The Silent Barrier

By Louis Tracy

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Title: The Silent Barrier

Author: Louis Tracy

Illustrator: J. V. McFall
             A. W. Parsons

Release Date: March 14, 2010 [EBook #31635]

Language: English


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 The
 Silent Barrier

 BY

 LOUIS TRACY

 AUTHOR OF
 CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR, A SON OF THE
 IMMORTALS, THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, ETC.

 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
 J. V. McFALL

 Page decorations by A. W. PARSONS from
 photographs by THE ENGADINE PRESS

 NEW YORK
 GROSSET & DUNLAP
 PUBLISHERS




 COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1911, BY
 EDWARD J. CLODE

 Entered at Stationers' Hall




 [Illustration: "Spare me one moment, Miss Wynton," he said.
                              _Frontispiece_]




 CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                               PAGE

    I. THE WISH                                          1

   II. THE FULFILLMENT OF THE WISH                      19

  III. WHEREIN TWO PEOPLE BECOME BETTER
       ACQUAINTED                                       41

   IV. HOW HELEN CAME TO MALOJA                         64

    V. AN INTERLUDE                                     84

   VI. THE BATTLEFIELD                                 103

  VII. SOME SKIRMISHING                                122

 VIII. SHADOWS                                         144

   IX. "ETTA'S FATHER"                                 167

    X. ON THE GLACIER                                  189

   XI. WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED
       HOUR                                            212

  XII. THE ALLIES                                      232

 XIII. THE COMPACT                                     253

  XIV. WHEREIN MILLICENT ARMS FOR THE
       FRAY                                            275

   XV. A COWARD'S VICTORY                              298

  XVI. SPENCER EXPLAINS                                321

 XVII. THE SETTLEMENT                                  337




Ich muss--Das ist die Schrank, in welcher mich die Welt
Von einer, die Natur von andrer Seite hält.

          FR. RÜCKERT: _Die Weisheit des Brahmenen._

[I must--That is the Barrier within which I am pent by the World on
the one hand and Nature on the other.]




THE SILENT BARRIER




CHAPTER I

THE WISH


"Mail in?"

"Yes, sir; just arrived. What name?"

"Charles K. Spencer."

The letter clerk seized a batch of correspondence and sorted it with
nimble fingers. The form of the question told him that Spencer was
interested in letters stamped for the greater part with bland
presentments of bygone Presidents of the United States. In any event,
he would have known, by long experience of the type, that the well
dressed, straight limbed, strong faced young man on the other side of
the counter was an American. He withdrew four missives from the
bundle. His quick eyes saw that three bore the Denver postmark, and
the fourth hailed from Leadville.

"That is all at present, sir," he said. "Would you like your mail sent
to your room in future, or shall I keep it here?"

"Right here, please, in No. 20 slot. I could receive a reply by cable
while I was going and coming along my corridor."

The clerk smiled deferentially. He appreciated not only the length of
the corridor, but the price paid by the tenant of a second floor suite
overlooking the river.

"Very well, sir," he said, glancing again at Spencer, "I will
attend to it;" and he took a mental portrait of the man who could
afford to hire apartments that ranked among the most expensive in
the hotel. Obviously, the American was a recent arrival. His suite
had been vacated by a Frankfort banker only three days earlier,
and this was the first time he had asked for letters. Even the
disillusioned official was amused by the difference between the two
latest occupants of No. 20,--Herr Bamberger, a tub of a man, bald
headed and bespectacled, and this alert, sinewy youngster, with the
cleancut features of a Greek statue, and the brilliant, deep set,
earnest eyes of one to whom thought and action were alike familiar.

Spencer, fully aware that he was posing for a necessary picture,
examined the dates on his letters, nipped the end off a green cigar,
helped himself to a match from a box tendered by a watchful boy,
crossed the entrance hall, and descended a few steps leading to the
inner foyer and restaurant. At the foot of the stairs he looked about
for a quiet corner. The luncheon hour was almost ended. Groups of
smokers and coffee drinkers were scattered throughout the larger room,
which widened out below a second short flight of carpeted steps. The
smaller anteroom in which he stood was empty, save for a few people
passing that way from the restaurant, and he decided that a nook near
a palm shaded balcony offered the retreat he sought.

He little dreamed that he was choosing the starting point of the most
thrilling adventure in a life already adventurous; that the soft
carpet of the Embankment Hotel might waft him to scenes not within the
common scope. That is ever the way of true romance. Your knight errant
may wander in the forest for a day or a year,--he never knows the
moment when the enchanted glade shall open before his eyes; nay, he
scarce has seen the weeping maiden bound to a tree ere he is called in
to couch his lance and ride a-tilt at the fire breathing dragon. It
was so when men and maids dwelt in a young world; it is so now; and it
will be so till the crack of doom. Manners may change, and costume;
but hearts filled with the wine of life are not to be altered. They
are fashioned that way, and the world does not vary, else Eve might
regain Paradise, and all the fret and fume have an end.

