. Chayne at the end of the line upon +the right looked across. A little way in front of the two men who had +shouted something dark lay upon the ice. Chayne, who was with Michel +Revailloud, called to him and began hurriedly to scratch steps +diagonally toward the object. + +"Take care, monsieur," cried Michel. + +Chayne paid no heed. Coming up from behind on the left-hand side, he +passed his guide and took the lead. He could tell now what the dark +object was, for every now and then a breath of wind caught it and whirled +it about the ice. It was a hat. He raised his ax to slice a step and a +gust of wind, stronger than the others, lifted the hat, sent it rolling +and skipping down the glacier, lifted it again and gently dropped it at +his feet. He stooped down and picked it up. It was a soft broad-brimmed +hat of dark gray felt. In the crown there was the name of an English +maker. There was something more too. There were two initials--J.L. + +Chayne turned to Michel Revailloud. + +"You were right, Michel," he said, solemnly. "My friend has made the +first passage of the Col des Nantillons from the East." + +The party moved forward again, watching with redoubled vigilance for some +spot in the glacier, some spot above a crevasse, to which ice-steps +descended and from which they did not lead down. And three hundred yards +beyond a second cry rang out. A guide was standing on the lower edge of a +great crevasse with a hand upheld above his head. The searchers converged +quickly upon him. Chayne hurried forward, plying the pick of his ax as +never in his life had he plied it. Had the guide come upon the actual +place where the accident took place, he asked himself? But before he +reached the spot, his pace slackened, and he stood still. He had no +longer any doubt. His friend and his friend's guide were not lying upon +any ledge of the rocks of the Aiguille de Blaitiere; they were not +waiting for any succor. + +On the glacier, a broad track, littered with blocks of ice, stretched +upward in a straight line from the upper lip of the crevasse to the great +ice-fall on the sky-line where the huge slabs and pinnacles of ice, +twisted into monstrous shapes, like a sea suddenly frozen when a tempest +was at its height, stood marshaled in serried rows. They stood waiting +upon the sun. One of them, melted at the base, had crashed down the +slope, bursting into huge fragments as it fell, and cleaving a groove +even in that hard glacier. + +Chayne went forward and stopped at the guide's side on the lower edge +of the crevasse. Beyond the chasm the ice rose in a blue straight +wall for some three feet, and the upper edge was all crushed and +battered; and then the track of the falling serac ended. It had +poured into the crevasse. + +The guide pointed to the left of the track. + +"Do you see, monsieur? Those steps which come downward across the glacier +and stop exactly where the track meets them? They do not go on, on the +other side of the track, monsieur." + +Chayne saw clearly enough. The two men had been descending the glacier in +the afternoon, the avalanche had fallen and swept them down. He dropped +upon his knees and peered into the crevasse. The walls of the chasm +descended smooth and precipitous, changing in gradual shades and color +from pale transparent green to the darkest blue, until all color was lost +in darkness. He bent his head and shouted into the depths: + +"Lattery! Lattery!" + +And only his voice came back to him, cavernous and hollow. He shouted +again, and then he heard Michel Revailloud saying solemnly behind him: + +"Yes, they are here." + +Suddenly Chayne turned round, moved by a fierce throb of anger. + +"It's not true, you see," he cried. "He didn't slip out of his steps and +drag his guide down with him. You were wrong, Michel." + +Michel was standing with his hat in his hand. + +"Yes, monsieur, I was quite wrong," he said, gently. He turned to a big +and strong man: + +"Francois, will you put on the rope and go down?" + +They knotted the rope securely about Francois' waist and he took his +ice-ax in his hand, sat down on the edge of the crevasse with his legs +dangling, turned over upon his face and said: + +"When I pull the rope, haul in gently." + +They lowered him carefully down for sixty feet, and at that depth the +rope slackened. Francois had reached the bottom of the crevasse. For a +few moments they watched the rope move this way and that, and then there +came a definite pull. + +"He has found them," said Michel. + +Some of the guides lined out with the rope in their hands. Chayne took +his position in the front, at the head of the line and nearest to the +crevasse. The pull upon the rope was repeated, and slowly the men began +to haul it in. It did not occur to Chayne that the weight upon the rope +was heavy. One question filled his mind, to the exclusion of all else. +Had Francois found his friend? What news would he bring of them when he +came again up to the light? Francois' voice was heard now, faintly, +calling from the depths. But what he said could not be heard. The line of +men hauled in the rope more and more quickly and then suddenly stopped +and drew it in very gently. For they could now hear what Francois said. +It was but one word, persistently repeated: + +"Gently! Gently!" + +And so gently they drew him up toward the mouth of the crevasse. Chayne +was standing too far back to see down beyond the edge, but he could hear +Francois' ax clattering against the ice-walls, and the grating of his +boots. Michel, who was kneeling at the edge of the chasm, held up his +hand, and the men upon the rope ceased to haul. In a minute or two he +lowered it. + +"Gently," he said, "gently," gazing downward with a queer absorption. +Chayne began to hear Francois' labored breathing and then suddenly at the +edge of the crevasse he saw appear the hair of a man's head. + +"Up with him," cried a guide; there was a quick strong pull upon the rope +and out of the chasm, above the white level of the glacier, there +appeared a face--not Francois' face--but the face of a dead man. Suddenly +it rose into the colorless light, pallid and wax-like, with open, +sightless eyes and a dropped jaw, and one horrid splash of color on the +left forehead, where blood had frozen. It was the face of Chayne's +friend, John Lattery; and in a way most grotesque and horrible it bobbed +and nodded at him, as though the neck was broken and the man yet lived. +When Francois just below cried, "Gently! Gently," it seemed that the dead +man's mouth was speaking. + +Chayne uttered a cry; then a deathly sickness overcame him. He dropped +the rope, staggered a little way off like a drunken man and sat down upon +the ice with his head between his hands. + +Some while later a man came to him and said: + +"We are ready, monsieur." + +Chayne returned to the crevasse. Lattery's guide had been raised from the +crevasse. Both bodies had been wrapped in sacks and cords had been fixed +about their legs. The rescue party dragged the bodies down the glacier to +the path, and placing them upon doors taken from a chalet, carried them +down to Chamonix. On the way down Francois talked for a while to Michel +Revailloud, who in his turn fell back to where at the end of the +procession Chayne walked alone. + +"Monsieur," he said, and Chayne looked at him with dull eyes like a +man dazed. + +"There is something which Francois noticed, which he wished me to tell +you. Francois is a good lad. He wishes you to know that your friend died +at once--there was no sign of a movement. He lay in the bottom of the +crevasse in some snow which was quite smooth. The guide--he had kicked a +little with his feet in the snow--but your friend had died at once." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, without the least emotion in his voice. But he +walked with uneven steps. At times he staggered like one overdone and +very tired. But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that +he had his friend's reputation to defend: + +"You see he didn't slip on the ice, Michel. You were quite wrong. It was +the avalanche. It was no fault of his." + +"I was wrong," said Michel, and he took Chayne by the arm lest he should +fall; and these two men came long after the others into Chamonix. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. JARVICE + + +The news of Lattery's death was telegraphed to England on the same +evening. It appeared the next morning under a conspicuous head-line in +the daily newspapers, and Mr. Sidney Jarvice read the item in the Pullman +car as he traveled from Brighton to his office in London. He removed his +big cigar from his fat red lips, and became absorbed in thought. The +train rushed past Hassocks and Three Bridges and East Croydon. Mr. +Jarvice never once looked at his newspaper again. The big cigar of which +the costliness was proclaimed by the gold band about its middle had long +since gone out, and for him the train came quite unexpectedly to a stop +at the ticket platform on Battersea Bridge. + +Mr. Jarvice was a florid person in his looks and in his dress. It was in +accordance with his floridness that he always retained the gold band +about his cigar while he smoked it. He was a man of middle age, with +thick, black hair, a red, broad face, little bright, black eyes, a black +mustache and rather prominent teeth. He was short and stout, and drew +attention to his figure by wearing light-colored trousers adorned with a +striking check. From Victoria Station he drove at once to his office in +Jermyn Street. A young and wizened-looking clerk was already at work in +the outer room. + +"I will see no one this morning, Maunders," said Mr. Jarvice as he +pressed through. + +"Very well, sir. There are a good number of letters," replied the clerk. + +"They must wait," said Mr. Jarvice, and entering his private room he shut +the door. He did not touch the letters upon his table, but he went +straight to his bureau, and unlocking a drawer, took from it a copy of +the Code Napoleon. He studied the document carefully, locked it up again +and looked at his watch. It was getting on toward one o'clock. He rang +the bell for his clerk. + +"Maunders," he said, "I once asked you to make some inquiries about a +young man called Walter Hine." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Do you remember what his habits were? Where he lunched, for instance?" + +Maunders reflected for a moment. + +"It's a little while ago, sir, since I made the inquiries. As far as I +remember, he did not lunch regularly anywhere. But he went to the +American Bar of the Criterion restaurant most days for a morning drink +about one." + +"Oh, he did? You made his acquaintance, of course?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, you might find him this morning, give him some lunch, and bring +him round to see me at three. See that he is sober." + +At three o'clock accordingly Mr. Walter Hine was shown into the inner +room of Mr. Jarvice. Jarvice bent his bright eyes upon his visitor. He +saw a young man with very fair hair, a narrow forehead, watery blue eyes +and a weak, dissipated face. Walter Hine was dressed in a cheap suit of +tweed much the worse for wear, and he entered the room with the sullen +timidity of the very shy. Moreover, he was a little unsteady as he +walked, as though he had not yet recovered from last night's +intoxication. + +Mr. Jarvice noted these points with his quick glance, but whether they +pleased him or not there was no hint upon his face. + +"Will you sit down?" he said, suavely, pointing to a chair. "Maunders, +you can go." + +Walter Hine turned quickly, as though he would have preferred Maunders to +stay, but he let him go. Mr. Jarvice shut the door carefully, and, +walking across the room, stood over his visitor with his hands in his +pockets, and renewed his scrutiny. Walter Hine grew uncomfortable, and +blurted out with a cockney twang-- + +"Maunders told me that if I came to see you it might be to my advantage." + +"I think it will," replied Mr. Jarvice. "Have you seen this +morning's paper?" + +"On'y the 'Sportsman'." + +"Then you have probably not noticed that your cousin, John Lattery, has +been killed in the Alps." He handed his newspaper to Hine, who glanced at +it indifferently. + +"Well, how does that affect me?" he asked. + +"It leaves you the only heir to your uncle, Mr. Joseph Hine, wine-grower +at Macon, who, I believe, is a millionaire. Joseph Hine is domiciled in +France, and must by French law leave a certain portion of his property to +his relations, in other words, to you. I have taken some trouble to go +into the matter, Mr. Hine, and I find that your share must at the very +least amount to two hundred thousand pounds." + +"I know all about that," Hine interrupted. "But as the old brute won't +acknowledge me and may live another twenty years, it's not much use +to me now." + +"Well," said Mr. Jarvice, smiling suavely, "my young friend, that is +where I come in." + +Walter Hine looked up in surprise. Suspicion followed quickly upon +the surprise. + +"Oh, on purely business terms, of course," said Jarvice. He took a seat +and resumed gaily. "Now I am by profession--what would you guess? I am a +money-lender. Luckily for many people I have money, and I lend it--I lend +it upon very easy terms. I make no secret of my calling, Mr. Hine. On the +contrary, I glory in it. It gives me an opportunity of doing a great deal +of good in a quiet way. If I were to show you my books you would realize +that many famous estates are only kept going through my assistance; and +thus many a farm laborer owes his daily bread to me and never knows his +debt. Why should I conceal it?" + +Mr. Jarvice turned toward his visitor with his hands outspread. Then his +voice dropped. + +"There is only one thing I hide, and that, Mr. Hine, is the easiness of +the terms on which I advance my loans. I must hide that. I should have +all my profession against me were it known. But you shall know it, Mr. +Hine." He leaned forward and patted his young friend upon the knee with +an air of great benevolence. "Come, to business! Your circumstances are +not, I think, in a very flourishing condition." + +"I should think not," said Walter Hine, sullenly. "I have a hundred and +fifty a year, paid weekly. Three quid a week don't give a fellow much +chance of a flutter." + +"Three pounds a week. Ridiculous!" cried Mr. Jarvice, lifting up his +hands. "I am shocked, really shocked. But we will alter all that. Oh yes, +we will soon alter that." + +He sprang up briskly, and unlocking once more the drawer in which he kept +his copy of the Code Napoleon, he took out this time a slip of paper. He +seated himself again, drawing up his chair to the table. + +"Will you tell me, Mr. Hine, whether these particulars are correct? We +must be business-like, you know. Oh yes," he said, gaily wagging his head +and cocking his bright little eyes at his visitor. And he began to read +aloud, or rather paraphrase, the paper which he held: + +"Your father inherited the same fortune as your uncle, Joseph Hine, but +lost almost the entire amount in speculation. In middle life he married +your mother, who was--forgive me if I wound the delicacy of your +feelings, Mr. Hine--not quite his equal in social position. The happy +couple then took up their residence in Arcade Street, Croydon, where you +were born on March 6, twenty-three years ago." + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"In Croydon you passed your boyhood. You were sent to the public school +there. But the rigorous discipline of school life did not suit your +independent character." Thus did Mr. Jarvice gracefully paraphrase the +single word "expelled" which was written on his slip of paper. "Ah, Mr. +Hine," he cried, smiling indulgently at the sullen, bemused weakling who +sat before him, stale with his last night's drink. "You and Shelley! +Rebels, sir, rebels both! Well, well! After you left school, at the age +of sixteen, you pursued your studies in a desultory fashion at home. Your +father died the following year. Your mother two years later. You have +since lived in Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on the income which remained +from your father's patrimony. Three pounds a week--to be sure, here it +is--paid weekly by trustees appointed by your mother. And you have +adopted none of the liberal professions. There we have it, I think." + +"You seem to have taken a lot of trouble to find out my history," said +Walter Hine, suspiciously. + +"Business, sir, business," said Mr. Jarvice. It was on the tip of his +tongue to add, "The early bird, you know," but he was discreet enough to +hold the words back. "Now let me look to the future, which opens out in a +brighter prospect. It is altogether absurd, Mr. Hine, that a young +gentleman who will eventually inherit a quarter of a million should have +to scrape through meanwhile on three pounds a week. I put it on a higher +ground. It is bad for the State, Mr. Hine, and you and I, like good +citizens of this great empire, must consider the State. When this great +fortune comes into your hands you should already have learned how to +dispose of it." + +"Oh, I could dispose of it all right," interrupted Mr. Hine with a +chuckle. "Don't you worry your head about that." + +Mr. Jarvice laughed heartily at the joke. Walter Hine could not but think +that he had made a very witty remark. He began to thaw into something +like confidence. He sat more easily on his chair. + +"You will have your little joke, Mr. Hine. You could dispose of it! Very +good indeed! I must really tell that to my dear wife. But business, +business!" He checked his laughter with a determined effort, and lowered +his voice to a confidential pitch. "I propose to allow you two thousand +pounds a year, paid quarterly in advance. Five hundred pounds each +quarter. Forty pounds a week, Mr. Hine, which with your three will make a +nice comfortable living wage! Ha! Ha!" + +"Two thousand a year!" gasped Mr. Hine, leaning back in his chair. "It +ain't possible. Two thou--here, what am I to do for it?" + +"Nothing, except to spend it like a gentleman," said Mr. Jarvice, beaming +upon his visitor. It did not seem to occur to either man that Mr. Jarvice +had set to his loan the one condition which Mr. Walter Hine never could +fulfil. Walter Hine was troubled with doubts of quite another kind. + +"But you come in somewhere," he said, bluntly. "On'y I'm hanged if I +see where." + +"Of course I come in, my young friend," replied Jarvice, frankly. "I or +my executors. For we may have to wait a long time. I propose that you +execute in my favor a post-obit on your uncle's life, giving me--well, we +may have to wait a long time. Twenty years you suggested. Your uncle is +seventy-three, but a hale man, living in a healthy climate. We will say +four thousand pounds for every two thousand which I lend you. Those are +easy terms, Mr. Hine. I don't make you take cigars and sherry! No! I +think such practices almost reflect discredit on my calling. Two thousand +a year! Five hundred a quarter! Forty pounds a week! Forty-three with +your little income! Well, what do you say?" + +Mr. Hine sat dazzled with the prospect of wealth, immediate wealth, +actually within his reach now. But he had lived amongst people who never +did anything for nothing, who spoke only a friendship when they proposed +to borrow money, and at the back of his mind suspicion and incredulity +were still at work. Somehow Jarvice would be getting the better of him. +In his dull way he began to reason matters out. + +"But suppose I died before my uncle, then you would get nothing," +he objected. + +"Ah, to be sure! I had not forgotten that point," said Mr. Jarvice. "It +is a contingency, of course, not very probable, but still we do right to +consider it." He leaned back in his chair, and once again he fixed his +eyes upon his visitor in a long and silent scrutiny. When he spoke again, +it was in a quieter voice than he had used. One might almost have said +that the real business of the interview was only just beginning. + +"There is a way which will save me from loss. You can insure your life as +against your uncle's, for a round sum--say for a hundred thousand pounds. +You will make over the policy to me. I shall pay the premiums, and so if +anything were to happen to you I should be recouped." + +He never once removed his eyes from Hine's face. He sat with his elbows +on the arms of his chair and his hands folded beneath his chin, quite +still, but with a queer look of alertness upon his whole person. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Hine, as he turned the proposal over in his mind. + +"Do you agree?" asked Jarvice. + +"Yes," said Walter Hine. + +"Very well," said Jarvice, all his old briskness returning. "The sooner +the arrangement is pushed through, the better for you, eh? You will begin +to touch the dibs." He laughed and Walter Hine chuckled. "As to the +insurance, you will have to get the company's doctor's certificate, and I +should think it would be wise to go steady for a day or two, what? You +have been going the pace a bit, haven't you? You had better see your +solicitor to-day. As soon as the post-obit and the insurance policy are +in this office, Mr. Hine, your first quarter's income is paid into your +bank. I will have an agreement drawn, binding me on my side to pay you +two thousand a year until your uncle's death." + +Mr. Jarvice rose as if the interview was ended. He moved some papers on +his table, and added carelessly--"You have a good solicitor, I suppose?" + +"I haven't a solicitor at all," said Walter Hine, as he, too, rose. + +"Oh, haven't you?" said Mr. Jarvice, with all the appearance of surprise. +"Well, shall I give you an introduction to one?" He sat down, wrote a +note, placed it in an envelope, which he left unfastened, and addressed +it. Then he handed the envelope to his client. + +"Messrs. Jones and Stiles, Lincoln's Inn Fields," he said. "But ask for +Mr. Driver. Tell him the whole proposal frankly, and ask his advice." + +"Driver?" said Hine, fingering the envelope. "Hadn't I ought to see one +of the partners?" + +Mr. Jarvice smiled. + +"You have a business head, Mr. Hine, that's very clear. I'll let you into +a secret. Mr. Driver is rather like yourself--something of a rebel, Mr. +Hine. He came into disagreement with that very arbitrary body the +Incorporated Law Society, so,--well his name does not figure in the firm. +But he _is_ Jones and Stiles. Tell him everything! If he advises you +against my proposal, I shall even say take his advice. Good-morning." Mr. +Jarvice went to the door and opened it. + +"Well, this is the spider's web, you know," he said, with the +good-humored laugh of one who could afford to despise the slanders of the +ill-affected. "Not such a very uncomfortable place, eh?" and he bowed Mr. +Fly out of his office. + +He stood at the door and waited until the outer office closed. Then he +went to his telephone and rang up a particular number. + +"Are you Jones and Stiles?" he asked. "Thank you! Will you ask Mr. Driver +to come to the telephone"; and with Mr. Driver he talked genially for the +space of five minutes. + +Then, and not till then, with a smile of satisfaction, Mr. Jarvice turned +to the unopened letters which had come to him by the morning post. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY + + +That summer was long remembered in Chamonix. July passed with a +procession of cloudless days; valley and peak basked in sunlight. August +came, and on a hot starlit night in the first week of that month Chayne +sat opposite to Michel Revailloud in the balcony of a cafe which +overhangs the Arve. Below him the river tumbling swiftly amidst the +boulders flashed in the darkness like white fire. He sat facing the +street. Chamonix was crowded and gay with lights. In the little square +just out of sight upon the right, some traveling musicians were singing, +and up and down the street the visitors thronged noisily. Women in +light-colored evening frocks, with lace shawls thrown about their +shoulders and their hair; men in attendance upon them, clerks from Paris +and Geneva upon their holidays; and every now and then a climber with his +guide, come late from the mountains, would cross the bridge quickly and +stride toward his hotel. Chayne watched the procession in silence quite +aloof from its light-heartedness and gaiety. Michel Revailloud drained +his glass of beer, and, as he replaced it on the table, said wistfully: + +"So this is the last night, monsieur. It is always sad, the last night." + +"It is not exactly as we planned it," replied Chayne, and his eyes moved +from the throng before him in the direction of the churchyard, where a +few days before his friend had been laid amongst the other Englishmen who +had fallen in the Alps. "I do not think that I shall ever come back to +Chamonix," he said, in a quiet and heart-broken voice. + +Michel gravely nodded his head. + +"There are no friendships," said he, "like those made amongst the snows. +But this, monsieur, I say: Your friend is not greatly to be pitied. He +was young, had known no suffering, no ill-health, and he died at once. He +did not even kick the snow for a little while." + +"No doubt that's true," said Chayne, submitting to the commonplace, +rather than drawing from it any comfort. He called to the waiter. "Since +it is the last night, Michel," he said, with a smile, "we will drink +another bottle of beer." + +He leaned back in his chair and once more grew silent, watching the +thronged street and the twinkling lights. In the little square one of the +musicians with a very clear sweet voice was singing a plaintive song, and +above the hum of the crowd, the melody, haunting in its wistfulness, +floated to Chayne's ears, and troubled him with many memories. + +Michel leaned forward upon the table and answered not merely with +sympathy but with the air of one speaking out of full knowledge, and +speaking moreover in a voice of warning. + +"True, monsieur. The happiest memories can be very bitter--if one has no +one to share them. All is in that, monsieur. If," and he repeated his +phrase--"If one has no one to share them." Then the technical side of +Chayne's proposal took hold of him. + +"The Col Dolent? You will have to start early from the Chalet de Lognan, +monsieur. You will sleep there, of course, to-morrow. You will have to +start at midnight--perhaps even before. There is very little snow this +year. The great bergschrund will be very difficult. In any season it is +always difficult to cross that bergschrund on to the steep ice-slope +beyond. It is so badly bridged with snow. This season it will be as bad +as can be. The ice-slope up to the Col will also take a long time. So +start very early." + +As Michel spoke, as he anticipated the difficulties and set his thoughts +to overcome them, his eyes lit up, his whole face grew younger. + +Chayne smiled. + +"I wish you were coming with me Michel," he said, and at once the +animation died out of Michel's face. He became once more a sad, +dispirited man. + +"Alas, monsieur," he said, "I have crossed my last Col. I have ascended +my last mountain." + +"You, Michel?" cried Chayne. + +"Yes, monsieur, I," replied Michel, quietly. "I have grown old. My eyes +hurt me on the mountains, and my feet burn. I am no longer fit for +anything except to lead mules up to the Montanvert and conduct parties on +the Mer de Glace." + +Chayne stared at Michel Revailloud. He thought of what the guide's life +had been, of its interest, its energy, its achievement. More than one of +those aiguilles towering upon his left hand, into the sky, had been first +conquered by Michel Revailloud. And how he had enjoyed it all! What +resource he had shown, what cheerfulness. Remorse gradually seized upon +Chayne as he looked across the little iron table at his guide. + +"Yes, it is a little sad," continued Revailloud. "But I think that toward +the end, life is always a little sad, if"--and the note of warning once +more was audible--"if one has no well-loved companion to share one's +memories." + +The very resignation of Michel's voice brought Chayne to a yet deeper +compunction. The wistful melody still throbbed high and sank, and soared +again above the murmurs of the passers-by and floated away upon the clear +hot starlit night. Chayne wondered with what words it spoke to his old +guide. He looked at the tired sad face on which a smile of friendliness +now played, and his heart ached. He felt some shame that his own troubles +had so engrossed him. After all, Lattery was not greatly to be pitied. +That was true. He himself too was young. There would come other summers, +other friends. The real irreparable trouble sat there before him on the +other side of the iron table, the trouble of an old age to be lived out +in loneliness. + +"You never married, Michel?" he said. + +"No. There was a time, long ago, when I would have liked to," the guide +answered, simply. "But I think now it was as well that I did not get my +way. She was very extravagant. She would have needed much money, and +guides are poor people, monsieur--not like your professional cricketers," +he said, with a laugh. And then he turned toward the massive wall of +mountains. Here and there a slim rock spire, the Dru or the Charmoz, +pointed a finger to the stars, here and there an ice-field glimmered like +a white mist held in a fold of the hills. But to Michel Revailloud, the +whole vast range was spread out as on a raised map, buttress and peak, +and dome of snow from the Aiguille d'Argentiere in the east to the summit +of Mont Blanc in the west. In his thoughts he turned from mountain to +mountain and found each one, majestic and beautiful, dear as a living +friend, and hallowed with recollections. He remembered days when they had +called, and not in vain, for courage and endurance, days of blinding +snow-storms and bitter winds which had caught him half-way up some +ice-glazed precipice of rock or on some long steep ice-slope crusted +dangerously with thin snow into which the ax must cut deep hour after +hour, however frozen the fingers, or tired the limbs. He recalled the +thrill of joy with which, after many vain attempts, he, the first of men, +had stepped on to the small topmost pinnacle of this or that new peak. He +recalled the days of travel, the long glacier walks on the high level +from Chamonix to Zermatt, and from Zermatt again to the Oberland; the +still clear mornings and the pink flush upon some high white cone which +told that somewhere the sun had risen; and the unknown ridges where +expected difficulties suddenly vanished at the climber's approach, and +others where an easy scramble suddenly turned into the most difficult of +climbs. Michel raised his glass in the air. "Here is good-by to you--the +long good-by," he said, and his voice broke. And abruptly he turned to +Chayne with his eyes full of tears and began to speak in a quick +passionate whisper, while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his +face quivered. + +"Monsieur, I told you your friend was not greatly to be pitied. I tell +you now something more. The guide we brought down with him from the +Glacier des Nantillons a fortnight back--all this fortnight I have been +envying him--yes, yes, even though he kicked the snow with his feet for a +little before he died. It is better to do so than to lead mules up to the +Montanvert." + +"I am sorry," said Chayne. + +The words sounded, as he spoke them, lame enough and trivial in the face +of Michel's passionate lament. But they had an astonishing effect upon +the guide. The flow of words stopped at once, he looked at his young +patron almost whimsically and a little smile played about his mouth. + +"'I am sorry,'" he repeated. "Those were the words the young lady spoke +to you on the steps of the hotel. You have spoken with her, monsieur, and +thanked her for them?" + +"No," said Chayne, and there was much indifference in his voice. + +Women had, as yet, not played a great part in Chayne's life. Easy to +please, but difficult to stir, he had in the main just talked with them +by the way and gone on forgetfully: and when any one had turned and +walked a little of his road beside him, she had brought to him no +thought that here might be a companion for all the way. His indifference +roused Michel to repeat, and this time unmistakably, the warning he had +twice uttered. + +He leaned across the table, fixing his eyes very earnestly on his +patron's face. "Take care, monsieur," he said. "You are lonely +to-night--very lonely. Then take good care that your old age is not one +lonely night like this repeated and repeated through many years! Take +good care that when you in your turn come to the end, and say good-by +too"--he waved his hand toward the mountains--"you have some one to share +your memories. See, monsieur!" and very wistfully he began to plead, "I +go home to-night, I go out of Chamonix, I cross a field or two, I come to +Les Praz-Conduits and my cottage. I push open the door. It is all dark +within. I light my own lamp and I sit there a little by myself. Take an +old man's wisdom, monsieur! When it is all over and you go home, take +care that there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room not empty. +Have some one to share your memories when life is nothing but memories." +He rose as he ended, and held out his hand. As Chayne took it, the guide +spoke again, and his voice shook: + +"Monsieur, you have been a good patron to me," he said, with a quiet and +most dignified simplicity, "and I make you what return I can. I have +spoken to you out of my heart, for you will not return to Chamonix and +after to-night we shall not meet again." + +"Thank you," said Chayne, and he added: "We have had many good days +together, Michel." + +"We have, monsieur." + +"I climbed my first mountain with you." + +"The Aiguille du Midi. I remember it well." + +Both were silent after that, and for the same reason. Neither could trust +his voice. Michel Revailloud picked up his hat, turned abruptly away and +walked out of the cafe into the throng of people. Chayne resumed his seat +and sat there, silent and thoughtful, until the street began to empty and +the musicians in the square ceased from their songs. + +Meanwhile Michel Revailloud walked slowly down the street, stopping to +speak with any one he knew however slightly, that he might defer his +entrance into the dark and empty cottage at Les Praz-Conduits. He drew +near to the hotel where Chayne was staying and saw under the lamp above +the door a guide whom he knew talking with a young girl. The young girl +raised her head. It was she who had said, "I am sorry." As Michel came +within the circle of light she recognized him. She spoke quickly to the +guide and he turned at once and called "Michel," and when Revailloud +approached, he presented him to Sylvia Thesiger. "He has made many first +ascents in the range of Mont Blanc, mademoiselle." + +Sylvia held out her hand with a smile of admiration. + +"I know," she said. "I have read of them." + +"Really?" cried Michel. "You have read of them--you, mademoiselle?" + +There was as much pleasure as wonder in his tone. After all, flattery +from the lips of a woman young and beautiful was not to be despised, he +thought, the more especially when the flattery was so very well deserved. +Life had perhaps one or two compensations to offer him in his old age. + +"Yes, indeed. I am very glad to meet you, Michel. I have known your name +a long while and envied you for living in the days when these mountains +were unknown." + +Revailloud forgot the mules to the Montanvert and the tourists on the Mer +de Glace. He warmed into cheerfulness. This young girl looked at him with +so frank an envy. + +"Yes, those were great days, mademoiselle," he said, with a thrill of +pride in his voice. "But if we love the mountains, the first ascent or +the hundredth--there is just the same joy when you feel the rough rock +beneath your fingers or the snow crisp under your feet. Perhaps +mademoiselle herself will some time--" + +At once Sylvia interrupted him with an eager happiness-- + +"Yes, to-morrow," she said. + +"Oho! It is your first mountain, mademoiselle?" + +"Yes." + +"And Jean here is your guide. Jean and his brother, I suppose?" Michel +laid his hand affectionately on the guide's shoulder. "You could not do +better, mademoiselle." + +He looked at her thoughtfully for a little while. She was fresh--fresh as +the smell of the earth in spring after a fall of rain. Her eyes, the +alertness of her face, the eager tones of her voice, were irresistible to +him, an old tired man. How much more irresistible then to a younger man. +Her buoyancy would lift such an one clear above his melancholy, though it +were deep as the sea. He himself, Michel Revailloud, felt twice the +fellow he had been when he sat in the balcony above the Arve. + +"And what mountain is it to be, mademoiselle?" he asked. + +The girl took a step from the door of the hotel and looked upward. To the +south, but quite close, the long thin ridge of the Aiguille des Charmoz +towered jagged and black against the starlit sky. On one pinnacle of that +ridge a slab of stone was poised like the top of a round table on the +slant. It was at that particular pinnacle that Sylvia looked. + +"L'Aiguille des Charmoz," said Michel, doubtfully, and Sylvia swung round +to him and argued against his doubt. + +"But I have trained myself," she said. "I have been up the Brevent and +Flegere. I am strong, stronger than I look." + +Michel Revailloud smiled. + +"Mademoiselle, I do not doubt you. A young lady who has enthusiasm is +very hard to tire. It is not because of the difficulty of that rock-climb +that I thought to suggest--the Aiguille d'Argentiere." + +Sylvia turned with some hesitation to the younger guide. + +"You too spoke of that mountain," she said. + +Michel pressed his advantage. + +"And wisely, mademoiselle. If you will let me advise you, you will sleep +to-morrow night at the Pavillon de Lognan and the next day climb the +Aiguille d'Argentiere." + +Sylvia looked regretfully up to the ridge of the Charmoz which during +this last fortnight had greatly attracted her. She turned her eyes from +the mountain to Revailloud and let them rest quietly upon his face. + +"And why do you advise the Aiguille d'Argentiere?" she asked. + +Michel saw her eyes softly shining upon him in the darkness, and all the +more persisted. Was not his dear patron who must needs be helped to open +his eyes, since he would not open them himself, going to sleep to-morrow +in the Pavillon de Lognan? The roads to the Col Dolent and the Aiguille +d'Argentiere both start from that small mountain inn. But this was hardly +the reason which Michel could give to the young girl who questioned him. +He bethought him of another argument, a subtle one which he fancied would +strongly appeal to her. Moreover, there was truth in it. + +"I will tell you why, mademoiselle. It is to be your first mountain. It +will be a day in your life which you will never forget. Therefore you +want it to be as complete as possible--is it not so? It is a good +rock-climb, the Aiguille des Charmoz--yes. But the Argentiere is more +complete. There is a glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff, +and at the top of that a steep ice-slope. And that is not all. You want +your last step on to the summit to reveal a new world to you. On the +Charmoz, it is true, there is a cleft at the very top up which you +scramble between two straight walls and you pop your head out above the +mountain. Yes, but you see little that is new; for before you enter the +cleft you see both sides of the mountain. With the Argentiere it is +different. You mount at the last, for quite a time behind the mountain +with your face to the ice-slope; and then suddenly you step out upon the +top and the chain of Mont Blanc will strike suddenly upon your eyes and +heart. See, mademoiselle, I love these mountains with a very great pride +and I would dearly like you to have that wonderful white revelation of a +new strange world upon your first ascent." + +Before he had ended, he knew that he had won. He heard the girl draw +sharply in her breath. She was making for herself a picture of the last +step from the ice-slope to summit ridge. + +"Very well," she said. "It shall be the Aiguille d'Argentiere." + +Michel went upon his way out of Chamonix and across the fields. They +would be sure to speak, those two, to-morrow at the Pavillon de Lognan. +If only there were no other party there in that small inn! Michel's hopes +took a leap and reached beyond the Pavillon de Lognan. To ascend one's +first mountain--yes, that was enviable and good. But one should have a +companion with whom one can live over again the raptures of that day, in +the after time. Well--perhaps--perhaps! + +Michel pushed open the door of his cottage, and lit his lamp, without +after all bethinking him that the room was dark and empty. His ice-axes +stood in a corner, the polished steel of their adz-heads gleaming in the +light; his _Ruecksack_ and some coils of rope hung upon pegs; his book +with the signatures and the comments of his patrons lay at his elbow on +the table, a complete record of his life. But he was not thinking that +they had served him for the last time. He sat down in his chair and so +remained for a little while. But a smile was upon his face, and once or +twice he chuckled aloud as he thought of his high diplomacy. He did not +remember at all that to-morrow he would lead mules up to the Montanvert +and conduct parties on the Mer de Glace. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN + + +The Pavillon de Lognan is built high upon the southern slope of the +valley of Chamonix, under the great buttresses of the Aiguille Verte. It +faces the north and from the railed parapet before its door the path +winds down through pastures bright with Alpine flowers to the pine woods, +and the village of Les Tines in the bed of the valley. But at its eastern +end a precipice drops to the great ice-fall of the Glacier d'Argentiere, +and night and day from far below the roar of the glacier streams enters +in at the windows and fills the rooms with the music of a river in spate. + +At five o'clock on the next afternoon, Chayne was leaning upon the rail +looking straight down to the ice-fall. The din of the torrent was in his +ears, and it was not until a foot sounded lightly close behind him that +he knew he was no longer alone. He turned round and saw to his surprise +the over-dainty doll of the Annemasse buffet, the child of the casinos +and the bathing beaches, Sylvia Thesiger. His surprise was very +noticeable and Sylvia's face flushed. She made him a little bow and went +into the chalet. + +Chayne noticed a couple of fresh guides by the door of the guides' +quarters. He remembered the book which he had seen her reading with so +deep an interest in the buffet. And in a minute or two she came out again +on to the earth platform and he saw that she was not overdressed to-day. +She was simply and warmly dressed in a way which suggested business. On +the other hand she had not made herself ungainly. He guessed her mountain +and named it to her. + +"Yes," she replied. "Please say that it will be fine to-morrow!" + +"I have never seen an evening of better promise," returned Chayne, with a +smile at her eagerness. The brown cliffs of the Aiguille du Chardonnet +just across the glacier glowed red in the sunlight; and only a wisp of +white cloud trailed like a lady's scarf here and there in the blue of the +sky. The woman of the chalet came out and spoke to him. + +"She wants to know when we will dine," he explained to Sylvia. "There are +only you and I. We should dine early, for you will have to start early"; +and he repeated the invariable cry of that year: "There is so very little +snow. It may take you some time to get off the glacier on to your +mountain. There is always a crevasse to cross." + +"I know," said Sylvia, with a smile. "The bergschrund." + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne, and in his turn he smiled too. "Of +course you know these terms. I saw you reading a copy of the 'Alpine +Journal.'" + +They dined together an hour later with the light of the sunset reddening +the whitewashed walls of the little simple room and bathing in glory the +hills without. Sylvia Thesiger could hardly eat for wonder. Her face was +always to the window, her lips were always parted in a smile, her gray +eyes bright with happiness. + +"I have never known anything like this," she said. "It is all so strange, +so very beautiful." + +Her freshness and simplicity laid their charm on him, even as they had +done on Michel Revailloud the night before. She was as eager as a child +to get the meal done with and to go out again into the open air, before +the after-glow had faded from the peaks. There was something almost +pathetic in her desire to make the very most of such rare moments. Her +eagerness so clearly told him that such holidays came but seldom in her +life. He urged her, however, to eat, and when she had done they went out +together and sat upon the bench, watching in silence the light upon the +peaks change from purple to rose, the rocks grow cold, and the blue of +the sky deepen as the night came. + +"You too are making an ascent?" she asked. + +"No," he answered. "I am crossing a pass into Italy. I am going away from +Chamonix altogether." + +Sylvia turned to him; her eyes were gentle with sympathy. + +"Yes, I understand that," she said. "I am sorry." + +"You said that once before to me, on the steps of the hotel," said +Chayne. "It was kind of you. Though I said nothing, I was grateful"; and +he was moved to open his heart to her, and to speak of his dead friend. +The darkness gathered about them; he spoke in the curt sentences which +men use who shrink from any emotional display; he interrupted himself to +light his pipe. But none the less she understood the reality of his +distress. He told her with a freedom of which he was not himself at the +moment quite aware, of a clean, strong friendship which owed nothing to +sentiment, which was never fed by protestations, which endured through +long intervals, and was established by the memory of great dangers +cheerily encountered and overcome. It had begun amongst the mountains, +and surely, she thought, it had retained to the end something of their +inspiration. + +"We first met in the Tyrol, eight years ago. I had crossed a mountain +with a guide--the Glockturm--and came down in the evening to the +Radurschal Thal where I had heard there was an inn. The evening had +turned to rain; but from a shoulder of the mountain I had been able to +look right down the valley and had seen one long low building about four +miles from the foot of the glacier. I walked through the pastures toward +it, and found sitting outside the door in the rain the man who was to be +my friend. The door was locked, and there was no one about the house, nor +was there any other house within miles. My guide, however, went on. +Lattery and I sat out there in the rain for a couple of hours, and then +an old woman with a big umbrella held above her head came down from the +upper pastures, driving some cows in front of her. She told us that no +one had stayed at her inn for fourteen years. But she opened her door, +lit us a great fire, and cooked us eggs and made us coffee. I remember +that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. We sat in front of the +fire with the bedding and the mattresses airing behind us until late into +the night. The rain got worse too. There was a hole in the thatch +overhead, and through it I saw the lightning slash the sky, as I lay in +bed. Very few people ever came up or down that valley; and the next +morning, after the storm, the chamois were close about the inn, on the +grass. We went on together. That was the beginning." + +He spoke simply, with a deep quietude of voice. The tobacco glowed and +grew dull in the bowl of his pipe regularly; the darkness hid his face. +But the tenderness, almost the amusement with which he dwelt on the +little insignificant details of that first meeting showed her how very +near to him it was at this moment. + +"We went from the Tyrol down to Verona and baked ourselves in the sun +there for a day, under the colonnades, and then came back through the +St. Gotthard to Goeschenen. Do you know the Goeschenen Thal? There is a +semicircle of mountains, the Winterbergen, which closes it in at the +head. We climbed there together for a week, just he and I and no guides. +I remember a rock-ridge there. It was barred by a pinnacle which stood +up from it--'a gendarme,' as they call it. We had to leave the arete and +work out along the face of the pinnacle at right angles to the mountain. +There was a little ledge. You could look down between your feet quite +straight to the glacier, two thousand feet below. We came to a place +where the wall of the pinnacle seemed possible. Almost ten feet above +us, there was a flaw in the rock which elsewhere was quite +perpendicular. I was the lightest. So my friend planted himself as +firmly as he could on the ledge with his hands flat against the rock +face. There wasn't any handhold, you see, and I climbed out on to his +back and stood upon his shoulders. I saw that the rock sloped back from +the flaw or cleft in quite a practicable way. Only there was a big +boulder resting on the slope within reach, and which we could hardly +avoid touching. It did not look very secure. So I put out my hand and +just touched it--quite, quite gently. But it was so exactly balanced +that the least little vibration overset it, and I saw it begin to move, +very slowly, as if it meant no harm whatever. But it was moving, +nevertheless, toward me. My chest was on a level with the top of the +cleft, so that I had a good view of the boulder. I couldn't do anything +at all. It was much too heavy and big for my arms to stop and I couldn't +move, of course, since I was standing on Jack Lattery's shoulders. There +did not seem very much chance, with nothing below us except two thousand +feet of vacancy. But there was just at my side a little bit of a crack +in the edge of the cleft, and there was just a chance that the rock +might shoot out down that cleft past me. I remember standing and +watching the thing sliding down, not in a rush at all, but very +smoothly, almost in a friendly sort of way, and I wondered how long it +would be before it reached me. Luckily some irregularity in the slope of +rock just twisted it into the crack, and it suddenly shot out into the +air at my side with a whizz. It was so close to me that it cut the cloth +of my sleeve. I had been so fascinated by the gentle movement of the +boulder that I had forgotten altogether to tell Lattery what was +happening; and when it whizzed out over his head, he was so startled +that he nearly lost his balance on the little shelf and we were within +an ace of following our rock down to the glacier. Those were our early +days." And he laughed with a low deep ring of amusement in his voice. + +"We were late that day on the mountain," he resumed, "and it was dark +when we got down to a long snow-slope at its foot. It was new ground to +us. We were very tired. We saw it glimmering away below us. It might end +in a crevasse and a glacier for all we knew, and we debated whether we +should be prudent or chance it. We chanced the crevasse. We sat down and +glissaded in the dark with only the vaguest idea where we should end. +Altogether we had very good times, he and I. Well, they have come to an +end on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +Chayne became silent; Sylvia Thesiger sat at his side and did not +interrupt. In front of them the pastures slid away into darkness. Only a +few small clear lights shining in the chalets told them there were other +people awake in the world. Except for the reverberation of the torrent +deep in the gorge at their right, no sound at all broke the deep silence. +Chayne knocked the ashes from his pipe. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been talking to you about one whom +you never knew. You were so quiet that I seemed to be merely remembering +to myself." + +"I was so quiet," Sylvia explained, "because I wished you to go on. I was +very glad to hear you. It was all new and strange and very pleasant to +me--this story of your friendship. As strange and pleasant as this cool, +quiet night here, a long way from the hotels and the noise, on the edge +of the snow. For I have heard little of such friendships and I have seen +still less." + +Chayne's thoughts were suddenly turned from his dead friend to this, the +living companion at his side. There was something rather sad and pitiful +in the tone of her voice, no less than in the words she used. She spoke +with so much humility. He was aware with a kind of shock, that here was a +woman, not a child. He turned his eyes to her, as he had turned his +thoughts. He could see dimly the profile of her face. It was still as the +night itself. She was looking straight in front of her into the darkness. +He pondered upon her life and how she bore with it, and how she had kept +herself unspoiled by its associations. Of the saving grace of her dreams +he knew nothing. But the picture of her mother was vivid to his eyes, the +outlawed mother, shunned instinctively by the women, noisy and shrill, +and making her companions of the would-be fashionable loiterers and the +half-pay officers run to seed. That she bore it ill her last words had +shown him. They had thrown a stray ray of light upon a dark place which +seemed a place of not much happiness. + +"I am very glad that you are here to-night," he said. "It has been kind +of you to listen. I rather dreaded this evening." + +Though what he said was true, it was half from pity that he said it. He +wished her to feel her value. And in reply she gave him yet another +glimpse into the dark place. + +"Your friend," she said, "must have been much loved in Chamonix." + +"Why?" + +"So many guides came of their own accord to search for him." + +Again Chayne's face was turned quickly toward her. Here indeed was a sign +of the people amongst whom she lived, and of their unillumined thoughts. +There must be the personal reason always, the personal reason or money. +Outside of these, there were no motives. He answered her gently: + +"No; I think that was not the reason. How shall I put it to you?" He +leaned forward with his elbows upon his knees, and spoke slowly, choosing +his words. "I think these guides obeyed a law, a law not of any man's +making, and the one law last broken--the law that what you know, that you +must do, if by doing it you can save a life. I should think nine medals +out of ten given by the Humane Society are given because of the +compulsion of that law. If you can swim, sail a boat, or climb a +mountain, and the moment comes when a life can only be saved if you use +your knowledge--well, you have got to use it. That's the law. Very often, +I have no doubt, it's quite reluctantly obeyed, in most cases I think +it's obeyed by instinct, without consideration of the consequences. But +it _is_ obeyed, and the guides obeyed it when so many of them came with +me on to the Glacier des Nantillons." + +He heard the girl at his side draw in a sharp breath. She shivered. + +"You are cold?" + +"No," she answered. "But that, too, is all strange to me. I should have +known of that law without the need to be told of it. But I shall not +forget it." + +Again humility was very audible in the quiet tone of her voice. She +understood that she had been instructed. She felt she should not have +needed it. She faced her ignorance frankly. + +"What one knows, that one must do," she repeated, fixing the words in her +mind, "if by doing it one can save a life. No, I shall not forget that." + +She rose from the seat. + +"I must go in." + +"Yes," cried Chayne, starting up. "You have stayed up too long as it is. +You will be tired to-morrow." + +"Not till to-morrow evening," she said, with a laugh. She looked upward +to the starlit sky. "It will be fine, I hope. Oh, it _must_ be fine. +To-morrow is my one day. I do so want it to be perfect," she exclaimed. + +"I don't think you need fear." + +She held out her hand to him. + +"This is good-by, I suppose," she said, and she did not hide the regret +the words brought to her. + +Chayne took her hand and kept it for a second or two. He ought to start +an hour and a half before her. That he knew very well. But he answered: + +"No. We go the same road for a little while. When do you start?" + +"At half past one." + +"I too. It will be daybreak before we say good-by. I wonder whether you +will sleep at all to-night. I never do the first night." + +He spoke lightly, and she answered him in the same key. + +"I shall hardly know whether I sleep or wake, with the noise of that +stream rising through my window. For so far back as I can remember I +always dream of running water." + +The words laid hold upon Chayne's imagination and fixed her in his +memories. He knew nothing of her really, except just this one curious +fact. She dreamed of running water. Somehow it was fitting that she +should. There was a kind of resemblance; running water was, in a way, +an image of her. She seemed in her nature to be as clear and fresh; yet +she was as elusive; and when she laughed, her laugh had a music as +light and free. + +She went into the chalet. Through the window Chayne saw her strike a +match and hold it to the candle. She stood for a moment looking out at +him gravely, with the light shining upward upon her young face. Then a +smile hesitated upon her lips and slowly took possession of her cheeks +and eyes. She turned and went into her room. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE + + +Chayne smoked another pipe alone and then walking to the end of the +little terrace looked down on to the glistening field of ice below. Along +that side of the chalet no light was burning. Was she listening? Was she +asleep? The pity which had been kindled within him grew as he thought +upon her. To-morrow she would be going back to a life she clearly hated. +On the whole he came to the conclusion that the world might have been +better organized. He lit his candle and went to bed, and it seemed that +not five minutes had passed before one of his guides knocked upon his +door. When he came into the living-room Sylvia Thesiger was already +breakfasting. + +"Did you sleep?" he asked. + +"I was too excited," she answered. "But I am not tired"; and certainly +there was no trace of fatigue in her appearance. + +They started at half past one and went up behind the hut. + +The stars shimmered overhead in a dark and cloudless sky. The night was +still; as yet there was no sign of dawn. The great rock cliffs of the +Chardonnet across the glacier and the towering ice-slopes of the Aiguille +Verte beneath which they passed were all hidden in darkness. They might +have been walking on some desolate plain of stones flat from horizon to +horizon. They walked in single file, Jean leading with a lighted lantern +in his hand, so that Sylvia, who followed next, might pick her way +amongst the boulders. Thus they marched for two hours along the left bank +of the glacier and then descended on to ice. They went forward partly on +moraine, partly on ice at the foot of the crags of the Aiguille Verte. +And gradually the darkness thinned. Dim masses of black rock began to +loom high overhead, and to all seeming very far away. The sky paled, the +dim masses of rock drew near about the climbers, and over the steep +walls, the light flowed into the white basin of the glacier as though +from every quarter of the sky. + +Sylvia stopped and Chayne came up with her. + +"Well?" he asked; and as he saw her face his thoughts were suddenly +swept back to the morning when the beauty of the ice-world was for the +first time vouchsafed to him. He seemed to recapture the fine emotion of +that moment. + +Sylvia stood gazing with parted lips up that wide and level glacier to +its rock-embattled head. The majestic silence of the place astounded her. +There was no whisper of wind, no rustling of trees, no sound of any bird. +As yet too there was no crack of ice, no roar of falling stones. And as +the silence surprised her ears, so the simplicity of color smote upon her +eyes. There were no gradations. White ice filled the basin and reached +high into the recesses of the mountains, hanging in rugged glaciers upon +their flanks, and streaking the gullies with smooth narrow ribands. And +about the ice, and above it, circling it in, black walls of rock towered +high, astonishingly steep and broken at the top into pinnacles of an +exquisite beauty. + +"I shall be very glad to have seen this," said Sylvia, as she stored the +picture in her mind, "more glad than I am even now. It will be a good +memory to fall back upon when things are troublesome." + +"Must things be troublesome?" he asked. + +"Don't let me spoil my one day," she said, with a smile. + +She moved on, and Chayne, falling back, spoke for a little with his +guides. A little further on Jean stopped. + +"That is our mountain, mademoiselle," he said, pointing eastward across +the glacier. + +Sylvia turned in that direction. + +Straight in front of her a bay of ice ran back, sloping ever upward, and +around the bay there rose a steep wall of cliffs which in the center +sharpened precipitously to an apex. The apex was not a point but a +rounded level ridge of snow which curved over on the top of the cliffs +like a billow of foam. A tiny black tower of rock stood alone on the +northern end of the snow-ridge. + +"That, mademoiselle, is the Aiguille d'Argentiere. We cross the +glacier here." + +Jean put the rope about her waist, fixing it with the fisherman's bend, +and tied one end about his own, using the overhand knot, while his +brother tied on behind. They then turned at right angles to their former +march and crossed the glacier, keeping the twenty feet of rope which +separated each person extended. Once Jean looked back and uttered an +exclamation of surprise. For he saw Chayne and his guides following +across the glacier behind, and Chayne's road to the Col Dolent at the +head of the glacier lay straight ahead upon their former line of advance. +However he said nothing. + +They crossed the bergschrund with less difficulty than they had +anticipated, and ascending a ridge of debris, by the side of the lateral +glacier which descended from the cliffs of the Aiguille d'Argentiere, +they advanced into the bay under the southern wall of the Aiguille du +Chardonnet. On the top of this moraine Jean halted, and the party +breakfasted, and while they breakfasted Chayne told Sylvia something of +that mountain's history. "It is not the most difficult of peaks," said +he, "but it has associations, which some of the new rock-climbs have not. +The pioneers came here." Right behind them there was a gap, the pass +between their mountain and the Aiguille du Chardonnet. "From that pass +Moore and Whymper first tried to reach the top by following the crest of +the cliffs, but they found it impracticable. Whymper tried again, but +this time up the face of the cliffs further on to the south and just to +the left of the summit. He failed, came back again and conquered. We +follow his road." + +And while they looked up the dead white of that rounded summit ridge +changed to a warm rosy color and all about that basin the topmost peaks +took fire. + +"It is the sun," said he. + +Sylvia looked across the valley. The great ice-triangle of the Aiguille +Verte flashed and sparkled. The slopes of the Les Droites and Mont Dolent +were hung with jewels; even the black precipices of the Tour Noir grew +warm and friendly. But at the head of the glacier a sheer unbroken wall +of rock swept round in the segment of a circle, and this remained still +dead black and the glacier at its foot dead white. At one point in the +knife-like edge of this wall there was a depression, and from the +depression a riband of ice ran, as it seemed from where they sat, +perpendicularly down to the Glacier d'Argentiere. + +"That is the Col Dolent," said Chayne. "Very little sunlight ever creeps +down there." + +Sylvia shivered as she looked. She had never seen anything so somber, so +sinister, as that precipitous curtain of rock and its riband of ice. It +looked like a white band painted on a black wall. + +"It looks very dangerous," she said, slowly. + +"It needs care," said Chayne. + +"Especially this year when there is so little snow," added Sylvia. + +"Yes. Twelve hundred feet of ice at an angle of fifty degrees." + +"And the bergschrund's just beneath." + +"Yes, you must not slip on the Col Dolent," said he, quietly. + +Sylvia was silent a little while. Then she said with a slight hesitation: + +"And you cross that pass to-day?" + +There was still more hesitation in Chayne's voice as he answered: + +"Well, no! You see, this is your first mountain. And you have only +two guides." + +Sylvia looked at him seriously. + +"How many should I have taken for the Aiguille d'Argentiere? Twelve?" + +Chayne smiled feebly. + +"Well, no," and his confusion increased. "Two, as a rule, are +enough--unless--" + +"Unless the amateur is very clumsy," she added. "Thank you, +Captain Chayne." + +"I didn't mean that," he cried. He had no idea whether she was angry or +not. She was just looking quietly and steadily into his face and waiting +for his explanation. + +"Well, the truth is," he blurted out, "I wanted to go up the Aiguille +d'Argentiere with you," and he saw a smile dimple her cheeks. + +"I am honored," she said, and the tone of her voice showed besides that +she was very glad. + +"Oh, but it wasn't only for the sake of your company," he said, and +stopped. "I don't seem to be very polite, do I?" he said, lamentably. + +"Not very," she replied. + +"What I mean is this," he explained. "Ever since we started this morning, +I have been recapturing my own sensations on my first ascent. Watching +you, your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every moment of this +day, I almost feel as if I too had come fresh to the mountains, as if the +Argentiere were my first peak." + +He saw the blood mount into her cheeks. + +"Was that the reason why you questioned me as to what I thought and +felt?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"I thought you were testing me," she said, slowly. "I thought you +were trying whether I was--worthy"; and once again humility had +framed her words and modulated their utterance. She recognized +without rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to look on +her as without the pale. + +The guides packed up the _Ruecksacks_, and they started once more up the +moraine. In a little while they descended on to the lateral glacier which +descending from the recesses of the Aiguille d'Argentiere in front of +them flowed into the great basin behind. They roped together now in one +party and ascended the glacier diagonally, rounding a great buttress +which descends from the rock ledge and bisects the ice, and drawing close +to the steep cliffs. In a little while they crossed the bergschrund from +the glacier on to the wall of mountain, and traversing by easy rocks at +the foot of the cliffs came at last to a big steep gully filled with hard +ice which led up to the ridge just below the final peak. + +"This is our way" said Jean. "We ascend by the rocks at the side." + +They breakfasted again and began to ascend the rocks to the left of the +great gully, Sylvia following second behind her leading guide. The rocks +were not difficult, but they were very steep and at times loose. +Moreover, Jean climbed fast and Sylvia had much ado to keep pace with +him. But she would not call on him to slacken his pace, and she was most +anxious not to come up on the rope but to climb with her own hands and +feet. This they ascended for the better part of an hour and Jean halted +on a convenient ledge. Sylvia had time to look down. She had climbed +with her face to the wall of rock, her eyes searching quickly for her +holds, fixing her feet securely, gripping firmly with her hands, +avoiding the loose boulders. Moreover, the rope had worried her. When +she had left it at its length between herself and the guide in front of +her, it would hang about her feet, threatening to trip her, or catch as +though in active malice in any crack which happened to be handy. If she +shortened it and held it in her hands, there would come a sudden tug +from above as the leader raised himself from one ledge to another which +almost overset her. + +Now, however, flushed with her exertion and glad to draw her breath +at her ease, she looked down and was astonished. So far below her +already seemed the glacier she had left, so steep the rocks up which +she had climbed. + +"You are not tired?" said Chayne. + +Sylvia laughed. Tired, when a dream was growing real, when she was +actually on the mountain face! She turned her face again to the rock-wall +and in a little more than an hour after leaving the foot of the gully she +stepped out on to a patch of snow on the shoulder of the mountain. She +stood in sunlight, and all the country to the east was suddenly unrolled +before her eyes. A moment before and her face was to the rock, now at her +feet the steep snow-slopes dropped to the Glacier of Saleinaz. The crags +of the Aiguille Dorees, and some green uplands gave color to the +glittering world of ice, and far away towered the white peaks of the +Grand Combin and the Weisshorn in a blue cloudless sky, and to the left +over the summit of the Grande Fourche she saw the huge embattlements of +the Oberland. She stood absorbed while the rest of the party ascended to +her side. She hardly knew indeed that they were there until Chayne +standing by her asked: + +"You are not disappointed?" + +She made no reply. She had no words wherewith to express the emotion +which troubled her to the depths. + +They rested for a while on this level patch of snow. To their right the +ridge ran sharply up to the summit. But not by that ridge was the summit +to be reached. They turned over on to the eastern face of the mountain +and traversed in a straight line across the great snow-slope which sweeps +down in one white unbroken curtain toward the Glacier of Saleinaz. Their +order had been changed. First Jean advanced. Chayne followed and after +him came Sylvia. + +The leading guide kicked a step or two in the snow. Then he used the adz +of his ax. A few steps still, and he halted. + +"Ice," he said, and from that spot to the mountain top he used the pick. + +The slope was at a steep angle, the ice very hard, and each step had to +be cut with care, especially on the traverse where the whole party moved +across the mountain upon the same level, and there was no friendly hand +above to give a pull upon the rope. The slope ran steeply down beneath +them, then curved over a brow and steepened yet more. + +"Are the steps near enough together?" Chayne asked. + +"Yes," she replied, though she had to stretch in her stride. + +And upon that Jean dug his pick in the slope at his side and +turned round. + +"Lean well way from the slope, mademoiselle, not toward it. There is less +chance then of slipping from the steps," he said anxiously, and there +came a look of surprise upon his face. For he saw that already of her own +thought she was standing straight in her steps, thrusting herself out +from the slope by pressing the pick of her ax against it at the level of +her waist. And more than once thereafter Jean turned about and watched +her with a growing perplexity. Chayne looked to see whether her face +showed any sign of fear. On the contrary she was looking down that great +sweep of ice with an actual exultation. And it was not ignorance which +allowed her to exult. The evident anxiety of Chayne's words, and the +silence which since had fallen upon one and all were alone enough to +assure her that here was serious work. But she had been reading deeply of +the Alps, and in all the histories of mountain exploits which she had +read, of climbs up vertical cracks in sheer walls of rocks, balancings +upon ridges sharp as a knife edge, crawlings over smooth slabs with +nowhere to rest the feet or hands, it was the ice-slope which had most +kindled her imagination. The steep, smooth, long ice-slope, white upon +the surface, grayish-green or even black where the ax had cut the step, +the place where no slip must be made. She had lain awake at nights +listening to the roar of the streets beneath her window and picturing it, +now sleeping in the sunlight, now enwreathed in mists which opened and +showed still higher heights and still lower depths, now whipped angrily +with winds which tore off the surface icicles and snow, and sent them +swirling like smoke about the shoulders of the peak. She had dreamed +herself on to it, half shrinking, half eager, and now she was actually +upon one and she felt no fear. She could not but exult. + +The sunlight was hot upon this face of the mountain; yet her feet grew +cold, as she stood patiently in her steps, advancing slowly as the man +before her moved. Once as she stood, she moved her foot and scratched the +sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once +she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard +into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon +the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was +safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne +polishing them behind him. + +In a little while the guide turned his face to the slope and cut upward +instead of across. The slope was so steep that instead of cutting zigzags +across its face, he chopped pigeon holes straight up. They moved from one +to the other as on a ladder, and their knees touched the ice as they +stood upright in the steps. For a couple of hours the axes never ceased, +and then the leader made two or three extra steps at the side of the +staircase. On to one of them he moved out, Chayne went up and joined him. + +"Come, mademoiselle," he said, and he drew in the rope as Sylvia +advanced. She climbed up level with them on the ladder and waited, not +knowing why they stood aside. + +"Go on, mademoiselle," said the guide. She took another step or two upon +snow and uttered a cry. She had looked suddenly over the top of the +mountain on to the Aiguille Verte and the great pile of Mont Blanc, even +as Revailloud had told her that she would. The guide had stood aside that +she might be the first to step out upon the summit of the mountain. She +stood upon the narrow ridge of snow, at her feet the rock-cliffs +plastered with bulging masses of ice fell sheer to the glacier. + +Her first glance was downward to the Col Dolent. Even at this hour when +the basin of the valley was filled with sunshine that one corner at the +head of the Glacier d'Argentiere was still dead white, dead black. She +shivered once more as she looked at it--so grim and so menacing the +rock-wall seemed, so hard and steep the riband of ice. Then Chayne joined +her on the ridge. They sat down and ate their meal and lay for an hour +sunning themselves in the clear air. + +"You could have had no better day," said Chayne. + +Only a few white scarfs of cloud flitted here and there across the sky +and their shadows chased each other across the glittering slopes of ice +and snow. The triangle of the Aiguille Verte was over against her, the +beautiful ridges of Les Courtes and Les Droites to her right and beyond +them the massive domes and buttresses of the great white mountain. Sylvia +lay upon the eastern slope of the Argentiere looking over the brow, not +wanting to speak, and certainly not listening to any word that was +uttered. Her soul was at peace. The long-continued tension of mind and +muscle, the excitement of that last ice-slope, both were over and had +brought their reward. She looked out upon a still and peaceful world, +wonderfully bright, wonderfully beautiful, and wonderfully colored. Here +a spire would pierce the sunlight with slabs of red rock interspersed +amongst its gray; there ice-cliffs sparkled as though strewn with jewels, +bulged out in great green knobs, showed now a grim gray, now a +transparent blue. At times a distant rumble like thunder far away told +that the ice-fields were hurling their avalanches down. Once or twice she +heard a great roar near at hand, and Chayne pointing across the valleys +would show her what seemed to be a handful of small stones whizzing down +the rocks and ice-gullies of the Aiguille Verte. But on the whole this +new world was silent, communing with the heavens. She was in the hushed +company of the mountains. Days there would be when these sunlit ridges +would be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would shriek about +the gullies, and dark mists swirl around the peaks. But on this morning +there was no anger on the heights. + +"Yes--you could have had no better day for your first mountain, +mademoiselle," said Jean, as he stood beside her. "But this is not your +first mountain." + +She turned to him. + +"Yes, it is." + +Her guide bowed to her. + +"Then, mademoiselle, you have great gifts. For you stood upon that +ice-slope and moved along and up it, as only people of experience stand +and move. I noticed you. On the rocks, too, you had the instinct for the +hand-grip and the foothold and with which foot to take the step. And that +instinct, mademoiselle, comes as a rule only with practice." He paused +and looked at her perplexity. + +"Moreover, mademoiselle, you remind me of some one," he added. "I cannot +remember who it is, or why you remind me of him. But you remind me of +some one very much." He picked up the _Ruecksack_ which he had taken from +his shoulders. + +It was half past eleven. Sylvia took a last look over the wide prospect +of jagged ridge, ice pinnacles and rock spires. She looked down once +more upon the slim snow peak of Mont Dolent and the grim wall of rocks +at the Col. + +"I shall never forget this," she said, with shining eyes. "Never." + +The fascination of the mountains was upon her. Something new had come +into her life that morning which would never fail her to the very end, +which would color all her days, however dull, which would give her +memories in which to find solace, longings wherewith to plan the future. +This she felt and some of this her friend understood. + +"Yes," he said. "You understand the difference it makes to one's whole +life. Each year passes so quickly looking back and looking forward." + +"Yes, I understand," she said. + +"You will come back?" + +But this time she did not answer at once. She stood looking thoughtfully +out over the bridge of the Argentiere. It seemed to Chayne that she was +coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her +life. Then she said--and it seemed to him that she had made her decision: + +"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back." + +They turned away and went carefully down the slope. Again her leading +guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that +instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him. The technique +came to her so naturally. She turned her back to the slope, and thus +descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of +her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder. +Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, +he cried out: + +"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you remind me of. I have been +watching you. I know now." + +She looked up. + +"Who is it?" + +"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a whole season many years +ago. A great climber, mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name. +Gabriel Strood." + +"Gabriel Strood!" she cried, and then she laughed. "I too know his name. +You are flattering me, Jean." + +But Jean would not admit it. + +"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. "I do not say you have his +skill--how should you? But there are certain movements, certain neat ways +of putting the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind me of him." + +Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment. They reached the +lateral glacier, descended it and crossed the Glacier d'Argentiere. They +found their stone-encumbered pathway of the morning and at three o'clock +stood once more upon the platform in front of the Pavillon de Lognan. +Then she rested for a while, saying very little. + +"You are tired?" he said. + +"No," she replied. "But this day has made a great difference to me." + +Her guides approached her and she said no more upon the point. But Chayne +had no doubt that she was referring to that decision which she had taken +on the summit of the peak. She stood up to go. + +"You stay here to-night?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?" + +"Yes." + +She looked at him quickly and then away. + +"You will be careful? In the shadow there?" + +"Yes." + +She was silent for a moment or two, looking up the glacier toward the +Aiguille d'Argentiere. + +"I thank you very much for coming with me," and again the humility in +her voice, as of one outside the door, touched and hurt him. "I am +very grateful," and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am +rather proud!" + +"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me," he answered, as they shook +hands. "I shall cross the Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow." + +They shook hands, and he asked: + +"Shall I see no more of you?" + +"That is as you will," she replied, simply. + +"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever you are likely to be. I +am on leave now for some months." + +She thought for a second or two. Then she said: + +"If you will give me your address, I will write to you. I think I shall +be in England." + +"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs." + +She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille +d'Argentiere. + +"I shall dream of that to-night." + +"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden +balustrade. "You will dream of running water." + +She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this +strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine +woods and the village of Les Tines. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER + + +Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in +the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent +amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached +idlers of various nationalities. + +"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over +the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so +appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the +eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her +complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She +came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the +evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the +Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could +hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of +her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days. + +"Sylvia won't fit in." + +Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and +with ever more reason. Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs. +Thesiger's scheme of life. It was not that the girl resisted or +complained. Mrs. Thesiger would have understood objections and +complaints. She would not have minded them; she could have coped with +them. There would have been little scenes, with accusations of +ingratitude, of undutifulness, and Mrs. Thesiger was not averse to the +excitement of little scenes. But Sylvia never complained; she maintained +a reserve, a mystery which her mother found very uncomfortable. "She has +no sympathy," said Mrs. Thesiger. Moreover, she would grow up, and she +would grow up in beauty and in freshness. Mrs. Thesiger did her best. She +kept her dressed in a style which suited a younger girl, or rather, which +would have suited a younger girl had it been less decorative and extreme. +Again Sylvia did not complain. She followed her usual practice and shut +her mind to the things which displeased her so completely, that they +ceased to trouble her. But Mrs. Thesiger never knew that secret; and +often, when in the midst of her chatter she threw a glance at the +elaborate figure of her daughter, sitting apart with her lace skirts too +short, her heels too high, her hat too big and too fancifully trimmed, +she would see her madonna-like face turned toward her, and her dark eyes +thoughtfully dwelling upon her. At such times there would come an +uncomfortable sensation that she was being weighed and found wanting; or +a question would leap in her mind and bring with it fear, and the same +question which she had asked herself in the train on the way to Chamonix. + +"You ask me about my daughter?" she once exclaimed pettishly to +Monsieur Pettigrat. "Upon my word, I really know nothing of her except +one ridiculous thing. She always dreams of running water. Now, I ask +you, what can you do with a daughter so absurd that she dreams of +running water?" + +Monsieur Pettigrat was a big, broad, uncommon man; he knew that he was +uncommon, and dressed accordingly in a cloak and a brigand's hat; he saw +what others did not, and spoke in a manner suitably impressive. + +"I will tell you, madame, about your daughter," he said somberly. "To me +she has a fated look." + +Mrs. Thesiger was a little consoled to think that she had a daughter with +a fated look. + +"I wonder if others have noticed it," she said, cheerfully. + +"No," replied Monsieur Pettigrat. "No others. Only I." + +"There! That's just like Sylvia," cried Mrs. Thesiger, in exasperation. +"She has a fated look and makes nothing of it." + +But the secret of her discontent was just a woman's jealousy of a younger +rival. Men were beginning to turn from her toward her daughter. That +Sylvia never competed only made the sting the sharper. The grave face +with its perfect oval, which smiled so rarely, but in so winning a way, +its delicate color, its freshness, were points which she could not +forgive her daughter. She felt faded and yellow beside her, she rouged +more heavily on account of her, she looked with more apprehension at the +crow's-feet which were beginning to show about the corners of her eyes, +and the lines which were beginning to run from the nostrils to the +corners of her mouth. + +Sylvia reached the hotel in time for dinner, and as she sat with her +mother, drinking her coffee in the garden afterward, Monsieur Pettigrat +planted himself before the little iron table. + +He shook his head, which was what his friends called "leonine." + +"Mademoiselle," he said, in his most impressive voice, "I envy you." + +Sylvia looked up at him with a little smile of mischief upon her lips. + +"And why, monsieur?" + +He waved his arm magnificently. + +"I watched you at dinner. You are of the elect, mademoiselle, for whom +the snow peaks have a message." + +Sylvia's smile faded from her face. + +"Perhaps so, monsieur," she said, gravely, and her mother +interposed testily: + +"A message! Ridiculous! There are only two words in the message, my dear. +Cold-cream! and be sure you put it on your face before you go to bed." + +Sylvia apparently did not hear her mother's comment. At all events she +disregarded it, and Monsieur Pettigrat once again shook his head at +Sylvia with a kindly magnificence. + +"They have no message for me, mademoiselle," he said, with a sigh, as +though he for once regretted that he was so uncommon. "I once went up +there to see." He waved his hand generally to the chain of Mont Blanc and +drifted largely away. + +Mrs. Thesiger, however, was to hear more definitely of that message two +days later. It was after dinner. She was sitting in the garden with her +daughter on a night of moonlight; behind them rose the wall of +mountains, silent and shadowed, in front were the lights of the little +town, and the clatter of its crowded streets. Between the town and the +mountains, at the side of the hotel this garden lay, a garden of grass +and trees, where the moonlight slept in white brilliant pools of light, +or dripped between the leaves of the branches. It partook alike of the +silence of the hills and the noise of the town, for a murmur of voices +was audible from this and that point, and under the shadows of the trees +could be seen the glimmer of light-colored frocks and the glow of cigars +waxing and waning. A waiter came across the garden with some letters for +Mrs. Thesiger. There were none for Sylvia and she was used to none, for +she had no girl friends, and though at times men wrote her letters she +did not answer them. + +A lamp burned near at hand. Mrs. Thesiger opened her letters and read +them. She threw them on to the table when she had read them through. +But there was one which angered her, and replacing it in its envelope, +she tossed it so petulantly aside that it slid off the iron table and +fell at Sylvia's feet. Sylvia stooped and picked it up. It had fallen +face upward. + +"This is from my father." + +Mrs. Thesiger looked up startled. It was the first time that Sylvia had +ever spoken of him to her. A wariness come into her eyes. + +"Well?" she asked. + +"I want to go to him." + +Sylvia spoke very simply and gently, looking straight into her mother's +face with that perplexing steadiness of gaze which told so very little of +what thoughts were busy behind it. Her mother turned her face aside. She +was rather frightened. For a while she made no reply at all, but her face +beneath its paint looked haggard and old in the white light, and she +raised her hand to her heart. When she did speak, her voice shook. + +"You have never seen your father. He has never seen you. He and I parted +before you were born." + +"But he writes to you." + +"Yes, he writes to me," and for all that she tried, she could not +altogether keep a tone of contempt out of her voice. She added with some +cruelty: "But he never mentions you. He has never once inquired after +you, never once." + +Sylvia looked very wistfully at the letter, but her purpose was +not shaken. + +"Mother, I want to go to him," she persisted. Her lips trembled a little, +and with a choke of the voice, a sob half caught back, she added: "I am +most unhappy here." + +The rarity of a complaint from Sylvia moved her mother strangely. There +was a forlornness, moreover, in her appealing attitude. Just for a moment +Mrs. Thesiger began to think of early days of which the memory was at +once a pain and a reproach. A certain little village underneath the great +White Horse on the Dorsetshire Downs rose with a disturbing vividness +before her eyes. She almost heard the mill stream babble by. In that +village of Sutton Poyntz she had herself been born, and to it she had +returned, caught back again for a little while by her own country and her +youth, that Sylvia might be born there too. These months had made a kind +of green oasis in her life. She had rested there in a farm-house, after a +time of much turbulence, with the music of running water night and day in +her ears, a high-walled garden of flowers and grass about her, and the +downs with the shadow-filled hollows, and brown treeless slopes rising up +from her very feet. She could not but think of that short time of peace, +and her voice softened as she answered her daughter. + +"We don't keep step, Sylvia," she said, with an uneasy laugh. "I know +that. But, after all, would you be happier with your father, even if he +wants to keep you! You have all you want here--frocks, amusement, +companions. Try to be more friendly with people." + +But Sylvia merely shook her head. + +"I can't go on any longer like this," she said, slowly. "I can't, mother. +If my father won't have me, I must see what I can do. Of course, I can't +do much. I don't know anything. But I am too unhappy here. I cannot +endure the life we are living without a home or--respect,--" Sylvia had +not meant to use that word. But it had slipped out before she was aware. +She broke off and turned her eyes again to her mother. They were very +bright, for the moonlight glistened upon tears. But the softness had gone +from her mother's face. She had grown in a moment hard, and her voice +rang hard as she asked: + +"Why do you think that your father and I parted? Come, let me hear!" + +Sylvia turned her head away. + +"I don't think about it," she said, gently. "I don't want to think about +it. I just think that he left you, because you did not keep step either." + +"Oh, he left me? Not I him? Then why does he write to me?" + +The voice was growing harder with every word. + +"I suppose because he is kind"; and at that simple explanation Sylvia's +mother laughed with a bitter amusement. Sylvia sat scraping the gravel +with her slipper. + +"Don't do that!" cried her mother, irritably. Then she asked suddenly a +question which startled her daughter. + +"Did you meet any one last night on the mountain, at the inn?" + +Sylvia's face colored, but the moonlight hid the change. + +"Yes," she said. + +"A man?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was it?" + +"A Captain Chayne. He was at the hotel all last week. It was his friend +who was killed on the Glacier des Nantillons." + +"Were you alone at the inn, you and he?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he know your father?" + +Sylvia stared at her mother. + +"I don't know. I suppose not. How should he?" + +"It's not impossible," replied Mrs. Thesiger. Then she leaned on the +table. "It was he who put these ideas into your head about going away, +about leaving me." She made an accusation rather than put a question, and +made it angrily. + +"No, mother," Sylvia replied. "He never spoke of you. The ideas have been +growing in my mind for a long time, and to-day--" She raised her head, +and turning slightly, looked up to where just behind her the ice-peaks of +the Aiguilles du Midi and de Blaitiere soared into the moonlit sky. +"To-day the end came. I became certain that I must go away. I am very +sorry, mother." + +"The message of the mountains!" said her mother with a sneer, and Sylvia +answered quietly: + +"Yes." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Thesiger. She had been deeply stung by her +daughter's words, by her wish to go, and if she delayed her consent, it +was chiefly through a hankering to punish Sylvia. But the thought came to +her that she would punish Sylvia more completely if she let her go. She +smiled cruelly as she looked at the girl's pure and gentle face. And, +after all, she herself would be free--free from Sylvia's unconscious +rivalry, free from the competition of her freshness and her youth, free +from the grave criticism of her eyes. + +"Very well, you shall go to your father. But remember! You have made your +choice. You mustn't come whining back to me, because I won't have you," +she said, brutally. "You shall go to-morrow." + +She took the letter from its envelope but she did not show it to +her daughter. + +"I don't use your father's name," she said. "I have not used it +since"--and again the cruel smile appeared upon her lips--"since he left +me, as you say. He is called Garratt Skinner, and he lives in a little +house in Hobart Place. Yes, you shall start for your home to-morrow." + +Sylvia stood up. + +"Thank you," she said. She looked wistfully at her mother, asking her +pardon with the look. But she did not approach her. She stood sadly in +front of her. Mrs. Thesiger made no advance. + +"Well?" she asked, in her hard, cold voice. + +"Thank you, mother," Sylvia repeated, and she walked slowly to the door +of the hotel. She looked up to the mountains. Needle spires of rock, +glistening pinnacles of ice, they stood dreaming to the moonlight and the +stars. The great step had been taken. She prayed for something of their +calm, something of their proud indifference to storm and sunshine, +solitude and company. She went up to her room and began to pack her +trunks. And as she packed, the tears gathered in her eyes and fell. + +Meanwhile, her mother sat in the garden. So Sylvia wanted a home; she +could not endure the life she lived with her mother. Afar off a band +played; the streets beyond were noisy as a river; beneath the trees of +the garden here people talked quietly. Mrs. Thesiger sat with a little +vindictive smile upon her face. Her rival was going to be punished. Mrs. +Thesiger had left her husband, not he her. She read through the letter +which she had received from him this evening. It was a pressing request +for money. She was not going to send him money. She wondered how he would +appreciate the present of a daughter instead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER + + +Sylvia left Chamonix the next afternoon. It was a Saturday, and she +stepped out of her railway-carriage on to the platform of Victoria +Station at seven o'clock on the Sunday evening. She was tired by her long +journey, and she felt rather lonely as she waited for her trunks to be +passed by the officers of the custom-house. It was her very first visit +to London, and there was not one person to meet her. Other travelers were +being welcomed on all sides by their friends. No one in all London +expected her. She doubted if she had one single acquaintance in the whole +town. Her mother, foreseeing this very moment, had with a subtlety of +malice refrained from so much as sending a telegram to the girl's father; +and Sylvia herself, not knowing him, had kept silence too. Since he did +not expect her, she thought her better plan was to see him, or rather, +since her thoughts were frank, to let him see her. Her mirror had assured +her that her looks would be a better introduction than a telegram. + +She had her boxes placed upon a cab and drove off to Hobart Place. The +sense of loneliness soon left her. She was buoyed up by excitement. The +novelty of the streets amused her. Moreover, she had invented her father, +clothed him with many qualities as with shining raiment, and set him high +among the persons of her dreams. Would he be satisfied with his daughter? +That was her fear, and with the help of the looking-glass at the side of +her hansom, she tried to remove the traces of travel from her young face. + +The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between two houses, and she +got out. Over the wall she saw the green leaves and branches of a few +lime trees which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the garden, +in the far recess between the two side walls, the upper windows of a +little neat white house. Sylvia was charmed with it. She rang the bell, +and a servant came to the door. + +"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia. + +"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but--" + +Sylvia, however, had made her plans. + +"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the cabman, and walked on +through the doorway into a little garden of grass with a few flowers on +each side against the walls. A tiled path led through the middle of the +grass to the glass door of the house. Sylvia walked straight down, +followed by the cabman who brought her boxes in one after the other. The +servant, giving way before the composure of this strange young visitor, +opened the door of a sitting-room upon the left hand, and Sylvia, +followed by her trunks, entered and took possession. + +"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in perplexity. She had had no +orders to expect a visitor. Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she +heard the garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was driven +away. Then, and not till then, she answered the question. + +"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some one would like to see +him." + +The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia seated herself firmly +upon one of the boxes. In spite of her composed manner, her heart was +beating wildly. She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man along +the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After all she was in the house, she +and her baggage. The door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who +seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared at her. Then he +saw her boxes, and he frowned in perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he +was a man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-lined aquiline +face. He had thick, dark brown hair, a mustache of a lighter brown and +eyes of the color of hers--a man rather lean but of an athletic build. +Sylvia watched him intently, but the only look upon his face was one of +absolute astonishment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him, perched +upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his house. + +"You wanted to see me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She looked at him gravely. "I +am Sylvia," she said. + +A smile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about his mouth. + +"And-- + +"Who is Sylvia? What is she? +Her trunks do not proclaim her!" + +he said. "Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to stay, I am rather in +the dark." + +"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?" + +"Yes." + +"I am your daughter Sylvia." + +"My daughter Sylvia!" he exclaimed in a daze. Then he sat down and held +his head between his hands. + +"Yes, by George. I _have_ got a daughter Sylvia," he said, obviously +recollecting the fact with surprise. "But you are at Chamonix." + +"I was at Chamonix yesterday." + +Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia. + +"Did your mother send you to me?" + +"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came of my own accord. A letter +came from you--" + +"Did you see it?" interrupted her father. "Did she show it you?" + +"No, but she gave me your address when I told her that I must come away." + +"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that kindly act," he said, with +a sudden bitterness. Then he looked curiously at his daughter. + +"Why did you want to come away?" + +"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been thinking over this. I hated it +all--the people we met, the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether. +Then at Chamonix I went up a mountain." + +"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you went up a mountain? +Which one?" + +"The Aiguille d'Argentiere. Do you know it, father?" + +"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner. + +"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is difficult to explain. But I +felt the difference. I felt something had happened to me which I had to +recognize--a new thing. Climbing that mountain, staying for an hour upon +its summit in the sunlight with all those great still pinnacles and +ice-slopes about me--it was just like hearing very beautiful music." She +was sitting now leaning forward with her hands clasped in front of her +and speaking with great earnestness. "All the vague longings which had +ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond, came +back upon me in a tumult. There was a place in shadow at my feet far +below, the only place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col +Dolent. It seemed to me that I was living in that cold shadow. I wanted +to get up on the ridge, with the sunlight. So I came to you." + +It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her words were and must +be elusive to another, unless that other had felt what she felt or were +moved by sympathy to feel it. Her father listened without ridicule, +without a smile. Indeed, once or twice he nodded his head to her words. +Was it comprehension, she wondered, or was it only patience? + +"When I came down from that summit, I felt that what I had hated before +was no longer endurable at all. So I came to you." + +Her father got up from his chair and stood for a little while looking out +of the window. He was clearly troubled by her words. He turned away with +a shrug of his shoulders. + +"But--but--what can I do for you here?" he cried. "Sylvia, I am a very +poor man. Your mother, on the other hand, has some money." + +"Oh, father, I shan't cost you much," she replied, eagerly. "I might +perhaps by looking after things save you money. I won't cost you much." + +Garratt Skinner looked at her with a rueful smile. + +"You look to me rather an expensive person to keep up," he said. + +"Mother dressed me like this. It's not my choice," she said. "I let her +do as she wished. It did not seem to matter much. Really, if you will let +me stay, you will find me useful," she said, in a pathetic appeal. + +"Useful?" said Garratt Skinner, suddenly. He again took stock of her, but +now with a scrutiny which caused her a vague discomfort. He seemed to be +appraising her from the color of her hair and eyes to the prettiness of +her feet, almost as though she was for sale, and he a doubtful purchaser. +She looked down on the carpet and slowly her blood colored her neck and +rose into her face. "Useful," he said, slowly. "Perhaps so, yes, perhaps +so." And upon that he changed his tone. "We will see, Sylvia. You must +stay here for the present, at all events. Luckily, there is a spare room. +I have some friends here staying to supper--just a bachelor's friends, +you know, taking pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not +polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl, sound of heart." +All his perplexity had vanished; he had taken his part; and he rattled +along with a friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from Sylvia's +thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare and winning smile. He rang +the bell for the housemaid. + +"My daughter will stay here," he said, to the servant's astonishment. +"Get the spare room ready at once. You will be hostess to-night, Sylvia, +and sit at the head of the table. I become a family man. Well, well!" + +He took Sylvia up-stairs and showed her a little bright room with a big +window which looked out across the garden. He carried her boxes up +himself. "We don't run to a butler," he said. "Got everything you want? +Ring if you haven't. We have supper at eight and we shan't dress. +Only--well, you couldn't look dowdy if you tried." + +Sylvia had not the slightest intention to try. She put on a little frock +of white lace, high at the throat, dressed her hair, and then having a +little time to spare she hurriedly wrote a letter. This letter she gave +to the servant and she ran down-stairs. + +"You will be careful to have it posted, please!" she said, and at that +moment her father came out into the passage, so quickly that he might +have been listening for her approach. + +She stopped upon the staircase, a few steps above him. The evening was +still bright, and the daylight fell upon her from a window above the +hall door. + +"Shall I do?" she asked, with a smile. + +The staircase was paneled with a dark polished wood, and she stood out +from that somber background, a white figure, delicate and dainty and +wholesome, from the silver buckle on her satin slipper to the white +flower she had placed in her hair. Her face, with its remarkable +gentleness, its suggestion of purity as of one unspotted by the world, +was turned to him with a confident appeal. Her clear gray eyes rested +quietly on his. Yet she saw his face change. It seemed that a spasm of +pain or revolt shook him. Upon her face there came a blank look. Why was +he displeased? But the spasm passed. He shrugged his shoulders and threw +off his doubt. + +"You are very pretty," he said. + +Sylvia's smile just showed about the corners of her lips and her +face cleared. + +"Yes," she said, with satisfaction. + +Garratt Skinner laughed. + +"Oh, you know that?" + +"Yes," she replied, nodding her head at him. + +He led the way down the passage toward the back of the house, and +throwing open a door introduced her to his friends. + +"Captain Barstow," he said, and Sylvia found herself shaking hands with a +little middle-aged man with a shiny bald head and a black square beard. +He had an eye-glass screwed into his right eye, and that whole side of +his face was distorted by the contraction of the muscles and drawn upward +toward the eye. He did not look at her directly, but with an oblique and +furtive glance he expressed his sense of the honor which the introduction +conferred on him. However, Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. +She turned to the next of her father's guests. + +"Mr. Archie Parminter." + +He at all events looked her straight in the face. He was a man of +moderate height, youthful in build, but old of face, upon which there sat +always a smirk of satisfaction. He was of those whom no beauty in others, +no grace, no sweetness, could greatly impress, so filled was he with +self-complacency. He had no time to admire, since always he felt that he +was being admired, and to adjust his pose, and to speak so that his +words, carried to the right distance, occupied too much of his attention. +He seldom spoke to the person he talked with but generally to some other, +a woman for choice, whom he believed to be listening to the important +sentences he uttered. For the rest, he had grown heavy in jaw and his +face (a rather flat face in which were set a pair of sharp dark eyes) +narrowed in toward the top of his head like a pear. + +He bowed suavely to Sylvia, with the air of one showing to the room how a +gentleman performed that ceremony, but took little note of her. + +But Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. + +Her father took her by the elbow and turned her about. + +"Mr. Hine." + +Sylvia was confronted with a youth who reddened under her greeting and +awkwardly held out a damp coarse hand, a poor creature with an insipid +face, coarse hair, and manner of great discomfort. He was as tall as +Parminter, but wore his good clothes with Sunday air, and having been +introduced to Sylvia could find no word to say to her. + +"Well, let us go in to supper," said her father, and he held open the +door for her to pass. + +Sylvia went into the dining-room across the narrow hall, where a cold +supper was laid upon a round table. In spite of her resolve to see all +things in a rosy light, she grew conscious, in spite of herself, that she +was disappointed in her father's friends. She was perplexed, too. He was +so clearly head and shoulders above his associates, that she wondered at +their presence in his house. Yet he seemed quite content, and in a most +genial mood. + +"You sit here, Sylvia, my dear," he said, pointing to a chair. +"Wallie"--this to the youth Hine--"sit beside my daughter and keep her +amused. Barstow, you on the other side; Parminter next to me." + +He sat opposite Sylvia and the rest took their places, Hine sidling +timidly into his chair and tortured by the thought that he had to amuse +this delicate being at his side. + +"The supper is on the table," said Garratt Skinner. "Parminter, will you +cut up this duck? Hine, what have you got in front of you? Really, this +is so exceptional an occasion that I think--" he started up suddenly, as +a man will with a new and happy idea--"I certainly think that for once in +a way we might open a bottle of champagne." + +Surprise and applause greeted this brilliant idea, and Hine cried out: + +"I think champagne fine, don't you, Miss Skinner?" + +He collapsed at his own boldness. Parminter shrugged his shoulders to +show that champagne was an every-day affair with him. + +"It's drunk a good deal at the clubs nowadays," he said. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner had not moved. He stood looking across the +table to his daughter. + +"What do you say, Sylvia? It's an extravagance. But I don't have such +luck every day. It's in your honor. Shall we? Yes, then!" + +He did not wait for an answer, but opened the door of a cupboard in the +sideboard, and there, quite ready, stood half a dozen bottles of +champagne. A doubt flashed into Sylvia's mind--a doubt whether her +father's brilliant idea was really the inspiration which his manner had +suggested. Those bottles looked so obviously got in for the occasion. +But Garratt Skinner turned to her apologetically, as though he divined +her thought. + +"We don't run to a wine cellar, Sylvia. We have to keep what little stock +we can afford in here." + +Her doubt vanished, but in an instant it returned again, for as her +father came round the table with the bottle in his hand, she noticed that +shallow champagne glasses were ready laid at every place. Garratt Skinner +filled the glasses and returned to his place. + +"Sylvia," he said, and, smiling, he drank to her. He turned to his +companions. "Congratulate me!" Then he sat down. + +The champagne thawed the tongues of the company, and as they spoke +Sylvia's heart sank more and more. For in word and thought and manner her +father's guests were familiar to her. She refused to acknowledge it, but +the knowledge was forced upon her. She had thought to step out of a world +which she hated, against which her delicacy and her purity revolted, and +lo! she had stepped out merely to take a stride and step down into it +again at another place. + +The obsequious attentiveness of Captain Barstow, the vanity of Mr. +Parminter and his affected voice, suggesting that he came out of the +great world to this little supper party, really without any sense of +condescension at all, and the behavior of Walter Hine, who, to give +himself courage, gulped down his champagne--it was all horribly familiar. +Her one consolation was her father. He sat opposite to her, his strong +aquiline face a fine contrast to the faces of the others; he had an ease +of manner which they did not possess; he talked with a quietude of his +own, and he had a watchful eye and a ready smile for his daughter. +Indeed, it seemed that what she felt his guests felt too. For they spoke +to him with a certain deference, almost as if they spoke to their master. +He alone apparently noticed no unsuitability in his guests. He sat at his +ease, their bosom friend. + +Meanwhile, plied with champagne by Archie Parminter, who sat upon the +other side of him, "Wallie" Hine began to boast. Sylvia tried to check +him, but he was not now to be stopped. His very timidity pricked him on +to extravagance, and his boasting was that worst form of boasting--the +vaunt of the innocent weakling anxious to figure as a conqueror of women. +With a flushed face he dropped his foolish hints of Mrs. This and Lady +That, with an eye upon Sylvia to watch the impression which he made, and +a wise air which said "If only I were to tell you all." + +Garratt Skinner opened a fresh bottle of champagne--the supply by now was +getting low--and came round the table with it. As he held the neck of the +bottle to the brim of Hine's glass he caught an appealing look from his +daughter. At once he lifted the bottle and left the glass unfilled. As he +passed Sylvia, she said in a low voice: + +"Thank you," and he whispered back: + +"You are quite right, my dear. Interest him so that he doesn't notice +that I have left his glass empty." + +Sylvia set herself then to talk to Wallie Hine. But he was intent on +making her understand what great successes had been his. He _would_ talk, +and it troubled her that all listened, and listened with an air of +admiration. Even her father from his side of the table smiled +indulgently. Yet the stories, or rather the hints of stories, were +certainly untrue. For this her wanderings had taught her--the man of many +successes never talks. It seemed that there was a conspiracy to flatter +the wretched youth. + +"Yes, yes. You have been a devil of a fellow among the women, Wallie," +said Captain Barstow. But at once Garratt Skinner interfered and sharply: + +"Come, come, Barstow! That's no language to use before my daughter." + +Captain Barstow presented at the moment a remarkable gradation of color. +On the top was the bald head, very shiny and white, below that a face +now everywhere a deep red except where the swollen veins stood out upon +the surface of his cheeks, and those were purple, and this in its turn +was enclosed by the black square beard. He bowed at once to Garratt +Skinner's rebuke. + +"I apologize. I do indeed, Miss Sylvia! But when I was in the service we +still clung to the traditions of Wellington by--by George. And it's hard +to break oneself of the habit. 'Red-hot,'" he said, with a chuckle. +"That's what they called me in the regiment. Red-hot Barstow. I'll bet +that Red-hot Barstow is still pretty well remembered among the boys at +Cheltenham." + +"Swearing's bad form nowadays," said Archie Parminter, superciliously. +"They have given it up at the clubs." + +Sylvia seized the moment and rose from the table. Her father sprang +forward and opened the door. + +"We will join you in a few minutes," he said. + +Sylvia went down the passage to the room at the back of the house in +which she had been presented by her father to his friends. She rang the +bell at once and when the servant came she said: + +"I gave you a letter to post this evening. I should like to have it +back." + +"I am sorry, miss, but it's posted." + +"I am sorry, too," said Sylvia, quietly. + +The letter had been written to Chayne, and gave him the address of this +house as the place where he might find her if he called. She had no +thought of going away. She had made her choice for good or ill and must +abide by it. That she knew. But she was no longer sure that she wished +Captain Chayne to come and find her there. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS + + +Sylvia sat down in a chair and waited. She waited impatiently, for she +knew that she had almost reached the limits of her self-command, and +needed the presence of others to keep her from breaking down. But her +native courage came to her aid, and in half an hour she heard the steps +of her father and his guests in the passage. She noticed that her father +looked anxiously toward her as he came in. + +"Do you mind if we bring in our cigars?" he asked. + +"Not at all," said she; and he came in, carrying in his hand a box of +cigars, which he placed in the middle of the table. Wallie Hine at +once stumbled across the room to Sylvia; he walked unsteadily, his +features were more flushed than before. She shrank a little from him. +But he had not the time to sit down beside her, for Captain Barstow +exclaimed jovially: + +"I say, Garratt, I have an idea. There are five of us here. Let us have a +little round game of cards." + +Sylvia started. In her heart she knew that just some such proposal as +this she had been dreading all the evening. Her sinking hopes died away +altogether. + +This poor witless youth, plied with champagne; the older men who +flattered him with lies; the suggestion of champagne made as though it +were a sudden inspiration, and the six bottles standing ready in the +cupboard; and now the suggestion of a little round game of cards made in +just the same tone! Sylvia had a feeling of horror. She had kept herself +unspotted from her world, but not through ignorance. She knew it. She +knew those little round games of cards and what came of them, sometimes +merely misery and ruin, sometimes a pistol shot in the early morning. She +turned very pale, but she managed to say: + +"Thank you. I don't play cards." + +And then she heard a sudden movement by her father, who at the moment +when Barstow spoke had been lighting a fresh cigar. She looked up. +Garratt Skinner was staring in astonishment at Captain Barstow. + +"Cards!" he cried. "In my house? On a Sunday evening?" + +With each question his amazement grew, and he ended in a tone of +remonstrance. + +"Come, Barstow, you know me too well to propose that. I am rather hurt. A +friendly talk, and a smoke, yes. Perhaps a small whisky and soda. I don't +say no. But cards on a Sunday evening! No indeed." + +"Oh, I say, Skinner," objected Wallie Hine. "There's no harm in a +little game." + +Garratt Skinner shook his head at Hine in a grave friendly way. + +"Better leave cards alone, Wallie, always. You are young, you know." + +Hine flushed. + +"I am old enough to hold my own against any man," he cried, hotly. He +felt that Garratt Skinner had humiliated him, and before this wonderful +daughter of his in whose good favors Mr. Hine had been making such +inroads during supper. Barstow apologized for his suggestion at once, but +Hine was now quite unwilling that he should withdraw it. + +"There's no harm in it," he cried. "I really think you are too +Puritanical, isn't he, Miss--Miss Sylvia?" + +Hine had been endeavoring to pluck up courage to use her Christian name +all the evening. His pride that he had actually spoken it was so great +that he did not remark at all her little movement of disgust. + +Garratt Skinner seemed to weaken in his resolution. + +"Well, of course, Wallie," he said, "I want you to enjoy yourselves. And +if you especially want it--" + +Did he notice that Sylvia closed her eyes and really shivered? She could +not tell. But he suddenly spoke in a tone of revolt: + +"But card-playing on Sunday. Really no!" + +"It's done nowadays at the West-End Clubs," said Archie Parminter. + +"Oh, is it?" said Garratt Skinner, again grown doubtful. "Is it, +indeed? Well, if they do it in the Clubs--" And then with an +exclamation of relief--"I haven't got a pack of cards in the house. +That settles the point." + +"There's a public house almost next door," replied Barstow. "If you send +out your servant, I am sure she could borrow one." + +"No," said Garratt Skinner, indignantly. "Really, Barstow, your bachelor +habits have had a bad effect on you. I would not think of sending a girl +out to a public house on any consideration. It might be the very first +step downhill for her, and I should be responsible." + +"Oh well, if you are so particular, I'll go myself," cried Barstow, +petulantly. He got up and walked to the door. + +"I don't mind so much if you go yourself. Only please don't say you come +from this house," said Garratt Skinner, and Barstow went out from the +room. He came back in a very short time, and Sylvia noticed at once that +he held two quite new and unopened packs of cards in his hand. + +"A stroke of luck," he cried. "The landlord had a couple of new packs, +for he was expecting to give a little party to-night. But a relation of +his wife died rather suddenly yesterday, and he put his guests off. A +decent-minded fellow, I think. What?" + +"Yes. It's not every one who would have shown so much good feeling," said +Garratt Skinner, seriously. "One likes to know that there are men about +like that. One feels kindlier to the whole world"; and he drew up his +chair to the table. + +Sylvia was puzzled. Was this story of the landlord a glib lie of Captain +Barstow's to account, with a detail which should carry conviction, for +the suspiciously new pack of cards? And if so, did her father believe in +its truth? Had the packs been waiting in Captain Barstow's coat pocket in +the hall until the fitting moment for their appearance? If so, did her +father play a part in the conspiracy? His face gave no sign. She was +terribly troubled. + +"Penny points," said Garratt Skinner. "Nothing more." + +"Oh come, I say," cried Hine, as he pulled out a handful of sovereigns. + +"Nothing more than penny points in my house. Put that money away, Wallie. +We will use counters." + +Garratt Skinner had a box of counters if he had no pack of cards. + +"Penny points, a sixpenny ante and a shilling limit," he said. "Then no +harm will be done to any one. The black counters a shilling, the red +sixpence, and the white ones a penny. You have each a pound's worth," he +said as he dealt them out. + +Sylvia rose from her chair. + +"I think I will go to bed." + +Wallie Hine turned round in his chair, holding his counters in his +hand. "Oh, don't do that, Miss Sylvia. Sit beside me, please, and +bring me luck." + +"You forget, Wallie, that my daughter has just come from a long journey. +No doubt she is tired," said Garratt Skinner, with a friendly reproach in +his voice. He got up and opened the door for his daughter. After she had +passed out he followed her. + +"I shall take a hand for a little while, Sylvia, to see that they keep to +the stakes. I think young Hine wants looking after, don't you? He doesn't +know any geography. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well!" + +He took her by the elbow and drew her toward him. He stooped to her, +meaning to kiss her. Sylvia did not resist, but she drooped her head so +that her forehead, not her lips, was presented to his embrace. And the +kiss was never given. She remained standing, her face lowered from his, +her attitude one of resignation and despondency. She felt her father's +hand shake upon her arm, and looking up saw his eyes fixed upon her in +pity. He dropped her arm quickly, and said in a sharp voice: + +"There! Go to bed, child!" + +He watched her as she went up the stairs. She went up slowly and without +turning round, and she walked like one utterly tired out. Garratt +Skinner waited until he heard her door close. "She should never have +come," he said. "She should never have come." Then he went slowly back +to his friends. + +Sylvia went to bed, but she did not sleep. The excitement which had +buoyed her up had passed; and her hopes had passed with it. She recalled +the high anticipations with which she had set out from Chamonix only +yesterday--yes, only yesterday. And against them in a vivid contrast she +set the actual reality, the supper party, Red-hot Barstow, Archie +Parminter, and the poor witless Wallie Hine, with his twang and his silly +boasts. She began to wonder whether there was any other world than that +which she knew, any other people than those with whom she had lived. Her +father was different--yes, but--but--Her father was too perplexing a +problem to her at this moment. Why had he so clearly pitied her just now +in the passage? Why had he checked himself from the kiss? She was too +tired to reason it out. She was conscious that she was very wretched, and +the tears gathered in her eyes; and in the darkness of her room she cried +silently, pressing the sheet to her lips lest a sob should be heard. Were +all her dreams mere empty imaginings? she asked. If so, why should they +ever have come to her? she inquired piteously; why should she have found +solace in them--why should they have become her real life? Did no one +walk the earth of all that company which went with her in her fancies? + +Upon that her thoughts flew to the Alps, to the evening in the Pavillon +de Lognan, the climb upon the rocks and the glittering ice-slope, the +perfect hour upon the sunlit top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere. The +memory of the mountains brought her consolation in her bad hour, as her +friend had prophesied it would. Her tears ceased to flow, she lived that +day--her one day--over again, jealous of every minute. After all that +had been real, and more perfect than any dream. Moreover, there had been +with her through the day a man honest and loyal as any of her imagined +company. She began to take heart a little; she thought of the Col Dolent +with its broad ribbon of ice set in the sheer black rocks, and always in +shadow. She thought of herself as going up some such hard, cold road in +the shadow, and remembered that on the top of the Col one came out into +sunlight and looked southward into Italy. So comforted a little, she +fell asleep. + +It was some hours before she woke. It was already day, and since she had +raised her blinds before she had got into bed, the light streamed into +the room. She thought for a moment that it was the light which had waked +her. But as she lay she heard a murmur of voices, very low, and a sound +of people moving stealthily. She looked out of the window. The streets +were quite empty and silent. In the houses on the opposite side the +blinds were drawn; a gray clear light was spread over the town; the sun +had not yet risen. She looked at her watch. It was five o'clock. She +listened again, gently opening her door for an inch or so. She heard the +low voices more clearly now. Those who spoke were speaking almost in +whispers. She thought that thieves had broken in. She hurried on a few +clothes, cautiously opened her door wider, slipped through, and crept +with a beating heart down the stairs. + +Half way down the stairs she looked over the rail of the banister, +turning her head toward the back part of the house whence the murmurs +came. At the end of the passage was the little room in which the round +game of cards was played the night before. The door stood open now, and +she looked right into the room. + +And this is what she saw: + +Wallie Hine was sitting at the table. About him the carpet was strewn +with crumpled pieces of paper. There was quite a number of them littered +around his chair. He was writing, or rather, trying to write. For Archie +Parminter leaning over the back of the chair held his hand and guided it. +Captain Barstow stood looking intently on, but of her father there was no +sign. She could not see the whole room, however. A good section of it was +concealed from her. Wallie Hine was leaning forward on the table, with +his head so low and his arms so spread that she could not see in what +book he was writing. But apparently he did not write to the satisfaction +of his companions. In spite of Parminter's care his pen spluttered. +Sylvia saw Archie look at Barstow, and she heard Barstow answer "No, that +won't do." Archie Parminter dropped Hine's hand, tore a slip of paper out +of the book, crumpled it, and threw it down with a gesture of anger on to +the carpet. + +"Try again, old fellow," said Barstow, eagerly, bending down toward Hine +with a horrid smile upon his face, a smile which tried to conceal an +intense exasperation, an intense desire to strike. Again Parminter leaned +over the chair, again he took Wallie Hine's hand and guided the pen, very +carefully lifting it from the paper at the end of an initial or a word, +and spacing the letters. This time he seemed content. + +"That will do, I think," he said, in a whisper. + +Captain Barstow bent down and examined the writing carefully with his +short-sighted eyes. + +"Yes, that's all right." + +Parminter tore the leaf out, but this time he did not crumple it. He +blotted it carefully, folded it, and laid it on the mantle-shelf. + +"Let us get him up," he said, and with Barstow's help they lifted Hine +out of his chair. Sylvia caught a glimpse of his face. His mouth was +loose, his eyes half shut, and the lids red; he seemed to be in a stupor. +His head rolled upon his shoulders. He swayed as his companions held him +up; his knees gave under him. He began incoherently to talk. + +"Hush!" said Parminter. "You'll wake the house. You don't want that +pretty girl to see you in this state, do you, Wallie? After the +impression you made on her, too! Get his hat and coat out of the +passage, Barstow." + +He propped Hine against the table, and holding him upright turned to the +door. He saw "the pretty girl" leaning over the banister and gazing with +horror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back on the instant. +With a gesture of his hand, Archie Parminter stopped Barstow on his way +to the door. + +Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the staircase, holding her +breath, and tightly pressing a hand upon her heart. Had they seen her? +Would they come out into the passage? What would happen? Would they kill +her? The questions raced through her mind. She could not have moved, she +thought, had Death stood over her. But nothing happened. She could not +now see into the room, and she heard no whisper, no footsteps creeping +stealthily along the passage toward her, no sound at all. Presently she +recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once in her room, with great +care she locked the door, and sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling. +There she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very gently +roused her. She crept along the wall till she was by the side of the +window. Then she raised herself against the wall and peered out. She saw +Barstow and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each with an arm +through his. A hansom-cab drove up, they lifted Hine into it, got in +themselves, and drove off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced +up to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind the curtains at +the side. He could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the +panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a +movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound +of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left +behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat +against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his +room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long +while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from +that room, she would just wait until he was asleep, and then she would +go--anywhere. She could not go back to her mother, that she knew. She +had no one to go to; nevertheless, she would go. + +But no sound reached her. Her father was not in the room below. He must +have gone to bed and left the others to themselves. The pigeon had been +plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her father had had no hand +in the plucking. She laid herself down upon her bed, exhausted, and +again sleep came to her. And in a moment the sound of running water was +in her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE + + +Sylvia did not wake again until the maid brought in her tea and told her +that it was eight o'clock. When she went down-stairs, her father was +already in the dining-room. She scanned him closely, but his face bore no +sign whatever of a late and tempestuous night; and a great relief +enheartened her. He met her with an open smile. + +"Did you sleep well, Sylvia?" + +"Not very well, father," she answered, as she watched his face. "I woke +up in the early morning." + +But nothing could have been more easy or natural than his comment on +her words. + +"Yet you look like a good sleeper. A strange house, I suppose, Sylvia." + +"Voices in the strange house," she answered. + +"Voices?" + +Garratt Skinner's face darkened. + +"Did those fellows stay so late?" he asked with annoyance. "What time was +it when they woke you up, Sylvia?" + +"A little before five." + +Garratt Skinner's annoyance increased. + +"That's too bad," he cried. "I left them and went to bed. But they +promised me faithfully only to stay another half-hour. I am very sorry, +Sylvia." And as she poured out the tea, he continued: "I will speak +pretty sharply to Barstow. It's altogether too bad." + +Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the clock, and as soon as the +hands pointed to five minutes to nine, he rose from the table. + +"I must be off--business, my dear." He came round the table to her and +gently laid a hand upon her shoulder. "It makes a great difference, +Sylvia, to have a daughter, fresh and young and pretty, sitting opposite +to me at the breakfast table--a very great difference. I shall cut work +early to-day on account of it; I'll come home and fetch you, and we'll go +out and lunch somewhere together." + +He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and Sylvia, looking up into +his face, was moved by what he said. He smiled down at her, with her own +winning smile; he looked her in the face with her own frankness, her own +good humor. + +"I have been a lonely man for a good many years, Sylvia," he said, "too +lonely. I am glad the years have come to an end"; and this time he did +what yesterday night he had checked himself from doing. He stooped down +and kissed her on the forehead. Then he went from the room, took his hat, +and letting himself out of the house closed the door behind him. He +called a passing cab, and, as he entered it, he said to the driver: + +"Go to the London and County Bank in Victoria Street," and gaily waving +his hand to his daughter, who stood behind the window, he drove off. + +At one o'clock he returned in the same high spirits. Sylvia had spent the +morning in removing the superfluous cherries and roses from her best hat +and making her frock at once more simple and more suitable to her years. +Garratt Skinner surveyed her with pride. + +"Come on," he said. "I have kept the cab waiting." + +For a poor man he seemed to Sylvia rather reckless. They drove to the +Savoy Hotel and lunched together in the open air underneath the glass +roof, with a bank of flowers upon one side of them and the windows of the +grill-room on the other. The day was very hot, the streets baked in an +arid glare of sunlight; a dry dust from the wood pavement powdered those +who passed by in the Strand. Here, however, in this cool and shaded place +the pair lunched happily together. Garratt Skinner had the tact not to +ask any questions of his daughter about her mother, or how they had fared +together. He talked easily of unimportant things, and pointed out from +time to time some person of note or some fashionable actress who happened +to pass in or out of the hotel. He could be good company when he chose, +and he chose on this morning. It was not until coffee was set before +them, and he had lighted a cigar, that he touched upon themselves, and +then not with any paternal tone, but rather as one comrade conferring +with another. There, indeed, was his great advantage with Sylvia. Her +mother had either disregarded her or treated her as a child. She could +not but be won by a father who laid bare his plans to her and asked for +her criticism as well as her assent. Her suspicions of yesterday died +away, or, at all events, slept so soundly that they could not have +troubled her less had they been dead. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I think London in August, and in such an August, is +too hot. I don't want to see you grow pale, and for myself I haven't had +a holiday for a long time. You see there is not much temptation for a +lonely man to go away by himself." + +For the second time that day he appealed to her on the ground of his +loneliness; and not in vain. She began even to feel remorseful that she +had left him to his loneliness so long. There rose up within her an +almost maternal feeling of pity for her father. She did not stop to think +that he had never sent for her; had never indeed shown a particle of +interest in her until they had met face to face. + +"But since you are here," he continued, "well--I have been doing fairly +well in my business lately, and I thought we might take a little holiday +together, at some quiet village by the sea. You know nothing of England. +I have been thinking it all out this morning. There is no country more +beautiful or more typical than Dorsetshire. Besides, you were born there. +What do you say to three weeks or so in Dorsetshire? We will stay at an +hotel in Weymouth for a few days and look about for a house." + +"Father!" exclaimed Sylvia, leaning forward with shining eyes. "It will +be splendid. Just you and I!" + +"Well, not quite," he answered, slowly; and as he saw his daughter sink +back with a pucker of disappointment on her forehead, he knocked the ash +off his cigar and in his turn leaned forward over the table. + +"Sylvia, I want to talk to you seriously," he said, and glanced around to +make sure that no one overheard him. "I should very much like one person +to come and stay with us." + +Sylvia made no answer. Her face was grave and very still, her eyes dwelt +quietly upon him and betrayed nothing of what she thought. + +"You have guessed who the one person is?" + +Again Sylvia did not answer. + +"Yes. It is Wallie Hine," he continued. + +Her suspicions were stirring again from their sleep. She waited in fear +upon his words. She looked out, through the opening at the mouth of the +court into the glare of the Strand. The bright prospect which her vivid +fancies had pictured there a minute since, transforming the dusky street +into fields of corn and purple heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn +by teams of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark. A real +horror was gripping her. But she turned her eyes quietly back upon her +father's face and waited. + +"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Garratt Skinner continued +with an easy assurance. "You saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last +night--a weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward, with graces +of neither mind nor body, and in the hands of two scoundrels." + +Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain +to see in her dark eyes. + +"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia. He has come into a little money, and he +is in the hands of two scoundrels who are leading him by the nose. My +poor girl," he cried, suddenly breaking off, "you must have found +yourself in very strange and disappointing company last night. I was very +sorry for you, and sorry for myself, too. All the evening I was saying to +myself, 'I wonder what my little girl is thinking of me.' But I couldn't +help it. I had not the time to explain. I had to sit quiet, knowing that +you must be unhappy, certain that you must be despising me for the +company I kept." + +Sylvia blushed guiltily. + +"Despising you? No, father," she said, in a voice of apology. "I saw how +much above the rest you were." + +"Blaming me, then," interrupted Garratt Skinner, with an easy smile. He +was not at all offended. "Let us say blaming me. And it was quite natural +that you should, judging by the surface. And there was nothing but the +surface for you to judge by." + +While in this way defending Sylvia against her own self-reproach, he only +succeeded in making her feel still more that she had judged hastily where +she should have held all judgment in abeyance, that she had lacked faith +where by right she should have shown most faith. But he wished to spare +her from confusion. + +"I was so proud of you that I could not but suffer all the more. However, +don't let us talk of it, my dear"; and waving with a gesture of the hand +that little misunderstanding away forever, he resumed: + +"Well, I am rather fond of Wallie Hine. I don't know why, perhaps because +he is so helpless, because he so much stands in need of a steady mentor +at his elbow. There is, after all, no accounting for one's likings. Logic +and reason have little to do with them. As a woman you know that. And +being rather fond of Wallie Hine, I have tried to do my best for him. It +would not have been of any use to shut my door on Barstow and Archie +Parminter. They have much too firm a hold on the poor youth. I should +have been shutting it on Wallie Hine, too. No, the only plan was to +welcome them all, to play Parminter's game of showing the youth about +town, and Barstow's game of crude flattery, and gradually, if possible, +to dissociate him from his companions, before they had fleeced him +altogether. So you were let in, my dear, for that unfortunate evening. Of +course I was quite sure that you would not attribute to me designs upon +Wallie Hine, otherwise I should have turned them all out at once." + +He spoke with a laugh, putting aside, as it were, a quite incredible +suggestion. But he looked at her sharply as he laughed. Sylvia's face +grew crimson, her eyes for once wavered from his face, and she lowered +her head. Garratt Skinner, however, seemed not to notice her confusion. + +"You remember," he continued, "that I tried to stop them playing cards at +the beginning. I yielded in the end, because it became perfectly clear +that if I didn't they would go away and play elsewhere, while I at all +events could keep the points down in my own house. I ought to have stayed +up, I suppose, until they went away. I blame myself there a little. But I +had no idea they would stay so late. Are you sure it was their voices you +heard and not the servants moving?" + +He asked the question almost carelessly, but his eyes rather belied his +tone, for they watched her intently. + +"Quite sure," she answered. + +"You might have made a mistake." + +"No; for I saw them." + +Garratt Skinner covered his mouth with his hand. It seemed to Sylvia that +he smiled. A suspicion flashed across her mind, in spite of herself. Was +he merely testing her to see whether she would speak the truth or not? +Did he know that she had come down the stairs in the early morning? She +thrust the suspicion aside, remembering the self-reproach which suspicion +had already caused her at this very luncheon table. If it were true that +her father knew, why then Barstow or Parminter must have told him this +very morning. And if he had seen either of them this morning, all his +talk to her in this cool and quiet place was a carefully prepared +hypocrisy. No, she would not believe that. + +"You saw them?" he exclaimed. "Tell me how." + +She told him the whole story, how she had come down the staircase, +what she had seen, as she leaned over the balustrade, and how +Parminter had turned. + +"Do you think he saw you?" asked her father. + +Sylvia looked at him closely. But he seemed really anxious to know. + +"I think he saw something," she answered. "Whether he knew that it was I +whom he saw, I can't tell." + +Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his cigar in short, +angry puffs. + +"I wouldn't have had that happen for worlds," he said, with a frown. "I +have no doubt whatever that the slips of paper on which poor Hine was +trying to write were I.O.U's. Heaven knows what he lost last night." + +"I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost L480 last night." + +"Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much violence that the +people lunching at the tables near-by looked up at the couple with +surprise. "Oh, no! I'll not believe it, Sylvia." And as he lowered his +voice, he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back upon her words, +so distressed was he at the thought that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed +out of so much money at his house. + +"Four hundred and eighty pounds," Sylvia repeated. + +Garratt Skinner caught at a comforting thought. + +"Well, it's only in I.O.U's. That's one thing. I can stop the redemption +of them. You see, he has been robbed--that's the plain English of +it--robbed." + +"Mr. Hine was not writing an I.O.U. He was writing a check, and Mr. +Parminter was guiding his hand as he wrote the signature." + +Garratt Skinner fell back in his chair. He looked about him with a dazed +air, as though he expected the world falling to pieces around him. + +"Why, that's next door to forgery!" he whispered, in a voice of horror. +"Guiding the hand of a man too drunk to write! I knew Archie Parminter +was pretty bad, but I never thought that he would sink to that. I am not +sure that he could not be laid by the heels for forgery." And then he +recovered a little from the shock. "But you can't be sure, Sylvia! This +is guesswork of yours--yes, guesswork." + +"It's not," she answered. "I told you that the floor was littered with +slips of the paper on which Mr. Hine had been trying to write." + +"Yes." + +There came an indefinable change in Garratt Skinner's face. He leaned +forward with his mouth sternly set and his eyes very still. One might +almost have believed that for the first time during that luncheon he was +really anxious, really troubled. + +"Well, this morning the carpet had been swept. The litter had gone. But +just underneath the hearth-rug one of those crumpled slips of paper lay +not quite hidden. I picked it up. It was a check." + +"Have you got it? Sylvia, have you got it?" and Garratt Skinner's voice +in steady quietude matched his face. + +"Yes." + +Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her wrist and took out +the slip of paper. She unfolded it and spread it on the table before her. +The inside was pink. + +"A check for L480 on the London and County Bank, Victoria Street," she +said. + +Garrett Skinner looked over the table at the paper. There was Wallie +Hine's wavering, unfinished signature at the bottom right-hand corner. +Parminter had guided his hand as far as the end of the Christian name, +before he tore the check out and threw it away. The amount of the body of +the check had been filled in in Barstow's hand. + +"You had better give it to me, Sylvia," he said, his fingers moving +restlessly on the table-cloth. "That check would be a very dangerous +thing if Parminter ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me." + +He leaned over and took it gently from before her, and put it carefully +away in his pocket. + +"Now, you see, there's more reason ever why we should get Wallie Hine +away from those two men. He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the +country may set his thoughts in a different grove. Will you make this +sacrifice, Sylvia? Will you let me ask him? It will be a good action. You +see he doesn't know any geography." + +"Very well; ask him, father." + +Garrett Skinner reached over the table and patted her hand. + +"Thank you, my dear! Then that's settled. I propose that you and I go +down this afternoon. Can you manage it? We might catch the four o'clock +train from Waterloo if you go home now, pack up your traps and tell the +housemaid to pack mine. I will just wind up my business and come home in +time to pick you and the luggage up." + +He rose from the table, and calling a hansom, put Sylvia into it. He +watched the cab drive out into the Strand and turn the corner. Then he +went back to the table and asked for his bill. While he waited for it, he +lit a match and drawing from his pocket the crumpled check, he set fire +to it. He held it by the corner until the flame burnt his fingers. Then +he dropped it in his plate and pounded it into ashes with a fork. + +"That was a bad break," he said to himself. "Left carelessly under the +edge of the hearth-rug. A very bad break." + +He paid his bill, and taking his hat, sauntered out into the Strand. The +carelessness which had left the check underneath the hearth-rug was not, +however, the only bad break made in connection with this affair. At a +certain moment during luncheon Garratt Skinner had unwisely smiled and +had not quite concealed the smile with his hand. Against her every wish, +that smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she drove home. +She tried to interpret it in every pleasant sense, but it kept its true +character in her thoughts, try as she might. It remained vividly a very +hateful thing--the smile of the man who had gulled her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER + + +A week later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and her father drove +northward out of Weymouth between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was +silent and looked about her with expectant eyes. + +"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her father had said to her. "I have secured +for our summer holiday the very house in which you were born. It cost me +some trouble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I had an +idea that you would be pleased. However, you are not to see it until it +is quite ready." + +There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought which greatly +appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it with a smile of tenderness. +Affection, surely, could alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very +gratefully. They were now upon their way to take possession. A little +white house set back under a hill and looking out across the bay from a +thick cluster of trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she +wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed the white house, and half +a mile further on turned again eastward along the road to Wareham, +following the valley, which runs parallel to the sea. They ascended the +long steep hill which climbs to Osmington, until upon their left hand a +narrow road branched off between hawthorn hedges to the downs. The road +dipped to a little hollow and in the hollow a little village nestled. A +row of deep-thatched white cottages with leaded window-panes opened on to +a causeway of stone flags which was bordered with purple phlox and raised +above the level of the road. Farther on, the roof of a mill rose high +among trees, and an open space showed to Sylvia the black massive wheel +against the yellow wall. And then the carriage stopped at a house on the +left-hand side, and Garratt Skinner got out. + +"Here we are," he said. + +It was a small square house of the Georgian days, built of old brick, +duskily red. You entered it at the side and the big level windows of the +living rooms looked out upon a wide and high-walled garden whence a +little door under a brick archway in the wall gave a second entrance on +to the road. Into this garden Sylvia wandered. If she had met with but +few people who matched the delicate company of her dreams, here, at all +events, was a mansion where that company might have fitly gathered. Great +elms and beeches bent under their load of leaves to the lawn; about the +lawn, flowers made a wealth of color, and away to the right of the house +twisted stems and branches, where the green of the apples was turning to +red, stood evenly spaced in a great orchard. And the mill stream +tunneling under the road and the wall ran swiftly between green banks +through the garden and the orchard, singing as it ran. There lingered, +she thought, an ancient grace about this old garden, some flavor of +forgotten days, as in a room scented with potpourri; and she walked the +lawn in a great contentment. + +The house within charmed her no less. It was a place of many corners and +quaint nooks, and of a flooring so unlevel that she could hardly pass +from one room to another without taking a step up or a step down. Sylvia +went about the house quietly and with a certain thoughtfulness. Here she +had been born and a mystery of her life was becoming clear to her. On +this summer evening the windows were set wide in every room, and thus in +every room, as she passed up and down, she heard the liquid music of +running water, here faint, like a whispered melody, there pleasant, like +laughter, but nowhere very loud, and everywhere quite audible. In one of +these rooms she had been born. In one of these rooms her mother had slept +at nights during the weeks before she was born, with that music in her +ears at the moment of sleep and at the moment of her waking. Sylvia +understood now why she had always dreamed of running water. She wondered +in which room she had been born. She tried to remember some corner of the +house, some nook in its high-walled garden; and that she could not awoke +in her a strange and almost eery feeling. She had come back to a house in +which she had lived, to a scene on which her eyes had looked, to sounds +which had murmured in her ears, and everything was as utterly new to her +and unimagined as though now for the first time she had crossed the +threshold. Yet these very surroundings to which her memory bore no +testimony had assuredly modified her life, had given to her a particular +possession, this dream of running water, and had made it a veritable +element of her nature. She could not but reflect upon this new knowledge, +and as she walked the garden in the darkness of the evening, she built +upon it, as will be seen. + +As she stepped back over the threshold into the library where her father +sat, she saw that he was holding a telegram in his hand. + +"Wallie Hine comes to-morrow, my dear," he said. + +Sylvia looked at her father wistfully. + +"It is a pity," she said, "a great pity. It would have been pleasant if +we could have been alone." + +The warmth of her gladness had gone from her; she walked once more in +shadows; there was in her voice a piteous appeal for affection, for love, +of which she had had too little in her life and for which she greatly +craved. She stood by the door, her lips trembling and her dark eyes for a +wonder glistening with tears. She had always, even to those who knew her +to be a woman, something of the child in her appearance, which made a +plea from her lips most difficult to refuse. Now she seemed a child on +whom the world pressed heavily before her time for suffering had come; +she had so motherless a look. Even Garratt Skinner moved uncomfortably in +his chair; even that iron man was stirred. + +"I, too, am sorry, Sylvia," he said, gently; "but we will make the best +of it. Between us"--and he laughed gaily, setting aside from him his +momentary compassion--"we will teach poor Wallie Hine a little geography, +won't we?" + +Sylvia had no smile ready for a reply. But she bowed her head, and into +her face and her very attitude there came an expression of patience. She +turned and opened the door, and as she opened it, and stood with her back +toward her father, she said in a quiet and clear voice, "Very well," and +so passed up the stairs to her room. + +It might, after all, merely be kindness in her father which had led him +to insist on Wallie Hine's visit. So she argued, and the more +persistently because she felt that the argument was thin. He could be +kind. He had been thoughtful for her during the past week in the small +attentions which appeal so much to women. Because he saw that she loved +flowers, he had engaged a new gardener for their stay; and he had shown, +in one particular instance, a quite surprising thoughtfulness for a class +of unhappy men with whom he could have had no concern, the convicts in +Portland prison. That instance remained for a long time vividly in her +mind, and at a later time she spoke of it with consequences of a +far-reaching kind. She thought then, as she thought now, only of the +kindness of her father's action, and for the first week of Hine's visit +that thought remained with her. She was on the alert, but nothing +occurred to arouse in her a suspicion. There were no cards, little wine +was drunk, and early hours were kept by the whole household. Indeed, +Garratt Skinner left entirely to his daughter the task of entertaining +his guest; and although once he led them both over the great down to +Dorchester and back, at a pace which tired his companions out, he +preferred, for the most part, to smoke his pipe in a hammock in the +garden with a novel at his side. The morning after that one expedition, +he limped out into the garden, rubbing the muscles of his thigh. + +"You must look after Wallie, my dear," he said. "Age is beginning to find +me out. And after all, he will learn more of the tact and manners which +he wants from you than from a rough man like me," and it did not occur to +Sylvia, who was of a natural modesty of thought, that he had any other +intention of throwing them thus together than to rid himself of a guest +with whom he had little in common. + +But a week later she changed her mind. She was driving Walter Hine +one morning into Weymouth, and as the dog-cart turned into the road +beside the bay, and she saw suddenly before her the sea sparkling in +the sunlight, the dark battle-ships at their firing practice, and +over against her, through a shimmering haze of heat, the crouching +mass of Portland, she drew in a breath of pleasure. It seemed to her +that her companion gave the same sign of enjoyment, and she turned to +him with some surprise. But Walter Hine was looking to the wide +beach, so black with holiday makers that it seemed at that distance a +great and busy ant-heap. + +"That's what I like," he said, with a chuckle of anticipation. "Lot's o' +people. I've knocked about too long in the thick o' things, you see, Miss +Sylvia, kept it up--I have--seen it right through every night till three +o'clock in the morning, for months at a time. Oh, that's the real thing!" +he broke off. "It makes you feel good." + +Sylvia laughed. + +"Then if you dislike the country," she said, and perhaps rather eagerly, +"why did you come to stay with us at all?" + +And suddenly Hine leered at her. + +"Oh, you know!" he said, and almost he nudged her with his elbow. "I +wouldn't have come, of course, if old Garratt hadn't particularly told +me that you were agreeable." Sylvia grew hot with shame. She drew +away, flicked the horse with her whip and drove on. Had she been used, +she wondered, to lure this poor helpless youth to the sequestered +village where they stayed?--and a chill struck through her even on +that day of July. The plot had been carefully laid if that were so; +she was to be hoodwinked no less than Wallie Hine. What sinister thing +was then intended? + +She tried to shake off the dread which encompassed her, pleading to +herself that she saw perils in shadows like the merest child. But +she had not yet shaken it off when Walter Hine cried out excitedly +to her to stop. + +"Look!" he said, and he pointed toward an hotel upon the sea-front which +at that moment they were passing. + +Sylvia looked, and saw obsequiously smirking upon the steps of the hotel, +with his hat lifted from his shiny head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. +Fortunately she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just acknowledging +his salute. It needed but this meeting to confirm her fears. It was not +coincidence which had brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth. +He had come with knowledge and a definite purpose. + +"Oh, I say," protested Wallie Hine, "you might have stopped, Miss Sylvia, +and let me pass the time of day with old Barstow." + +Sylvia stopped the trap at once. + +"I am sorry," she said. "You will find your own way home. We lunch at +half past one." + +Hine looked doubtfully at her and then back toward the hotel. + +"I didn't mean that I wanted to leave you, Miss Sylvia," he said. "Not by +a long chalk." + +"But you must leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, looking at him with serious +eyes, "if you want to pass the time of day with your 'red-hot' friend." + +There was no hint of a smile about her lips. She waited for his answer. +It came accompanied with a smile which aimed at gallantry and was +merely familiar. + +"Of course I stay where I am. What do _you_ think?" + +Sylvia hurried over her shopping and drove homeward. She went at once to +her father, who lay in the hammock in the shade of the trees, reading a +book. She came up from behind him across the grass, and he was not aware +of her approach until she spoke. + +"Father!" she said, and he started up. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he said, and just for a second there was a palpable +uneasiness in his manner. He had not merely started. He seemed also to +her to have been startled. But he recovered his composure. + +"You see, my dear, I have been thinking of you," he said, and he pointed +to a man at work among the flower-beds. "I saw how you loved flowers, +how you liked to have the rooms bright with them. So I hired a new +gardener as a help. It is a great extravagance, Sylvia, but you are to +blame, not I." + +He smiled, confident of her gratitude, and had it been but yesterday he +would have had it offered to him in full measure. To-day, however, all +her thoughts were poisoned by suspicion. She knew it and was distressed. +She knew how much happiness so simple a forethought would naturally have +brought to her. She did not indeed suspect any new peril in her father's +action. She barely looked toward the new gardener, and certainly +neglected to note whether he worked skilfully or no. But the fears of the +morning modified her thanks. Moreover the momentary uneasiness of her +father had not escaped her notice and she was wondering upon its cause. + +"Father," she resumed, "I saw Captain Barstow in Weymouth this morning." + +Though her eyes were on his face, and perhaps because her eyes were +resting there with so quiet a watchfulness, she could detect no +self-betrayal now. Garratt Skinner stared at her in pure astonishment. +Then the astonishment gave place to annoyance. + +"Barstow!" he said angrily. He lay back in the hammock, looking up to the +boughs overhead, his face wrinkled and perplexed. "He has found us out +and followed us, Sylvia. I would not have had it happen for worlds. Did +he see you?" + +"Yes." + +"And I thought that here, at all events, we were safe from him. I wonder +how he found us out! Bribed the caretaker in Hobart Place, I suppose." + +Sylvia did not accept this suggestion. She sat down upon a chair in a +disconcerting silence, and waited. Garratt Skinner crossed his arms +behind his head and deliberated. + +"Barstow's a deep fellow, Sylvia," he said. "I am afraid of him." + +He was looking up to the boughs overhead, but he suddenly glanced toward +her and then quietly removed one of his hands and slipped it down to the +book which was lying on his lap. Sylvia took quiet note of the movement. +The book had been lying shut upon his lap, with its back toward her. +Garratt Skinner did not alter its position; but she saw that his hand now +hid from her the title on the back. It was a big, and had the appearance +of an expensive, book. She noticed the binding--green cloth boards and +gold lettering on the back. She was not familiar with the look of it, and +it seemed to her that she might as well know--and as quickly as +possible--what the book was and the subject with which it dealt. + +Meanwhile Garratt Skinner repeated: + +"A deep fellow--Captain Barstow," and anxiously Garratt Skinner debated +how to cope with that deep fellow. He came at last to his conclusion. + +"We can't shut our doors to him, Sylvia." + +Even though she had half expected just that answer, Sylvia flinched as +she heard it uttered. + +"I understand your feelings, my dear," he continued in tones of +commiseration, "for they are mine. But we must fight the Barstows with +the Barstows' weapons. It would never do for us to close our doors. He +has far too tight a hold of Wallie Hine as yet. He has only to drop a +hint to Wallie that we are trying to separate him from his true friends +and keep him to ourselves--and just think, my dear, what a horrible set +of motives a mean-minded creature like Barstow could impute to us! Let us +be candid, you and I," cried Garratt Skinner, starting up, as though +carried away by candor. "Here am I, a poor man--here are you, my +daughter, a girl with the charm and the beauty of the spring, and here's +Wallie Hine, rich, weak, and susceptible. Oh, there's a story for a +Barstow to embroider! But, Sylvia, he shall not so much as hint at the +story. For your sake, my dear, for your sake," cried Garratt Skinner, +with all the emphasis of a loving father. He wiped his forehead with his +handkerchief. + +"I was carried away by my argument," he went on in a calmer voice. Sylvia +for her part had not been carried away at all, and no doubt her watchful +composure helped him to subdue as ineffective the ardor of his tones. +"Barstow has only to drop this hint to Wallie Hine, and Wallie will be +off like a rabbit at the sound of a gun. And there's our chance gone of +helping him to a better life. No, we must welcome Barstow, if he comes +here. Yes, actually welcome him, however repugnant it may be to our +feelings. That's what we must do, Sylvia. He must have no suspicion that +we are working against him. We must lull him to sleep. That is our only +way to keep Wallie Hine with us. So that, Sylvia, must be our plan of +campaign." + +The luncheon bell rang as he ended his oration. He got out of the hammock +quickly, as if to prevent discussion of his plan; and the book which he +was carrying caught in the netting of the hammock and fell to the ground. +Sylvia could read the title now. She did read it, hastily, as Garratt +Skinner stooped to pick it up. It was entitled "The Alps in 1864." + +She knew the book by repute and was surprised to find it in her father's +hands. She was surprised still more that he should have been at so much +pains to conceal the title from her notice. After all, what could it +matter? she wondered. + +Sylvia lay deep in misery that night. Her father had failed her utterly. +All the high hopes with which she had set out from Chamonix had fallen, +all the rare qualities with which her dreams had clothed him as in +shining raiment must now be stripped from him. She was not deceived. +Parminter, Barstow, Garratt Skinner--there was one "deep fellow" in that +trio, but it was neither Barstow nor Parminter. It was her father. She +had but to set the three faces side by side in her thoughts, to remember +the differences of manner, mind and character. Garratt Skinner was the +master in the conspiracy, the other two his mere servants. It was he who +to some dark end had brought Barstow down from London. He loomed up in +her thoughts as a relentless and sinister figure, unswayed by affection, +yet with the power to counterfeit it, long-sighted for evil, sparing no +one--not even his daughter. She recalled their first meeting in the +little house in Hobart Place, she remembered the thoughtful voice with +which, as he had looked her over, he had agreed that she might be +"useful." She thought of his caresses, his smile of affection, his +comradeship, and she shuddered. Walter Hine's words had informed her +to-day to what use her father had designed her. She was his decoy. + +She lay upon her bed with her hands clenched, repeating the word in +horror. His decoy! The moonlight poured through the open window, the +music of the stream filled the room. She was in the house in which she +had been born, a place mystically sacred to her thoughts; and she had +come to it to learn that she was her father's decoy in a vulgar +conspiracy to strip a weakling of his money. The stream sang beneath her +windows, the very stream of which the echo had ever been rippling through +her dreams. Always she had thought that it must have some particular +meaning for her which would be revealed in due time. She dwelt bitterly +upon her folly. There was no meaning in its light laughter. + +In a while she was aware of a change. There came a grayness in the room. +The moonlight had lost its white brilliance, the night was waning. Sylvia +rose from her bed, and slowly like one very tired she began to gather +together and pack into a bag such few clothes as she could carry. She had +made up her mind to go, and to go silently before the house waked. +Whither she was to go, and what she was to do once she had gone, she +could not think. She asked herself the questions in vain, feeling very +lonely and very helpless as she moved softly about the room by the light +of her candle. Her friend might write to her and she would not receive +his letter. Still she must go. Once or twice she stopped her work, and +crouching down upon the bed allowed her tears to have their way. When she +had finished her preparations she blew out her candle, and leaning upon +the sill of the open window, gave her face to the cool night air. + +There was a break in the eastern sky; already here and there a blackbird +sang in the garden boughs, and the freshness, the quietude, swept her +thoughts back to the Chalet de Lognan. With a great yearning she recalled +that evening and the story of the great friendship so quietly related to +her in the darkness, beneath the stars. The world and the people of her +dreams existed; only there was no door of entrance into that world for +her. Below her the stream sang, even as the glacier stream had sung, +though without its deep note of thunder. As she listened to it, certain +words spoken upon that evening came back to her mind and gradually began +to take on a particular application. + +"What you know, that you must do, if by doing it you can save a life or +save a soul." + +That was the law. "If you can save a life or save a soul." And she _did_ +know. Sylvia raised herself from the window and stood in thought. + +Garratt Skinner had made a great mistake that day. He had been misled by +the gentleness of her ways, the sweet aspect of her face, and by a look +of aloofness in her eyes, as though she lived in dreams. He had seen +surely that she was innocent, and since he believed that knowledge must +needs corrupt, he thought her ignorant as well. But she was not ignorant. +She had detected his trickeries. She knew of the conspiracy, she knew of +the place she filled in it herself; and furthermore she knew that as a +decoy she had been doing her work. Only yesterday, Walter Hine had been +forced to choose between Barstow and herself and he had let Barstow go. +It was a small matter, no doubt. Still there was promise in it. What if +she stayed, strengthened her hold on Walter Hine and grappled with the +three who were ranged against him? + +Walter Hine was, of course, and could be, nothing to her. He was the mere +puppet, the opportunity of obedience to the law. It was of the law that +she was thinking--and of the voice of the man who had uttered it. She +knew--by using her knowledge, she could save a soul. She did not think at +this time that she might be saving a life too. + +Quietly she undressed and slipped into her bed. She was comforted. A +smile had come upon her lips. She saw the face of her friend in the +darkness, very near to her. She needed sleep to equip herself for the +fight, and while thinking so she slept. The moonlight faded altogether, +and left the room dark. Beneath the window the stream went singing +through the lawn. After all, its message had been revealed to her in its +due season. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAYNE RETURNS + + +"Hullo," cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered round the library after +luncheon. "Here's a scatter-gun." + +He took the gun from a corner where it stood against the wall, opened the +breech, shut it again, and turning to the open window lifted the stock to +his shoulder. + +"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays," he said, taking careful +aim at a tulip in the garden. "Any cartridges, Skinner?" + +"I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied, testily. The +newspapers had only this moment been brought into the room, and he did +not wish to be disturbed. Sylvia had never noticed that double-barreled +gun before; and she wondered whether it had been brought into the room +that morning. She watched Captain Barstow bustle into the hall and back +again. Finally he pounced upon an oblong card-box which lay on the top of +a low book-case. He removed the lid and pulled out a cartridge. + +"Hullo!" said he. "No. 6. The very thing! I am going to take a pot at the +starlings, Skinner. There are too many of them about for your +fruit-trees." + +"Very well," said Garratt Skinner, lazily lifting his eyes from his +newspaper and looking out across the lawn. "Only take care you don't wing +my new gardener." + +"No fear of that," said Barstow, and filling his pockets with cartridges +he took the gun in his hand and skipped out into the garden. In a moment +a shot was heard, and Walter Hine rose from his chair and walked to the +window. A second shot followed. + +"Old Barstow can't shoot for nuts," said Hine, with a chuckle, and in his +turn he stepped out into the garden. Sylvia made no attempt to hinder +him, but she took his place at the window ready to intervene. A flight of +starlings passed straight and swift over Barstow's head. He fired both +barrels and not one of the birds fell. Hine spoke to him, and the gun at +once changed hands. At the next flight Hine fired and one of the birds +dropped. Barstow's voice was raised in jovial applause. + +"That was a good egg, Wallie. A very good egg. Let me try now!" and so +alternately they shot as the birds darted overhead across the lawn. +Sylvia waited for the moment when Barstow's aim would suddenly develop a +deadly precision, but that moment did not come. If there was any betting +upon this match, Hine would not be the loser. She went quietly back to a +writing-desk and wrote her letters. She had no wish to rouse in her +father's mind a suspicion that she had guessed his design and was +setting herself to thwart it. She must work secretly, more secretly than +he did himself. Meanwhile the firing continued in the garden; and +unobserved by Sylvia, Garratt Skinner began to take in it a stealthy +interest. His chair was so placed that, without stirring, he could look +into the garden and at the same time keep an eye on Sylvia; if she moved +an elbow or raised her head, Garratt Skinner was at once reading his +paper with every appearance of concentration. On the other hand, her +back was turned toward him, so that she saw neither his keen gaze into +the garden nor the good-tempered smile of amusement with which he turned +his eyes upon his daughter. + +In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no more. Sylvia had, in +fact, almost come to the end of her letters, when Garratt Skinner +suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. At the noise, abrupt as a +startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round. She saw that her father was +gazing with a look of perplexity into the garden, and that for the moment +he had forgotten her presence. She crossed the room quickly and +noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow, saw what he saw. The +blood flushed her throat and mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened, +and a smile of welcome transfigured her grave face. Her friend Hilary +Chayne was standing under the archway of the garden door. He had closed +the door behind him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not +looking toward the house. His attention was riveted upon the +shooting-match. Sylvia gave no thought to his attitude at the moment. He +had come--that was enough. And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the +light in his daughter's face. + +"You know him!" he cried, roughly. + +"Yes." + +"He has come to see you?" + +"Yes." + +"You should have told me," said Garratt Skinner, angrily. "I dislike +secrecies." Sylvia raised her eyes and looked her father steadily in the +face. But Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed. He returned her look +as steadily. + +"Who is he?" he continued, in a voice of authority. + +"Captain Hilary Chayne." + +It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely familiar to Garratt +Skinner, and Sylvia added: + +"I met him this summer in Switzerland." + +"Oh, I see," said her father, and he looked with a new interest across +the garden to the door. "He is a great friend." + +"My only friend," returned Sylvia, softly; and her father stepped forward +and called aloud, holding up his hand: + +"Barstow! Barstow!" + +Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the coming of her friend +was not the only change which had taken place since she had last looked +out upon the garden. The new gardener was now shooting alternately with +Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow, standing a few feet behind them, +recorded the hits in a little book. He looked up at the sound of +Garratt Skinner's voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a stop to the +match. Garratt Skinner turned again to his daughter, and spoke now +without any anger at all. There was just a hint of reproach in his +voice, but as though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand +affectionately upon her arm. + +"Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my dear. But you might have +told me that you expected him. Let us have no secrets from each other +in the future? Now bring him in, and we will see if we can give him a +cup of tea." + +He rang the bell. Sylvia did not think it worth while to argue that +Chayne's coming was a surprise to her as much as to her father. She +crossed the garden toward her friend. But she walked slowly and still +more slowly. Her memories had flown back to the evening when they had +bidden each other good-by on the little platform in front of the Chalet +de Lognan. Not in this way had she then planned that they should meet +again, nor in such company. The smile had faded from her lips, the light +of gladness had gone from her eyes. Barstow and Walter Hine were moving +toward the house. It mortified her exceedingly that her friend should +find her amongst such companions. She almost wished that he had not found +her out at all. And so she welcomed him with a great restraint. + +"It was kind of you to come," she said. "How did you know I was here?" + +"I called at your house in London. The caretaker gave me the address," he +replied. He took her hand and, holding it, looked with the careful +scrutiny of a lover into her face. + +"You have needed those memories of your one day to fall back upon," he +said, regretfully. "Already you have needed them. I am very sorry." + +Sylvia did not deny the implication of the words that "troubles" had +come. She turned to him, grateful that he should so clearly have +remembered what she had said upon that day. + +"Thank you," she answered, gently. "My father would like to know you. I +wrote to you that I had come to live with him." + +"Yes." + +"You were surprised?" she asked. + +"No," he answered, quietly. "You came to some important decision on the +very top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere. That I knew at the time, for I +watched you. When I got your letter, I understood what the decision was." + +To leave Chamonix--to break completely with her life--it was just to that +decision she would naturally have come just on that spot during that one +sunlit hour. So much his own love of the mountains taught him. But Sylvia +was surprised at his insight; and what with that and the proof that their +day together had remained vividly in his thoughts, she caught back +something of his comradeship. As they crossed the lawn to the house her +embarrassment diminished. She drew comfort, besides, from the thought +that whatever her friend might think of Captain Barstow and Walter Hine, +her father at all events would impress him, even as she had been +impressed. Chayne would see at once that here was a man head and +shoulders above his companions, finer in quality, different in speech. + +But that afternoon her humiliation was to be complete. Her father had no +fancy for the intrusion of Captain Chayne into his quiet and sequestered +house. The flush of color on his daughter's face, the leap of light into +her eyes, had warned him. He had no wish to lose his daughter. Chayne, +too, might be inconveniently watchful. Garratt Skinner desired no spy +upon his little plans. Consequently he set himself to play the host with +an offensive geniality which was calculated to disgust a man with any +taste for good manners. He spoke in a voice which Sylvia did not know, so +coarse it was in quality, so boisterous and effusive; and he paraded +Walter Hine and Captain Barstow with the pride of a man exhibiting his +dearest friends. + +"You must know 'red-hot' Barstow, Captain Chayne," he cried, slapping the +little man lustily on the back. "One of the very best. You are both +brethren of the sword." + +Barstow sniggered obsequiously and screwed his eye-glass into his eye. + +"Delighted, I am sure. But I sheathed the sword some time ago, +Captain Chayne." + +"And exchanged it for the betting book," Chayne added, quietly. + +Barstow laughed nervously. + +"Oh, you refer to our little match in the garden," he said. "We dragged +the gardener into it." + +"So I saw," Chayne replied. "The gardener seemed to be a remarkable shot. +I think he would be a match for more than one professional." + +And turning away he saw Sylvia's eyes fixed upon him, and on her face an +expression of trouble and dismay so deep that he could have bitten off +his tongue for speaking. She had been behind him while he had spoken; and +though he had spoken in a low voice, she had heard every word. She bent +her head over the tea-table and busied herself with the cups. But her +hands shook; her face burned, she was tortured with shame. She had set +herself to do battle with her father, and already in the first skirmish +she had been defeated. Chayne's indiscreet words had laid bare to her the +elaborate conspiracy. The new gardener, the gun in the corner, the +cartridges which had to be looked for, Barstow's want of skill, Hine's +superiority which had led Barstow so naturally to offer to back the +gardener against him--all was clear to her. It was the little round game +of cards all over again; and she had not possessed the wit to detect the +trick! And that was not all. Her friend had witnessed it and understood! + +She heard her father presenting Walter Hine, and with almost intolerable +pain she realized that had he wished to leave Chayne no single +opportunity of misapprehension, he would have spoken just these words and +no others. + +"Wallie is the grandson--and indeed the heir--of old Joseph Hine. You +know his name, no doubt. Joseph Hine's Chateau Marlay, what? A warm man, +Joseph Hine. I don't know a man more rich. Treats his grandson handsomely +into the bargain, eh, Wallie?" + +Sylvia felt that her heart would break. That Garrett Skinner's admission +was boldly and cunningly deliberate did not occur to her. She simply +understood that here was the last necessary piece of evidence given to +Captain Chayne which would convince him that he had been this afternoon +the witness of a robbery and swindle. + +She became aware that Chayne was standing beside her. She did not lift +her face, for she feared that it would betray her. She wished with all +her heart that he would just replace his cup upon the tray and go away +without a word. He could not want to stay; he could not want to return. +He had no place here. If he would go away quietly, without troubling to +take leave of her, she would be very grateful and do justice to him for +his kindness. + +But though he had the mind to go, it was not without a word. + +"I want you to walk with me as far as the door," he said, gently. + +Sylvia rose at once. Since after all there must be words, the sooner they +were spoken the better. She followed him into the garden, making her +little prayer that they might be very few, and that he would leave her to +fight her battle and to hide her shame alone. + +They crossed the lawn without a word. He held open the garden door for +her and she passed into the lane. He followed and closed the door behind +them. In the lane a hired landau was waiting. Chayne pointed to it. + +"I want you to come away with me now," he said, and since she looked at +him with the air of one who does not understand, he explained, standing +quietly beside her with his eyes upon her face. And though he spoke +quietly, there was in his eyes a hunger which belied his tones, and +though he stood quietly, there was a tension in his attitude which +betrayed extreme suspense. "I want you to come away with me, I want you +never to return. I want you to marry me." + +The blood rushed into her cheeks and again fled from them, leaving her +very white. Her face grew mutinous like an angry child's, but her eyes +grew hard like a resentful woman's. + +"You ask me out of pity," she said, in a low voice. + +"That's not true," he cried, and with so earnest a passion that she could +not but believe him. "Sylvia, I came here meaning to ask you to marry me. +I ask you something more now, that is all. I ask you to come to me a +little sooner--that is all. I want you to come with me now." + +Sylvia leaned against the wall and covered her face with her hands. + +"Please!" he said, making his appeal with a great simplicity. "For I love +you, Sylvia." + +She gave him no answer. She kept her face still hid, and only her heaving +breast bore witness to her stress of feeling. Gently he removed her +hands, and holding them in his, urged his plea. + +"Ever since that day in Switzerland, I have been thinking of you, Sylvia, +remembering your looks, your smile, and the words you spoke. I crossed +the Col Dolent the next day, and all the time I felt that there was some +great thing wanting. I said to myself, 'I miss my friend.' I was wrong, +Sylvia. I missed you. Something ached in me--has ached ever since. It was +my heart! Come with me now!" + +Sylvia had not looked at him, though she made no effort to draw her hands +away, and still not looking at him, she answered in a whisper: + +"I can't, I can't." + +"Why?" he asked, "why? You are not happy here. You are no happier than +you were at Chamonix. And I would try so very hard to make you happy. I +can't leave you here--lonely, for you are lonely. I am lonely too; all +the more lonely because I carry about with me--you--you as you stood in +the chalet at night looking through the open window, with the +candle-light striking upward on your face, and with your reluctant smile +upon your lips--you as you lay on the top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere +with the wonder of a new world in your eyes--you as you said good-by in +the sunset and went down the winding path to the forest. If you only +knew, Sylvia!" + +"Yes, but I don't know," she answered, and now she looked at him. "I +suppose that, if I loved, I should know, I should understand." + +Her hands lay in his, listless and unresponsive to the pressure of his. +She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes. + +"Yet you were glad to see me when I came," he urged. + +"Glad, yes! You are my friend, my one friend. I was very glad. But the +gladness passed. When you asked me to come with you across the garden, I +was wanting you to go away." + +The words hurt him. They could not but hurt him. But she was so plainly +unconscious of offence, she was so plainly trying to straighten out her +own tangled position, that he could feel no anger. + +"Why?" he asked; and again she frankly answered him. + +"I was humbled," she replied, "and I have had so much humiliation +in my life." + +The very quietude of her voice and the wistful look upon the young tired +face hurt him far more than her words had done. + +"Sylvia," he cried, and he drew her toward him. "Come with me now! My +dear, there will be an end of all humiliation. We can be married, we can +go down to my home on the Sussex Downs. That old house needs a mistress, +Sylvia. It is very lonely." He drew a breath and smiled suddenly. "And I +would like so much to show you it, to show you all the corners, the +bridle-paths across the downs, the woods, and the wide view from Arundel +to Chichester spires. Sylvia, come!" + +Just for a moment it seemed that she leaned toward him. He put his arm +about her and held her for a moment closer. But her head was lowered, not +lifted up to his; and then she freed herself gently from his clasp. + +She faced him with a little wrinkle of thought between her brows and +spoke with an air of wisdom which went very prettily with the childlike +beauty of her face. + +"You are my friend," she said, "a friend I am very grateful for, but you +are not more than that to me. I am frank. You see, I am thinking now of +reasons which would not trouble me if I loved you. Marriage with me would +do you no good, would hurt you in your career." + +"No," he protested. + +"But I am thinking that it would," she replied, steadily, "and I do not +believe that I should give much thought to it, if I really loved you. I +am thinking of something else, too--" and she spoke more boldly, +choosing her words with care--"of a plan which before you came I had +formed, of a task which before you came I had set myself to do. I am +still thinking of it, still feeling that I ought to go on with it. I do +not think that I should feel that if I loved. I think nothing else would +count at all except that I loved. So you are still my friend, and I +cannot go with you." + +Chayne looked at her for a moment sadly, with a mist before his eyes. + +"I leave you to much unhappiness," he said, "and I hate the +thought of it." + +"Not quite so much now as before you came," she answered. "I am proud, +you know, that you asked me," and putting her troubles aside, she smiled +at him bravely, as though it was he who needed comforting. "Good-by! Let +me hear of you through your success." + +So again they said good-by at the time of sunset. Chayne mounted into +the landau and drove back along the road to Weymouth. "So that's the +end," said Sylvia. She opened the door and passed again into the garden. +Through the window of the library she saw her father and Walter Hine, +watching, it seemed, for her appearance. It was borne in upon her +suddenly that she could not meet them or speak with them, and she ran +very quickly round the house to the front door, and escaped unaccosted +to her room. + +In the library Hine turned to Garratt Skinner with one of his rare +flashes of shrewdness. + +"She didn't want to meet us," he said, jealously. "Do you think she +cares for him?" + +"I think," replied Garratt Skinner with a smile, "that Captain Chayne +will not trouble us with his company again." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET + + +Garratt Skinner, however, was wrong. He was not aware of the great +revolution which had taken place in Chayne; and he misjudged his +tenacity. Chayne, like many another man, had mapped out his life only to +find that events would happen in a succession different to that which he +had ordained. He had arranged to devote his youth and the earlier part of +his manhood entirely to his career, if the career were not brought to a +premature end in the Alps. That possibility he had always foreseen. He +took his risks with full knowledge, setting the gain against them, and +counting them worth while. If then he lived, he proposed at some +indefinite time, in the late thirties, to fall in love and marry. He had +no parents living; there was the empty house upon the Sussex Downs; and +the small estate which for generations had descended from father to son. +Marriage was thus a recognized event. Only it was thrust away into an +indefinite future. But there had come an evening which he had not +foreseen, when, sorely grieved by the loss of his great friend, he had +fallen in with a girl who gave with open hands the sympathy he needed, +and claimed, by her very reticence and humility, his sympathy in return. +A day had followed upon that evening; and thenceforth the image of Sylvia +standing upon the snow-ridge of the Aiguille d'Argentiere, with a few +strips of white cloud sailing in a blue sky overhead, the massive pile of +Mont Blanc in front, freed to the sunlight which was her due, remained +fixed and riveted in his thoughts. He began in imagination to refer +matters of moment to her judgment; he began to save up little events of +interest that he might remember to tell them to her. He understood that +he had a companion, even when he was alone, a condition which he had not +anticipated even for his late thirties. And he came to the conclusion +that he had not that complete ordering of his life on which he had +counted. He was not, however, disappointed. He seized upon the good thing +which had come to him with a great deal of wonder and a very thankful +heart; and he was not disposed to let it lightly go. + +Thus the vulgarity which Garratt Skinner chose to assume, the +unattractive figure of "red-hot" Barstow, and the obvious swindle which +was being perpetrated on Walter Hine, had the opposite effect to that +which Skinner expected. Chayne, instead of turning his back upon so +distasteful a company, frequented it in the resolve to take Sylvia out of +its grasp. It did not need a lover to see that she slept little of nights +and passed distressful days. She had fled from her mother's friends at +Chamonix, only to find herself helpless amongst a worse gang in her +father's house. Very well. She must be released. He had proposed to take +her away then and there. She had refused. Well, he had been blunt. He +would go about the business in the future in a more delicate way. And so +he came again and again to the little house under the hill where the +stream babbled through the garden, and every day the apples grew redder +upon the boughs. + +But it was disheartening work. His position indeed became difficult, and +it needed all his tenacity to enable him to endure it. The difficulty +became very evident one afternoon early in August, and the afternoon was, +moveover, remarkable in that Garratt Skinner was betrayed into a +revelation of himself which was to bear consequences of gravity in a +future which he could not foresee. Chayne rode over upon that afternoon, +and found Garratt Skinner alone and, according to his habit, stretched at +full-length in his hammock with a cigar between his lips. He received +Captain Chayne with the utmost geniality. He had long since laid aside +his ineffectual vulgarity of manner. + +"You must put up with me, Captain Chayne," he said. "My daughter is out. +However, she--I ought more properly to say, they--will be back no doubt +before long." + +"They being--" + +"Sylvia and Walter Hine." + +Chayne nodded his head. He had known very well who "they" must be, but he +had not been able to refrain from the question. Jealousy had hold of him. +He knew nothing of Sylvia's determination to acquire a power greater than +her father's over the vain and defenceless youth. The words with which +she had hinted her plan to him had been too obscure to convey their +meaning. He was simply aware that Sylvia more and more avoided him, more +and more sought the companionship of Walter Hine; and such experience as +he had, taught him that women were as apt to be blind in their judgment +of men as men in their estimation of women. + +He sought now to enlist Garratt Skinner on his side, and drawing a chair +nearer to the hammock he sat down. + +"Mr. Skinner," he said, speaking upon an impulse, "you have no doubt in +your mind, I suppose, as to why I come here so often." + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I make a guess, I admit." + +"I should be very glad if your daughter would marry me," Chayne +continued, "and I want you to give me your help. I am not a poor man, Mr. +Skinner, and I should certainly be willing to recognize that in taking +her away from you I laid myself under considerable obligations." + +Chayne spoke with some natural hesitation, but Garratt Skinner was not in +the least offended. + +"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," he replied. "Indeed, I like +your frankness. Please take what I say in the same spirit. I cannot give +you any help, Captain Chayne." + +"Why?" + +Garratt Skinner raised himself upon his elbow, and fixing his eyes upon +his companion's face, said distinctly and significantly: + +"Because Sylvia has her work to do here." + +Chayne in his turn made no pretence to misunderstand. He was being told +clearly that Sylvia was in league with her father and Captain Barstow to +pluck Walter Hine. But he was anxious to discover how far Garratt +Skinner's cynicism would carry him. + +"Will you define the work?" he asked. + +"If you wish it," replied Garratt Skinner, falling back in his hammock. +"I should have thought it unnecessary myself. The work is the reclaiming +of Wallie Hine from the very undesirable company in which he has mixed. +Do you understand?" + +"Quite," said Chayne. He understood very well. He had been told first the +real design--to pluck Walter Hine--and then the excuse which was to cloak +it. He understood, too, the reason why this information had been given to +him with so cynical a frankness. He, Chayne, was in the way. Declare the +swindle and persuade him that Sylvia was a party to it--what more likely +way could be discovered for getting rid of Captain Chayne? He looked at +his smiling companion, took note of his strong aquiline face, his clear +and steady eyes. He recognized a redoubtable antagonist, but he leaned +forward and said with a quiet emphasis: + +"Mr. Skinner, I have, nevertheless, not lost heart." + +Garratt Skinner laughed in a friendly way. + +"I suppose not. It is only in the wisdom of middle age that we lose +heart. In youth we lose our hearts--a very different thing." + +"I propose still to come to this house." + +"As often as you will, Captain Chayne," said Garratt Skinner, gaily. "My +doors are always open to you. I am not such a fool as to give you a +romantic interest by barring you out." + +Garratt Skinner had another reason for his hospitality which he kept to +himself. He was inclined to believe that a few more visits from Captain +Chayne would settle his chances without the necessity of any +interference. It was Garratt Skinner's business, as that of any other +rogue, to play with simple artifices upon the faults and vanities of men. +He had, therefore, cultivated a habit of observation; he had become +naturally attentive to trifles which others might overlook; and he was +aware that he needed to go very warily in the delicate business on which +he was now engaged. He was fighting Sylvia for the possession of Walter +Hine--that he had recognized--and Chayne for the possession of Sylvia. It +was a three-cornered contest, and he had in consequence kept his eyes +alert. He had noticed that Chayne was growing importunate, and that his +persistence was becoming troublesome to Sylvia. She gave him a less warm +welcome each time that he came to the house. She made plans to prevent +herself being left alone with him, and if by chance the plans failed she +listened rather than talked and listened almost with an air of boredom. + +"Come as often as you please!" consequently said Garratt Skinner from his +hammock. "And now let us talk of something else." + +He talked of nothing for a while. But it was plain that he had a subject +in his thoughts. For twice he turned to Chayne and was on the point of +speaking; but each time he thought silence the better part and lay back +again. Chayne waited and at last the subject was broached, but in a +queer, hesitating, diffident way, as though Garratt Skinner spoke rather +under a compulsion of which he disapproved. + +"Tell me!" he said. "I am rather interested. A craze, an infatuation +which so masters people must be interesting even to the stay-at-homes +like myself. But I am wrong to call it a craze. From merely reading books +I think it a passion which is easily intelligible. You are wondering what +I am talking about. My daughter tells me that you are a famous climber. +The Aiguille d'Argentiere, I suppose, up which you were kind enough to +accompany her, is not a very difficult mountain." + +"It depends upon the day," said Chayne, "and the state of the snow." + +"Yes, that is what I have gathered from the books. Every mountain may +become dangerous." + +"Yes." + +"Each mountain," said Garratt Skinner, thoughtfully, "may reward its +conquerors with death"; and for a little while he lay looking up to the +green branches interlaced above his head. "Thus each mountain on the +brightest day holds in its recesses mystery, and also death." + +There had come a change already in the manner of the two men. They found +themselves upon neutral ground. Their faces relaxed from wariness; they +were no longer upon their guard. It seemed that an actual comradeship had +sprung up between them. + +"There is a mountain called the Grepon," said Skinner. "I have seen +pictures of it--a strange and rather attractive pinnacle, with its +knife-like slabs of rock, set on end one above the other--black rock +splashed with red--and the overhanging boulder on the top. Have you +climbed it?" + +"Yes." + +"There is a crack, I believe--a good place to get you into training." + +Chayne laughed with the enjoyment of a man who recollects a stiff +difficulty overcome. + +"Yes, to the right of the Col between the Grepon and the Charmoz. There +is a step half way up--otherwise there is very little hold and the crack +is very steep." + +They talked of other peaks, such as the Charmoz, where the first lines of +ascent had given place to others more recently discovered, of new +variations, new ascents and pinnacles still unclimbed; and then Garratt +Skinner said: + +"I saw that a man actually crossed the Col des Nantillons early this +summer. It used to be called the Col de Blaitiere. He was killed with +his guide, but after the real dangers were passed. That seems to happen +at times." + +Chayne looked at Garratt Skinner in surprise. + +"It is strange that you should have mentioned John Lattery's death," he +said, slowly. + +"Why?" asked Garratt Skinner, turning quietly toward his companion. "I +read of it in 'The Times.'" + +"Oh, yes. No doubt it was described. What I meant was this. John Lattery +was my great friend, and he was a distant kind of cousin to your friend +Walter Hine, and indeed co-heir with him to Joseph Hine's great fortune. +His death, I suppose, has doubled your friend's inheritance." + +Garratt Skinner raised himself up on his elbow. The announcement was +really news to him. + +"Is that so?" he asked. "It is true, then. The mountains hold death too +in their recesses--even on the clearest day--yes, they hold death too!" +And letting himself fall gently back upon his cushions, he remained for a +while with a very thoughtful look upon his face. Twice Chayne spoke to +him, and twice he did not hear. He lay absorbed. It seemed that a new and +engrossing idea had taken possession of his mind, and when he turned his +eyes again to Chayne and spoke, he appeared to be speaking with reference +to that idea rather than to any remarks of his companion. + +"Did you ever ascend Mont Blanc by the Brenva route?" he asked. "There's +a thin ridge of ice--I read an account in Moore's 'Journal'--you have to +straddle across the ridge with a leg hanging down either precipice." + +Chayne shook his head. + +"Lattery and I meant to try it this summer. The Dent du Requin as well." + +"Ah, that is one of the modern rock scrambles, isn't it? The last two or +three hundred feet are the trouble, I believe." + +And so the talk went on and the comradeship grew. But Chayne noticed that +always Garratt Skinner came back to the great climbs of the earlier +mountaineers, the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc, the Col Dolent, the two +points of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. + +"But you, too, have climbed," Chayne cried at length. + +"On winter nights by my fireside," replied Garratt Skinner, with a smile. +"I have a lame leg which would hinder me." + +"Nevertheless, you left Miss Sylvia and myself behind when you led us +over the hills to Dorchester." + +It was Walter Hine who interrupted. He had come across the grass from +behind, and neither of the two men had noticed his approach. But the +moment when he did interrupt marked a change in their demeanor. The +comradeship which had so quickly bloomed as quickly faded. It was the +flower of an idle moment. Antagonism preceded and followed it. Thus, one +might imagine, might sentries at the outposts of opposing armies pile +their arms for half an hour and gossip of their homes or their children, +or of something dear to both of them and separate at the bugle sound. +Garratt Skinner swung himself out of his hammock. + +"Where's Sylvia, Wallie?" + +"She went up to her room." + +Chayne waited for ten minutes, and for another ten, and still Sylvia did +not appear. She was avoiding him. She could spend the afternoon with +Walter Hine, but she must run to her room when he came upon the scene. +Jealousy flamed up in him. Every now and then a whimsical smile of +amusement showed upon Garratt Skinner's face and broadened into a grin. +Chayne was looking a fool, and was quite conscious of it. He rose +abruptly from his chair. + +"I must be going," he said, over loudly, and Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"I'm afraid she won't hear that," he said softly, measuring with his eyes +the distance between the group and the house. "But come again, Captain +Chayne, and sit it out." + +Chayne flushed with anger. He said, "Thank you," and tried to say it +jauntily and failed. He took his leave and walked across the lawn to the +garden, trying to assume a carriage of indifference and dignity. But +every moment he expected to hear the two whom he had left laughing at his +discomfiture. Neither, however, did laugh. Walter Hine was, indeed, +indignant. + +"Why did you ask him to come again?" he asked, angrily, as the garden +door closed upon Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laid his hand on Walter Hine's arm. + +"Don't you worry, Wallie," he said, confidentially. "Every time Chayne +comes here he loses ten marks. Give him rope! He does not, after all, +know a great deal of geography." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY + + +Chayne returned to London on the following day, restless and troubled. +Jealousy, he knew, was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should +have to be jealous of a Walter Hine--there was the sting. He asked the +old question over and over again, the old futile question which the +unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the +ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see +in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature +to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal. +Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their +proper proportions in Sylvia's eyes. Meanwhile there was something to be +done--a doubt to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made. + +His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject which Garratt Skinner +had chosen, and the knowledge with which he had spoken, had seemed to +Chayne rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and follow with +interest, nay almost with the passion of the mountaineer, the history of +Alpine exploration and adventure. That had happened before now. And very +likely Chayne would have troubled himself no more about Garratt Skinner's +introduction of the theme but for one or two circumstances which the more +he reflected upon them became the more significant. For instance: Garratt +Skinner had spoken and had asked questions about the new ascents made, +the new passes crossed within the last twenty years, just as a man would +ask who had obtained his knowledge out of books. But of the earlier +ascents he had spoken differently, though the difference was subtle and +hard to define. He seemed to be upon more familiar ground. He left in +Chayne's mind a definite suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of +books, but from an intimate personal knowledge, the knowledge of actual +experience. The suspicion had grown up gradually, but it had strengthened +almost into a conviction. + +It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's conversation perpetually +recurred--the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Petit Dru and the +traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the +Brenva route--yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc. Moreover, +how in the world should he know that those slabs of black granite on the +top of the Grepon were veined with red--splashed with red as he described +them? Unless he had ascended them, or the Aiguille des Charmoz +opposite--how should he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel +Revailloud flashed across Chayne's mind. "One needs some one with whom to +exchange one's memories." + +Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with so much compulsion +that he must satisfy it in spite of himself? Yet why should he practise +concealment at all? There certainly had been concealment. Chayne +remembered how more than once Garratt Skinner had checked himself before +at last he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he had spoken. +And then suddenly as the train drew up at Vauxhall Station for the +tickets to be collected, Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of +the Argentiere, beside the great gully, as they descended to the glacier, +Sylvia's guide had spoken words which came flying back into Chayne's +thoughts. She had climbed that day, though it was her first mountain, as +if knowledge of the craft had been born in her. How to stand upon an +ice-slope, how to hold her ax--she had known. On the rocks, too! Which +foot to advance, with which hand to grasp the hold--she had known. +Suppose that knowledge _had_ been born in her! Why, then those words of +her guide began to acquire significance. She had reminded him of some +one--some one whose name he could not remember--but some one with whom +years ago he had climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance movement +of Sylvia's, some way in which she moved from ledge to ledge, had +revealed to him the name--Gabriel Strood. + +Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark thing was there in the +record of Strood's life that he must change his name, disappear from the +world, and avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and storm on the +high rock-ledges and the ice-slope? + +Chayne was minded to find an answer to that question. Sylvia was in +trouble; that house under the downs was no place for her. He himself was +afraid of what was being planned there. It might help him if he knew +something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew at present. And it seemed +to him that there was just a chance of acquiring that knowledge. + +He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up St. James' Street. +The street was empty. It was a hot starlit night of the first week in +August, and there came upon him a swift homesickness for the world above +the snow-line. How many of his friends were sleeping that night in +mountain huts high up on the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs +open to the stars with a rock-cliff at their backs and a fire of pine +wood blazing at their feet. Most likely amongst those friends was the +one he sought to-night. + +"Still there's a chance that I may find him," he pleaded, and +crossing Piccadilly passed into Dover Street. Half way along the +street of milliners, he stopped before a house where a famous scholar +had his lodging. + +"Is Mr. Kenyon in London?" he asked, and the man-servant replied to his +great relief: + +"Yes, sir, but he is not yet at home." + +"I will wait for him," said Chayne. + +He was shown into the study and left there with a lighted lamp. The +room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a +ladder and took down from a high corner some volumes bound simply in +brown cloth. They were volumes of the "Alpine Journal." He had chosen +those which dated back from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He +drew a chair up beside the lamp and began eagerly to turn over the +pages. Often he stopped, for the name of which he was in search often +leaped to his eyes from the pages. Chayne read of the exploits in the +Alps of Gabriel Strood. More than one new expedition was described, +many variations of old ascents, many climbs already familiar. It was +clear that the man was of the true brotherhood. A new climb was very +well, but the old were as good to Gabriel Strood, and the climb which +he had once made he had the longing to repeat with new companions. None +of the descriptions were written by Strood himself but all by +companions whom he had led, and most of them bore testimony to an +unusual endurance, an unusual courage, as though Strood triumphed +perpetually over a difficulty which his companions did not share and of +which only vague hints were given. At last Chayne came to that very +narrative which Sylvia had been reading on her way to Chamonix--and +there the truth was bluntly told for the first time. + +Chayne started up in that dim and quiet room, thrilled. He had the proof +now, under his finger--the indisputable proof. Gabriel Strood suffered +from an affection of the muscles in his right thigh, and yet managed to +out-distance all his rivals. Hine's words drummed in Chayne's ears: + +"Nevertheless he left us all behind." + +Garratt Skinner: Gabriel Strood. Surely, surely! He replaced the volumes +and took others down. In the first which he opened--it was the autumn +number of nineteen years ago--there was again mention of the man; and the +climb described was the ascent of Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier. +Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It +was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back. +The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the +Blaitiere--yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back, +with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arete of the +Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages. But there was nowhere +in any volume on which he laid his hands any further record of his +exploits. Others who followed in his steps mentioned his name, but of the +man himself there was no word more. No one had climbed with him, no one +had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For five or six seasons +he had flashed through the Alps. Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the +Concordia hut--all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just +under twenty years ago he had come no more. + +Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down +again in the arm-chair before the empty grate. It was a strange and a +haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts. +Men like Gabriel Strood _always_ come back to the Alps. They sleep too +restlessly at nights, they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed +away. There must have been some great impediment. He fell into another +train of thought. Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel +Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the +Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was still not unraveled, and +while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and +a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold. He was a +man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and +his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an +aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone--until he smiled. And +in the smile there was much companionship and love. He smiled now as he +stretched out his long, finely-molded hand. + +"I am very glad to see you, Chayne," he said, in a voice remarkable for +its gentleness, "although in another way I am sorry. I am sorry because, +of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps." + +Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder +and forced him down again with a friendly pressure. "I read of Lattery's +death. I am grieved about it--for you as much as for Lattery. I know just +what that kind of loss means. It means very much," said he, letting his +deep-set eyes rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man. Kenyon +put a whisky and soda by Chayne's elbow, and setting the tobacco jar on a +little table between them, sat down and lighted his pipe. + +"You came back at once?" he asked. + +"I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into Italy," replied Chayne. + +"Yes, yes," said Kenyon, nodding his head. "But you will go back next +year, or the year after." + +"Perhaps," said Chayne; and for a little while they smoked their pipes in +silence. Then Chayne came to the object of his visit. + +"Kenyon," he asked, "have you any photographs of the people who went +climbing twenty to twenty-five years ago? I thought perhaps you might +have some groups taken in Switzerland in those days. If you have, I +should like to see them." + +"Yes, I think I have," said Kenyon. He went to his writing-desk and +opening a drawer took out a number of photographs. He brought them back, +and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light fell clear and strong +upon the little table, laid them down. + +Chayne bent over them with a beating heart. Was his suspicion to be +confirmed or disproved? + +One by one he took the photographs, closely examined them, and laid +them aside while Kenyon stood upright on the other side of the table. +He had turned over a dozen before he stopped. He held in his hand the +picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open space before the door. In the +open space men were gathered. They were talking in groups; some of them +leaned upon ice-axes, some carried _Ruecksacks_ upon their backs, as +though upon the point of starting for the hills. As he held the +photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and bent his head a little +lower, Kenyon made a slight uneasy movement. But Chayne did not notice. +He sat very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. On the +outskirts of the group stood Sylvia's father. Younger, slighter of +build, with a face unlined and a boyish grace which had long since +gone--but undoubtedly Sylvia's father. + +The contours of the mountains told Chayne clearly enough in what valley +the hotel stood. + +"This is Zermatt," he said, without lifting his eyes. + +"Yes," replied Kenyon, quietly, "a Zermatt you are too young to know," +and then Chayne's forefinger dropped upon the figure of Sylvia's father. + +"Who is this?" he asked. + +Kenyon made no answer. + +"It is Gabriel Strood," Chayne continued. + +There was a pause, and then Kenyon confirmed the guess. + +"Yes," he said, and some hint of emotion in his voice made Chayne lift +his eyes. The light striking upward through the green shade gave to +Kenyon's face an extraordinary pallor. But it seemed to Chayne that not +all the pallor was due to the lamp. + +"For six seasons," Chayne said, "Gabriel Strood came to the Alps. In his +first season he made a great name." + +"He was the best climber I have ever seen," replied Kenyon. + +"He had a passion for the mountains. Yet after six years he came back no +more. He disappeared. Why?" + +Kenyon stood absolutely silent, absolutely still. Perhaps the trouble +deepened a little on his face; but that was all. Chayne, however, was +bent upon an answer. For Sylvia's sake alone he must have it, he must +know the father into whose clutches she had come. + +"You knew Gabriel Strood. Why?" + +Kenyon leaned forward and gently took the photograph out of Chayne's +hand. He mixed it with the others, not giving to it a single glance +himself, and then replaced them all in the drawer from which he had taken +them. He came back to the table and at last answered Chayne: + +"John Lattery was your friend. Some of the best hours of your life were +passed in his company. You know that now. But you will know it still +more surely when you come to my age, whatever happiness may come to you +between now and then. The camp-fire, the rock-slab for your floor and +the black night about you for walls, the hours of talk, the ridge and +the ice-slope, the bad times in storm and mist, the good times in the +sunshine, the cold nights of hunger when you were caught by the +darkness, the off-days when you lounged at your ease. You won't forget +John Lattery." + +Kenyon spoke very quietly but with a conviction, and, indeed, a certain +solemnity, which impressed his companion. + +"No," said Chayne, gently, "I shall not forget John Lattery." But his +question was still unanswered, and by nature he was tenacious. His eyes +were still upon Kenyon's face and he added: "What then?" + +"Only this," said Kenyon. "Gabriel Strood was my John Lattery," and +moving round the table he dropped his hand upon Chayne's shoulder. "You +will ask me no more questions," he said, with a smile. + +"I beg your pardon," said Chayne. + +He had his answer. He knew now that there was something to conceal, that +there was a definite reason why Gabriel Strood disappeared. + +"Good-night," he said; and as he left the room he saw Kenyon sink down +into his arm-chair. There seemed something sad and very lonely in the +attitude of the older man. Once more Michel Revailloud's warning rose up +within his mind. + +"When it is all over, and you go home, take care that there is a lighted +lamp in the room and the room not empty. Have some one to share your +memories when life is nothing but memories." + +At every turn the simple philosophy of Michel Revailloud seemed to obtain +an instance and a confirmation. Was that to be his own fate too? Just for +a moment he was daunted. He closed the door noiselessly, and going down +the stairs let himself out into the street. The night was clear above his +head. How was it above the Downs of Dorsetshire, he wondered. He walked +along the street very slowly. Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood. There +was clearly a dark reason for the metamorphosis. It remained for Chayne +to discover that reason. But he did not ponder any more upon that problem +to-night. He was merely thinking as he walked along the street that +Michel Revailloud was a very wise man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN + + +"Between gentlemen," said Wallie Hine. "Yes, between gentlemen." + +He was quoting from a letter which he held in his hand, as he sat at the +breakfast table, and, in his agitation, he had quoted aloud. Garratt +Skinner looked up from his plate and said: + +"Can I help you, Wallie?" + +Hine flushed red and stammered out: "No, thank you. I must run up to town +this morning--that's all." + +"Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-cart after breakfast," +said Garratt Skinner, and he made no further reference to the journey. +But he glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with some +perplexity at Walter Hine. "You will be back this evening, I suppose?" + +"Rather," said Walter Hine, with a smile across the table at Sylvia; but +his agitation got the better of his gallantry, and as she drove him into +Weymouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for protection. "I +don't want to go one little bit, Miss Sylvia. But between gentlemen. Yes, +I mustn't forget that. Between gentlemen." He clung to the phrase, +finding some comfort in its reiteration. + +"You have given me your promise," said Sylvia. "There will be no +cards, no bets." + +Walter Hine laughed bitterly. + +"I shan't break it. I have had my lesson. By Jove, I have." + +Walter Hine traveled to Waterloo and drove straight to the office of +Mr. Jarvice. + +"I owe some money," he began, bleating the words out the moment he was +ushered into the inner office. + +Mr. Jarvice grinned. + +"This interview is concluded," he said. "There's the door." + +"I owe it to a friend, Captain Barstow," Hine continued, in desperation. +"A thousand pounds. He has written for it. He says that debts of honor +between gentlemen--" But he got no further, for Mr. Jarvice broke in upon +his faltering explanations with a snarl of contempt. + +"Barstow! You poor little innocent. I have something else to do with my +money than to pour it into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send him to +me to-morrow, and I'll talk to him--as between gentlemen." + +Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed to deference and flatteries +in the household of Garratt Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr. +Jarvice stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong element of his +character. He was in the mind hotly to defend Captain Barstow from Mr. +Jarvice's insinuations, but he refrained. + +"Then Barstow will know that I draw my allowance from you, and not from +my grandfather," he stammered. There was the trouble for Walter Hine. +If Barstow knew, Garratt Skinner would come to know. There would be an +end to the deference and the flatteries. He would no longer be able to +pose as the favorite of the great millionaire, Joseph Hine. He would +sink in Sylvia's eyes. At the cost of any humiliation that downfall +must be avoided. + +His words, however, had an immediate effect upon Mr. Jarvice, though for +quite other reasons. + +"Why, that's true," said Mr. Jarvice, slowly, and in a voice suddenly +grown smooth. "Yes, yes, we don't want to mix up my name in the affair at +all. Sit down, Mr. Hine, and take a cigar. The box is at your elbow. +Young men of spirit must have some extra license allowed to them for the +sake of the promise of their riper years. I was forgetting that. No, we +don't want my name to appear at all, do we?" + +Publicity had no charms for Mr. Jarvice. Indeed, on more than one +occasion he had found it quite a hindrance to the development of his +little plans. To go his own quiet way, unheralded by the press and +unacclaimed of men--that was the modest ambition of Mr. Jarvice. + +"However, I don't look forward to handing over a thousand pounds to +Captain Barstow," he continued, softly. "No, indeed. Did you lose any of +your first quarter's allowance to him besides the thousand?" + +Walter Hine lit his cigar and answered reluctantly: + +"Yes." + +"All of it?" + +"Oh no, no, not all of it." + +Jarvice did not press for the exact amount. He walked to the window and +stood there with his hands in his pockets and his back toward his +visitor. Walter Hine watched his shoulders in suspense and apprehension. +He would have been greatly surprised if he could have caught a glimpse at +this moment of Mr. Jarvice's face. There was no anger, no contempt, +expressed in it at all. On the contrary, a quiet smile of satisfaction +gave to it almost a merry look. Mr. Jarvice had certain plans for Walter +Hine's future--so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of the +phrase--and fate seemed to be helping toward their fulfilment. + +"I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said Jarvice, turning back +to his table. "The means I must think over, but I can do it. Only there's +a condition. You need not be alarmed. A little condition which a loving +father might impose upon his only son," and Mr. Jarvice beamed paternally +as he resumed his seat. + +"What is the condition?" asked Walter Hine. + +"That you travel for a year, broaden your mind by visiting the great +countries and capitals of Europe, take a little trip perhaps into the +East and return a cultured gentleman well equipped to occupy the high +position which will be yours when your grandfather is in due time +translated to a better sphere." + +Mr. Jarvice leaned back in his chair, and with a confident wave of his +desk ruler had the air of producing the startling metamorphosis like some +heavy but benevolent fairy. Walter Hine, however, was not attracted by +the prospect. + +"But--" he began, and at once Mr. Jarvice interrupted him. + +"I anticipate you," he said, with a smile. "Standing at the window there, +I foresaw your objection. But--it would be lonely. Quite true. Why should +you be lonely? And so I am going to lay my hands on some pleasant and +companionable young fellow who will go with you for his expenses. An +Oxford man, eh? Fresh from Alma Mater with a taste for pictures and +statuettes and that sort of thing! Upon my word, I envy you, Mr. Hine. If +I were young, bless me, if I wouldn't throw my bonnet over the mill, as +after a few weeks in La Ville Lumiere you will be saying, and go with +you. You will taste life--yes, life." + +And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died suddenly out of the +face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his eyes somberly upon his visitor and a +queer inscrutable smile played about his lips. But Walter Hine had no +eyes for Mr. Jarvice. He was nerving himself to refuse the proposal. + +"I can't go," he blurted out, with the ungracious stubbornness of a weak +mind which fears to be over-persuaded. Afraid lest he should consent, he +refused aggressively and rudely. + +Mr. Jarvice repressed an exclamation of anger. "And why?" he asked, +leaning forward on his elbows and fixing his bright, sharp eyes on Walter +Hine's face. + +Walter Hine shifted uncomfortably in his chair but did not answer. + +"And why can't you go?" he repeated. + +"I can't tell you." + +"Oh, surely," said Mr. Jarvice, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "Come +now! Between gentlemen! Well?" + +Walter Hine yielded to Jarvice's insistence. + +"There's a girl," he said, with a coy and odious smile. + +Mr. Jarvice beat upon his desk with his fists in a savage anger. His +carefully calculated plan was to be thwarted by a girl. + +"She's a dear," cried Walter Hine. Having made the admission, he let +himself go. His vanity pricked him to lyrical flights. "She's a dear, +she's a sob, she would never let me go, she's my little girl." + +Such was Sylvia's reward for engaging in a struggle which she loathed for +the salvation of Walter Hine. She was jubilantly claimed by him as his +little girl in a money-lender's office. Mr. Jarvice swore aloud. + +"Who is she?" he asked, sternly. + +A faint sense of shame came over Walter Hine. He dimly imagined what +Sylvia would have thought and said, and what contempt her looks would +have betrayed, had she heard him thus boast of her goodwill. + +"You are asking too much, Mr. Jarvice," he said. + +Mr. Jarvice waved the objection aside. + +"Of course I ask it as between gentlemen," he said, with an ironical +politeness. + +"Well, then, as between gentlemen," returned Walter Hine, seriously. "She +is the daughter of a great friend of mine, Mr. Garratt Skinner. What's +the matter?" he cried; and there was reason for his cry. + +It had been an afternoon of surprises for Mr. Jarvice, but this simple +mention of the name of Garratt Skinner was more than a surprise. Mr. +Jarvice was positively startled. He leaned back in his chair with his +mouth open and his eyes staring at Walter Hine. The high color paled in +his face and his cheeks grew mottled. It seemed that fear as well as +surprise came to him in the knowledge that Garratt Skinner was a friend +of Walter Hine. + +"What is the matter?" repeated Hine. + +"It's nothing," replied Mr. Jarvice, hastily. "The heat, that is all." +He crossed the room, and throwing up the window leaned for a few moments +upon the sill. Yet even when he spoke again, there was still a certain +unsteadiness in his voice. "How did you come across Mr. Garratt +Skinner?" he asked. + +"Barstow introduced me. I made Barstow's acquaintance at the Criterion +Bar, and he took me to Garratt Skinner's house in Hobart Place." + +"I see," said Mr. Jarvice. "It was in Garratt Skinner's house that you +lost your money, I suppose." + +"Yes, but he had no hand in it," exclaimed Walter Hine. "He does not know +how much I lost. He would be angry if he did." + +A faint smile flickered across Jarvice's face. + +"Quite so," he agreed, and under his deft cross-examination the whole +story was unfolded. The little dinner at which Sylvia made her +appearance and at which Walter Hine was carefully primed with drink; the +little round game of cards which Garratt Skinner was so reluctant to +allow in his house on a Sunday evening, and from which, being an early +riser, he retired to bed, leaving Hine in the hands of Captain Barstow +and Archie Parminter; the quiet secluded house in the country; the new +gardener who appeared for one day and shot with so surprising an +accuracy, when Barstow backed him against Walter Hine, that Hine lost a +thousand pounds; the incidents were related to Mr. Jarvice in their +proper succession, and he interpreted them by his own experience. +Captain Barstow, who was always to the fore, counted for nothing in the +story as Jarvice understood it. He was the mere creature, the servant. +Garratt Skinner, who was always in the background, prepared the swindle +and pocketed the profits. + +"You are staying at the quiet house in Dorsetshire now, I suppose. Just +you and Garratt Skinner and the pretty daughter, with occasional visits +from Barstow?" + +"Yes," answered Hine. "Garratt Skinner does not care to see much +company." + +Once more the smile of amusement played upon Mr. Jarvice's face. + +"No, I suppose not," he said, quietly. There were certain definite +reasons of which he was aware, to account for Garratt Skinner's +reluctance to appear in a general company. He turned back from the window +and returned to his table. He had taken his part. There was no longer +either unsteadiness or anger in his voice. + +"I quite understand your reluctance to leave your new friends," he said, +with the utmost friendliness. "I recognize that the tour abroad on which +I had rather set my heart must be abandoned. But I have no regrets. For I +think it possible that the very object which I had in mind when proposing +that tour may be quite as easily effected in the charming country house +of Garratt Skinner." + +He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, looking benevolently at his +visitor. If the words were capable of another and a more sinister meaning +than they appeared to convey, Walter Hine did not suspect it. He took +them in their obvious sense. + +"Yes, I shall gain as much culture in Garratt Skinner's house as I should +by seeing picture-galleries abroad," he said eagerly, and then Mr. +Jarvice smiled. + +"I think that very likely," he said. "Meanwhile, as to Barstow and his +thousand pounds. I must think the matter over. Barstow will not press you +for a day or two. Just leave me your address--the address in +Dorsetshire." + +He dipped a pen in the ink and handed it to Hine. Hine took it and drew a +sheet of paper toward him. But he did not set the pen to the paper. He +looked suddenly up at Jarvice, who stood over against him at the other +side of the table. + +"Garratt Skinner's address?" he said, with one of his flashes of cunning. + +"Yes, since you are staying there. I shall want to write to you." + +Walter Hine still hesitated. + +"You won't peach to Garratt Skinner about the allowance, eh?" + +"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Jarvice. He was more hurt than offended. "To +put it on the lowest ground, what could I gain?" + +Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once the clerk appeared at the +door and handed Jarvice a card. + +"I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine: "Our business is +over, I think." + +Jarvice opened a second door which led from the inner office straight +down a little staircase into the street. "Good-by. You shall hear from +me," he said, and Walter Hine went out. + +Jarvice closed the door and turned back to his clerk. + +"That will do," he said. + +There was no client waiting at all. Mr. Jarvice had an ingenious +contrivance for getting rid of his clients at the critical moment after +they had come to a decision and before they had time to change their +minds. By pressing a particular button in the leather covering of the +right arm of his chair, he moved an indicator above the desk of his clerk +in the outer office. The clerk thereupon announced a visitor, and the one +in occupation was bowed out by the private staircase. By this method +Walter Hine had been dismissed. + +Jarvice had the address of Garratt Skinner. But he sat with it in front +of him upon his desk for a long time before he could bring himself to use +it. All the amiability had gone from his expression now that he was +alone. He was in a savage mood, and every now and then a violent gesture +betrayed it. But it was with himself that he was angry. He had been a +fool not to keep a closer watch on Walter Hine. + +"I might have foreseen," he cried in his exasperation. "Garratt Skinner! +If I had not been an ass, I _should_ have foreseen." + +For Mr. Jarvice was no stranger to Walter Hine's new friend. More than +one young buck fresh from the provinces, heir to the great factory or the +great estate, had been steered into this inner office by the careful +pilotage of Garratt Skinner. In all the army of the men who live by their +wits, there was not one to Jarvice's knowledge who was so alert as +Garratt Skinner to lay hands upon the new victim or so successful in +lulling his suspicions. He might have foreseen that Garratt Skinner would +throw his net over Walter Hine. But he had not, and the harm was done. + +Mr. Jarvice took the insurance policy from his safe and shook his head +over it sadly. He had seen his way to making in his quiet fashion, and at +comparatively little cost, a tidy little sum of one hundred thousand +pounds. Now he must take a partner, so that he might not have an enemy. +Garratt Skinner with Barstow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for +his decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded. Jarvice must +share with Garratt Skinner--unless he preferred to abandon his scheme +altogether; and that Mr. Jarvice would not do. + +There was no other way. Jarvice knew well that he could weaken Garratt +Skinner's influence over Walter Hine by revealing to the youth certain +episodes in the new friend's life. He might even break the +acquaintanceship altogether. But Garratt Skinner would surely discover +who had been at work. And then? Why, then, Mr. Jarvice would have upon +his heels a shrewd and watchful enemy; and in this particular business, +such an enemy Mr. Jarvice could not afford to have. Jarvice was not an +impressionable man, but his hands grew cold while he imagined Garratt +Skinner watching the development of his little scheme--the tour abroad +with the pleasant companion, the things which were to happen on the +tour--watching and waiting until the fitting moment had come, when all +was over, for him to step in and demand the price of his silence and hold +Mr. Jarvice in the hollow of his hand for all his life. No, that would +never do. Garratt Skinner must be a partner so that also he might be an +accessory. + +Accordingly, Jarvice wrote his letter to Garratt Skinner, a few lines +urging him to come to London on most important business. Never was +there a letter more innocent in its appearance than that which Jarvice +wrote in his inner office on that summer afternoon. Yet even at the +last he hesitated whether he should seal it up or no. The sun went +down, shadows touched with long cool fingers the burning streets; +shadows entered into that little inner office of Mr. Jarvice. But still +he sat undecided at his desk. + +The tour upon the Continent must be abandoned, and with it the journey +under canvas to the near East--a scheme so simple, so sure, so safe. +Still Garratt Skinner might confidently be left to devise another. And he +had always kept faith. To that comforting thought Mr. Jarvice clung. He +sealed up his letter in the end, and stood for a moment or two with the +darkness deepening about him. Then he rang for his clerk and bade him +post it, but the voice he used was one which the clerk did not know, so +that he pushed his head forward and peered through the shadows to make +sure that it was his master who spoke. + +Two days afterward Garratt Skinner paid a long visit to Mr. Jarvice, and +that some agreement was reached between the two men shortly became +evident. For Walter Hine received a letter from Captain Barstow which +greatly relieved him. + +"Garratt Skinner has written to me," wrote the 'red-hot' Captain, "that +he has discovered that the gardener, whom he engaged for a particular +job, is notorious as a poacher and a first-class shot. Under these +circumstances, my dear old fellow, the red-hot one cannot pouch your +pennies. As between gentlemen, the bet must be considered o-p-h." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS + + +Hilary Chayne stayed away from Dorsetshire for ten complete days; and +though the hours crept by, dilatory as idlers at a street corner, he +obtained some poor compensation by reflecting upon his fine diplomacy. In +less than a week he would surely be missed; by the time that ten days had +passed the sensation might have become simply poignant. So for ten days +he wandered about the Downs of Sussex with an aching heart, saying the +while, "It serves her right." On the morning of the eleventh he received +a letter from the War Office, bidding him call on the following +afternoon. + +"That will just do," he said. "I will go down to Weymouth to-day, and I +will return to London to-morrow." And with an unusual lightness of +spirit, which he ascribed purely to his satisfaction that he need punish +Sylvia no longer, he started off upon his long journey. He reached the +house of the Running Water by six o'clock in the evening; and at the +outset it seemed that his diplomacy had been sagacious. + +He was shown into the library, and opposite to him by the window +Sylvia stood alone. She turned to him a white terror-haunted face, +gazed at him for a second like one dazed, and then with a low cry of +welcome came quickly toward him. Chayne caught her outstretched hands +and all his joy at her welcome lay dead at the sight of her distress. +"Sylvia!" he exclaimed in distress. He was hurt by it as he had never +thought to be hurt. + +"I am afraid!" she said, in a trembling whisper. He drew her toward him +and she yielded. She stood close to him and very still, touching him, +leaning to him like a frightened child. "Oh, I am afraid," she repeated; +and her voice appealed piteously for sympathy and a little kindness. + +In Chayne's mind there was suddenly painted a picture of the ice-slope on +the Aiguille d'Argentiere. A girl had moved from step to step, across +that slope, looking down its steep glittering incline without a tremor. +It was the same girl who now leaned to him and with shaking lips and eyes +tortured with fear cried, "I am afraid." By his recollection of that day +upon the heights Chayne measured the greatness of her present trouble. + +"Why, Sylvia? Why are you afraid?" + +For answer she looked toward the open window. Chayne followed her glance +and this was what he saw: The level stretch of emerald lawn, the stream +running through it and catching in its brown water the red light of the +evening sun, the great beech trees casting their broad shadows, the high +garden walls with the dusky red of their bricks glowing amongst fruit +trees, and within that enclosure pacing up and down, in and out among the +shadows of the trees, Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine. Yet that sight she +must needs have seen before. Why should it terrify her beyond reason now? + +"Do you see?" Sylvia said in a low troubled voice. For once distress had +mastered her and she spoke without her usual reticence. "There can be no +friendship between those two. No real friendship! You have but to see +them side by side to be sure of it. It is pretence." + +Yet that too she must have known before. Why then should the pretence now +so greatly trouble her? Chayne watched the two men pacing in the garden. +Certainly he had never seen them in so intimate a comradeship. Garratt +Skinner had passed his arm through Walter Hine's and held him so, plying +him with stories, bending down his keen furrowed aquiline face toward him +as though he had no thought in the world but to make him his friend and +bind him with affection; and Walter Hine looked up and listened and +laughed, a vain, weak wisp of a creature, flattered to the skies and +defenceless as a rabbit. + +"Why the pretence?" said Sylvia. "Why the linked arms? The pretence has +grown during these last days. What new thing is intended?" Her eyes were +on the garden, and as she looked it seemed that her terror grew. "My +father went away a week ago. Since he has returned the pretence has +increased. I am afraid! I am afraid!" + +Garratt Skinner turned in his walk and led Walter Hine back toward the +house. Sylvia shrank from his approach as from something devilish. When +he turned again, she drew her breath like one escaped from sudden peril. + +"Sylvia! Of what are you afraid?" + +"I don't know!" she cried. "That's just the trouble. I don't know!" She +clenched her hands together at her breast. Chayne caught them in his and +was aware that in one shut palm she held something which she concealed. +Her clasp tightened upon it as his hands touched hers. Sylvia had more +reason for her fears than she had disclosed. Barstow came no more. There +were no more cards, no more bets; and this change taken together with +Garratt Skinner's increased friendship added to her apprehensions. She +dreaded some new plot more sinister, more terrible than that one of which +she was aware. + +"If only I knew," she cried. "Oh, if only I knew!" + +Archie Parminter had paid one visit to the house, had stayed for one +night; and he and Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine had sat up till +morning, talking together in the library. Sylvia waking up from a fitful +sleep, had heard their voices again and again through the dark hours; and +when the dawn was gray, she had heard them coming up to bed as on the +first night of her return; and as on that night there was one who +stumbled heavily. It was since that night that terror had distracted her. + +"I have no longer any power," she said. "Something has happened to +destroy my power. I have no longer any influence. Something was done upon +that night," and she shivered as though she guessed; and she looked at +her clenched hand as though the clue lay hidden in its palm. There lay +her great trouble. She had lost her influence over Walter Hine. She had +knowledge of the under side of life--yes, but her father had a greater +knowledge still. He had used his greater knowledge. Craftily and with a +most ingenious subtlety he had destroyed her power, he had blunted her +weapons. Hine was attracted by Sylvia, fascinated by her charm, her +looks, and the gentle simplicity of her manner. Very well. On the other +side Garratt Skinner had held out a lure of greater attractions, greater +fascination; and Sylvia was powerless. + +"He has changed," Sylvia went on, with her eyes fixed on Walter Hine. +"Oh, not merely toward me. He has changed physically. Can you understand? +He has grown nervous, restless, excitable, a thing of twitching limbs. +Oh, and that's not all. I will tell you. This morning it seemed to me +that the color of his eyes had changed." + +Chayne stared at her. "Sylvia!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, I have not lost my senses," she answered, and she resumed: "I only +noticed that there was an alteration at first. I did not see in what the +alteration lay. Then I saw. His eyes used to be light in color. This +morning they were dark. I looked carefully to make sure, and so I +understood. The pupils of his eyes were so dilated that they covered the +whole eyeball. Can you think why?" and even as she asked, she looked at +that clenched hand of hers as though the answer to that question as well +lay hidden there. "I am afraid," she said once more; and upon that Chayne +committed the worst of the many indiscretions which had signalized his +courtship. + +"You are afraid? Sylvia! Then let me take you away!" + +At once Sylvia drew back. Had Chayne not spoken, she would have told him +all that there was to tell. She was in the mood at this unguarded moment. +She would have told him that during these last days Walter Hine had taken +to drink once more. She would have opened that clenched fist and showed +the thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her father beyond all +hope of exculpation. But Chayne had checked her as surely as though he +had laid the palm of his hand upon her lips. He would talk of love and +flight, and of neither had she any wish to hear. She craved with a great +yearning for sympathy and a little kindness. But Chayne was not content +to offer what she needed. He would add more, and what he added marred the +whole gift for Sylvia. She shook her head, and looking at him with a sad +and gentle smile, said: + +"Love is for the happy people." + +"That is a hard saying, Sylvia," Chayne returned, "and not a true one." + +"True to me," said Sylvia, with a deep conviction, and as he advanced to +her she raised her hand to keep him off. "No, no," she cried, and had he +listened, he might have heard a hint of exasperation in her voice. But he +would not be warned. + +"You can't go on, living here, without sympathy, without love, without +even kindness. Already it is evident. You are ill, and tired. And you +think to go on all your life or all your father's life. Sylvia, let me +take you away!" + +And each unwise word set him further and further from his aim. It seemed +to her that there was no help anywhere. Chayne in front of her seemed to +her almost as much her enemy as her father, who paced the lawn behind her +arm in arm with Walter Hine. She clasped her hands together with a quick +sharp movement. + +"I will not let you take me away," she cried. "For I do not love you"; +and her voice had lost its gentleness and grown cold and hard. Chayne +began again, but whether it was with a renewal of his plea, she did not +hear. For she broke in upon him quickly: + +"Please, let me finish. I am, as you said, a little over-wrought! Just +hear me out and leave me to bear my troubles by myself. You will make it +easier for me"; she saw that the words hurt her lover. But she did not +modify them. She was in the mood to hurt. She had been betrayed by her +need of sympathy into speaking words which she would gladly have +recalled; she had been caught off her guard and almost unawares; and she +resented it. Chayne had told her that she looked ill and tired; and she +resented that too. No wonder she looked tired when she had her father +with his secret treacheries on one side and an importunate lover upon +the other! She thought for a moment or two how best to put what she had +still to stay: + +"I have probably said to you," she resumed, "more than was right or +fair--I mean fair to my father. I have no doubt exaggerated things. I +want you to forget what I have said. For it led you into a mistake." + +Chayne looked at her in perplexity. + +"A mistake?" + +"Yes," she answered. She was standing in front of him with her forehead +wrinkled and a somber, angry look in her eyes. "A mistake which I must +correct. You said that I was living here without kindness. It is not +true. My father is kind!" And as Chayne raised his eyes in a mute +protest, she insisted on the word. "Yes, kind and thoughtful--thoughtful +for others besides myself." A kind of obstinacy forced her on to enlarge +upon the topic. "I can give you an instance which will surprise you." + +"There is no need," Chayne said, gently, but Sylvia was implacable. + +"But there is need," she returned. "I beg you to hear me. When my father +and I were at Weymouth we drove one afternoon across the neck of the +Chesil beach to Portland." + +Chayne looked at Sylvia quickly. + +"Yes?" he said, and there was an indefinable change in his voice. He had +consented to listen, because she wished it. Now he listened with a keen +attention. For a strange thought had crept into his mind. + +"We drove up the hill toward the plateau at the top of the island, but as +we passed through the village--Fortune's Well I think they call it--my +father stopped the carriage at a tobacconist's, and went into the shop. +He came out again with some plugs of tobacco--a good many--and got into +the carriage. You won't guess why he bought them. I didn't." + +"Well?" said Chayne, and now he spoke with suspense. Suspense, too, was +visible in his quiet attitude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's +sake he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now call himself +Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery. But he must unravel it without +doing any hurt to Sylvia. He could not go too warily--of that he had been +sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak of it. There might be some +hidden thing which for Sylvia's sake must not be brought to light. +Therefore he must find out the truth without help from any one. He +wondered whether unconsciously Sylvia herself was going to give him the +clue. Was she to tell him what she did not know herself--why Gabriel +Strood was now Garratt Skinner? "Well?" he repeated. + +"As we continued up the hill," she resumed, "my father cut up the tobacco +into small pieces with his pocket knife. 'Why are you doing that?' I +asked, and he laughed and said, 'Wait, you will see.' At the top of the +hill we got out of the carriage and walked across the open plateau. In +front of us, rising high above a little village, stood out a hideous +white building. My father asked if I knew what it was. I said I guessed." + +"It was the prison," Chayne interrupted, quickly. + +"Yes." + +"You went to it?" + +Upon the answer to the question depended whether or no Chayne was to +unravel his mystery, to-day. + +"No," replied Sylvia, and Chayne drew a breath. Had she answered "Yes," +the suspicion which had formed within his mind must needs be set aside, +as clearly and finally disproved. Since she answered "No," the suspicion +gathered strength. "We went, however, near to it. We went as close to it +as the quarries. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and as we came to +the corner of the wall which surrounds the quarries, my father said, +'They have stopped work now.'" + +"He knew that?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. We turned into a street which runs down toward the prison. On one +side are small houses, on the other the long wall of the Government +quarries. The street was empty; only now and then--very seldom--some one +passed along it. On the top of the wall, there were sentry-boxes built at +intervals, for the warders to overlook the convicts. But these were empty +too. The wall is not high; I suppose--in fact my father said--the quarry +was deep on the other side." + +"Yes," said Chayne, quietly. "And then?" + +"Then we walked slowly along the street, and whenever there was no one +near, my father threw some tobacco over the wall. 'I don't suppose they +have a very enjoyable time,' he said. 'They will be glad to find the +tobacco there to-morrow.' We walked up the street and turned and came +back, and when we reached the corner he said with a laugh, 'That's all, +Sylvia. My pockets are empty.' We walked back to the carriage and drove +home again to Weymouth." + +Sylvia had finished her story, and the mystery was clear to Chayne. She +had told him the secret which she did not know herself. He was sure now +why Gabriel Strood had changed his name; he knew now why Gabriel Strood +no longer climbed the Alps; and why Kenyon would answer no question as to +the disappearance of his friend. + +"I have told you this," said Sylvia, "because you accused my father of +unkindness and want of thought. Would you have thought of those poor +prisoners over there in the quarries? If you had, would you have taken so +much trouble just to give them a small luxury? I think they must have +blessed the unknown man who thought for them and showed them what so many +want--a little sympathy and a little kindness." + +Chayne bowed his head. + +"Yes," he said, gently. "I was unjust." + +Indeed even to himself he acknowledged that Garratt Skinner had shown an +unexpected kindness, although he was sure of the reason for the act. He +had no doubt that Garratt Skinner had labored in those quarries himself, +and perhaps had himself picked up in bygone days, as he stooped over his +work, tobacco thrown over the walls by some more fortunate man. + +"I am glad you acknowledge that," said Sylvia, but her voice did not +relent from its hostility. She stood without further word, expecting him +to take his leave. Chayne recollected with how hopeful a spirit he had +traveled down from London. His fine diplomacy had after all availed him +little. He had gained certainly some unexpected knowledge which convinced +him still more thoroughly that the sooner he took Sylvia away from her +father and his friends the better it would be. But he was no nearer to +his desire. It might be that he was further off than ever. + +"You are returning to London?" she asked. + +"Yes. I have to call at the War Office to-morrow." + +Sylvia had no curiosity as to that visit. She took no interest in it +whatever, he noticed with a pang. + +"And then?" she asked slowly, as she crossed the hall with him to the +door. "You will go home?" + +Chayne smiled rather bitterly. + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"Into Sussex?" + +"Yes." + +She opened the door, and as he came out on to the steps she looked at him +with a thoughtful scrutiny for a few moments. But whether her thoughts +portended good or ill for him, he could not tell. + +"When I was a boy," he said abruptly, "I used to see from the garden of +my house, far away in a dip of the downs, a dark high wall standing up +against the sky. I never troubled myself as to how it came to have been +built there. But I used to wonder, being a boy, whether it could be +scaled or no. One afternoon I rode my pony over to find out, and I +discovered--What do you think?--that my wall was a mere hedge just three +feet high, no more." + +"Well!" said Sylvia. + +"Well, I have not forgotten--that's all," he replied. + +"Good-by," she said, and he learned no more from her voice than he had +done from her looks. He walked away down the lane, and having gone a few +yards he looked back. Sylvia was still standing in the doorway, watching +him with grave and thoughtful eyes. But there was no invitation to him to +return, and turning away again he walked on. + +Sylvia went up-stairs to her room. She unclenched her hand at last. In +its palm there lay a little phial containing a colorless solution. But +there was a label upon the phial, and on the label was written "cocaine." +It was that which had struck at her influence over Walter Hine. It was to +introduce this drug that Archie Parminter had been brought down from +London and the West End clubs. + +"It's drunk a good deal in a quiet way," Archie had said, as he made a +pretence himself to drink it. + +"You leave such drugs to the aristocracy, Walter," Garratt Skinner had +chimed in. "Just a taste if you like. But go gently." + +Sylvia had not been present. But she conjectured the scene, and her +conjecture was not far from the truth. But why? she asked, and again fear +took hold of her. "What was to be gained?" There were limits to Sylvia's +knowledge of the under side of life. She did not guess. + +She turned to her mirror and looked at herself. Yes, she looked tired, +she looked ill. But she was not grateful for having the fact pointed out +to her. And while she still looked, she heard her father's voice calling +her. She shivered, as though her fear once more laid hold on her. Then +she locked the bottle of cocaine away in a drawer and ran lightly down +the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION + + +Chayne's house stood high upon a slope of the Sussex Downs. Built of +stone two centuries ago, it seemed gradually to have taken on the brown +color of the hill behind it, subduing itself to the general scheme, even +as birds and animals will do; so that strangers who searched for it in +the valley discovered it by the upward swirl of smoke from its wide +chimneys. On its western side and just beneath the house, there was a +cleft in the downs through which the high road ran and in the cleft the +houses of a tiny village clustered even as at the foot of some old castle +in Picardy. On the east the great ridge with its shadow-holding hollows, +its rounded gorse-strewn slopes of grass, rolled away for ten miles and +then dipped suddenly to the banks of the River Arun. The house faced the +south, and from its high-terraced garden, a great stretch of park and +forest land was visible, where amidst the green and russet of elm and +beach, a cluster of yews set here and there gave the illusion of a black +and empty space. Beyond the forest land a lower ridge of hills rose up, +and over that ridge one saw the spires of Chichester and the level flats +of Selsea reaching to the sea. + +Into this garden Chayne came on the next afternoon, and as he walked +along its paths alone he could almost fancy that his dead father paced +with the help of his stick at his side, talking, as had been his wont, of +this or that improvement needed by the farms, pointing out to him a +meadow in the hollow beneath which might soon be coming into the market, +and always ending up with the same plea. + +"Isn't it time, Hilary, that you married and came home to look after it +all yourself?" + +Chayne had turned a deaf ear to that plea, but it made its appeal to him +to-night. Wherever his eyes rested, he recaptured something of his +boyhood; the country-side was alive with memories. He looked south, and +remembered how the perished cities of history had acquired reality for +him by taking on the aspect of Chichester lying low there on the flats; +and how the spires of the fabled towns of his storybooks had caught the +light of the setting sun, just as did now the towers of the cathedral. +Eastward, in the dip between the shoulder of the downs, and the trees of +Arundel Park, a long black hedge stood out with a remarkable definition +against the sky--the hedge of which he had spoken to Sylvia--the great +dark wall of brambles guarding the precincts of the Sleeping Beauty. He +recalled the adventurous day when he had first ridden alone upon his pony +along the great back of the downs and had come down to it through a +sylvan country of silence and ferns and open spaces; and had discovered +it to be no more than a hedge waist-high. The dusk came upon him as he +loitered in that solitary garden; the lights shone out in cottage and +farm-house; and more closely still his memories crowded about him weaving +spells. Some one to share them with! Chayne had no need to wait for old +age before he learnt the wisdom of Michel Revailloud. For his heart +leaped now, as he dreamed of exploring once more with Sylvia at his side +the enchanted country of his boyhood; gallops in the quiet summer +mornings along that still visible track across the downs, by which the +Roman legions had marched in the old days from London straight as a die +to Chichester; winter days with the hounds; a rush on windy afternoons in +a sloop-rigged boat down the Arun to Littlehampton. Chayne's heart leaped +with a passionate longing as he dreamed, and sank as he turned again to +the blank windows of the empty house. + +He dined alone, and while he dined evoked Sylvia's presence at the +table, setting her, not at the far end, but at the side and close, so +that a hand might now and then touch hers; calling up into her face her +slow hesitating smile; seeing her still gray eyes grow tender; in a word +watching the Madonna change into the woman. He went into the library +where, since the night had grown chilly, a fire was lit. It was a place +of comfort, with high bookshelves, deep-cushioned chairs, and dark +curtains. But, no less than the dining-room it needed another presence, +and lacking that lacked everything. It needed the girl with the tired +and terror-haunted face. Here, surely the fear would die out of her +soul, the eyes would lose their shadows, the feet regain the lightness +of their step. + +Chayne took down his favorite books, but they failed him. Between the +pages and his eyes one face would shape itself. He looked into the fire +and sought as of old to picture in the flames some mountain on which his +hopes were set and to discover the right line for its ascent. But even +that pastime brought no solace for his discontent. The house oppressed +him. It was empty, it was silent. He drew aside the curtains and looking +down into the valley through the clear night air watched the lights in +cottage and farm with the envy born of his loneliness. + +In spite of the brave words he had used, he wondered to-night whether the +three-foot hedge was not after all to prove the unassailable wall. And it +was important that he should know. For if it were so, why then he had not +called at the War Office in vain. A proposal had been made to him--that +he should join a commission for the delimitation of a distant frontier. A +year's work and an immediate departure--those were the conditions. Within +two days he must make up his mind--within ten days he must leave England. + +Chayne pondered over the decision which he must make. If he had lost +Sylvia, here was the mission to accept. For it meant complete severance, +a separation not to be measured by miles alone, but by the nature of the +work, and the comrades, and even the character of the vegetation. He went +to bed in doubt, thinking that the morning might bring him counsel. It +brought him a letter from Sylvia instead. + +The letter was long; it was written in haste, it was written in great +distress, so that words which were rather unkind were written down. But +the message of the letter was clear. Chayne was not to come again to the +House of the Running Water; nor to the little house in London when she +returned to it. They were not to meet again. She did not wish for it. + +Chayne burnt the letter as soon as he had read it, taking no offence at +the hasty words. "I seem to have worried her more than I thought," he +said to himself with a wistful smile. "I am sorry," and again as the +sparks died out from the black ashes of the letter he repeated: "Poor +little girl. I am very sorry." + +So the house would always be silent and empty. + +Sylvia had written the letter in haste on the very evening of Chayne's +visit, and had hurried out to post it in fear lest she might change her +mind in the morning. But in the morning she was only aware of a great +lightness of spirit. She could now devote herself to the work of her +life; and for two long tiring days she kept Walter Hine at her side. But +now he sought to avoid her. The little energy he had ever had was gone, +he alternated between exhilaration and depression; he preferred, it +seemed, to be alone. For two days, however, Sylvia persevered, and on the +third her lightness of spirit unaccountably deserted her. + +She drove with Walter Hine that morning, and something of his own +irritability seemed to have passed into her; so that he turned to her +and asked: + +"What have I done? Aren't you pleased with me? Why are you angry?" + +"I am not angry," she replied, turning her great gray eyes upon him. "But +if you wish to know, I miss something." + +So much she owned. She missed something, and she knew very well what it +was that she missed. Even as Chayne in his Sussex home had ached to know +that the house lacked a particular presence, so it began to be with +Sylvia in Dorsetshire. + +"Yet he has been absent for a longer time," she argued with herself, "and +I have not missed him. Indeed, I have been glad of his absence." And the +answer came quickly from her thoughts. + +"At any time you could have called him to your side, and you knew it. Now +you have sent him away for always." + +During the week the sense of loss, the feeling that everything was +unbearably incomplete, grew stronger and stronger within her. She had no +heart for the losing battle in which she was engaged. A dangerous +question began to force itself forward in her mind whenever her eyes +rested upon Walter Hine. "Was he worth while?" she asked herself: though +as yet she did not define all that the "while" connoted. The question was +most prominent in her mind on the seventh day after the letter had been +sent. She had persuaded Walter Hine to mount with her on to the down +behind the house; they came to the great White Horse, and Hine, pleading +fatigue, a plea which during these last days had been ever on his lips, +flung himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly +watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an +afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the +distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, +coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a +roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of +heat--heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to +dream of the cool glaciers; and the Chalet de Lognan suddenly stood +visible before her eyes. She watched the sunlight die off the red rocks +of the Chardonnet, the evening come with silent feet across the snow, and +the starlit night follow close upon its heels; night fled as she dreamed. +She saw the ice-slope on the Aiguille d'Argentiere, she could almost hear +the chip-chip of the axes as the steps were cut and the perpetual hiss as +the ice-fragments streamed down the slope. Then she looked toward Walter +Hine with the speculative inquiry which had come so often into her eyes +of late. And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from a pocket a +tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into his mouth. + +"How long have you been taking cocaine?" she asked, suddenly. + +Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with a shrinking look. + +"I don't," he stammered. + +"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found it." + +"That was not mine," said he, still more confused. "That was Archie +Parminter's. He left it behind." + +"Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion confirmed. "But he left +it for you?" + +"And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably to her, "what can it +matter to you? I believe that what your father says is true." + +"What does he say?" + +"That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it's no use for any one else +to think of you." + +Sylvia started. + +"Oh, he says that!" + +She understood now one of the methods of the new intrigue. Sylvia was in +love with Chayne; therefore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine. +It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it. Oh, no! But Archie Parminter +is invited for the night, takes the drug himself, or pretends to take it, +praises it, describes how the use of it has grown in the West End and +amongst the clubs, and then conveniently leaves the drug behind, and no +doubt supplies it as it is required. + +Sylvia began to dilate upon its ill-effects, and suddenly broke off. A +great disgust was within her and stopped her speech. She got to her feet. +"Let us go home," she said, and she went very quickly down the hill. When +she came to the house she ran up-stairs to her room, locked the door and +flung herself upon her bed. Walter Hine, her father, their plots and +intrigues, were swept clean from her mind as of no account. Her struggle +for the mastery became unimportant in her thoughts--a folly, a waste. For +what her father had said was true; she cared for Chayne. And what she +herself had said to Chayne when first he came to the House of the Running +Water was no less true. "If I loved, I think nothing else would count at +all except that I loved." + +She had judged herself aright. She knew that, as she lay prone upon +her bed, plunged in misery, while the birds called upon the boughs in +the garden and the mill stream filled the room with its leaping music. +In a few minutes a servant knocked upon the door and told her that tea +was ready in the library; but she returned no answer. And in a few +minutes more--or so it seemed, but meanwhile the dusk had come--there +came another knock and she was told that dinner had been served. But +to that message again she returned no answer. The noises of the busy +day ceased in the fields, the birds were hushed upon the branches, +quiet and darkness took and refreshed the world. Only the throbbing +music of the stream beat upon the ears, and beat with a louder +significance, since all else was still. Sylvia lay staring wide-eyed +into the darkness. To the murmur of this music, in perhaps this very +room, she had been born. "Why," she asked piteously, "why?" Of what +use was it that she must suffer? + +Of all the bad hours of her life, these were the worst. For the yearning +for happiness and love throbbed and cried at her heart, louder and +louder, just as the music of the stream swelled to importance with the +coming of the night. And she learned that she had had both love and +happiness within her grasp and that she had thrown them away for a +shadow. She thought of the letter which she had written, recalling its +phrases with a sinking heart. + +"No man could forgive them. I must have been mad," she said, and she +huddled herself upon her bed and wept aloud. + +She ran over in her mind the conversations which she and Hilary Chayne +had exchanged, and each recollection accused her of impatience and paid a +tribute to his gentleness. On the very first day he had asked her to go +with him and her heart cried out now: + +"Why didn't I go?" + +He had been faithful and loyal ever since, and she had called his +faithfulness importunity and his loyalty a humiliation. She struck a +match and looked at her watch and by habit wound it up. And she drearily +wondered on how many, many nights she would have to wind it up and +speculate in ignorance what he, her lover, was doing and in what corner +of the world, before the end of her days was reached. What would become +of her? she asked. And she raised the corner of a curtain and glanced at +the bright picture of what might have been. And glancing at it, the +demand for happiness raised her in revolt. + +She lit her candle and wrote another letter, of the shortest. It +contained but these few words: + +"Oh, please forgive me! Come back and forgive. Oh, you must!