Charles K. Spencer, then, would certainly have been the most
astonished, though perhaps the most self possessed, man in London had
some guardian sprite whispered low in his ear what strange hazard lay
in his choice of a chair. If such whisper were vouchsafed to him he
paid no heed. Perhaps his occupancy of that particular corner was
preordained. It was inviting, secluded, an upholstered backwash in the
stream of fashion; so he sat there, nearly stunned a waiter by asking
for a glass of water, and composed himself to read his letters.

The waiter hesitated. He was a Frenchman, and feared he had not heard
aright.

"What sort of water, sir," he asked,--"Vichy, St. Galmier,
Apollinaris?"

Spencer looked up. He thought the man had gone. "No, none of those,"
he said. "Just plain, unemotional water,--_eau naturelle_,--straight
from the pipe,--the microbe laden fluid that runs off London tiles
most days. I haven't been outside the hotel during the last hour; but
if you happen to pass the door I guess you'll see the kind of essence
I mean dripping off umbrellas. If you don't keep it in the house, try
to borrow a policeman's cape and shoot a quart into a decanter."

The quelled waiter hurried away and brought a carafe. Spencer
professed to be so pleased with his rare intelligence that he gave him
a shilling. Then he opened the envelop with the Leadville postmark. It
contained a draft for 205 pounds, 15 shillings, 11 pence, and the
accompanying letter from a firm of solicitors showed that the
remittance of a thousand dollars was the moiety of the proceeds of a
clean-up on certain tailings taken over by the purchasers of the
Battle Mountain tunnel. The sum was not a large one; but it seemed to
give its recipient such satisfaction that the movement of chairs on
the floor of the big room just beneath failed to draw his attention
from the lawyer's statement.

A woman's languid, well bred voice broke in on this apparently
pleasant reverie.

"Shall we sit here, Helen?"

"Anywhere you like, dear. It is all the same to me. Thanks to you, I
am passing an afternoon in wonderland. I find my surroundings so novel
and entertaining that I should still be excited if you were to put me
in the refrigerator."

The eager vivacity of the second speaker--the note of undiluted and
almost childlike glee with which she acknowledged that a visit to a
luxurious hotel was a red letter day in her life--caused the man to
glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him.
Evidently, they had just risen from luncheon in the restaurant, and
meant to dispose themselves for a chat. It was equally clear that each
word they uttered in an ordinary conversational tone must be audible
to him. They were appropriating chairs which would place the plumes of
their hats within a few inches of his feet. When seated, their faces
would be hidden from him, save for a possible glimpse of a profile as
one or other turned toward her companion. But for a few seconds he had
a good view of both, and he was young enough to find the scrutiny to
his liking.

At the first glance, the girl who was acting as hostess might be
deemed the more attractive of the pair. She was tall, slender,
charmingly dressed, and carried herself with an assured elegance that
hinted of the stage. Spencer caught a glint of corn flower blue eyes
beneath long lashes, and a woman would have deduced from their color
the correct explanation of a blue sunshade, a blue straw hat, and a
light cape of Myosotis blue silk that fell from shapely shoulders over
a white lace gown.

The other girl,--she who answered to the name of Helen,--though nearly
as tall and quite as graceful, was robed so simply in muslin that she
might have provided an intentional contrast. In the man's esteem she
lost nothing thereby. He appraised her by the fine contour of her oval
face, the wealth of glossy brown hair that clustered under her hat,
and the gleam of white teeth between lips of healthy redness. Again,
had he looked through a woman's eyes, he would have seen how the
difference between Bond-st. and Kilburn as shopping centers might be
sharply accentuated. But that distinction did not trouble him. Beneath
a cold exterior he had an artist's soul, and "Helen" met an ideal.

"Pretty as a peach!" he said to himself, and he continued to gaze at
her. Indeed, for an instant he forgot himself, and it was not until
she spoke again that he realized how utterly oblivious were both girls
of his nearness.

"I suppose everybody who comes here is very rich," was her rather
awe-stricken comment.

Her companion laughed. "How nice of you to put it that way! It makes
me feel quite important. I lunch or dine or sup here often, and the
direct inference is that I am rolling in wealth."

"Well, dear, you earn a great deal of money----"

"I get twenty pounds a week, and this frock I am wearing cost
twenty-five. Really, Helen, you are the sweetest little goose I ever
met. You live in London, but are not of it. You haven't grasped the
first principle of social existence. If I dressed within my means, and
never spent a sovereign until it was in my purse, I should not even
earn the sovereign. I simply must mix with this crowd whether I can
afford it or not."

"But surely you are paid for your art, not as a mannikin. You
are almost in the front rank of musical comedy. I have seen you
occasionally at the theater, and I thought you were the best dancer
in the company."

"What about my singing?"

"You have a very agreeable and well trained voice."