--SYLVIA." + +And having written them, Sylvia stole quietly down-stairs, let herself +out at the door and posted them. + +Two nights afterward she leaned out of her window at midnight, wondering +whether by the morrow's post she would receive an answer to her message. +And while she wondered she understood that the answer would not come that +way. For suddenly in the moonlit road beneath her, she saw standing the +one who was to send it. Chayne had brought his answer himself. For a +moment she distrusted her own eyes, believing that her thoughts had +raised this phantom to delude her. But the figure in the road moved +beneath her window and she heard his voice call to her: + +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM + + +Sylvia raised her hand suddenly, enjoining silence, and turned back into +the room. She had heard a door slam violently within the house; and now +from the hall voices rose. Her father and Walter Hine were coming up +early to-night from the library, and it seemed in anger. At all events +Walter Hine was angry. His voice rang up the stairway shrill and violent. + +"Why do you keep it from me? I will have it, I tell you. I am not a +child," and an oath or two garnished the sentences. + +Sylvia heard her father reply with the patronage which never failed to +sting the vanity of his companion, which was the surest means to provoke +a quarrel, if a quarrel he desired. + +"Go to bed, Wallie! Leave such things to Archie Parminter! You are +too young." + +His voice was friendly, but a little louder than he generally used, so +that Sylvia clearly distinguished every word; so clearly indeed, that had +he wished her to hear, thus he would have spoken. She heard the two men +mount the stairs, Hine still protesting with the violence which had grown +on him of late; Garratt Skinner seeking apparently to calm him, and +apparently oblivious that every word he spoke inflamed Walter Hine the +more. She had a fear there would be blows--blows struck, of course, by +Hine. She knew the reason of the quarrel. Her father was depriving Hine +of his drug. They passed up-stairs, however, and on the landing above she +heard their doors close. Then coming back to the window she made a sign +to Chayne, slipped a cloak about her shoulders and stole quietly down the +dark stairs to the door. She unlocked the door gently and went out to her +lover. Upon the threshold she hesitated, chilled by a fear as to how he +would greet her. But he turned to her and in the moonlight she saw his +face and read it. There was no anger there. She ran toward him. + +"Oh, my dear," she cried, in a low, trembling voice, and his arms +enclosed her. As she felt them hold her to him, and knew indeed that it +was he, her lover, whose lips bent down to hers, there broke from her a +long sigh of such relief and such great uplifting happiness as comes but +seldom, perhaps no more than once, in the life of any man or woman. Her +voice sank to a whisper, and yet was very clear and, to the man who heard +it, sweet as never music was. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear! You have come then?" and she stroked his face, and +her hands clung about his neck to make very sure. + +"Were you afraid that I wouldn't come, Sylvia?" he asked, with a low, +quiet laugh. + +She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he saw at once the tears +bright in her eyes and the smile trembling upon her lips. + +"No," she said, "I rather thought that you would come," and she laughed +as she spoke. Or did she sob? He could hardly tell, so near she was to +both. "Oh, but I could not be sure! I wrote with so much unkindness," and +her eyes dropped from his in shame. + +"Hush!" he said, and he held her close. + +"Have you forgiven me? Oh, please forgive me!" + +"Long since," said he. + +But Sylvia was not reassured. + +"Ah, but you won't forget," she said, ruefully. "One can forgive, but one +can't forget what one forgives," and then since, even in her remorse, +hope was uppermost with her that night, she cried, "Oh, Hilary, do you +think you ever will forget what I wrote to you?" + +And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears. + +"What does it matter what you wrote a week ago, since to-night we are +here, you and I--together, in the moonlight, for all the world to see +that we are lovers." + +She drew him quickly aside into the shadow of the wall. + +"Are you afraid we should be seen?" he asked. + +"No, but afraid we may be interrupted," she replied, with a clear trill +of laughter which showed to her lover that her fears had passed. + +"The whole village is asleep, Sylvia," he said in a whisper; and as he +spoke a blind was lifted in an upper story of the house, a window was +flung wide, and the light streamed out from it into the moonlit air and +spread over their heads like a great, yellow fan. Walter Hine leaned his +elbows on the sill and looked out. + +Sylvia moved deeper into the shadow. + +"He cannot see us," said Chayne, with a smile, and he set his arm about +her waist; and so they stood very quietly. + +The house was built a few yards back from the road, and on each side of +it the high wall of the garden curved in toward it, making thus an open +graveled space in front of its windows. Sylvia and her lover stood at one +of the corners where the wall curved in; the shadow reached out beyond +their feet and lay upon the white road in a black triangle; they could +hardly be seen from any window of the house, and certainly they could not +be recognized. But on the other hand they could see. From behind Walter +Hine the light streamed out clear. The ceiling of the room was visible +and the shadow of the lamp upon it, and even the top part of the door in +the far corner. + +"We will wait until he turns back into the room," Sylvia whispered; and +for a little while they stood and watched. Then she felt Chayne's arm +tighten about her and hold her still. + +"Do you see?" he cried, in a low, quick voice. "Sylvia, do you see?" + +"What?" + +"The door. Look! Behind him! The door!" And Sylvia, looking as he bade +her, started, and barely stifled the cry which rose to her lips. For +behind Walter Hine, the door in the far corner of the room was +opening--very slowly, very stealthily, as though the hand which opened it +feared to be detected. So noiselessly had the latch been loosed that +Walter Hine did not so much as turn his head. Nor did he turn it now. He +heard nothing. He leaned from the window with his elbows on the sill, and +behind him the gap between the door and the wall grew wider and wider. +The door opened into the room and toward the window, so that the two +people in the shadow below could see nothing of the intruder. But the +secrecy of his coming had something sinister and most alarming. Sylvia +joined her hands above her lover's arm, holding her breath. + +"Shout to him!" she whispered. "Cry out that there's danger." + +"Not yet!" said Chayne, with his eyes fixed upon the lighted room; and +then, in spite of herself, a low and startled cry broke from Sylvia's +lips. A great shadow had been suddenly flung upon the ceiling of the +room, the shadow of a man, bloated and made monstrous by the light. The +intruder had entered the room; and with so much stealth that his +presence was only noticed by the two who watched in the road below. But +even they could not see who the intruder was, they only saw the shadow +on the ceiling. + +Walter Hine, however, heard Sylvia's cry, faint though it was. He leaned +forward from the window and peered down. + +"Now!" said Sylvia. "Now!" + +But Chayne did not answer. He was watching with an extraordinary +suspense. He seemed not to hear. And on the ceiling the shadow moved, and +changed its shape, now dwindling, now growing larger again, now +disappearing altogether as though the intruder stooped below the level of +the lamp; and once there was flung on the white plaster the huge image of +an arm which had something in its hand. Was the arm poised above the +lamp, on the point of smashing it with the thing it held? Chayne waited, +with a cry upon his lips, expecting each moment that the room would be +plunged in darkness. But the cry was not uttered, the arm was withdrawn. +It had not been raised to smash the lamp, the thing which the hand held +was for some other purpose. And once more the shadow appeared moving and +changing as the intruder crept nearer to the window. Sylvia stood +motionless. She had thought to cry out, now she was fascinated. A spell +of terror constrained her to silence. And then, suddenly, behind Walter +Hine there stood out clearly in the light the head and shoulders of +Garratt Skinner. + +"My father," said Sylvia, in relief. Her clasp upon Chayne's arm relaxed; +her terror passed from her. In the revulsion of her feelings she laughed +quietly at her past fear. Chayne looked quickly and curiously at her. +Then as quickly he looked again to the window. Both men in the room were +now lit up by the yellow light; their attitudes, their figures were very +clear but small, like marionettes upon the stage of some tiny theater. +Chayne watched them with no less suspense now that he knew who the +intruder was. Unlike Sylvia he had betrayed no surprise when he had seen +Garratt Skinner's head and shoulders rise into view behind Walter Hine; +and unlike Sylvia, he did not relax his vigilance. Suddenly Garratt +Skinner stepped forward, very quickly, very silently. With one step he +was close behind his friend; and then just as he was about to move +again--it seemed to Sylvia that he was raising his arm, perhaps to touch +his friend upon the shoulder--Chayne whistled--whistled sharply, shrilly +and with a kind of urgency which Sylvia did not understand. + +Walter Hine leaned forward out of the window. That was quite natural. But +on the other hand Garratt Skinner did nothing of the kind. To Sylvia's +surprise he stepped back, and almost out of sight. Very likely he thought +that he was out of sight. But to the watchers in the road his head was +just visible. He was peering over Walter Hine's shoulder. + +Again Chayne whistled and, not content with whistling, he cried out in a +feigned bucolic accent: + +"I see you." + +At once Garratt Skinner's head disappeared altogether. + +Walter Hine peered down into the darkness whence the whistle came, +curving his hands above his forehead to shut out the light behind him; +and behind him once more the shadow appeared upon the ceiling and the +wall. A third time Chayne whistled; and Walter Hine cried out: + +"What is it?" + +And behind him the shadow vanished from the ceiling and the door began to +close, softly and stealthily, just as softly and stealthily as it had +been opened. + +Again, Hine cried out: + +"Who's there? What is it?" + +And Chayne laughed aloud derisively, as though he were some yokel +practising a joke. Hine turned back into the room. The room was empty, +but the door was unlatched. He disappeared from the window, and the +watchers below saw the door slammed to, heard the sound of the slamming +and then another sound, the sound of a key turning in the lock. + +It seemed almost that Chayne had been listening for that sound. For he +turned at once to Sylvia. + +"We puzzled them fairly, didn't we?" he said, with a smile. But the smile +somehow seemed hardly real, and his face was very white. + +"It's the moonlight," he explained. "Come!" + +They walked quietly through the silent village where the thick eaves of +the cottages threw their black shadows on the white moonlit road, past +the mill and the running water, to a gate which opened on the down. +They unlatched the gate noiselessly and climbed the bare slope of +grass. Half way up Chayne turned and looked down upon the house. There +was no longer any light in any window. He turned to Sylvia and slipped +his arm through hers. + +"Come close," said he, and now there was no doubt the smile was real. +"Shall we keep step, do you think?" + +"If we go always like this, we might," said Sylvia, with a smile. + +"At times there will be a step to be cut, no doubt," said he. + +"You once said that I could stand firm while the step was being cut," she +answered. Always at the back of both their minds, evident from time to +time in some such phrase as this, was the thought of the mountain upon +which their friendship had been sealed. Friendship had become love here +in the quiet Dorsetshire village, but in both their thoughts it had +another background--ice-slope and rock-spire and the bright sun over all. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ON THE DOWN + + +Sylvia led the way to a little hollow just beneath the ridge of the +downs, a sheltered spot open to the sea. On the three other sides bushes +grew about it and dry branches and leaves deeply carpeted the floor. Here +they rested and were silent. Upon Sylvia's troubled heart there had +fallen a mantle of deep peace. The strife, the fears, the torturing +questions had become dim like the small griefs of childhood. Even the +incident of the lighted window vexed her not at all. + +"Hilary," she said softly, lingering on the name, since to frame it and +utter it and hear her lips speaking it greatly pleased her, "Hilary," and +her hand sought his, and finding it she was content. + +It was a warm night of August. Overhead the moon sailed in a cloudless +summer sky, drowning the stars. To the right, far below, the lamps of +Weymouth curved about the shore; and in front the great bay shimmered +like a jewel. Seven miles across it the massive bluff of Portland pushed +into the sea; and even those rugged cliffs were subdued to the beauty of +the night. Beneath them the riding-lights shone steady upon the masts of +the battle ships. Sylvia looked out upon the scene with an overflowing +heart. Often she had gazed on it before, and she marveled now how quickly +she had turned aside. Her eyes were now susceptible to beauty as they had +never been. There was a glory upon land and sea, a throbbing tenderness +in the warm air of which she had not known till now. It seemed to her +that she had lived until this night in a prison. Once the doors had been +set ajar for a little while--just for a night and a day in the quiet of +the High Alps. But only now had they been opened wide. Only to-night had +she passed through and looked forth with an unhindered vision upon the +world; and she discovered it to be a place of wonders and sweet magic. + +"They were true, then," she said, with a smile on her lips. + +"Of what do you speak?" asked Chayne. + +"My dreams," Sylvia answered, knowing that she was justified of them. +"For I have come awake into the land of my dreams, and I know it at last +to be a real land, even to the sound of running water." + +For from the hollow at her feet the music of the mill stream rose to her +ears through the still night, very clear and with a murmur of laughter. +Sylvia looked down toward it. She saw it flashing like a riband of silver +in the garden of the dark quiet house. There was no breath of wind in +that garden, and all the great trees were still. She saw the intricate +pattern of their boughs traced upon the lawn in black and silver. + +"In that house I was born," she said softly, "to the noise of that +stream. I am very glad to know that in that house, too, my great +happiness has come to me." + +Chayne leaned forward, and sitting side by side with Sylvia, gazed down +upon it with rapture. Oh, wonderful house where Sylvia was born! How much +the world owed to it! + +"It was there!" he said with awe. + +"Yes," replied Sylvia. She was not without a proper opinion of herself, +and it seemed rather a wonderful house to her, too. + +"Perhaps on some such night as this," he said, and at once took the words +back. "No! You were born on a sunny morning of July and the blackbirds on +the branches told the good news to the blackbirds on the lawn, and the +stream took up the message and rippled it out to the ships upon the sea. +There were no wrecks that day." + +Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a smile, her dark eyes kind +and bright. + +"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!" + +"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And Sylvia laughed with the +clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon +those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of +contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more +dropped to the still garden and the dark square house at the down's foot. + +"There you asked me to marry you, to go away with you," she said, and she +caught his hand and held it close against her breast. + +"Yes, there I first asked you," he said, and some distress, forgotten in +these first perfect moments, suddenly found voice. "Sylvia, why didn't +you come with me then? Oh, my dear, if you only had!" + +But Sylvia's happiness was as yet too fresh, too loud at her throbbing +heart for her to mark the jarring note. + +"I did not want to then," she replied lightly, and then tightening her +clasp upon his hand. "But now I do. Oh, Hilary, I do!" + +"If only you had wanted then!" + +Though he spoke low, the anguish of his voice was past mistaking. Sylvia +looked at him quickly and most anxiously; and as quickly she looked away. + +"Oh, no," she whispered hurriedly. + +Her happiness could not be so short-lived a thing. Her heart stood still +at the thought. It could not be that she had set foot actually within the +dreamland, to be forthwith cast out again. She thought of the last week, +its aching lonely hours. She needed her lover at her side, longed for him +with a great yearning, and would not let him go. + +"I'll not listen, Hilary," she said stubbornly. "I will not hear! No"; +and Chayne drew her close to his side. + +"There is bad news, Sylvia." + +The outcry died away upon her lips. The words crushed the rebellion in +her heart, they were so familiar. It seemed to her that all her life +bad news had been brought to her by every messenger. She shivered and +was silent, looking straight out across the moonlit sea. Then in a +small trembling voice, like a child's, she pleaded, still holding her +face averted: + +"Don't go away from me, Hilary! Oh, please! Don't go away from me now!" + +Her voice, her words, went to Chayne's heart. He knew that pride and a +certain reticence were her natural qualities. That she should throw aside +the one, break through the other, proved to him indeed how very much she +cared, how very much she needed him. + +"Sylvia," he cried, "it will only be for a little while"; and again +silence followed upon his words. + +Since bad news was to be imparted, strength was needed to bear it; and +habit had long since taught Sylvia that silence was the best nurse of +strength. She did not turn her face toward her lover; but she drooped her +head and clenched her hands tightly together upon her knees, nerving +herself for the blow. The movement, slight though it was, stirred Chayne +to pity and hurt him with an intolerable pain. It betrayed so +unmistakably the long habit of suffering. She sat silent, motionless, +with the dumb patience of a wounded animal. + +"Oh, Sylvia, why did you not come with me on that first day?" he cried. + +"Tell me your bad news, dear," she replied, gently. + +"I cannot help it," he began in broken tones. "Sylvia, you will see that +there is no escape, that I must go. An appointment was offered to me--by +the War Office. It was offered to me, pressed on me, the day after I last +came here, the day after we were together in the library. I did not know +what to do. I did not accept it. But it seemed to me that each time I +came to see you we became more and more estranged. I was given two days +to make up my mind, and within the two days, my dear, your letter came, +telling me you did not wish to see me any more." + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered. + +"I accepted the appointment at once. There were reasons why I welcomed +it. It would take me abroad!" + +"Abroad!" she cried. + +"Yes, I welcomed that. To be near you and not to see you--to be near you +and know that others were talking with you, any one, every one except +me--to be near you and know that you were unhappy and in trouble, and +that I could not even tell you how deeply I was sorry--I dreaded that, +Sylvia. And yet I dreaded one thing more. Here, in England, at each turn +of the street, I should think to come upon you suddenly. To pass you as a +stranger, or almost as a stranger. No! I could not do it!" + +"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered, and lifting his hand she laid it against +her cheek. + +"So for a week I was glad. But this morning I received your second +letter, Sylvia. It came too late, my dear. There was no time to obtain a +substitute." + +Sylvia turned to him with a startled face. + +"When do you go?" + +"Very soon." + +"When?" + +The words had to be spoken. + +"To-morrow morning. I catch the first train from Weymouth to Southampton. +We sail from Southampton at noon." + +Habit came again to her assistance. She turned away from him so that he +might not see her face, and he went on: + +"Had there been more time, I could have made arrangements. Some one else +could have gone. As it is--" He broke off suddenly, and bending toward +her cried: "Sylvia, say that I must go." + +But she could not bring herself to that. She was minded to hold with both +hands the good thing which had come to her this night. She shook her +head. He sought to turn her face to his, but she looked stubbornly away. + +"And when will you return?" she asked. + +"In a few months, Sylvia." + +"When?" + +"In June." And she counted off the months upon her fingers. + +"So after to-night," she said, in a low voice, "I shall not see you any +more for all these months. The winter must pass, and the spring, too. Oh, +Hilary!" and she turned to him with a quivering face and whispered +piteously: "Don't go, my dear. Don't go!" + +"Say that I must go!" he insisted, and she laughed with scorn. Then the +laughter ceased and she said: + +"There will be danger?" + +"None," he cried. + +"Yes--from sickness, and--" her voice broke in a sob--"I shall not be +near." + +"I will take great care, Sylvia. Be sure of that," he answered. "Now that +I have you, I will take great care," and leaning toward her, as she sat +with her hands clasped upon her knees, he touched her hair with his lips +very tenderly. + +"Oh, Hilary, what will I do? Till you come back to me! What will I do?" + +"I have thought of it, Sylvia. I thought this. It might be better if, for +these months--they will not pass quickly, my dear, either for you or me. +They will be long slow months for both of us. That's the truth, my dear. +But since they must be got through, I thought it might be better if you +went back to your mother." + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"It would be better," he urged, with a look toward the house. + +"I can't do that. Afterward, in a year's time--when we are together, I +should like very much for us both to go to her. But my mother forbade it +when I went away from Chamonix. I was not to come whining back to her, +those were her words. We parted altogether that night." + +She spoke with an extreme simplicity. There was neither an appeal for +pity nor a hint of any bitterness in her voice. But the words moved +Chayne all the more on that account. He would be leaving a very lonely, +friendless girl to battle through the months of his absence by herself; +and to battle with what? He was not sure. But he had not taken so lightly +the shadow on the ceiling and the opening door. + +"If only you had come with me on that first day," he cried. + +"I will have to-night to look back upon, my dear," she said. "That will +be something. Oh, if I had not asked you to come back! If you had gone +away and said nothing! What would I have done then? As it is, I will know +that you are thinking of me--" and suddenly she turned to him, and held +him away from her in a spasm of fear while her eyes searched his face. +But in a moment they melted and a smile made her lips beautiful. "Oh, +yes, I can trust you," she said, and she nestled against him contentedly +like a child. + +For a little while they sat thus, and then her eyes sought the garden and +the house at her feet. It seemed that the sinister plot was not, after +all, to develop in that place of quiet and old peace without her for its +witness. It seemed that she was to be kept by some fatality +close-fettered to the task, the hopeless task, which she would now gladly +have foregone. And she wondered whether, after all, she was in some way +meant to watch the plot, perhaps, after all, to hinder it. + +"Hilary," she said, "you remember that evening at the Chalet de Lognan?" + +"Do I remember it?" + +"You explained to me a law--that those who know must use their knowledge, +if by using it they can save a soul, or save a life." + +"Yes," he said, vaguely remembering that he had spoken in this strain. + +"Well, I have been trying to obey that law. Do you understand? I want you +to understand. For when I have been unkind, as I have been many times, it +was, I think, because I was not obeying it with very much success. And I +should like you to believe and know that. For when you are away, you will +remember, in spite of yourself, the times when I was bitter." + +Her words made clear to him many things which had perplexed him during +these last weeks. Her friendship for Walter Hine became intelligible, and +as though to leave him no shadow of doubt, she went on. + +"You see, I knew the under side of things, and I seemed to see the +opportunity to use the knowledge. So I tried to save"; and whether it was +life or soul, or both, she did not say. She did not add that so far she +had tried in vain; she did not mention the bottle of cocaine, or the +dread which of late had so oppressed her. She was careful of her lover. +Since he had to go, since he needs must be absent, she would spare him +anxieties and dark thoughts which he could do nothing to dispel. But even +so, he obtained a clearer insight into the distress which she had +suffered in that house, and the bravery with which she had borne it. + +"Sylvia," he said, "I had no thought, no wish, that what I said should +stay with you." + +"Yet it did," she answered, "and I was thankful. I am thankful even now. +For though I would gladly give up all the struggle now, if I had you +instead; since I have not you, I am thankful for the law. It was your +voice which spoke it, it came from you. It will keep you near to me all +through the black months until you come back. Oh, Hilary!" and the brave +argument spoken to enhearten herself and him ended suddenly in a most +wistful cry. Chayne caught her to him. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" and he added: "The life is not yet saved!" + +"Perhaps I am given to the summer," she answered, and then, with a +whimsical change of humor, she laughed tenderly. "Oh, but I wish I +wasn't. You will write? Letters will come from you." + +"As often as possible, my dear. But they won't come often." + +"Let them be long, then," she whispered, "very long," and she leaned her +head against his shoulder. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "Lie close!" + +For a while longer they talked in low voices to one another, the words +which lovers know and keep fragrant in their memories. The night, warm +and clear, drew on toward morning, and the passage of the hours was +unremarked. For both of them there was a glory upon the moonlit land and +sea which made of it a new world. And into this new world both walked for +the first time--walked in their youth and hand in hand. Each for the +first time knew the double pride of loving and being loved. In spite of +their troubles they were not to be pitied, and they knew it. The gray +morning light flooded the sky and turned the moon into a pale white disk. + +"Lie close, my dear," said he. "It is not time." + +In the trees in the garden below the blackbirds began to bustle amongst +the leaves, and all at once their clear, sweet music thrilled upward to +the lovers in the hollow of the down. + +"Lie close, my dear," he repeated. + +They watched the sun leap into the heavens and flash down the Channel in +golden light. + +"The night has gone," said Chayne. + +"Nothing can take it from us while we live," answered Sylvia, very +softly. She raised herself from her couch of leaves. + +Then from one of the cottages in the tiny village a blue coil of smoke +rose into the air. + +"It is time," said Chayne, and they rose and hand in hand walked down the +slope of the hill to the house. Sylvia unlatched the door noiselessly and +went in. Chayne stepped in after her; and in the silent hall they took +farewell of one another. + +"Good-by, my dear," she whispered, with the tears in her eyes and in her +voice, and she clung to him a little and so let him go. She held the door +ajar until the sound of his footsteps had died away--and after that. For +she fancied that she heard them still, since, she so deeply wished to +hear them. Then with a breaking heart she went up the stairs to her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS + + +"Six weeks ago I said good-by to the French Commission on the borders of +a great lake in Africa. A month ago I was still walking to the rail head +through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said Chayne, and he looked +about the little restaurant in King Street, St. James', as though to make +sure that the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the red +benches against the walls, the women in their delicate gowns of lace, and +the jingle of harness in the streets without, made their appeal to one +who for the best part of a year had lived within the dark walls of a +forest. June had come round again, and Sylvia sat at his side. + +"You shall tell me how these months have gone with you while we dine," +said he. "Your letters told me nothing of your troubles." + +"I did not mean them to," replied Sylvia. + +"I guessed that, my dear. It was like you. Yet I would rather have +known." + +Only a few hours before he had stood upon the deck of the Channel packet +and had seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the +pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster +of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing +quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the +first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage +to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew +was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little house in +Hobart Place. + +"One thing I see," he said. "You are not as troubled as you were. The +look of fear--that has gone from your eyes. Sylvia, I am glad!" + +"There, were times," she answered--and as she thought upon them, terror +once more leapt into her face--"times when I feared more than ever, when +I needed you very much. But they are past now, Hilary," and her hand +dropped for a moment upon his, and her eyes brightened with a smile. As +they dined she told the story of those months. + +"We returned to London very suddenly after you had gone away," she began. +"We were to have stayed through September. But my father said that +business called him back, and I noticed that he was deeply troubled." + +"When did you notice that?" asked Chayne, quickly. "When did you first +notice it?" + +Sylvia reflected for a moment. + +"The day after you had gone." + +"Are you sure?" asked Chayne, with a certain intensity. + +"Quite." + +Chayne nodded his head. + +"I did not understand the reason of the hurry. And I was perplexed--and +also a little alarmed. Everything which I did not understand frightened +me in those days." She spoke as if "those days" and all their dark events +belonged to some dim period of which no consequence could reach her now. +"Our departure had almost the look of a flight." + +"Yes," said Chayne. For his part he was not surprised at their flight. He +had passed more than one wakeful night during the last few months arguing +and arguing again whether or no he should have disclosed to Sylvia the +meaning of that softly opening door and the shadow on the ceiling as he +read it. He might have been wrong; if so, he would have added to Sylvia's +burden of troubles yet another, and one more terrible than all the rest. +He might have been right; and if so, he might have enabled Sylvia to +avert a tragedy. Thus the argument had revolved in a circle and left him +always in the same doubt. Now he understood that his explanation of the +incident had been confirmed. The loud whistle from the darkness of the +road, the yokel's cry, which had driven Garratt Skinner from the room, as +noiselessly as he had entered it, had done more than that--they had +driven him from the neighborhood altogether. Some one had seen him--had +seen him standing just behind Walter Hine in the lighted room--and on the +next day he had fled! + +"I was right," he said, absently, "right to keep silent." For here was +Sylvia at his side and the dreaded peril unfulfilled. "Well, you returned +to London?" he added, hastily. + +"Yes. There is something of which I did not tell you, that night when we +were together on the downs. Walter Hine had begun to take cocaine." + +Chayne started. + +"Cocaine!" he cried. + +"Yes. My father taught him to take it." + +"Your father," said Chayne, slowly, trying to fit this new and astounding +fact in with the rest. "But why?" + +"I think I can tell you," said Sylvia. "My father knew quite well that he +had me working against him, trying to rescue Walter Hine out of his +hands. And I was beginning to get some power. He understood that, and +destroyed it. I was no match for him. I thought that I knew something of +the under side of life. But he knew more, ever so much more, and my +knowledge was of no avail. He taught Walter Hine the craving for cocaine, +and he satisfied the craving--there was his power. He provided the drug. +I do not know--I might perhaps have fought against my father and won. But +against my father and a drug I was helpless. My father obtained it in +sufficient quantity, withheld it at times, gave it at other times, played +with him, tantalized him, gratified him. You can understand there was +only one possible result. Walter Hine became my father's slave, his dog. +I no longer counted in his thoughts at all. I was nothing." + +"Yes," said Chayne. + +The device was subtle, diabolically subtle. But he wondered whether it +was only to counterbalance and destroy Sylvia's influence that Garratt +Skinner had introduced cocaine to Hine's notice; whether he had not had +in view some other end, even still more sinister. + +"I saw very little of Mr. Hine after our return to London," she +continued. "He did not come often to the house, but when he did come, +each time I saw that he had changed. He had grown nervous and violent of +temper. Even before we left Dorsetshire the violence had become +noticeable." + +"Oh!" said Chayne, looking quickly at Sylvia. "Before you left +Dorsetshire?" + +"Yes; and my father seemed to me to provoke it, though I could not guess +why. For instance--" + +"Yes?" said Chayne. "Tell me!" + +He spoke quietly enough, but once again there was audible a certain +intensity in his voice. There had been an occasion when Sylvia had given +to him more news of Garratt Skinner than she had herself. Was she to do +so once more? He leaned forward with his eyes on hers. + +"The night when you came back to me. Do you remember, Hilary?" and a +smile lightened his face. + +"I shall forget no moment of that night, sweetheart, while I live," he +whispered; and blushes swept prettily over her face, and in a sweet +confusion she smiled back at him. + +"Oh, Hilary!" she said. + +"Oh, Sylvia!" he mimicked; and as they laughed together, it seemed there +was a danger that the story of the months of separation would never be +completed. But Chayne brought her back to it. + +"Well? On that night when I came back?" + +"I saw you in the road from my window, and then motioning you to be +silent, I disappeared from the window." + +"Yes, I remember," said Chayne, eagerly. He began to think that the +cocaine was after all going to fit in with the incidents of that night. + +"Walter Hine and my father were going up to bed. I heard them on the +stairs. They were going earlier than usual." + +"You are sure?" interrupted Chayne. "Think well!" + +"Much earlier than usual, and they were quarreling. At least, Walter Hine +was quarreling; and my father was speaking to him as if he were a child. +That hurt his vanity and made him worse." + +"Your father was provoking him?" + +Sylvia's forehead puckered. + +"I could not say that, and be sure of it. But I can say this. If my +father had wished to provoke him to a greater anger, it's in that way +that he would have done it." + +"Yes. I see." + +"They were speaking loudly--even my father was--more loudly than +usual--especially at that time. For when they went up-stairs, they +usually went very quietly"; and again Chayne interrupted her. + +"Your father might have wanted you to hear the quarrel?" he suggested. + +Sylvia turned to him curiously. + +"Why should he wish that?" she asked, and considered the point. "He might +have. Only, on the other hand, they were earlier than usual. They would +not be so careful to go quietly; I was likely to be still awake." + +"Exactly," said Chayne. + +For in the probability that Sylvia would be still awake, would hear the +violent words of Hine, and would therefore be an available witness +afterward, Chayne found the reason both of the loudness of Garratt +Skinner's tones and his early retirement for the night. + +"Did you hear what was said? Can you repeat the words?" he asked. + +"Yes. My father was keeping something from Mr. Hine which he wanted. I +have no doubt it was the cocaine," and she repeated the words. + +"Yes," said Chayne. "Yes," in the tone of one who is satisfied. The +incident of the lighted room and the shadow on the ceiling were clear to +him now. A quarrel of which there was a witness, a quarrel all to the +credit of Garratt Skinner since it arose from his determination to hinder +Walter Hine from poisoning himself with drugs--at least, that is how the +evidence would work out; the quarrel continued in Walter Hine's bedroom, +whither Garratt Skinner had accompanied his visitor, a struggle begun for +the possession of the drug, begun by a man half crazy for want of it, a +blow in self-defence delivered by Garratt Skinner, perhaps a fall from +the window--that is how Chayne read the story of that night, as fashioned +by the ingenuity of Garratt Skinner. + +But on one point he was still perplexed. The story had not been told out +to its end that night: there had come an unexpected shout, which had +interrupted it, and indeed forever had prevented its completion on that +spot. But why had it not been completed afterward, during the next few +months, somewhere else? It had not been completed. For here was Sylvia +with all her fears allayed, continuing the story of those months. + +"But violence was not the only change in Walter Hine. There were some +physical alterations which frightened me. Mr. Hine, as I say, came very +seldom to our house, though my father saw a great deal of him. Otherwise +I should have noticed them before. But early this year he came and--you +remember he was fair--well, his skin had grown dark, quite dark, his +complexion had changed altogether. And there was something else which +shocked me. His tongue was black, really black. I asked him what was the +matter? He grew restless and angry and lied to me, and then he broke down +and told me he could not sleep. He slept for a few minutes only at a +time. He really was ill--very ill." + +Was this the explanation, Chayne asked himself? Having failed at the +quick process, the process of the lighted room and the open window, had +Garratt Skinner left the drug to do its work slowly and surely? + +"He was so weak, so broken in appearance, that I was alarmed. My father +was not in the house. I sent for a cab and I took Mr. Hine myself to a +doctor. The doctor knew at once what was amiss. For a time Mr. Hine said +'No,' but he gave in at the last. He was in the habit of taking thirty +grains of cocaine a day." + +"Thirty grains!" exclaimed Chayne. + +"Yes. Of course it could not go on. Death or insanity would surely +follow. He was warned of it, and for a while he went into a home. Then he +got better, and he determined to go abroad and travel." + +"Who suggested that?" asked Chayne. + +"I do not know. I know only that he refused to go without my father, and +that my father consented to accompany him." + +Chayne was startled. + +"They are away together now?" he cried. A look of horror in his eyes +betrayed his fear. He stared at Sylvia. Had she no suspicion--she +who knew something of the under side of life? But she quietly +returned his look. + +"I took precautions. I told my father what I knew--not merely that Mr. +Hine had acquired the habit of taking cocaine, but who had taught him the +habit. Yes, I did that," she said simply, answering his look of +astonishment. "It was difficult, my dear, and I would very much have +liked to have had you there to help me through with it. But since you +were not there, since I was alone, I did it alone. I thought of you, +Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say. I tried to hear your voice +speaking again outside the Chalet de Lognan. 'What you know, that you +must do.' I warned my father that if any harm came to Walter Hine from +taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I +would not keep silent." + +Chayne leaned back in his seat. + +"You said that--to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!" and the warmth of pride and +admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated +her for that bad hour. "You stood up alone and braved him out! My dear, +if I had only been there! And you never wrote to me a word of it!" + +"It would only have troubled you," she answered. "It would not have +helped me to know that you were troubled!" + +"And he--your father?" he asked. "How did he receive it?" + +Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she +could not for the moment trust her voice. Then she shuddered and said in +a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour: + +"I thought that I should never see you again." + +She said no more. From those few words, and from the manner in which she +uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken +place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house +in Hobart Place. He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple +of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes. +There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which +he had heard which shocked him. + +"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said. "Trust me, I will! There +shall be good hours, now. I'll watch you, till I know surely without +a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting. Trust +me, dearest!" + +"With all my heart and the rest of my life," she answered, a smile +responding to his words, and she resumed her story: + +"I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to +me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were. And to that--at +last--he consented. They have been away together for two months, and +every week I have heard. So I think there is no danger." + +Chayne did not disagree. But, on the other hand, he did not assent. + +"I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?" he said, doubtfully. + +"No," replied Sylvia. "That's another reason why--I am not afraid." She +chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate +charge against her father. "I used to think that he was--in the +beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him. But when the bets +ceased and no more cards were played--I used to puzzle over why they +ceased last year. But I think I have hit upon the explanation. My +father discovered then what I only found out a few weeks ago. I wrote +to Mr. Hine's grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill, and +asking him whether he would not send for him. I thought that would be +the best plan." + +"Yes, well?" + +"Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly that he did not know his +grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to +do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to +think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, +"and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I +suppose that it was natural he should think so. And I am so glad that I +wrote. For he told me that although Mr. Hine must eventually have a +fortune, it would not be until he himself died and that he was a very +healthy man. So you see, there could be no advantage to any one--" and +she did not finish the sentence. + +But Chayne could finish it for himself. There could be no advantage to +any one if Walter Hine died. But then why the cocaine? Why the incident +of the lighted window? + +"Yes," he said, in perplexity, "I can corroborate that. It happened that +my friend John Lattery, who was killed in Switzerland, was also +connected with Joseph Hine. He also would have inherited; and I knew +from him that the old man did not recognize his heirs. But--but Walter +Hine had money--some money, at all events. And he earned none. From whom +did he get it?" + +Sylvia shook her head. + +"I do not know." + +"Had he no other relations, no friends?" + +"None who would have made him an allowance." + +Chayne pondered over that question. For in the answer to it he was +convinced he would find the explanation of the mystery. If money was +given to Walter Hine, who had apparently no rich relations but his +grandfather, and certainly no rich friends, it would have been given with +some object. To discover the giver and his object--that was the problem. + +"Think! Did he never speak of any one?" + +Sylvia searched her memories. + +"No," she said. "He never spoke of his private affairs. He always led us +to understand that he drew an allowance from his grandfather." + +"But your father found that that was untrue when you were in Dorsetshire, +ten months ago. For the card-playing and the bets ceased." + +"Yes," Sylvia agreed thoughtfully. Then her face brightened. "I +remember a morning when Mr. Hine was in trouble. Wait a moment! He had +a letter. We were at breakfast and the letter came from Captain +Barstow. There was some phrase in the letter which Mr. Hine repeated. +'As between gentlemen'--that was it! I remember thinking at the time +what in the world Captain Barstow could know about gentlemen; and +wondering why the phrase should trouble Mr. Hine. And that morning Mr. +Hine went to London." + +"Oh, did he?" cried Chayne. "'As between gentlemen.' Had Hine been losing +money lately to Captain Barstow?" + +"Yes, on the day when you first came." + +"The starlings," exclaimed Chayne in some excitement. "That's it--Walter +Hine owes money to Captain Barstow which he can't pay. Barstow writes for +it--a debt of honor between gentlemen--one can imagine the letter. Hine +goes up to London. Well, what then?" + +Sylvia started. + +"My father went to London two days afterward." + +"Are you sure?" + +It seemed to Chayne that they were getting hot in their search. + +"Quite sure. For I remember that after his return his manner changed. +What I thought to be the new plot was begun. The cards disappeared, the +bets ceased, Mr. Parminter was brought down with the cocaine. I remember +it all clearly. For I always associated the change with my father's +journey to London. You came one evening--do you remember? You found me +alone and afraid. My father and Walter Hine were walking arm-in-arm in +the garden. That was afterward." + +"Yes, you were afraid because there was no sincerity in that friendship. +Now let me get this right!" + +He remained silent for a little while, placing the events in their due +order and interpreting them, one by the other. + +"This is what I make of it," he said at length. "The man in London who +supplies Walter Hine with money finds that Walter Hine is spending too +much. He therefore puts himself into communication with Garratt Skinner, +of whom he has doubtless heard from Walter Hine. Garratt Skinner travels +to London, has an interview, and a concerted plan of action is agreed +upon, which Garratt Skinner proceeds to put in action." + +He spoke so gravely that Sylvia turned anxiously toward him. + +"What do you infer, then?" she asked. + +"That we are in very deep and troubled waters, my dear," he replied, but +he would not be more explicit. He had no doubt in his mind that the +murder of Walter Hine had been deliberately agreed upon by Garratt +Skinner and the unknown man in London. But just as Sylvia had spared him +during his months of absence, so now he was minded to spare Sylvia. Only, +in order that he might spare her, in order that he might prevent shame +and distress greater than she had known, he must needs go on with his +questioning. He must discover, if by any means he could, the identity of +the unknown man who was so concerned in the destiny of Walter Hine. + +"Of your father's friends, was there one who was rich? Who came to the +house? Who were his companions?" + +"Very few people came to the house. There was no one amongst them who +fits in"; and upon that she started. "I wonder--" she said, thoughtfully, +and she turned to her lover. "After my father had gone away, I found a +telegram in a drawer in one of the rooms. There was no envelope, there +was just the telegram. So I opened it. It was addressed to my father. I +remember the words, for I did not know whether there was not something +which needed attention. It ran like this: 'What are you waiting for? +Hurry up.'" + +"Was it signed?" asked Chayne. + +"Yes. 