"I'm afraid you are incorrigible. You ought to have said that I sang
better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely;
we women like to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don't
possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute
advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching
with two men on your right? She wore a brown Tussore silk and a
turban--well, she writes the 'Pars About People' in 'The Daily
Journal.' I'll bet you a pair of gloves that you will see something
like this in to-morrow's paper: 'Lord Archie Beaumanoir entertained a
party of friends at the Embankment Hotel yesterday. At the next table
Miss Millicent Jaques, of the Wellington Theater, was lunching with a
pretty girl whom I did not know. Miss Jaques wore an exquisite,'
etc., etc. Fill in full details of my personal appearance, and you
have the complete paragraph. The public, the stupid, addle-headed
public, fatten on that sort of thing, and it keeps me going far more
effectively than my feeble attempts to warble a couple of songs which
you could sing far better if only you made up your mind to come on the
stage. But there! After such unwonted candor I must have a smoke. You
won't try a cigarette? Well, don't look so shocked. This isn't a
church, you know."

Spencer, who had listened with interest to Miss Jaques's outspoken
views, suddenly awoke to the fact that he was playing the part of an
eavesdropper. He had all an American's chivalrous instincts where
women were concerned, and his first impulse was to betake himself
and his letters to his own room. Yet, when all was said and done, he
was in a hotel; the girls were strangers, and likely to remain so;
and it was their own affair if they chose to indulge in unguarded
confidences. So he compromised with his scruples by pouring out a
glass of water, replacing the decanter on its tray with some degree of
noise. Then he struck an unnecessary match and applied it to his cigar
before opening the first of the Denver letters.

As his glance was momentarily diverted, he did not grasp the essential
fact that neither of the pair was disturbed by his well meant efforts.
Millicent Jaques was lighting a cigarette, and this, to a woman, is an
all absorbing achievement, while her friend was so new to her palatial
surroundings that she had not the least notion of the existence of
another open floor just above the level of her eyes.

"I don't know how in the world you manage to exist," went on the
actress, tilting herself back in her chair to watch the smoke curling
lazily upward. "What was it you said the other day when we met? You
are some sort of secretary and amanuensis to a scientist? Does that
mean typewriting? And what is the science?"

"Professor von Eulenberg is a well known man," was the quiet reply. "I
type his essays and reports, it is true; but I also assist in his
classification work, and it is very interesting."

"What does he classify?"

"Mostly beetles."

"Oh, how horrid! Do you ever see any?"

"Thousands."

"I should find one enough. If it is a fair question, what does your
professor pay you?"

"Thirty shillings a week. In his own way he is as poor as I am."

"And do you mean to tell me that you can live in those nice rooms you
took me to, and dress decently on that sum?"

"I do, as a matter of fact; but I have a small pension, and I earn a
little by writing titbits of scientific gossip for 'The Firefly.' Herr
von Eulenberg helps. He translates interesting paragraphs from the
foreign technical papers, and I jot them down, and by that means I
pick up sufficient to buy an extra hat or wrap, and go to a theater or
a concert. But I have to be careful, as my employer is absent each
summer for two months. He goes abroad to hunt new specimens, and of
course I am not paid then."

"Is he away now?"

"Yes."

"And how do you pass your time?"

"I write a good deal. Some day I hope to get a story accepted by one
of the magazines; but it is so hard for a beginner to find an
opening."

"Yet when I offered to give you a start in the chorus of the best
theater in London,--a thing, mind you, that thousands of girls are
aching for,--you refused."

"I'm sorry, Millie dear; but I am not cut out for the stage. It does
not appeal to me."

"Heigho! Tastes differ. Stick to your beetles, then, and marry your
professor."

Helen laughed, with a fresh joyousness that was good to hear. "Herr
von Eulenberg is blessed with an exceedingly stout wife and five very
healthy children already," she cried.

"Then that settles it. You're mad, quite mad! Let us talk of something
else. Do you ever have a holiday? Where are you going this year? I'm
off to Champèry when the theater closes."

"Champèry,--in Switzerland, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that is the dream of my life,--to see the everlasting snows; to
climb those grand, solemn mountains; to cross the great passes that
one reads of in the travel books. Now at last you have made me
envious. Are you going alone? But of course that is a foolish
question. You intend to join others from the theater, no doubt?"

"Well--er--something of the sort. I fear my enthusiasm will not carry
me far on the lines that would appeal to you. I suppose you consider a
short skirt, strong boots, a Tyrolese hat, and an alpenstock to be a
sufficient rig-out, whereas my mountaineering costumes will fill five
large trunks and three hat boxes. I'm afraid, Helen, we don't run on
the same rails, as our American cousins say."

There was a little pause. Millicent's words, apparently tossed
lightly into the air after a smoke spiral, had in them a touch of
bitterness, it might be of self analysis. Her guest seemed to take
thought before she answered:

"Perhaps the divergence is mainly in environment. And I have always
inclined to the more serious side of life. Even when we were together
in Brussels----"

"You? Serious? At Madam Bérard's? I like that. Who was it that kicked
the plaster off the dormitory wall higher than her head? Who put
pepper in Signor Antonio's snuff box?"