'Jarvice,'" replied Sylvia. + +"Jarvice," Chayne repeated; and he spoke it yet again, as though in some +vague way it was familiar to him. "What was the date of the telegram?" + +"It had been sent a month before I found it. So I put it back into +the drawer." + +"'What are you waiting for? Hurry up. Jarvice,'" said Chayne, slowly, and +then he remembered how and when he had come across the name of Jarvice +before. His face grew very grave. + +"We are in deep waters, my dear," he said. + +There had been trouble in his regiment, some years before, in which the +chief figures had been a subaltern and a money-lender. Jarvice was the +name of the money-lender--an unusual name. Just such a man would be +likely to be Garratt Skinner's confederate and backer. Chayne ran over +the story in his mind again, by this new light. It certainly strengthened +the argument that the Mr. Jarvice who sent the telegram was Mr. Jarvice, +the money-lender. Thus did Chayne work it out in his thoughts: + +"Jarvice, for some reason unknown, pays Walter Hine an allowance. Walter +Hine gives it out that he receives it from his grandfather, whose heir +he undoubtedly is, and being a vain person much exaggerates the amount. +He falls into Garratt Skinner's hands, who, with the help of Barstow and +others, proceeds to pluck him. Walter Hine loses more than he has and +applies to Jarvice for more. Jarvice elicits the facts, and instead of +disclosing who Garratt Skinner is, and the obvious swindle of which Hine +is the victim, takes Garratt Skinner into his confidence. What happened +at the interview between Mr. Jarvice and Garratt Skinner in London the +subsequent facts make plain. At Jarvice's instigation the plot to +swindle Walter Hine becomes a cold-blooded plan to murder him. That plan +has been twice frustrated, once by me in Dorsetshire, and a second time +by Sylvia." + +So far the story worked out naturally, logically. But there remained two +questions. For what reason did Mr. Jarvice make Walter Hine an allowance? +And how would Walter Hine's death profit him? Chayne pondered over those +two questions and then the truth flashed upon him. He remembered how the +subaltern had been extracted from his difficulties. Money had been raised +by a life insurance. Again Chayne ranged his facts in order. + +"Walter Hine is the heir to great wealth. But he has no money now. Mr. +Jarvice makes him an allowance, the money to be repaid with a handsome +interest on the grandfather's death. But in order to insure Jarvice +from loss, if Walter Hine should die first, Walter Hine's life is +insured for a large sum. Thus Mr. Jarvice makes his position tenable +should his conduct be called in question. Having insured Walter Hine's +life, he arranges with Garratt Skinner to murder him. The attempt +failed the first time, the slower method is then adopted by Garratt +Skinner, and as a result comes the impatient telegram: 'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up!'" + +The case was thus so far clear. But anxiety remained. Was the plan +abandoned altogether, now that Sylvia had stood bravely up and warned her +father that she would not keep silent? So certainly Sylvia thought. But +then she did not know all that Chayne knew. It seemed that she had not +understood the incident of the lighted window. Nor was Chayne surprised. +For she was unaware of what was in Chayne's eyes the keystone of the +whole argument. She did not know that her father had worked as a convict +in the Portland quarries. + +"So they are abroad together, your father and Walter Hine," said +Chayne, slowly. + +"Yes!" replied Sylvia, with a smile. "Guess where they are now!" and she +turned to him with a tender look upon her face which he did not +understand. + +"I can't guess." + +"At Chamonix!" + +She saw her lover flinch, his face grow white, his eyes stare in horror. +And she wondered. For her the little town, overtopped by its tumbled +glittering fields of snow and tall rock spires was a place apart. She +cherished it in her memories, keeping clear and distinct the windings of +its streets, where they narrowed, where they broadened into open spaces; +yet all the while her thoughts transformed it, and made of its mere +stones and bricks a tiny city magical with light and grace. For while she +stayed in it her happiness had dawned and she saw it always roseate with +that dawn. It seemed to her that plots and thoughts of harm could there +hardly outlive one starlit night, one sunlit day. Had she mapped out her +father's itinerary, thither and nowhere else would she have sent him. + +"You are afraid?" she asked. "Hilary, why?" + +Chayne did not answer her question. He was minded to spare her, even as +she had spared him. He talked of other things until the restaurant grew +empty and the waiters began to turn out the lights as a hint to these two +determined loiterers. Then in the darkness, for now there was but one +light left, and that at a little distance from their table, Chayne leaned +forward and turning to Sylvia, as they sat side by side: + +"You have been happy to-night?" + +"Very," she answered, and there was a thrill of joyousness in her clear, +low voice, as though her heart sang within her. Her eyes rested on his +with pride. "No man could quite understand," she said. + +"Well then, why should we wait longer, Sylvia?" he said. "We have waited +long enough, my dear. We have after all no one but ourselves to please. I +should like our marriage to take place as soon as possible." + +Sylvia answered him without affectation. + +"I, too," she whispered. + +"To-morrow then! I'll get a special license to-morrow morning, and make +the arrangements. We can go away together at once." + +Sylvia smiled, and the smile deepened into a laugh. + +"Where shall we go, Hilary?" she cried. "To some perfect place." + +"To Chamonix," he answered. "That was where we first met. There could be +no better place. We can just go and tell your father what we have done +and then go up into the hills." + +It was well done. He spoke without wakening Sylvia's suspicions. She had +never understood the episode of the lighted window; she did not know +that her father was Gabriel Strood, of whose exploits in the Alps she +had read; she believed that all danger to Walter Hine was past. Chayne +on the other hand knew that hardly at any time could Hine have stood in +greater peril. To Chamonix he must go; and to Chamonix he must take +Sylvia too. For by the time when he could reach Chamonix, he might +already be too late. There might be publicity, inquiries, and for +Garratt Skinner ruin, and worse than ruin. Would Sylvia let her lover +share the dishonor of her name? He knew very surely she would not. +Therefore he would have the marriage. + +"By the way," he said, as he draped her cloak about her shoulders. "You +have that telegram from Jarvice?" + +"Yes." + +"That's good," he said. "It might be useful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +REVAILLOUD REVISITED + + +Never that familiar journey across France seemed to Chayne so slow. Would +he be in time? Would he arrive too late? The throb of the wheels beat out +the questions in a perpetual rhythm and gave him no answer. The words of +Jarvice's telegram were ever present in his mind, and grew more sinister, +the more he thought upon them. "What are you waiting for? Hurry up!" +Once, when the train stopped over long as it seemed to him he muttered +the words aloud and then glanced in alarm at his wife, lest perchance she +had overheard them. But she had not. She was remembering her former +journey along this very road. Then it had been night; now it was day. +Then she had been used to seek respite from her life in the shelter of +her dreams. Now the dreams were of no use, since what was real made them +by comparison so pale and thin. The blood ran strong and joyous in her +veins to-day; and looking at her, Chayne sent up his prayers that they +might not arrive in Chamonix too late. To him as to her Walter Hine was a +mere puppet, a thing without importance--so long as he lived. But he must +live. Dead, he threatened ruin and dishonor, and since from the beginning +Sylvia and he had shared--for so she would have it--had shared in the +effort to save this life, it would be well for them, he thought that they +should not fail. + +The long hot day drew to an end, and at last from the platform at the end +of the electric train they saw the snow-fields lift toward the soaring +peaks, and the peaks purple with the after glow stand solitary and +beautiful against the evening sky. + +"At last!" said Sylvia, with a catch in her breath, and the clasp of her +hand tightened upon her husband's arm. But Chayne was remembering certain +words once spoken to him in a garden of Dorsetshire, by a man who lay +idly in a hammock and stared up between the leaves. "On the most sunny +day, the mountains hold in their recesses mystery and death." + +"You know where your father is staying?" Chayne asked. + +"He wrote from the Hotel de l'Arve," Sylvia replied. + +"We will stay at Couttet's and walk over to see him this evening," said +Chayne, and after dinner they strolled across the little town. But at +the Hotel de l'Arve they found neither Garratt Skinner nor his friend, +Walter Hine. + +"Only the day before yesterday," said the proprietor, "they started for +the mountains. Always they make expeditions." + +Chayne drew no satisfaction from that statement. Garratt Skinner and his +friend would make many expeditions from which both men would return in +safety. Garratt Skinner was no blunderer. And when at the last he +returned alone with some flawless story of an accident in which his +friend had lost his life, no one would believe but that here was another +mishap, and another name to be added to the Alpine death-roll. + +"To what mountain have they gone?" Chayne asked. + +"To no mountain to-day. They cross the Col du Geant, monsieur, to +Courmayeur. But after that I do not know." + +"Oh, into Italy," said Chayne, in relief. So far there was no danger. The +Col du Geant, that great pass between France and Italy across the range +of Mont Blanc, was almost a highway. There would be too many parties +abroad amongst its ice seracs on these days of summer for any deed which +needed solitude and secrecy. + +"When do you expect them back?" + +"In five days, monsieur; not before." And at this reply Chayne's fears +were all renewed. For clearly the expedition was not to end with the +passage of the Col du Geant. There was to be a sequel, perhaps some +hazardous ascent, some expedition at all events which Garratt Skinner had +not thought fit to name. + +"They took guides, I suppose," he said. + +"One guide, monsieur, and a porter. Monsieur need not fear. For Monsieur +Skinner is of an excellence prodigious." + +"My father!" exclaimed Sylvia, in surprise. "I never knew." + +"What guide?" asked Chayne. + +"Pierre Delouvain"; and so once again Chayne's fears were allayed. He +turned to Sylvia. + +"A good name, sweetheart. I never climbed with him, but I know him +by report. A prudent man, as prudent as he is skilful. He would run +no risks." + +The name gave him indeed greater comfort than even his words expressed. +Delouvain's mere presence would prevent the commission of any crime. His +great strength would not be needed to hinder it. For he would be there, +to bear witness afterward. Chayne was freed from the dread which during +the last two days had oppressed him. Perhaps after all Sylvia was right +and the plot was definitely abandoned. Chayne knew very well that Garratt +Skinner's passion for the Alps was a deep and real one. Perhaps it was +that alone which had brought him back to Chamonix. Perhaps one day in the +train, traveling northward from Italy, he had looked from the window and +seen the slopes of Monte Rosa white in the sun--white with the look of +white velvet--and all the last twenty years had fallen from him like a +cloak, and he had been drawn back as with chains to the high playground +of his youth. Chayne could very well understand that possibility, and +eased of his fears he walked away with Sylvia back to the open square in +the middle of the town. Darkness had come, and both stopped with one +accord and looked upward to the massive barrier of hills. The rock peaks +stood sharply up against the clear, dark sky, the snow-slopes glimmered +faintly like a pale mist, and incredibly far, incredibly high, underneath +a bright and dancing star, shone a dim and rounded whiteness, the +snow-cap of Mont Blanc. + +"A year ago," said Sylvia, drawing a breath and bethinking her of the +black shadows which during those twelve months had lain across her path. + +"Yes, a year ago we were here," said Chayne. The little square was +thronged, the hotels and houses were bright with lights, and from here +and from there music floated out upon the air, the light and lilting +melodies of the day. "Sylvia, you see the cafe down the street there by +the bridge?" + +"Yes." + +"A year ago, on just such a night as this, I sat with my guide, Michel +Revailloud. I was going to cross the Col Dolent on the morrow. He had +made his last ascent. We were not very cheerful. And he gave me as a +parting present the one scrap of philosophy his life had taught him. He +said: 'Take care that when the time comes for you to get old that you +have some one to share your memories. Take care that when you go home in +the end, there shall be some one waiting in the room and the lamp lit +against your coming.'" + +Sylvia pressed against her side the hand which he had slipped +through her arm. + +"But he did more than give advice," Chayne continued, "for as he went +away to his home in the little village of Les Praz-Conduits, just across +the fields, he passed Couttet's Hotel and saw you under the lamp talking +to a guide he knew. You were making your arrangements to ascend the +Charmoz. But he dissuaded you." + +"Yes." + +"He convinced you that your first mountain should be the Aiguille +d'Argentiere. He gave you no doubt many reasons, but not the real one +which he had in his thoughts." + +Sylvia looked at Chayne in surprise. + +"He sent you to the Aiguille d'Argentiere, because he knew that so you +and I would meet at the Pavilion de Lognan." + +"But he had never spoken to me until that night," exclaimed Sylvia. + +"Yet he had noticed you. When I went up to fetch down my friend Lattery, +you were standing on the hotel step. You said to me, 'I am sorry.' Michel +heard you speak, and that evening talked of you. He had the thought that +you and I were matched." + +Sylvia looked back to the night before her first ascent. She pictured +to herself the old guide coming down the narrow street and out of the +darkness into the light of the lamp above the doorway. She recalled +how he had stopped at the sight of her, how cunningly he had spoken. +He had desired that her last step on to her first summit should bring +to her eyes and soul a revelation which no length of after years could +dim. That was the argument, and it was just the argument which would +prevail with her. + +"So it was his doing," she cried, with a laugh, and at once grew serious, +dwelling, as lovers will, upon the small accident which had brought them +together, and might so easily never have occurred. An unknown guide +speaks to her in a doorway, and lo! for her the world is changed, dark +years come to an end, the pathway broadens to a road; she walks not +alone. Whatever the future may hold--she walks not alone. Suppose there +had been no lamp above the doorway! Suppose there had been a lamp and she +not there! Suppose the guide had passed five minutes sooner or five +minutes later! + +"Oh, Hilary!" she cried, and put the thought from her. + +"I was thinking," he said, "that if you were not tired we might walk +across the fields to Michel's house. He would, I think, be very happy +if we did." + +A few minutes later they knocked upon Michel's door. Michel Revailloud +opened it himself and stood for a moment peering at the dim figures in +the darkness of the road. + +"It is I, Michel," said Chayne, and at the sound of his voice Michel +Revailloud drew him with a cry of welcome into the house. + +"So you have come back to Chamonix, monsieur! That is good"; and he +looked his "monsieur" over from head to foot and shook him warmly by the +hand. "Ah, you have come back!" + +"And not alone, Michel," said Chayne. + +Revailloud turned to the door and saw Sylvia standing there. She was on +the threshold and the light reached to her. Sylvia moved into the +low-roofed room. It was a big, long room, bare, and with a raftered +ceiling, and since one oil lamp lighted it, it was full of shadows. To +Chayne it had a lonely and a dreary look. He thought of his own house in +Sussex and of the evening he had passed there, thinking it just as +lonely. He felt perhaps at this moment, more than at any, the value of +the great prize which he had won. He took her hand in his, and, turning +to Michel, said simply: + +"We are married, Michel. We reached Chamonix only this evening. You are +the first of our friends to know of our marriage." + +Michel's face lighted up. He looked from one to the other of his visitors +and nodded his head once or twice. Then he blew his nose vigorously. "But +I let you stand!" he cried, in a voice that shook a little, and he +bustled about pushing chairs forward, and of a sudden stopped. He came +forward to Sylvia very gravely and held out his hand. She put her hand +into his great palm. + +"Madame, I will not pretend to you that I am not greatly moved. This is a +great happiness to me," he said with simplicity. He made no effort to +hide either the tears which filled his eyes or the unsteadiness of his +voice. "I am very glad for the sake of Monsieur Chayne. But I know him +well. We have been good friends for many a year, madame." + +"I know, Michel," she said. + +"And I can say therefore with confidence I am very glad for your sake +too. I am also very glad for mine. A minute ago I was sitting here +alone--now you are both here and together. Madame, it was a kind thought +which brought you both here to me at once." + +"To whom else should we come?" said Sylvia with a smile, "since it was +you, Michel, who would not let me ascend the Aiguille des Charmoz when I +wanted to." + +Michel was taken aback for a moment; then his wrinkled and +weatherbeaten face grew yet more wrinkled and he broke into a low and +very pleasant laugh. + +"Since my diplomacy has been so successful, madame, I will not deny it. +From the first moment when I heard you with your small and pretty voice +say on the steps of the hotel 'I am sorry' to my patron in his great +distress, and when I saw your face, too thoughtful for one so young, I +thought it would be a fine thing if you and he could come together. In +youth to be lonely--what is it? You slip on your hat and your cloak and +you go out. But when you are old, and your habits are settled, and you do +not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to +have a companion. And it is well to choose your companion in your youth, +madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together +when the good of life is chiefly recollection." + +He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered +them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true +gentleman he was. It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that +he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his +eyes than he had been last year. But at all events to-night he had the +spirit, the good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits upon peaks +then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's book, in which his messieurs +had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the +photographs which they had sent to him. + +"There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame," he said, +proudly, "with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and +the Alps were all young together. But it is not only the famous who are +interesting. Look, madame! Here is your husband's friend, Monsieur +Lattery--a good climber but not always very sure on ice." + +"You always will say that, Michel," protested Chayne. "I never knew a man +so obstinate." + +Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia: + +"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say a word against Monsieur +Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you +good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man. +Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and +nodded emphatically: "It is true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on +ice. And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt +known to you in London--Professor Kenyon." + +Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide's little book, +looked up at the photograph. + +"It was taken many years ago," she said. + +"Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Michel, with a shrug of the +shoulders, "when he and I and the Alps were young." + +Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the +table. If Kenyon's portrait was amongst Revailloud's small treasures, +there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the +portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon's "John +Lattery." There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in +Zermatt which he himself had seen in Kenyon's rooms. Fortunately however, +or so it seemed to him, Sylvia was engrossed in Michel's little book. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FUEHRBUCH + + +The book indeed was of far more interest to her than the portrait of any +mountaineer. It had a romance, a glamour of its own. It was just a +little note-book with blue-lined pages and an old dark-red soiled +leather cover which could fit into the breast pocket and never be +noticed there. But it went back to the early days of mountaineering when +even the passes were not all discovered and many of them were still +uncrossed, when mythical peaks were still gravely allotted their +positions and approximate heights in the maps; and when the easy +expedition of the young lady of to-day was the difficult achievement of +the explorer. It was to the early part of the book to which she turned. +Here she found first ascents of which she had read with her heart in her +mouth, ascents since made famous, simply recorded in the handwriting of +the men who had accomplished them--the dates, the hours of starting and +returning, a word or two perhaps about the condition of the snow, a warm +tribute to Michel Revailloud and the signatures. The same names recurred +year after year, and often the same hand recorded year after year +attempts on one particular pinnacle, until at the last, perhaps after +fifteen or sixteen failures, weather and snow and the determination of +the climbers conspired together, and the top was reached. + +"Those were the grand days," cried Sylvia. "Michel, you must be proud of +this book." + +"I value it very much, madame," he said, smiling at her enthusiasm. +Michel was a human person; and to have a young girl with a lovely face +looking at him out of her great eyes in admiration, and speaking almost +in a voice of awe, was flattery of a soothing kind. "Yes, many have +offered to buy it from me at a great price--Americans and others. But I +would not part with it. It is me. And when I am inclined to grumble, as +old people will, and to complain that my bones ache too sorely, I have +only to turn over the pages of that book to understand that I have no +excuse to grumble. For I have the proof there that my life has been very +good to live. No, I would not part with that little book." + +Sylvia turned over the pages slowly, naming now this mountain, now that, +and putting a question from time to time as to some point in a climb +which she remembered to have read and concerning which the narrative had +not been clear. And then a cry of surprise burst from her lips. + +Chayne had just assured himself that there was no portrait of Gabriel +Strood amongst those spread out upon the table. + +"What is it, madame?" asked Michel. + +Sylvia did not answer, but stared in bewilderment at the open page. +Chayne saw the book which she was reading and knew that his care lest she +should come across her father's portrait was of no avail. He crossed +round behind her chair and looked over her shoulder. There on the page in +her father's handwriting was the signature: "Gabriel Strood." + +Sylvia raised her face to Hilary's, and before she could put her question +he answered it quietly with a nod of the head. + +"Yes, that is so," he said. + +"You knew?" + +"I have known for a long time," he replied. + +Sylvia was lost in wonder. Yet there was no doubt in her mind. Gabriel +Strood, of whom she had made a hero, whose exploits she knew almost by +heart, had suffered from a physical disability which might well have +kept the most eager mountaineer to the level. It was because of his +mastery over his disability that she had set him so high in her esteem. +Well, there had been a day when her father had tramped across the downs +to Dorchester and had come back lame and in spite of his lameness had +left his companions behind. Other trifles recurred to her memory. She +had found him reading "The Alps in 1864," and yes--he had tried to hide +from her the title of the book. On their first meeting he had understood +at once when she had spoken to him of the emotion which her first +mountain peak had waked in her. And before that--yes, her guide had +cried aloud to her, "You remind me of Gabriel Strood." She owed it to +him that she had turned to the Alps as to her heritage, and that she had +brought to them an instinctive knowledge. Her first feeling was one of +sheer pride in her father. Then the doubts began to thicken. He called +himself Garratt Skinner. + +"Why? But why?" she cried, impulsively, and Chayne, still leaning on her +chair, pressed her arm with his hand and warned her to be silent. + +"I will tell you afterward," he said, quietly, and then he suddenly drew +himself upright. The movement was abrupt like the movement of a man +thoroughly startled--more startled even than she had been by the +unexpected sight of her father's handwriting. She looked up into his +face. He was staring at the open page of Michel's book. She turned back +to it herself and saw nothing which should so trouble him. Over Gabriel +Strood's signature there were just these words written in his hand and +nothing more: + +"Mont Blanc by the Brenva route. July, 1868." + +Yet it was just that sentence which had so startled Hilary. Gabriel +Strood _had_ then climbed Mont Blanc from the Italian side--up from the +glacier to the top of the great rock-buttress, then along the +world-famous ice-arete, thin as a knife edge, and to right and left +precipitous as a wall, and on the far side above the ice-ridge up the +hanging glaciers and the ice-cliffs to the summit of the Corridor. From +the Italian side of the range of Mont Blanc! And the day before yesterday +Gabriel Strood had crossed with Walter Hine to Italy, bound upon some +expedition which would take five days, five days at the least. + +It was to the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc that Garratt Skinner was +leading Walter Hine! The thought flashed upon Chayne swift as an +inspiration and as convincing. Chayne was sure. The Brenva route! It +was to this climb Garratt Skinner's thoughts had perpetually recurred +during that one summer afternoon in the garden in Dorsetshire, when he +had forgotten his secrecy and spoken even with his enemy of the one +passion they had in common. Chayne worked out the dates and they fitted +in with his belief. Two days ago Garratt Skinner started to cross the +Col du Geant. He would sleep very likely in the hut on the Col, and go +down the next morning to Courmayeur and make his arrangements for the +Brenva climb. On the third day, to-day, he would set out with Walter +Hine and sleep at the gite on the rocks in the bay to the right of the +great ice-fall of the Brenva glacier. To-morrow he would ascend the +buttress, traverse the ice-ridge with Walter Hine--perhaps--yes, only +perhaps--and at that thought Chayne's heart stood still. And even if he +did, there were the hanging ice-cliffs above, and yet another day would +pass before any alarm at his absence would be felt. Surely, it would be +the Brenva route! + +Garratt Skinner himself would run great risk upon this hazardous +expedition--that was true. But Chayne knew enough of the man to be +assured that he would not hesitate on that account. The very audacity of +the exploit marked it out as Gabriel Strood's. Moreover, there would be +no other party on the Brenva ridge to spy upon his actions. There was +just one fact so far as Chayne could judge to discredit his +inspiration--the inconvenient presence of a guide. + +"Do you know a guide Delouvain, Michel?" + +"Indeed, yes! A good name, monsieur, and borne by a man worthy of it." + +"So I thought," said Chayne. "Pierre Delouvain," and Michel laughed +scornfully and waved the name away. + +"Pierre! No, indeed!" he cried. "Monsieur, never engage Pierre Delouvain +for your guide. I speak solemnly. Joseph--yes, and whenever you can +secure him. I thought you spoke of him. But Pierre, he is a cousin who +lives upon Joseph's name, a worthless fellow, a drunkard. Monsieur, never +trust yourself or any one whom you hold dear with Pierre Delouvain!" + +Chayne's last doubt was dispelled. Garratt Skinner had laid his plans for +the Brenva route. Somewhere on that long and difficult climb the accident +was to take place. The very choice of a guide was in itself a +confirmation of Chayne's fears. It was a piece of subtlety altogether in +keeping with Garratt Skinner. He had taken a bad and untrustworthy guide +on one of the most difficult expeditions in the range of Mont Blanc. Why, +he would be asked? And the answer was ready. He had confused Pierre +Delouvain with Joseph, his cousin, as no doubt many another man had done +before. Did not Pierre live on that very confusion? The answer was not +capable of refutation. + +Chayne was in despair. Garratt Skinner had started two days before from +Chamonix, was already, now, at this moment, asleep, with his unconscious +victim at his side, high up on the rocks of the upper Brenva glacier. +There was no way to hinder him--no way unless God helped. He asked +abruptly of Michel: + +"Have you climbed this season, Michel?" + +Michel laughed grimly. + +"Indeed, yes, to the Montanvert, monsieur. And beyond--yes, beyond, to +the Jardin." + +Chayne broke in upon his bitter humor. + +"I want the best guide in Chamonix. I want him at once. I must start by +daylight." + +Michel glanced up in surprise. But what he saw in Chayne's face stopped +all remonstrance. + +"For what ascent, monsieur?" he asked. + +"The Brenva route." + +"Madame will not go!" + +"No, I go alone. I must go quickly. There is very much at stake. I beg +you to help me." + +In answer Michel took his hat down from a peg, and while he did so Chayne +turned quickly to his wife. She had risen from her chair, but she had not +interrupted him, she had asked no questions, she had uttered no prayer. +She stood now, waiting upon him with a quiet and beautiful confidence +which deeply stirred his heart. + +"Thank you, sweetheart!" he said, quietly. "You can trust. I thank you," +and he added, gravely: "Whatever happens--you and I--there is no +altering that." + +Michel opened the door. + +"I will walk with you into Chamonix, and I will bring the best guides I +can find to your hotel." + +They passed out, and crossed the fields quickly to Chamonix. + +"Do you go to your hotel, monsieur," said Revailloud, "and leave the +choice to me. I must go about it quietly. If you were to come with me, we +should have to choose the first two guides upon the rota and that would +not do for the Brenva climb." + +He left them at the door of the hotel and went off upon his errand. +Sylvia turned at once to Hilary; her face was very pale, her voice shook. + +"You will tell me everything now. Something terrible has happened. No +doubt you feared it. You came to Chamonix because you feared it, and now +you know that it has happened." + +"Yes," said Chayne. "I hid it from you even as you spared me your bad +news all this last year." + +"Tell me now, please. If it is to be 'you and I,' as you said just now, +you will tell me." + +Chayne led the way into the garden, and drawing a couple of chairs apart +from the other visitors told her all that he knew and she did not. He +explained the episode of the lighted window, solved for her the riddle of +her father's friendship for Walter Hine, and showed her the reason for +this expedition to the summit of Mont Blanc. + +She uttered one low cry of horror. "Murder!" she whispered. + +"To think that we are two days behind, that even now they are sleeping on +the rocks, _he_ and Walter Hine, sleeping quite peacefully and quietly. +Oh, it's horrible!" he cried, beating his hands upon his forehead in +despair, and then he broke off. He saw that Sylvia was sitting with her +hands covering her face, while every now and then a shudder shook her and +set her trembling. + +"I am so sorry, Sylvia," he cried. "Oh, my dear, I had so hoped we should +be in time. I would have spared you this knowledge if I could. Who knows? +We may be still in time," and as he spoke Michel entered the garden with +one other man and came toward him. + +"Henri Simond!" said Michel, presenting his companion. "You will know +that name. Simond has just come down from the Grepon, monsieur. He will +start with you at daylight." + +Chayne looked at Simond. He was of no more than the middle height, but +broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and long of arm. His strength was well +known in Chamonix--as well known as his audacity. + +"I am very glad that you can come, Simond," said Chayne. "You are the +very man;" and then he turned to Michel. "But we should have another +guide. I need two men." + +"Yes," said Michel. "Three men are needed for that climb," and Chayne +left him to believe that it was merely for the climb that he needed +another guide. "But there is Andre Droz already at Courmayeur," he +continued. "His patron was to leave him there to-day. A telegram can be +sent to him to-morrow bidding him wait. If he has started, we shall meet +him to-morrow on the Col du Geant. And Droz, monsieur, is the man for +you. He is quick, as quick as you and Simond. The three of you together +will go well. As for to-morrow, you will need no one else. But if you do, +monsieur, I will go with you." + +"There is no need, Michel," replied Chayne, gratefully, and thereupon +Sylvia plucked him by the sleeve. + +"I must go with you to-morrow, Hilary," she pleaded, wistfully. "Oh, you +won't leave me here. Let me come with you as far as possible. Let me +cross to Italy. I will go quick. If I get tired, you shall not know." + +"It will be a long day, Sylvia." + +"It cannot be so long as the day I should pass waiting here." + +She wrung her hands as she spoke. The light from a lamp fixed in the +hotel wall fell upon her upturned face. It was white, her lips trembled, +and in her eyes Chayne saw again the look of terror which he had hoped +was gone forever. "Oh, please," she whispered. + +"Yes," he replied, and he turned again to Simond. "At two o'clock then. +My wife will go, so bring a mule. We can leave it at the Montanvert." + +The guides tramped from the garden. Chayne led his wife toward the hotel, +slipping his arm through hers. + +"You must get some sleep, Sylvia." + +"Oh, Hilary," she cried. "I shall bring shame on you. We should never +have married," and her voice broke in a sob. + +"Hush!" he replied. "Never say that, my dear, never think it! Sleep! You +will want your strength to-morrow." + +But Sylvia slept little, and before the time she was ready with her +ice-ax in her hand. At two o'clock they came out from the hotel in the +twilight of the morning. There were two men there. + +"Ah! you have come to see us off, Michel," said Chayne. + +"No, monsieur, I bring my mule," said Revailloud, with a smile, and he +helped Sylvia to mount it. "To lead mules to the Montanvert--is not that +my business? Simond has a rope," he added, as he saw Chayne sling a coil +across his shoulder. + +"We may need an extra one," said Chayne, and the party moved off upon +its long march. At the Montanvert hotel, on the edge of the Mer de +Glace, Sylvia descended from her mule, and at once the party went down +on to the ice. + +"Au revoir!" shouted Michel from above, and he stood and watched them, +until they passed out of his sight. Sylvia turned and waved her hand to +him. But he made no answering sign. For his eyes were no longer good. + +"He is very kind," said Sylvia. "He understood that there was some +trouble, and while he led the mule he sought to comfort me," and then +between a laugh and a sob she added: "You will never guess how. He +offered to give me his little book with all the signatures--the little +book which means so much to him." + +It was the one thing which he had to offer her, as Sylvia understood, and +always thereafter she remembered him with a particular tenderness. He had +been a good friend to her, asking nothing and giving what he had. She saw +him often in the times which were to come, but when she thought of him, +she pictured him as on that early morning standing on the bluff of cliff +by the Montanvert with the reins of his mule thrown across his arm, and +straining his old eyes to hold his friends in view. + +Later during that day amongst the seracs of the Col du Geant, Simond +uttered a shout, and a party of guides returning to Chamonix changed +their course toward him. Droz was amongst the number, and consenting +at once to the expedition which was proposed to him, he tied himself +on to the rope. + +"Do you know the Brenva ascent?" Chayne asked of him. + +"Yes, monsieur. I have crossed Mont Blanc once that way. I shall be very +glad to go again. We shall be the first to cross for two years. If only +the weather holds." + +"Do you doubt that?" asked Chayne, anxiously. The morning had broken +clear, the day was sunny and cloudless. + +"I think there may be wind to-morrow," he replied, raising his face and +judging by signs unappreciable to other than the trained eyes of a guide. +"But we will try, eh, monsieur?" he cried, recovering his spirits. "We +will try. We will be the first on the Brenva ridge for two years." + +But there Chayne knew him to be wrong. There was another party somewhere +on the great ridge at this moment. "Had _it_ happened?" he asked himself. +"How was it to happen?" What kind of an accident was it to be which could +take place with a guide however worthless, and which would leave no +suspicion resting on Garratt Skinner? There would be no cutting of the +rope. Of that he felt sure. That method might do very well for a +melodrama, but actually--no! Garratt Skinner would have a better plan +than that. And indeed he had, a better plan and a simpler one, a plan +which not merely would give to any uttered suspicion the complexion of +malignancy, but must even bring Mr. Garratt Skinner honor and great +praise. But no idea of the plan occurred either to Sylvia or to Chayne as +all through that long hot day they toiled up the ice-fall of the Col du +Geant and over the passes. It was evening before they came to the +pastures, night before they reached Courmayeur. + +There Chayne found full confirmation of his fears. In spite of effort to +dissuade them, Garratt Skinner, Walter Hine and Pierre Delouvain had +started yesterday for the Brenva climb. They had taken porters with them +as far as the sleeping-place upon the glacier rocks. The porters had +returned. Chayne sent for them. + +"Yes," they said. "At half past two this morning, the climbing party +descended from the rocks on to the ice-fall of the glacier. They should +be at the hut at the Grands Mulets now, on the other side of the +mountain, if not already in Chamonix. Perhaps monsieur would wish for +porters to-morrow." + +"No," said Chayne. "We mean to try the passage in one day"; and he turned +to his guides. "I wish to start at midnight. It is important. We shall +reach the glacier by five. Will you be ready?" + +And at midnight accordingly he set out by the light of a lantern. Sylvia +stood outside the hotel and watched the flame diminish to a star, dance +for a little while, and then go out. For her, as for all women, the bad +hour had struck when there was nothing to do but to sit and watch and +wait. Perhaps her husband, after all, was wrong, she said to herself, +and repeated the phrase, hoping that repetition would carry conviction +to her heart. + +But early on that morning Chayne had sure evidence that he was right. For +as he, Simond and Andre Droz were marching in single file through the +thin forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd lad came running +down toward them. He was so excited that he could hardly tell the story +with which he was hurrying to Courmayeur. Only an hour before he had +seen, high up on the Brenva ridge, a man waving a signal of distress. +Both Simond and Droz discredited the story. The distance was too great; +the sharpest eyes could not have seen so far. But Chayne believed, and +his heart sank within him. The puppet and Garratt Skinner--what did they +matter? But he turned his eyes down toward Courmayeur. It was Sylvia upon +whom the blow would fall. + +"The story cannot be true," cried Simond. + +But Chayne bethought him of another day long ago, when a lad had burst +into the hotel at Zermatt and told with no more acceptance for his story +of an avalanche which he had seen fall from the very summit of the +Matterhorn. Chayne looked at his watch. It was just four o'clock. + +"There has been an accident," he said. "We must hurry." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE BRENVA RIDGE + + +The peasant was right. He _had_ seen a man waving a signal of distress on +the slopes of Mont Blanc above the great buttress. And this is how the +signal came to be waved. + +An hour before Chayne and Sylvia set out from Chamonix to cross the Col +du Geant, and while it was yet quite dark, a spark glowed suddenly on an +island of rocks set in the great white waste of the Brenva glacier. The +spark was a fire lit by Pierre Delouvain. For Garratt Skinner's party had +camped upon those rocks. The morning was cold, and one by one the +porters, Garratt Skinner, and Walter Hine, gathered about the blaze. +Overhead the stars glittered in a clear, dark sky. It was very still; no +sound was heard at all but the movement in the camp; even on the glacier +a thousand feet below, where all night long the avalanches had thundered, +in the frost of the early morning there was silence. + +Garratt Skinner looked upward. + +"We shall have a good day," he said; and then he looked quickly toward +Walter Hine. "How did you sleep, Wallie?" + +"Very little. The avalanches kept me awake. Besides, I slipped and fell a +hundred times at the corner of the path," he said, with a shiver. "A +hundred times I felt emptiness beneath my feet." + +He referred to a mishap of the day before. On the way to the gite after +the chalets and the wood are left behind, a little path leads along the +rocks of the Mont de la Brenva high above the glacier. There are one or +two awkward corners to pass where rough footsteps have been hewn in the +rock. At one of these corners Walter Hine had slipped. His side struck +the step; he would have dropped to the glacier, but Garratt Skinner had +suddenly reached out a hand and saved him. + +Garratt Skinner's face changed. + +"You are not afraid," he said. + +"You think we can do it?" asked Hine, nervously, and Garratt +Skinner laughed. + +"Ask Pierre Delouvain!" he said, and himself put the question. Pierre +laughed in his turn. + +"Bah! I snap my fingers at the Brenva climb," said he. "We shall be +in Chamonix to-night"; and Garratt Skinner translated the words to +Walter Hine. + +Breakfast was prepared and eaten. Walter Hine was silent through the +meal. He had not the courage to say that he was afraid; and Garratt +Skinner played upon his vanity. + +"We shall be in Chamonix to-night. It will be a fine feather in your cap, +Wallie. One of the historic climbs!" + +Walter Hine drew a deep breath. If only the day were over, and the party +safe on the rough path through the woods on the other side of the +mountain! But he held his tongue. Moreover, he had great faith in his +idol and master, Garratt Skinner. + +"You saved my life yesterday," he said; and upon Garratt Skinner's face +there came a curious smile. He looked steadily into the blaze of the fire +and spoke almost as though he made an apology to himself. + +"I saw a man falling. I saw that I could save him. I did not think. My +hand had already caught him." + +He looked up with a start. In the east the day was breaking, pale and +desolate; the lower glacier glimmered into view beneath them; the +gigantic amphitheater of hills which girt them in on three sides loomed +out of the mists from aerial heights and took solidity and shape, +westward the black and rugged Peuteret ridge, eastward the cliffs of Mont +Maudit, and northward sweeping around the head of the glacier, the great +ice-wall of Mont Blanc with its ruined terraces and inaccessible cliffs. + +"Time, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, and he rose to his feet and called +to Pierre Delouvain. "There are only three of us. We shall have to go +quickly. We do not want to carry more food than we shall need. The rest +we can send back with our blankets by the porters." + +Pierre Delouvain justified at once the ill words which had been spoken of +him by Michel Revailloud. He thought only of the burden which through +this long day he would have to carry on his back. + +"Yes, that is right," he said. "We will take what we need for the day. +To-night we shall be in Chamonix." + +And thus the party set off with no provision against that most probable +of all mishaps--the chance that sunset might find them still upon the +mountain side. Pierre Delouvain, being lazy and a worthless fellow, as +Revailloud had said, agreed. But the suggestion had been made by Garratt +Skinner. And Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood, who knew--none +better--the folly of such light traveling. + +The rope was put on; Pierre Delouvain led the way, Walter Hine as the +weakest of the party was placed in the middle, Garratt Skinner came last; +the three men mounted by a snow-slope and a gully to the top of the rocks +which supported the upper Brenva glacier. + +"That's our road, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. He pointed to a great +buttress of rock overlain here and there with fields of snow, which +jutted out from the ice-wall of the mountain, descended steeply, bent to +the west in a curve, and then pushed far out into the glacier as some +great promontory pushes out into the sea. "Do you see a hump above the +buttress, on the crest of the ridge and a little to the right? And to the +right of the hump, a depression in the ridge? That's what they call the +Corridor. Once we are there our troubles are over." + +But between the party and the buttress stretched the great ice-fall of +the upper Brenva glacier. Crevassed, broken, a wilderness of towering +seracs, it had the look of a sea in a gale whose breakers had been frozen +in the very act of over toppling. + +"Come," said Pierre. + +"Keep the rope stretched tight, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner; and they +descended into the furrows of that wild and frozen sea. The day's work +had begun in earnest; and almost at once they began to lose time. + +Now it was a perilous strip of ice between unfathomable blue depths along +which they must pass, as bridge-builders along their girders, yet without +the bridge-builders' knowledge that at the end of the passage there was a +further way. Now it was some crevasse into which they must descend, +cutting their steps down a steep rib of ice; now it was a wall up which +the leader must be hoisted on the shoulders of his companions, and even +so as likely as not, his fingers could not reach the top, but hand holds +and foot holds must be hewn with the ax till a ladder was formed. Now it +was some crevasse gaping across their path; they must search this way and +that for a firm snow-bridge by which to overpass it. It was difficult, as +Pierre Delouvain discovered, to find a path through that tangled +labyrinth without some knowledge of the glacier. For, only at rare times, +when he stood high on a serac, could he see his way for more than a few +yards ahead. Pierre aimed straight for the foot of the buttress, working +thus due north. And he was wrong. Garratt Skinner knew it, but said not a +word. He stood upon insecure ledges and supported Delouvain upon his +shoulders, and pushed him up with his ice-ax into positions which only +involved the party in further difficulties. He took his life in his hands +and risked it, knowing the better way. Yet all the while the light +broadened, the great violet shadows crept down the slopes and huddled at +the bases of the peaks. Then the peaks took fire, and suddenly along the +dull white slopes of ice in front of them the fingers of the morning +flashed in gold. Over the eastern rocks the sun had leaped into the sky. +For a little while longer they advanced deeper into the entanglement, and +when they were about half way across they came to a stop. They were on a +tongue of ice which narrowed to a point; the point abutted against a +perpendicular ice-wall thirty feet high. Nowhere was there any break in +that wall, and at each side of the tongue the ice gaped in chasms. + +"We must go back," said Pierre. "I have forgotten the way." + +He had never known it. Seduced by a treble fee, he had assumed an +experience which he did not possess. Garratt Skinner looked at his watch, +and turning about led the party back for a little while. Then he turned +to his right and said: + +"I think it might go in this direction," and lo! making steadily across +some difficult ground, no longer in a straight line northward to Mont +Blanc, but westward toward the cliffs of the Peuteret ridge under Garratt +Skinner's lead, they saw a broad causeway of ice open before them. The +causeway led them to steep slopes of snow, up which it was just possible +to kick steps, and then working back again to the east they reached the +foot of the great buttress on its western side just where it forms a +right angle with the face of the mountain. Garratt Skinner once more +looked at his watch. It had been half-past two when they had put on the +rope, it was now close upon half-past six. They had taken four hours to +traverse the ice-fall, and they should have taken only two and a half. +Garratt Skinner, however, expressed no anxiety. On the contrary, one +might have thought that he wished to lose time. + +"There's one of the difficulties disposed of," he said, cheerily. "You +did very well, Wallie--very well. It was not altogether nice, was