Spencer saw the outer waves of a flush on Helen's cheeks. "This is
exceedingly interesting," he thought; "but I cannot even persuade
myself that I ought to listen any longer. Yet, if I rise now and walk
away they will know I heard every word."

Nevertheless, he meant to go, at the risk of their embarrassment;
but he waited for Helen's reply. She laughed, and the ripple of her
mirth was as musical as her voice, whereas many women dowered with
pleasantly modulated notes for ordinary conversation should be careful
never to indulge in laughter, which is less controllable and therefore
natural.

"That is the worst of having a past," she said. "Let me put it, then,
that entomology as a pursuit sternly represses frivolousness."

"Does entomology mean beetles?"

"My dear, if you asked Herr von Eulenberg that question he would sate
your curiosity with page extracts from one of his books. He has
written a whole volume to prove that the only true entoma, or
insects, are Condylopoda and Hexapoda, which means----"

"Cockroaches! Good gracious! To think of Helen Wynton, who once hit a
Belgian boy very hard on the nose for being rude, wasting her life on
such rubbish! And you actually seem to thrive on it. I do believe you
are far happier than I."

"At present I am envying you that trip to Champèry. Why cannot some
fairy godmother call in at No. 5, Warburton Gardens, to-night and wave
over my awed head a wand that shall scatter sleeping car tickets and
banknotes galore, or at any rate sufficient thereof to take me to the
Engadine and back?"

"Ah, the Engadine. I am not going there this year, I think."

"Haven't you planned your tour yet?"

"No--that is, not exactly."

"Do you know, that is one of my greatest pleasures. With a last year's
Continental Bradshaw and a few tattered Baedekers I journey far
afield. I know the times, the fares, and the stopping places of all
the main routes from Calais and Boulogne. I could pass a creditable
examination in most of the boat and train services by way of Ostend,
Flushing, and the Hook of Holland. I assure you, Millie, when my ship
does come home, or the glittering lady whom I have invoked deigns to
visit my lodgings, I shall call a cab for Charing Cross or Victoria
with the assurance of a seasoned traveler."

For some reason, Miss Jaques refused to share her friend's enthusiasm.
"You are easily pleased," she said listlessly. "For my part, after one
shuddering glance at the Channel, I try to deaden all sensation till I
find myself dressing for dinner at the Ritz. I positively refuse to go
beyond Paris the first day. Ah, bother! Here comes a man whom I wish
to avoid. Let us be on the move before he sees us, which he cannot
fail to do. Don't forget that I have a rehearsal at three. I haven't,
really; but we must escape somehow."

Spencer, who had salved his conscience by endeavoring to read a
technical letter on mining affairs, would be less than human if he did
not lift his eyes then. It is odd how the sense of hearing, when left
to its unfettered play by the absence of the disturbing influence of
facial expression, can discriminate in its analysis of the subtler
emotions. He was quite sure that Miss Jaques was startled, even
annoyed, by the appearance of some person whom she did not expect to
meet, and he surveyed the new arrival critically, perhaps with latent
hostility.

He saw a corpulent, well dressed man standing at the foot of the
stairs and looking around the spacious room. Obviously, he had not
come from the restaurant. He carried his hat, gloves, and stick in his
left hand. With his right hand he caressed his chin, and his glance
wandered slowly over the little knots of people in the foyer. Beyond
the fact that a large diamond sparkled on one of his plump fingers,
and that his olive tinted face was curiously opposed to the whiteness
of the uplifted hand, he differed in no essential from the hundreds of
spick and span idlers who might be encountered at that hour in the
west end of London. He had the physique and bearing of a man athletic
in his youth but now over-indulgent. An astute tailor had managed to
conceal the too rounded curves of the fourth decade by fashioning his
garments skillfully. His coat fitted like a skin across his shoulders
but hung loosely in front. The braid of a colored waistcoat was
a marvel of suggestion in indicating a waist, and the same adept
craftsmanship carried the eye in faultless lines to his verni boots.
Judged by his profile, he was not ill looking. His features were
regular, the mouth and chin strong, the forehead slightly rounded, and
the nose gave the merest hint of Semitic origin. Taken altogether, he
had the style of a polished man of the world, and Spencer smiled at
the sudden fancy that seized him.

"I am attending the first act of a little play," he thought. "Helen
and Millicent rise and move to center of stage; enter the conventional
villain."

Miss Jaques was not mistaken when she said that her acquaintance would
surely see her. She and Helen Wynton had not advanced a yard from
their corner before the newcomer discovered them. He hastened to meet
them, with the aspect of one equally surprised and delighted. His
manners were courtly, and displayed great friendliness; but Spencer
was quick to notice the air of interest with which his gaze rested on
Helen. It was possible to see now that Millicent's unexpected friend
had large, prominent dark eyes which lent animation and vivacity to a
face otherwise heavy and coarse. It was impossible to hear all that
was said, as the trio stood in the middle of the room and a couple
of men passing up the stairs at the moment were talking loudly. But
Spencer gathered that Millicent was explaining volubly how she and
Miss Wynton had "dropped in here for luncheon by the merest chance,"
and was equally emphatic in the declaration that she was already
overdue at the theater.