it? But +you won't have to go back." + +Walter Hine had indeed crossed the glacier without complaint. There had +been times when he had shivered, times when his heart within him had +swelled with a longing to cry out, "Let us go back!" But he had not +dared. He had been steadied across the narrow bridge with the rope, +hauled up the ice-walls and let down again on the other side. But he had +come through. He took some pride in the exploit as he gazed back from the +top of the snow-slope across the tumult of ice to the rocks on which he +had slipped. He had come through safely, and he was encouraged to go on. + +"We won't stop here, I think," said Garratt Skinner. They had already +halted upon the glacier for a second breakfast. The sun was getting hot +upon the slopes above, and small showers of snow and crusts of ice were +beginning to shoot down the gullies of the buttress at the base of which +they stood. "We will have a third breakfast when we are out of range." He +called to Delouvain who was examining the face of the rock-buttress up +which they must ascend to its crest and said: "It looks as if we should +do well to work out to the right I think." + +The rocks were difficult, but their difficulty was not fully appreciated +by Walter Hine. Nor did he understand the danger. There were gullies in +which new snow lay in a thin crust over hard ice. He noticed that in +those gullies the steps were cut deep into the ice below, that Garratt +Skinner bade him not loiter, and that Pierre Delouvain in front made +himself fast and drew in the rope with a particular care when it came to +his turn to move. But he did not know that all that surface snow might +peel off in a moment, and swish down the cliffs, sweeping the party from +their feet. There were rounded rocks and slabs with no hold for hand or +foot but roughness, roughness in the surface, and here and there a +wrinkle. But the guide went first, as often as not pushed up by Garratt +Skinner, and Walter Hine, like many another inefficient man before him, +came up, like a bundle, on the rope afterward. Thus they climbed for +three hours more. Walter Hine, nursed by gradually lengthening +expeditions, was not as yet tired. Moreover the exhilaration of the air, +and excitement, helped to keep fatigue aloof. They rested just below the +crest of the ridge and took another meal. + +"Eat often and little. That's the golden rule," said Garratt Skinner. "No +brandy, Wallie. Keep that in your flask!" + +Pierre Delouvain, however, followed a practice not unknown amongst +Chamonix guides. + +"Absinthe is good on the mountains," said he. + +When they rose, the order of going was changed. Pierre Delouvain, who +had led all the morning, now went last, and Garratt Skinner led. He led +quickly and with great judgment or knowledge--Pierre Delouvain at the +end of the rope wondered whether it was judgment or knowledge--and +suddenly Walter Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt +Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a glacier far below, which +flows from the Mur de la Cote on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the +Brenva glacier. + +"That's famous," cried Garratt Skinner, looking once more at his watch. +He did not say that they had lost yet another hour upon the face of the +buttress. It was now half past nine in the morning. "We are twelve +thousand feet up, Wallie," and he swung to his left, and led the party up +the ridge of the buttress. + +As they went along this ridge, Wallie Hine's courage rose. It was narrow +but not steep, nor was it ice. It was either rock or snow in which steps +could be kicked. He stepped out with a greater confidence. If this were +all, the Brenva climb was a fraud, he exclaimed to himself in the vanity +of his heart. Ahead of them a tall black tower stood up, hiding what lay +beyond, and up toward this tower Garratt Skinner led quickly. He no +longer spoke to his companions, he went forward, assured and inspiring +assurance; he reached the tower, passed it and began to cut steps. His ax +rang as it fell. It was ice into which he was cutting. + +This was the first warning which Walter Hine received. But he paid no +heed to it. He was intent upon setting his feet in the steps; he found +the rope awkward to handle and keep tight, his attention was absorbed in +observing his proper distance. Moreover, in front of him the stalwart +figure of Garratt Skinner blocked his vision. He went forward. The snow +on which he walked became hard ice, and instead of sloping upward ran +ahead almost in a horizontal line. Suddenly, however, it narrowed; Hine +became conscious of appalling depths on either side of him; it narrowed +with extraordinary rapidity; half a dozen paces behind him he had been +walking on a broad smooth path; now he walked on the width of the top of +a garden wall. His knees began to shake; he halted; he reached out +vainly into emptiness for some support on which his shaking hands might +clutch. And then in front of him he saw Garratt Skinner sit down and +bestride the wall. Over Garratt Skinner's head, he now saw the path by +which he needs must go. He was on the famous ice-ridge; and nothing so +formidable, so terrifying, had even entered into his dreams during his +sleep upon the rocks where he had bivouacked. It thinned to a mere sharp +edge, a line without breadth of cold blue ice, and it stretched away +through the air for a great distance until it melted suddenly into the +face of the mountain. On the left hand an almost vertical slope of ice +dropped to depths which Hine did not dare to fathom with his eyes; on +the right there was no slope at all; a wall of crumbling snow descended +from the edge straight as a weighted line. On neither side could the +point of the ax be driven in to preserve the balance. Walter Hine +uttered a whimpering cry: + +"I shall fall! I shall fall!" + +Garratt Skinner, astride of the ridge, looked over his shoulder. + +"Sit down," he cried, sharply. But Walter Hine dared not. He stood, all +his courage gone, tottering on the narrow top of the wall, afraid to +stoop, lest his knees should fail him altogether and his feet slip from +beneath him. To bend down until his hands could rest upon the ice, and +meanwhile to keep his feet--no, he could not do it. He stood trembling, +his face distorted with fear, and his body swaying a little from side to +side. Garratt Skinner called sharply to Pierre Delouvain. + +"Quick, Pierre." + +There was no time for Garratt Skinner to return; but he gathered himself +together on the ridge, ready for a spring. Had Walter Hine toppled over, +and swung down the length of the rope, as at any moment he might have +done, Garratt Skinner was prepared. He would have jumped down the +opposite side of the ice-arete, though how either he or Walter Hine could +have regained the ridge he could not tell. Would any one of the party +live to return to Courmayeur and tell the tale? But Garratt Skinner knew +the risk he took, had counted it up long before ever he brought Walter +Hine to Chamonix, and thought it worth while. He did not falter now. All +through the morning, indeed, he had been taking risks, risks of which +Walter Hine did not dream; with so firm and yet so delicate a step he had +moved from crack to crack, from ice-step up to ice-step; with so obedient +a response of his muscles, he had drawn himself up over the rounded rocks +from ledge to ledge. He shouted again to Pierre Delouvain, and at the +same moment began carefully to work backward along the ice-arete. Pierre, +however, hurried; Walter Hine heard the guide's voice behind him, felt +himself steadied by his hands. He stooped slowly down, knelt upon the +wall, then bestrode it. + +"Now, forward," cried Skinner, and he pulled in the rope. "Forward. We +cannot go back!" + +Hine clung to the ridge; behind him Pierre Delouvain sat down and held +him about the waist. Slowly they worked themselves forward, while Garratt +Skinner gathered in the rope in front. The wall narrowed as they +advanced, became the merest edge which cut their hands as they clasped +it. Hine closed his eyes, his head whirled, he was giddy, he felt sick. +He stopped gripping the slope on both sides with his knees, clutching the +sharp edge with the palms of his hands. + +"I can't go on! I can't," he cried, and he reeled like a novice on the +back of a horse. + +Garratt Skinner worked back to him. + +"Put your arms about my waist, Wallie! Keep your eyes shut! You +shan't fall." + +Walter Hine clung to him convulsively, Pierre Delouvain steadied Hine +from behind, and thus they went slowly forward for a long while. Garratt +Skinner gripped the edge with the palms of his hands--so narrow was the +ridge--the fingers of one hand pointed down one slope, the fingers of the +other down the opposite wall. Their legs dangled. + +At last Walter Hine felt Garratt Skinner loosening his clasped fingers +from about his waist. Garratt Skinner stood up, uncoiled the rope, +chipped a step or two in the ice and went boldly forward. For a yard +or two further Walter Hine straddled on, and then Garratt Skinner +cried to him: + +"Look up, Wallie. It's all over." + +Hine looked and saw Garratt Skinner standing upon a level space of snow +in the side of the mountain. A moment later he himself was lying in the +sun upon the level space. The famous ice-arete was behind them. Walter +Hine looked back along it and shuddered. The thin edge of ice curving +slightly downward, stretched away to the black rock-tower, in the bright +sunlight a thing most beautiful, but most menacing and terrible. He +seemed cut off by it from the world. They had a meal upon that level +space, and while Hine rested, Pierre Delouvain cast off the rope and went +ahead. He came back in a little while with a serious face. + +"Will it go?" asked Garratt Skinner. + +"It must," said Delouvain. "For we can never go back"; and suddenly +alarmed lest the way should be barred in front as well as behind, Walter +Hine turned and looked above him. His nerves were already shaken; at the +sight of what lay ahead of him, he uttered a cry of despair. + +"It's no use," he cried. "We can never get up," and he flung himself upon +the snow and buried his face in his arms. Garratt Skinner stood over him. + +"We must," he said. "Come! Look!" + +Walter Hine looked up and saw his companion dangling the face of his +watch before his eyes. + +"We are late. It is now twelve o'clock. We should have left this spot two +hours ago and more," he said, very gravely; and Pierre Delouvain +exclaimed excitedly: + +"Certainly, monsieur, we must go on. It will not do to loiter now," and +stooping down, he dragged rather than helped Walter Hine to his feet. The +quiet gravity of Garratt Skinner and the excitement of Delouvain +frightened Walter Hine equally. Some sense of his own insufficiency broke +in at last upon him. His vanity peeled off from him, just at the moment +when it would most have been of use. He had a glimpse of what he was--a +poor, weak, inefficient thing. + +Above them the slopes stretched upward to a great line of towering +ice-cliffs. Through and up those ice-cliffs a way had to be found. And at +any moment, loosened by the sun, huge blocks and pinnacles might break +from them and come thundering down. As it was, upon their right hand +where the snow-fields fell steeply in a huge ice gully, between a line of +rocks and the cliffs of Mont Maudit, the avalanches plunged and +reverberated down to the Brenva glacier. Pierre Delouvain took the lead +again, and keeping by the line of rocks the party ascended the steep +snow-slopes straight toward the wall of cliffs. But in a while the snow +thinned, and the ax was brought into play again. Through the thin crust +of snow, steps had to be cut into the ice beneath, and since there were +still many hundreds of feet to be ascended, the steps were cut wide +apart. With the sun burning upon his face, and his feet freezing in the +ice-steps, Walter Hine stood and moved, and stood again all through that +afternoon. Fatigue gained upon him, and fear did not let him go. "If only +I get off this mountain," he said to himself with heartfelt longing, +"never again!" When near to the cliffs Pierre Delouvain stopped. In front +of him the wall was plainly inaccessible. Far away to the left there was +a depression up which possibly a way might be forced. + +"I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said Pierre. + +"But you should _know_" said Garratt Skinner. + +"It is some time since I was here. I have forgotten;" and Pierre began to +traverse the ice-slope to the left. Garratt Skinner followed without a +word. But he knew that when he had ascended Mont Blanc by the Brenva +route twenty-three years before, he had kept to the right along the rocks +to a point where that ice-wall was crevassed, and through that crevasse +had found his path. They passed quickly beneath an overhanging rib of ice +which jutted out from the wall, and reached the angle then formed at four +o'clock in the afternoon. + +"Our last difficulty, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, as he cut a +large step in which Hine might stand. "Once up that wall, our +troubles are over." + +Walter Hine looked at the wall. It was not smooth ice, it was true; +blocks had broken loose from it, and had left it bulging out here, +there, and in places fissured. But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees. +It seemed impossible that any one should ascend it. He looked down the +slope up which they had climbed--it seemed equally impossible that any +one should return. Moreover, the sun was already in the West, and the +ice promontory under which they stood shut its warmth from them. Walter +Hine was in the shadow, and he shivered with cold as much as with fear. +For half an hour Pierre Delouvain tried desperately to work his way up +that ice wall, and failed. + +"It is too late," he said. "We shall not get up to-night." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"No, nor get down," he added, gravely. "I am sorry, Wallie. We must go +back and find a place where we can pass the night." + +Walter Hine was in despair. He was tired, he was desperately cold, his +gloves were frozen, his fingers and his feet benumbed. + +"Oh, let's stop here!" he cried. + +"We can't," said Garratt Skinner, and he turned as he spoke and led the +way down quickly. There was need for hurry. Every now and then he stopped +to cut an intervening step, where those already cut were too far apart, +and at times to give Hine a hand while Delouvain let him down with the +help of the rope from behind. + +Slowly they descended, and while they descended the sun disappeared, the +mists gathered about the precipices below, the thunder of the avalanches +was heard at rare intervals, the ice-cliffs above them glimmered faintly +and still more faintly. The dusk came. They descended in a ghostly +twilight. At times the mists would part, and below them infinite miles +away they saw the ice-fields of the Brenva glacier. The light was failing +altogether when Garratt Skinner turned to his left and began to traverse +the slopes to a small patch of rocks. + +"Here!" he said, as he reached them. "We must sit here until the +morning comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE + + +At the base of the rocks there was a narrow ledge on which, huddled +together, the three men could sit side by side. Garratt Skinner began to +clear the snow from the ledge with his ice-ax; but Walter Hine sank down +at once and Pierre Delouvain, who might have shown a better spirit, +promptly followed his example. + +"What is the use?" he whispered. "We shall all die to-night.... I have a +wife and family.... Let us eat what there is to eat and then die," and +drowsily repeating his words, he fell asleep. Garratt Skinner, however, +roused him, and drowsily he helped to clear the ledge. Then Walter Hine +was placed in the middle that he might get what warmth and shelter was +to be had, the rope was hitched over a spike of rock behind, so that if +any one fell asleep he might not fall off, and Delouvain and Skinner +took their places. By this time darkness had come. They sat upon the +narrow ledge with their backs to the rock and the steep snow-slopes +falling away at their feet. Far down a light or two glimmered in the +chalets of La Brenva. + +Garratt Skinner emptied the _Ruecksack_ on his knees. + +"Let us see what food we have," he said. "We made a mistake in not +bringing more. But Pierre was so certain that we should reach Chamonix +to-night." + +"We shall die to-night," said Pierre. + +"Nonsense," said Garratt Skinner. "We are not the first party which has +been caught by the night." + +Their stock of food was certainly low. It consisted of a little bread, a +tin of sardines, a small pot of jam, some cold bacon, a bag of +acid-drops, a couple of cakes of chocolate, and a few biscuits. + +"We must keep some for the morning," he said. "Don't fall asleep, Wallie! +You had better take off your boots and muffle your feet in the +_Ruecksack_. It will keep them warmer and save you from frost-bite. You +might as well squeeze the water out of your stockings too." + +Garratt Skinner waked Hine from his drowsiness and insisted that his +advice should be followed. It would be advisable that it should be known +afterward in Courmayeur that he had taken every precaution to preserve +his companion's life. He took off his own stockings and squeezed the +water out, replaced them, and laced on his boots. For to him, too, the +night would bring some risk. Then the three men ate their supper. A very +little wine was left in the gourd which Garratt Skinner had carried on +his back, and he filled it up with snow and thrust it inside his shirt +that it might melt the sooner. + +"You have your brandy flask, Wallie, but be sparing of it. Brandy will +warm you for the moment, but it leaves you more sensitive to the cold +than you were before. That's a known fact. And don't drink too much of +this snow-water. It may make you burn inside. At least so I have been +told," he added. + +Hine drank and passed the bottle to Pierre, who took it with his +reiterated moan: "What's the use? We shall all die to-night. Why should a +poor guide with a wife and family be tempted to ascend mountains. I will +tell you something, monsieur," he cried suddenly across Walter Hine. "I +am not fond of the mountains. No, I am not fond of them!" and he leaned +back and fell asleep. + +"Better not follow his example, Wallie. Keep awake! Slap your limbs!" + +Above the three men the stars came out very clear and bright; the tiny +lights in the chalets far below disappeared one by one; the cold became +intense. At times Garratt Skinner roused his companions, and holding each +other by the arm, they rose simultaneously to their feet and stamped upon +the ledge. But every movement hurt them, and after a while Walter Hine +would not. + +"Leave me alone," he said. "To move tortures me!" + +Garratt Skinner had his pipe and some tobacco. He lit, shading the match +with his coat; and then he looked at his watch. + +"What time is it? Is it near morning?" asked Hine, in a voice which was +very feeble. + +"A little longer to wait," said Garratt Skinner, cheerfully. + +The hands marked a quarter to ten. + +And afterward they grew very silent, except for the noise which they made +in shivering. Their teeth chattered with the chill, they shook in fits +which lasted for minutes, Walter Hine moaned feebly. All about them the +world was bound in frost; the cold stars glittered overhead; the +mountains took their toll of pain that night. Yet there was one among +those three perched high on a narrow ledge of rock amongst the desolate +heights, who did not regret. Just for a night like this Garratt Skinner +had hoped. Walter Hine, weak of frame and with little stamina, was +exposed to the rigors of a long Alpine night, thirteen thousand feet +above the level of the sea, with hardly any food, and no hope of rescue +for yet another day and yet another night. There could be but one end to +it. Not until to-morrow would any alarm at their disappearance be +awakened either at Chamonix or at Courmayeur. It would need a second +night before help reached them--so Garratt Skinner had planned it out. +There could be but one end to it. Walter Hine would die. There was a risk +that he himself might suffer the same fate--he was not blind to it. He +had taken the risk knowingly, and with a certain indifference. It was the +best plan, since, if he escaped alive, suspicion could not fall on him. +Thus he argued, as he smoked his pipe with his back to the rock and +waited for the morning. + +At one o'clock Walter Hine began to ramble. He took Garratt Skinner and +Pierre Delouvain for Captain Barstow and Archie Parminter, and complained +that it was ridiculous to sit up playing poker on so cold a night; and +while in his delirium he rambled and moaned, the morning began to break. +But with the morning came a wind from the north, whirling the snow like +smoke about the mountain-tops, and bitingly cold. Garratt Skinner with +great difficulty stood up, slowly and with pain stretched himself to his +full height, slapped his thighs, stamped with his feet, and then looked +for a long while at his victim, without remorse, and without +satisfaction. He stooped and sought to lift him. But Hine was too stiff +and numbed with the cold to be able to move. In a little while Pierre +Delouvain, who had fallen asleep, woke up. The day was upon them now, +cold and lowering. + +"We must wait for the sun," said Garratt Skinner. "Until that has risen +and thawed us it will not be safe to move." + +Pierre Delouvain looked about him, worked the stiffened muscles of his +limbs and groaned. + +"There will be little sun to-day," he said. "We shall all die here." + +Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks +of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then +tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this +way and that. + +"No one will see it," whimpered Pierre; and indeed Garratt Skinner would +never have waved that signal had he not thought the same. + +"Perhaps--one never knows," he said. "We must take all precautions, for +the day looks bad." + +The sunlight, indeed, only stayed upon the mountain-side long enough to +tantalize them with vain hopes of warmth. Gray clouds swept up low over +the crest of Mont Blanc and blotted it out. The wind moaned wildly +along the slopes. The day frowned upon them sullen and cold with a sky +full of snow. + +"We will wait a little longer," said Garratt Skinner, "then we +must move." + +He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would +lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life +upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake. +Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine. + +"Leave me alone," moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his +companions as they lifted him on to his feet. + +"Stamp your feet, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. "You will feel better in +a few moments." + +They held him up, but he repeated his cry. "Leave me alone!" and the +moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome +with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him. + +Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky. + +"We must wait till help comes," he said, + +Delouvain shook his head. + +"It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur, +to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here"; and he fell to +blubbering like a child. + +"Could you go down alone?" Garratt Skinner asked. + +"There is the glacier to cross, monsieur." + +"I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The +snow-bridges may hold." + +Pierre Delouvain hesitated. Here it seemed to him was certain death. But +if he climbed down the ice-arete, the snow-slopes, and the rocks below, +if the snow-bridges held upon the glacier, there would be life for one of +the three. Pierre Delouvain had little in common with that loyal race of +Alpine guides who hold it as their most sacred tradition not to return +home without their patrons. + +"Yes, it is our one hope," he said; and untying himself with awkward +fumbling fingers from the kinked rope, and coiling the spare rope about +his shoulders, he went down the slope. During the night the steps had +frozen and in many places it was necessary to recut them. He too was +stiff with the long vigil. He moved slowly, with numbed and frozen limbs. +But as his ax rose and fell, the blood began to burn in the tips of his +fingers, to flow within his veins; he went more and more firmly. For a +long way Garratt Skinner held him in sight. Then he turned back to Walter +Hine upon the ledge, and sat beside him. Garratt Skinner's strength had +stood him in good stead. He filled his pipe and lit it, and watched +beside his victim. The day wore on slowly. At times Garratt Skinner +rubbed Hine's limbs and stamped about the ledge to keep some warmth +within himself. Walter Hine grew weaker and weaker. At times he was +delirious; at times he came to his senses. + +"You leave me," he whispered once. "You have been a good friend to me. +You can do no more. Just leave me here, and save yourself." + +Garratt Skinner made no answer. He just looked at Hine curiously--that +was all. That was all. It was a curious thing to him that Hine should +display an unexpected manliness--almost a heroism. It could not be +pleasant even to contemplate being left alone upon these windy and +sunless heights to die. But actually to wish it! + +"How did you come by so much fortitude?" he asked; and to his +astonishment, Walter Hine replied: + +"I learnt it from you, old man." + +"From me?" + +"Yes." + +Garratt Skinner gave him some of the brandy and listened to a portrait of +himself, described in broken words, which he was at some pains to +recognize. Walter Hine had been seeking to model himself upon an +imaginary Garratt Skinner, and thus, strangely enough, had arrived at an +actual heroism. Thus would Garratt Skinner have bidden his friends leave +him, only in tones less tremulous, and very likely with a laugh, turning +back, as it were, to snap his fingers as he stepped out of the world. +Thus, therefore, Walter Hine sought to bear himself. + +"Curious," said Garratt Skinner with interest, but with no stronger +feeling at all. "Are you in pain, Wallie?" + +"Dreadful pain." + +"We must wait. Perhaps help will come!" + +The day wore on, but what the time was Garratt Skinner could not tell. +His watch and Hine's had both stopped with the cold, and the dull, +clouded sky gave him no clue. The last of the food was eaten, the last +drop of the brandy drunk. It was bitterly cold. If only the snow would +hold off till morning! Garratt Skinner had only to wait. The night would +come and during the night Walter Hine would die. And even while the +thought was in his mind, he heard voices. To his amazement, to his alarm, +he heard voices! Then he laughed. He was growing light-headed. +Exhaustion, cold and hunger were telling their tale upon him. He was not +so young as he had been twenty years before. But to make sure he rose to +his knees and peered down the slope. He had been mistaken. The steep +snow-slopes stretched downward, wild and empty. Here and there black +rocks jutted from them; a long way down four black stones were spaced; +there was no living thing in that solitude. He sank back relieved. No +living thing except himself, and perhaps his companion. He looked at Hine +closely, shook him, and Hine groaned. Yes, he still lived--for a little +time he still would live. Garratt Skinner gathered in his numbed palm the +last pipeful of tobacco in his pouch and, spilling the half of it--his +hands so shook with cold, his fingers were so clumsy--he pressed it into +his pipe and lit it. Perhaps before it was all smoked out--he thought. +And then his hallucination returned to him. Again he heard voices, very +faint, and distant, in a lull of the wind. + +It was weakness, of course, but he started up again, this time to his +feet, and as he stood up his head and shoulders showed clear against the +white snow behind him. He heard a shout--yes, an undoubted shout. He +stared down the slope and then he saw. The four black stones had moved, +were nearer to him--they were four men ascending. Garratt Skinner turned +swiftly toward Walter Hine, reached for his ice-ax, grasped it and raised +it, Walter Hine looked at him with staring, stupid eyes, but raised no +hand, made no movement. He, too, was conscious of an hallucination. It +seemed to him that his friend stood over him with a convulsed and +murderous face, in which rage strove with bitter disappointment, but that +he held his ax by the end with the adz-head swung back above his head to +give greater force to the blow, and that while he poised it there came a +cry from the confines of the world, and that upon that cry his friend +dropped the ax, and stooping down to him murmured: "There's help quite +close, Wallie!" + +Certainly those words were spoken--that at all events was no +hallucination. Walter Hine understood it clearly. For Garratt Skinner +suddenly stripped off his coat, passed it round Hine's shoulders and +then, baring his own breast, clasped Hine to it that he might impart to +him some warmth from his own body. + +Thus they were found by the rescue party; and the story of Garratt +Skinner's great self-sacrifice was long remembered in Courmayeur. + +Garratt Skinner watched the men mounting and wondered who they were. He +recognized his own guide, Pierre Delouvain, but who were the others, how +did they come there on a morning so forbidding? Who was the tall man who +walked last but one? And as the party drew nearer, he saw and understood. +But he did not change from his attitude. He waited until they were close. +Then he and Hilary Chayne exchanged a look. + +"You?" said Garratt Skinner. + +"Yes--" Chayne paused. "Yes, Mr. Strood," he said. + +And in those words all was said. Garratt Skinner knew that his plan was +not merely foiled, but also understood. He stood up and looked about him, +and even to Chayne's eyes there was a dignity in his quiet manner, his +patience under defeat. For Garratt Skinner, rogue though he was, the +mountains had their message. All through that long night, while he sat by +the side of his victim, they had been whispering it. Whether bound in +frost beneath the stars, or sparkling to the sun, or gray under a sky of +clouds, or buried deep in flakes of whirling snow, they spoke to him +always of the grandeur of their indifference. They might be traversed and +scaled, but they were unconquered always because they were indifferent. +The climber might lie in wait through the bad weather at the base of the +peak, seize upon his chance and stand upon the summit with a cry of +triumph and derision. The mountains were indifferent. As they endured +success, so they inflicted defeat--with a sublime indifference, lifting +their foreheads to the stars as though wrapt in some high communion. +Something of their patience had entered into Garratt Skinner. He did not +deny his name, he asked no question, he accepted failure and he looked +anxiously to the sky. + +"It will snow, I think." + +They made some tea, mixed it with wine and gave it first of all to Walter +Hine. Then they all breakfasted, and set off on their homeward journey, +letting Hine down with the rope from step to step. + +Gradually Hine regained a little strength. His numbed limbs began to come +painfully to life. He began to move slowly of his own accord, supported +by his rescuers. They reached the ice-ridge. It had no terrors now for +Walter Hine. + +"He had better be tied close between Pierre and myself," said Garratt +Skinner. "We came up that way." + +"Between Simond and Droz," said Chayne, quietly. + +"As you will," said Garratt Skinner with a shrug of the shoulders. + +Along the ice-ridge the party moved slowly and safely, carrying Hine +between them. As they passed behind the great rock tower at the lower +end, the threatened snow began to fall in light flakes. + +"Quickly," said Chayne. "We must reach the chalets to-night." + +They raced along the snow-slopes on the crest of the buttress and turned +to the right down the gullies and the ledges on the face of the rock. In +desperate haste they descended lowering Walter Hine from man to man, they +crawled down the slabs, dropped from shelf to shelf, wound themselves +down the gullies of ice. Somehow without injury the snow-slopes at the +foot of the rocks were reached. The snow still held off; only now and +then a few flakes fell. But over the mountain the wind was rising, it +swept down in fierce swift eddies, and drew back with a roar like the sea +upon shingle. + +"We must get off the glacier before night comes," cried Chayne, and led +by Simond the rescue party went down into the ice-fall. They stopped at +the first glacier pool and made Hine wash his hands and feet in the +water, to save himself from frost-bite; and thereafter for a little time +they rested. They went on again, but they were tired men, and before the +rocks were reached upon which two nights before Garratt Skinner had +bivouacked, darkness had come. Then Simond justified the praise of Michel +Revailloud. With the help of a folding lantern which Chayne had carried +in his pocket, he led the way through that bewildering labyrinth with +unerring judgment. Great seracs loomed up through the darkness, magnified +in size and distorted in shape. Simond went over and round them and under +them, steadily, and the rescue party followed. Now he disappeared over +the edge of a cliff into space, and in a few seconds his voice rang +upward cheerily. + +"Follow! It is safe." + +And his ice-ax rang with no less cheeriness. He led them boldly to the +brink of abysses which were merely channels in the ice, and amid towering +pinnacles which seen, close at hand, were mere blocks shoulder high. And +at last the guide at the tail of the rope heard from far away ahead +Simond's voice raised in a triumphant shout. + +"The rocks! The rocks!" + +With one accord they flung themselves, tired and panting, on the +sheltered level of the bivouac. Some sticks were found, a fire was +lighted, tea was once more made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as +the flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouching, kneeling, +sitting, and the rocks resounded with their laughter. + +"Only a little further, Wallie!" said Garratt Skinner, still true +to his part. + +They descended from the rocks, crossed a level field of ice and struck +the rock path along the slope of the Mont de la Brenva. + +"Keep on the rope," said Garratt Skinner. "Hine slipped at a corner as we +came up"; and Chayne glanced quickly at him. There were one or two +awkward corners above the lower glacier where rough footsteps had been +hewn. On one of these Walter Hine had slipped, and Garratt Skinner had +saved him--had undoubtedly saved him. At the very beginning of the climb, +the object for which it was undertaken was almost fulfilled, and would +have been fulfilled but that instinct overpowered Garratt Skinner, and +since the accident was unexpected, before he had had time to think he had +reached out his hand and saved the life which he intended to destroy. + +Along that path Hine was carefully brought to the chalets of La Brenva. +The peasants made him as comfortable as they could. + +"He will recover," said Simond. "Oh yes, he will recover. Two of us will +stay with him." + +"No need for that," replied Garratt Skinner. "Thank you very much, but +that is my duty since Hine is my friend." + +"I think not," said Chayne, standing quietly in front of Garratt Skinner. +"Walter Hine will be safe enough in Simond's hands. I want you to return +with me to Courmayeur. My wife is there and anxious." + +"Your wife?" + +"Yes, Sylvia." + +Garratt Skinner nodded his head. + +"I see," he said, slowly. "Yes." + +He looked round the hut. Simond was going to watch by Hine's side. He +was defeated utterly, and recognized it. Then he looked at Chayne, and +smiled grimly. + +"On the whole, I am not sorry that you have married my daughter," he +said. "I will come down to Courmayeur. It will be pleasant to sleep +in a bed." + +And together they walked down to Courmayeur, which they reached soon +after midnight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +RUNNING WATER + + +In two days' time Walter Hine was sufficiently recovered to be carried +down to Courmayeur. He had been very near to death upon the Brenva ridge, +certainly the second night upon which Garratt Skinner had counted would +have ended his life; he was frostbitten; and for a long while the shock +and the exposure left him weak. But he gained strength with each day, and +Chayne had opportunities to admire the audacity and the subtle skill with +which Garratt Skinner had sought his end. For Walter Hine was loud in his +praises of his friend's self-sacrifice. Skinner had denied himself his +own share of food, had bared his breast to the wind that he might give +the warmth of his own body to keep his friend alive--these instances lost +nothing in the telling. And they were true! Chayne could not deny to +Garratt Skinner a certain criminal grandeur. He had placed Hine in no +peril which he had not shared himself; he had taken him, a man fitted in +neither experience nor health, on an expedition where inexperience or +weakness on the part of one was likely to prove fatal to all. There was, +moreover, one incident, not contemplated by Garratt Skinner in his plan, +which made his position absolutely secure. He had actually saved Walter +Hine's life on the rocky path of the Mont de la Brenva. There was no +doubt of it. He had reached out his hand and saved him. Chayne made much +of this incident to his wife. + +"I was wrong you see, Sylvia," he argued. "For your father could have let +him fall, and did not. I have been unjust to him, and to you, for you +have been troubled." + +But Sylvia shook her head. + +"You were not wrong," she answered. "It is only because you are very kind +that you want me to believe it. But I see the truth quite clearly"; and +she smiled at him. "If you wanted me to believe, you should never have +told me of the law, a year ago in the Chalet de Lognan. My father obeyed +the law--that was all. You know it as well as I. He had no time to think; +he acted upon the instinct of the moment; he could not do otherwise. Had +there been time to think, would he have reached out his hand? We both +know that he would not. But he obeyed the law. What he knew, that he did, +obeying the law upon the moment. He could save, and knowing it he _did_ +save, even against his will." + +Chayne did not argue the point. Sylvia saw the truth too clearly. + +"Walter Hine is getting well," he said. "Your father is still at another +hotel in Courmayeur. There's the future to be considered." + +"Yes," she said, and she waited. + +"I have asked your father to come over to-night after dinner," +said Chayne. + +And into their private sitting-room Garratt Skinner entered at eight +o'clock that evening. It was the first time that Sylvia had seen him +since she had learned the whole truth, and she found the occasion one of +trial. But Garratt Skinner carried it off. + +There was nothing of the penitent in his manner, but on the other hand he +no longer affected the manner of a pained and loving parent. He greeted +her from the door, and congratulated her quietly and simply upon her +marriage. Then he turned to Chayne. + +"You wished to speak to me? I am at your service." + +"Yes," replied Chayne. "We--and I speak for Sylvia--we wish to suggest to +you that your acquaintanceship with Walter Hine should end +altogether--that it should already have ended." + +"Really!" said Garratt Skinner, with an air of surprise. "Captain Chayne, +the laws of England, revolutionary as they have no doubt become to +old-fashioned people like myself, have not yet placed fathers under the +guardianship of their sons-in-law. I cannot accept your suggestion." + +"We insist upon its acceptance," said Chayne, quietly. + +Garratt Skinner smiled. + +"Insist perhaps! But how enforce it, my friend? That's another matter." + +"I think we have the means to do that," said Chayne. "We can point out to +Walter Hine, for instance, that your ascent from the Brenva Glacier was +an attempt to murder him." + +"An ugly word, Captain Chayne. You would find it difficult of proof." + +"The story is fairly complete," returned Chayne. "There is first of all a +telegram from Mr. Jarvice couched in curious language." + +Garratt Skinner's face lost its smile of amusement. + +"Indeed?" he said. He was plainly disconcerted. + +"Yes." Chayne produced the telegram from his letter case, read it aloud +with his eyes upon Garratt Skinner, and replaced it. "'What are you +waiting for? Hurry up! Jarvice.' There is no need at all events to ask +Mr. Jarvice what he was waiting for, is there? He wanted to lay his hands +upon the money for which Hine's life was insured." + +Garratt Skinner leaned back in his chair. His eyes never left Chayne's +face, his face grew set and stern. He had a dangerous look, the look of a +desperate man at bay. + +"Then there is a certain incident to be considered which took place in +the house near Weymouth. You must at times have been puzzled by +it--perhaps a little alarmed too. Do you remember one evening when a +whistle from the shadows on the road and a yokel's shout drove you out of +Walter Hine's room, sent you creeping out of it as stealthily as you +entered--nay, did more than that, for that whistle and that shout drove +you out of Dorsetshire. Ah! I see you remember." + +Garratt Skinner indeed had often enough been troubled by the recollection +of that night. The shout, the whistle ringing out so suddenly and +abruptly from the darkness and the silence had struck upon his +imagination and alarmed him by their mystery. Who was the man who had +seen? And what had he seen? Garratt Skinner had never felt quite safe +since that evening. There was some one, a stranger, going about the world +with the key to his secret, even if he had not guessed the secret. + +"It was I who whistled. I who shouted." + +"You!" cried Garratt Skinner. "You!" + +"Yes. Sylvia was with me. You thought to do that night what you thought +to do a few days ago above the Brenva ridge. Both times together we were +able to hinder you. But once Sylvia hindered you alone. There is the +affair of the cocaine." + +Chayne looked toward his wife with a look of great pride for the bravery +which she had shown. She was sitting aloof in the embrasure of the window +with her face averted and a hand pressed over her eyes and forehead. +Chayne looked back to Garratt Skinner, and there was more anger in his +face than he had ever shown. + +"I will never forgive you the distress you have caused to Sylvia," he +said. + +But Garratt Skinner's eyes were upon Sylvia, and in his face, too, there +was a humorous look of pride. She had courage. He remembered how she had +confronted him when Walter Hine lay sick. He said no word to her, +however, and again he turned to Chayne, who went on: + +"There is also your past career to add weight to the argument, +Mr.--Strood." + +Point by point Chayne set out in detail the case for the prosecution. +Garratt Skinner listened without interruption, but he knew that he was +beaten. The evidence against him was too strong. It might not be enough +legally to secure his conviction at a public trial--though even upon that +question there would be the gravest doubt--but it would be enough to +carry certitude to every ear which listened and to every eye which read. + +"The game is played out," Chayne continued. "We have Walter Hine, and we +shall not let him slip back into your hands. How much of the story we +shall tell him we are not yet sure--but all if it be necessary. And, if +it be necessary, to others beside." + +There was a definite threat in the last words. But Garratt Skinner had +already made up his mind. Since the game was played out, since defeat had +come, he took it without anger or excuse. + +"Very well," he said. "Peace in the family circle is after all very +desirable--eh, Sylvia? I agree with the deepest regret to part from my +young friend, Walter Hine. I leave him in your hands." He was speaking +with a humorous magnanimity. But his eyes wandered back to Sylvia, who +sat some distance away in the embrasure of the window, with her face in +her hands; and his voice changed. + +"Sylvia," he said, gently, "come here." + +Sylvia rose and walked over to the table. + +The waiting, the knowledge which had come to her during the last few +days, had told their tale. She had the look which Chayne too well +remembered, the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the languor in her walk, +the pallor in her cheeks, the distress and shame in her expression. + +"Sit down," he said; and she obeyed him reluctantly, seating herself over +against him. She gazed at the table-cloth with that mutinous look upon +her face which took away from her her womanhood and gave to her the +aspect of a pretty but resentful child. Garratt Skinner for the life of +him could not but smile at her. + +"Well, Sylvia, you have beaten me. You fought your fight well, and I bear +you no malice," he said, lightly. "But," and his voice became serious +again, "you sit in judgment on me." + +Sylvia raised her eyes quickly. + +"No!" she cried. + +"I think so," he persisted. "I don't blame you. Only I should like you to +bear this in mind; that you have in your own life a reason to go gently +in your judgments of other people." + +Chayne stepped forward, as though he would interfere, but Sylvia laid her +hand upon his arm and checked him. + +"I don't think you understand, Hilary," she said, quickly. She turned to +her father and looked straight at him with an eager interest. + +"I wonder whether we are both thinking of the same thing," she said, +curiously. + +"Perhaps," replied her father. "All your life you have dreamed of +running water." + +And Sylvia nodded her head. + +"Yes, yes," she said, with a peculiar intentness. + +"The dream is part of you, part of your life. For all you know, it may +have modified your character." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. + +"It is a part of you of which you could not rid yourself if you tried. +When you are asleep, this dream comes to you. It is as much a part of you +as a limb." + +And again Sylvia answered: "Yes." + +"Well, you are not responsible for it," and Sylvia leaned forward. + +"Ah!" she said. She had been wondering whether it was to this point that +he was coming. + +"You know now why you hear it, why it's part of you. You were born to the +sound of running water in that old house in Dorsetshire. Before you were +born, in the daytime and in the stillness of the night your mother heard +it week after week. Perhaps even when she was asleep the sound rippled +through her dreams. Thus you came by it. It was born in you." + +"Yes," she answered, following his argument step by step very carefully, +but without a sign of the perplexity which was evident in Hilary Chayne. +Chayne stood a little aloof, looking from Sylvia's face to the face of +her father, in doubt whither the talk was leading. Sylvia, on the other +hand, recognized each sentence which her father spoke as the embodiment +of a thought with which she was herself familiar. + +"Well, then, here's a definite thing, an influence most likely, a +characteristic most certainly, and not of your making! One out of how +many influences, characteristics which are part of you but not of your +making! But we can lay our finger on it. Well, it is a pleasant and a +pretty quality--this dream of yours, Sylvia--yes, a very pleasant one to +be born with. But suppose that instead of that dream you had been born +with a vice, an instinct of crime, of sin, would you have been any the +more responsible for it? If you are not responsible for the good thing, +are you responsible for the bad? An awkward question, Sylvia--awkward +enough to teach you to go warily in your judgments." + +"Yes," said Sylvia. "I was amongst the fortunate. I don't deny it." + +"But that's not all," and as Chayne moved restively, Garratt Skinner +waved an indulgent hand. + +"I don't expect you, Captain Chayne, to take an interest in these +problems. For a military man, discipline and the penal code are the +obvious unalterable solutions. But it is possible that I may never see my +daughter again and--I am speaking to her"; and he went back to the old +vexed question. + +"It's not only that you are born with qualities, definite +characteristics, definite cravings, for which you are no more responsible +than the man in the moon, and which are part of you. But there's +something else. How much of your character, how much of all your life to +come is decided for you during the first ten or fifteen years of your +life--decided for you, mind, not by you? Upon my soul, I think the whole +of it. You don't agree? Well, it's an open question. I believe that at +the age of fifteen the lines along which you will move are already drawn, +your character formed, your conduct for the future a settled thing." + +To that Sylvia gave no assent. But she did not disagree. She only looked +at her father with a questioning and a troubled face. If it were so, she +asked, why had she hated from the first the circle in which her mother +and herself had moved. And the answer--or at all events _an_ answer--came +as she put the question to herself. She had lived amongst her dreams. She +was in doubt. + +"Well, hear something of my boyhood, Sylvia!" cried her father, and for +the first time his voice became embittered. "I was brought up by a +respectable father. Yes, respectable," he said, with a sneer. "Everything +about us was respectable. We lived in a respectable house in a +respectable neighborhood, and twice every Sunday we went to church and +listened to a respectable clergyman. But!--Well, here's a chapter out of +the inside. I would go to bed and read in bed by a candle. Not a very +heinous offence, but contrary to the rule of the house. Sooner or later I +would hear a faint scuffling sound in the passage. That was my father +stealing secretly along to listen at my door and see what I was doing. I +covered the light of the candle with my hand, or perhaps blew it out--but +not so quickly but that he would see the streak of light beneath the +door. Then the play would begin. 'You are not reading in bed, are you?' +he would say. 'Certainly not,' I would reply. 'You are sure?' he would +insist. 'Of course, father,' I would answer. Then back he would go, but +only for a little way, and I would hear him come stealthily scuffling +back again. Perhaps the candle would be lit again already, or at all +events uncovered. Would he say anything? Oh, no! He had found out I was +lying. He felt that he had scored a point, and he would save it up. So we +would meet the next morning at breakfast, he knowing that I was a liar, I +knowing that he knew that I was a liar, and both pretending that we were +all in all to each other. A small thing, Sylvia. But crowd your life with +such small things? Spying and deceit and a game of catch-as-catch-can +played by the father and son! My letters were read--I used to know, for +roundabout questions would be put leading up to the elucidation of a +sentence which to any one but myself would be obscure! Do you think any +child could grow up straight, if his boyhood passed in that atmosphere of +trickery? I don't know. Only I think that before I was fifteen my way of +life was a sure and settled thing. It was certain that I should develop +upon the lines on which I was trained." + +Garratt Skinner rose from his seat. + +"There, I have done," he said. He looked at his daughter for a little +while, his eyes dwelling upon her beauty with a certain pleasure, and +even a certain wistfulness; he looked at her now much as she had been +wont to look at him in the early days of the house in Dorsetshire. It was +very plain that they were father and daughter. + +"You are too good for your military man, my dear," he said, with a smile. +"Too pretty and too good. Don't you let him forget it!" And suddenly he +cried out with a burst of passion. "I wish to God you had never come near +me!" And Sylvia, hearing the cry, remembered that on the Sunday evening +when she had first come to the house in Hobart Place, her father had +shown a particular hesitation, had felt some of that remorse of which she +heard the full expression now, in welcoming her to his house and adapting +her to his ends. She raised her downcast eyes and with outstretched hands +took a step forward. + +"Father!" she said. But her father was already gone. She heard his step +upon the stairs. + +Chayne, however, followed her father from the room and caught him up as +he was leaving the hotel. + +"I want to say," he began with some difficulty, "that, if you are pressed +at all for money--" + +Garratt Skinner stopped him. He pulled some sovereigns out of one pocket +and some banknotes out of another. + +"You see, I have enough to go on with. In fact--" and he looked northward +toward the mountains. Dimly they could be seen under the sickle of a new +moon. "In fact, I propose to-morrow to take your friend Simond and cross +on the high-level to Zermatt." + +"But afterward?" asked Chayne. + +Garratt Skinner laughed and laughed like a boy. There was a rich +anticipation of enjoyment in the sound. + +"Afterward? I shall have a great time. I shall squeeze Mr. Jarvice. It's +what they call in America a cinch." + +And with a cheery good-night Garratt Skinner betook himself down the +road. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNNING WATER*** + + +******* This file should be named 12891.txt or 12891.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/8/9/12891 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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