The man said something, and glanced again at Helen. Evidently, he
asked for an introduction, which Miss Jaques gave with an affability
that was eloquent of her powers as an actress. The unwished for
cavalier was not to be shaken off. He walked with them up the stairs
and crossed the entrance hall. Spencer, stuffing his letters into a
pocket, strolled that way too, and saw this pirate in a morning coat
bear off both girls in a capacious motor car.

Not to be balked of the dénouement of the little comedy in real life
for which he had provided the audience, the American grabbed the hall
porter.

"Say," he said, "do you know that gentleman?"

"Yes, sir. That is Mr. Mark Bower."

Spencer beamed on the man as though he had just discovered that Mr.
Mark Bower was his dearest friend.

"Well, now, if that isn't the queerest thing!" he said. "Is that Mark?
He's just gone round to the Wellington Theater, I guess. How far is it
from here?"

"Not a hundred yards, sir."

Off went Spencer, without his hat. He had intended to follow in a cab,
but a sprint would be more effective over such a short distance. He
crossed the Strand without heed to the traffic, turned to the right,
and, to use his own phrase, "butted into a policeman" at the first
corner.

"I'm on the hunt for the Wellington Theater," he explained.

"You needn't hunt much farther," said the constable good humoredly.
"There it is, a little way up on the left."

At that instant Spencer saw Bower raise his hat to the two women. They
hurried inside the theater, and their escort turned to reënter his
motor. The American had learned what he wanted to know. Miss Jaques
had shaken off her presumed admirer, and Miss Wynton had aided and
abetted her in the deed.

"You don't say!" he exclaimed, gazing at the building admiringly.
"It looks new. In fact the whole street has a kind of San
Francisco-after-the-fire appearance."

"That's right, sir. It's not so long since some of the worst slums in
London were pulled down to make way for it."

"It's fine; but I'm rather stuck on antiquities. I've seen plenty of
last year's palaces on the other side. Have a drink, will you, when
time's up?"

The policeman glanced surreptitiously at the half-crown which Spencer
insinuated into his palm, and looked after the donor as he went back
to the hotel.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" he said to himself. "I've often heard tell of
the way some Americans see London; but I never came across a chap who
rushed up in his bare head and took a squint at any place in that
fashion. He seemed to have his wits about him too; but there must be a
screw loose somewhere."

And indeed Charles K. Spencer, had he paused to take stock of his
behavior, must have admitted that it was, to say the least, erratic.
But his imagination was fired; his sympathies were all a-quiver with
the thought that it lay within his power to share with a kin soul some
small part of the good fortune that had fallen to his lot of late.

"Wants a fairy godmother, does she?" he asked himself, and the quiet
humor that gleamed in his face caused more than one passerby to turn
and watch him as he strode along the pavement. "Well, I guess I'll
play a character not hitherto heard of in the legitimate drama. What
price the fairy godfather? I've a picture of myself in that rôle. Oh,
my! See me twirl that wand! Helen, you shall climb those rocks. But I
don't like your friend. I sha'n't send you to Champèry. No--Champèry's
off the map for you."




CHAPTER II

THE FULFILLMENT OF THE WISH


Explanations of motive are apt to become tedious. They are generally
inaccurate too; for who can reduce a fantasy to a formula? Nor should
they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who
bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a
lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest
prank would be faulty in the extreme.

In all London at that moment there was not a more level headed man of
his years. He was twenty-eight, an expert mining engineer, and the
successful pioneer of a new method of hauling ore. Even in Western
America, "God's own country," as it is held to be by those who live
there, few men "arrive" so early in life. Some, it is true, amass
wealth by lucky speculation before they are fitted by experience to
earn the price of a suit of clothes. But they are of the freak order.
They are not to be classed with one who by hard work wrests a fortune
out of the grim Colorado granite. Spencer had been called on to endure
long years of rebuff and scorn. Though scoffed at by many who thought
he was wrong, he persisted because he knew he was right.

Ofttimes Fate will test such a man almost to breaking point. Then she
yields, and, being feminine, her obduracy is the measure of her
favors, for she will bestow on her dogged suitor all, and more than
all, that he desired.

The draft from Leadville, crammed so carelessly into a pocket when he
followed the three to the door, was a fair instance of this trick of
hers. A tunnel, projected and constructed in the teeth of ridicule
and financial opposition, had linked up the underground workings of
several mines, and proved conclusively that it was far cheaper to
bring minerals to the rail in that manner than to sink expensive
shafts, raise the ore to the top of a mountain, and cart it to its old
level in the valley.

Once the thing was indisputable, the young engineer found himself rich
and famous. To increase the feeders of the main bore, he drove another
short gallery through a mining claim acquired for a few dollars,--a
claim deemed worthless owing to a geological fault that traversed its
whole length. That was Fate's opportunity. Doubtless she smiled
mischievously when she gave him a vein of rich quartz through which
to quarry his way. The mere delving of the rock had produced two
thousand dollars' worth of ore, of which sum he took a moiety by
agreement with the company that purchased his rights.

People in Leadville soon discovered that Spencer was a bright
man,--"yes, sir, a citizen of whom the chief mining city of the Rocky
Mountains has every reason to be proud,"--and the railway magnate who
had nearly ruined him by years of hostility buried the past
grandiloquently with a _mot_.

"Charles K. Spencer can't be sidetracked," he said. "That K isn't in
his name by accident. Look at it,--a regular buffer of a letter! Tell
you what, you may monkey with Charles; but when you hit the K look out
for trouble."

Whereupon the miners laughed, and said that the president was a mighty
smart man too, and Spencer, who knew he was a thief, but was unwilling
to quarrel with him for the sake of the company, thought that a six
months' vacation in Europe would make for peace and general content.

He had no plans. He was free to wander whithersoever chance led him.
Arriving in London from Plymouth late on a Thursday evening, he took a
bus-driver's holiday on Friday. Finding a tunnel under the Thames in
full progress near the hotel, he sought the resident engineer, spoke
to him in the lingua franca of the craft, and spent several dangerous
and enjoyable hours in crawling through all manner of uncomfortable
passages bored by human worms beneath the bed of the river.

And this was Saturday, and here he was, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, turning over in his mind the best way of sending on an
expensive trip abroad a girl who had not the remotest notion of his
existence. It was a whim, and a harmless one, and he excused it to his
practical mind by the reflection that he was entitled to one day of
extravagance after seven years of hard labor. For his own part, he was
weary of mountains. He had wrought against one, frowning and stubborn
as any Alp, and had not desisted until he reached its very heart with
a four thousand foot lance. Switzerland was the last place in Europe
he would visit. He wanted to see old cities and dim cathedrals, to
lounge in pleasant lands where rivers murmured past lush meadows.
Though an American born and bred, there was a tradition in his home
that the Spencers were once people of note on the border. When tired
of London, he meant to go north, and ramble through Liddesdale in
search of family records. But the business presently on hand was to
arrange that Swiss excursion for "Helen," and he set about it with
characteristic energy.

In the first instance, he noted her name and address on the back of
the Leadville envelop. Then he sought the manager.

"I guess you know Switzerland pretty well," he said, when a polite man
was produced by a boy.

The assumption was well founded. In fact, the first really important
looking object the manager remembered seeing in this world was the
giant Matterhorn, because his mother told him that if he was a bad boy
he would be carried off by the demons that dwelt on its summit.

"What sort of places are Evian-les-Bains and Champèry?" went on
Spencer.

"Evian is a fashionable lakeside town. Champèry is in the hills behind
it. When Evian becomes too hot in August, one goes to Champèry to cool
down."

"Are they anywhere near the Engadine?"

"Good gracious, no! They are as different as chalk and cheese."

"Is the Engadine the cheese? Does it take the biscuit?"

The manager laughed. Like all Londoners, he regarded every American as
a humorist. "It all depends," he said. "For my part, I think the Upper
Engadine is far and away the most charming section of Switzerland; but
there are ladies of my acquaintance who would unhesitatingly vote for
Evian, and for a score of other places where there are promenades and
casinos. Are you thinking of making a tour there?"

"There's no telling where I may bring up when I cross the Channel,"
said Spencer. "I have heard some talk of the two districts, and it
occurred to me that you were just the man to give me a few useful
pointers."

"Well, the average tourist rushes from one valley to another, tramps
over a pass each morning, and spends the afternoon in a train or on
board a lake steamer. But if I wanted a real rest, and wished at the
same time to be in a center from which pleasant walks, or stiff climbs
for that matter, could be obtained, I should go by the Engadine
Express to St. Moritz, and drive from there to the Maloja-Kulm, where
there is an excellent hotel and usually a number of nice people."

"English?"

"Yes, English and Americans. They select the best as a rule, you
know."

"It sounds attractive," said Spencer.

"And it is, believe me. Don't forget the name, Maloja-Kulm. It is
twelve miles from everywhere, and practically consists of the one big
hotel."

Spencer procured his hat, gloves, and stick, and called a cab. "Take
me to 'The Firefly' office," he said.

"Beg pawdon, sir, but where's that?" asked the driver.

"It's up to you to find out."

"Then w'at is it, guv'nor? I've heerd of the 'Orse an' 'Ound, the
Chicken's Friend, the Cat, an' the Bee; but the Firefly leaves me
thinkin'. Is it a noospaper?"

"Something of the sort."

"All right, sir. Jump in. We'll soon be on its track."

The hansom scampered off to Fleet-st. As the result of inquiries
Spencer was deposited at the entrance to a dingy court, the depths
of which, he was assured, were illumined by "The Firefly." There is
nothing that so mystifies the citizen of the New World as the
hole-and-corner aspect of some of the business establishments of
London. He soon learns, however, to differentiate between the spidery
dens where money is amassed and the soot laden tenements in which the
struggle for existence is keen. A comprehensive glance at the exterior
of the premises occupied by "The Firefly" at once explained to Spencer
why the cabman did not know its whereabouts. Three small rooms
sufficed for its literary and commercial staff, and "To let" notices
stared from several windows in the same building.

"Appearances are deceptive ever," murmured he, as he scanned the
legends on three doors in a narrow lobby; "but I think I'm beginning
to catch on to the limited extent of Miss Helen's earnings from her
scientific paragraphs."

He knocked at each door; but received no answer. Then, having sharp
ears, he tried the handle of one marked "Private." It yielded, and he
entered, to be accosted angrily by a pallid, elderly, bewhiskered man,
standing in front of a much littered table.

"Confound it, sir!" came the growl, "don't you know it is Saturday
afternoon? And what do you mean by coming in unannounced?"

"Guess you're the editor?" said Spencer.

"What if I am?"

"I've just happened along to have a few quiet words with you. If
there's no callers Saturdays, why, that's exactly what I want, and
I came right in because you didn't answer my knock."

"I tell you I'm not supposed to be here."

"Then you shouldn't draw corks while anybody is damaging the paint
outside."

Spencer smiled so agreeably that the editor of "The Firefly" softened.
At first, he had taken his visitor for an unpaid contributor; but the
American accent banished this phantom of the imagination. He continued
to pour into a tumbler the contents of a bottle of beer.

"Well," he said, "now that you are here, what can I do for you,
Mr.----"

"Spencer--Charles K. Spencer."

Instantly it struck the younger man that little more than an hour
had elapsed since he gave his name to the letter clerk in the hotel.
The singularity of his proceedings during that hour was thereby
brought home to him. He knew nothing of newspapers, daily or weekly;
but commonsense suggested that "The Firefly's" radiance was not
over-powering. His native shrewdness advised caution, though he felt
sure that he could, in homely phrase, twist this faded journalist
round his little finger.

"Before I open the ball," he said, "may I see a copy of your
magazine?"

Meanwhile the other was trying to sum him up. He came to the
conclusion that his visitor meant to introduce some new advertising
scheme, and, as "The Firefly" was sorely in need of advertisements,
he decided to listen.

"Here is last week's issue," he said, handing to Spencer a small
sixteen-page publication. The American glanced through it rapidly,
while the editor sampled the beer.

"I see," said Spencer, after he had found a column signed "H. W.,"
which consisted of paragraphs translated from a German article on
airships,--"I see that 'The Firefly' scintillates around the Tree of
Knowledge."

The editor relaxed sufficiently to smile. "That is a good description
of its weekly flights," he said.

"You don't use many cuts?"

"N-no. They are expensive and hard to obtain for such subjects as we
favor."

"Don't you think it would be a good notion to brighten it up a
bit--put in something lively, and more in keeping with the name?"

"I have no opening for new matter, if that is what you mean," and the
editor stiffened again.

"But you have the say-so as to the contents, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes. The selection rests with me."

"Good. I'm sort of interested in a young lady, Miss Helen Wynton
by name. She lives in Warburton Gardens, and does work for you
occasionally. Now, I propose to send her on a month's trip to
Switzerland, where she will represent 'The Firefly.' You must get her
to turn out a couple of pages of readable stuff each week, which you
will have illustrated by a smart artist at a cost of say, twenty
pounds an article for drawings and blocks. I pay all expenses, she
gets the trip, and you secure some good copy for nothing. Is it a
deal?"

The editor sat down suddenly and combed his whiskers with nervous
fingers. He was a weak man, and a too liberal beer diet was not good
for him.

"Are you in earnest, Mr. Spencer?" he queried in a bewildered way.

"Dead in earnest. You write the necessary letter to Miss Wynton while
I am here, and I hand you the first twenty in notes. You are to tell
her to call Monday noon at any bank you may select, and she will be
given her tickets and a hundred pounds. When I am certain that she has
started I undertake to pay you a further sum of sixty pounds. I make
only two conditions. You must guarantee to star her work, as it should
help her some, and my identity must not be disclosed to her under any
circumstances. In a word, she must regard herself as the accredited
correspondent of 'The Firefly.' If she appears to be a trifle rattled
by your generosity in the matter of terms, you must try and look as if
you did that sort of thing occasionally and would like to do it
often."

The editor pushed his chair away from the table. He seemed to require
more air. "Again I must ask you if you actually mean what you say?" he
gasped.

Spencer opened a pocketbook and counted four five-pound notes out of a
goodly bundle. "It is all here in neat copperplate," he said, placing
the notes on the table. "Maybe you haven't caught on to the root idea
of the proposition," he continued, seeing that the other man was
staring at him blankly. "I want Miss Wynton to have a real good time.
I also want to lift her up a few rungs of the journalistic ladder. But
she is sensitive, and would resent patronage; so I must not figure in
the affair at all. I have no other motive at the back of my head. I'm
putting up two hundred pounds out of sheer philanthropy. Will you
help?"

"There are points about this amazing proposal that require
elucidation," said the editor slowly. "Travel articles might possibly
come within the scope of 'The Firefly'; but I am aware that Miss
Wynton is what might be termed an exceedingly attractive young lady.
For instance, you wouldn't be philanthropic on my account."

"You never can tell. It all depends how your case appealed to me. But
if you are hinting that I intend to use my scheme for the purpose of
winning Miss Wynton's favorable regard, I must say that she strikes
me as the kind of girl who would think she had been swindled if she
learned the truth. In any event, I may never see her again, and it is
certainly not my design to follow her to Switzerland. I don't kick at
your questions. You're old enough to be her father, and mine, for that
matter. Go ahead. This is Saturday afternoon, you know, and there's no
business stirring."

Spencer had to cover the ground a second time before everything was
made clear. At last the fateful letter was written. He promised to
call on Monday and learn how the project fared. Then he relieved the
cabman's anxiety, as the alley possessed a second exit, and was driven
to the Wellington Theater, where he secured a stall for that night's
performance of the Chinese musical comedy in which Miss Millicent
Jaques played the part of a British Admiral's daughter.

While Spencer was watching Helen's hostess cutting capers in a
Mandarin's palace, Helen herself was reading, over and over again, a
most wonderful letter that had fallen from her sky. It had all the
appearance of any ordinary missive. The King's face on a penny stamp,
or so much of it as was left uninjured by a postal smudge, looked
familiar enough, and both envelop and paper resembled those which had
brought her other communications from "The Firefly." But the text was
magic, rank necromancy. No wizard who ever dealt in black letter
treatises could have devised a more convincing proof of his occult
powers than this straightforward offer made by the editor of "The
Firefly." Four articles of five thousand words each,--tickets and 100
pounds awaiting her at a bank,--go to the Maloja-Kulm Hotel; leave
London at the earliest possible date; please send photographs and
suggestions for black-and-white illustrations of mountaineering and
society! What could it possibly mean?

At the third reading Helen began to convince herself that this rare
stroke of luck was really hers. The concluding paragraph shed light on
"The Firefly's" extraordinary outburst.

"As this commission heralds a new departure for the paper, I have
to ask you to be good enough not to make known the object of your
journey. In fact, it will be as well if you do not state your
whereabouts to any persons other than your near relatives. Of course,
all need for secrecy ceases with the appearance of your first article;
but by that time you will practically be on your way home again. I am
anxious to impress on you the importance of this instruction."

Helen found herein the germ of understanding. "The Firefly" meant to
boom itself on its Swiss correspondence; but even that darksome piece
of journalistic enterprise did not explain the princely munificence of
the hundred pounds. At last, when she calmed down sufficiently to be
capable of connected thought, she saw that "mountaineering" implied
the hire of guides, and that "society" meant frocks. Of course it was
intended that she should spend the whole of the money, and thus give
"The Firefly" a fair return for its outlay. And a rapid calculation
revealed the dazzling fact that after setting aside the fabulous sum
of two pounds a day for expenses she still had forty pounds left
wherewith to replenish her scanty stock of dresses.

Believing that at any instant the letter might dissolve into a curt
request to keep her scientific jottings strictly within the limits
of a column, Helen sat with it lying open on her lap, and searched the
pages of a tattered guidebook for particulars of the Upper Engadine.
She had read every line before; but the words now seemed to live.
St. Moritz, Pontresina, Sils-Maria, Silvaplana,--they ceased to be
mere names,--they became actualities. The Julier Pass, the Septimer,
the Forno Glacier, the Diavolezza Route, and the rest of the
stately panorama of snow capped peaks, blue lakes, and narrow
valleys,--valleys which began with picturesque chalets, dun colored
cattle, and herb laden pastures, and ended in the yawning mouths of
ice rivers whence issued the milky white streams that dashed through
the lower gorges,--they passed before her eyes as she read till she
was dazzled by their glories.

What a day dream to one who dwelt in smoky London year in and year
out! What an experience to look forward to! What memories to treasure!
Nor was she blind to the effect of the undertaking on her future.
Though "The Firefly" was not an important paper, though its editor was
of a half-forgotten day and generation, she would now have good work
to show when asked what she had done. She was not enamored of beetles.
Even the classifying of them was monotonous, and she had striven
bravely to push her way through the throng of would-be writers that
besieged the doors of every popular periodical in London. It was a
heartbreaking struggle. The same post that gave her this epoch marking
letter had brought back two stories with the stereotyped expression of
editorial regret.

"Now," thought Helen, when her glance fell on the bulky envelops, "my
name will at least become known. And editors very much resemble the
public they cater for. If a writer achieves success, they all want
him. I have often marveled how any author got his first chance. Now I
know. It comes this way, like a flash of lightning from a summer sky."

It was only fit and proper that she should magnify her first real
commission. No veteran soldier ever donned a field marshal's uniform
with the same zest that he displayed when his subaltern's outfit came
from the tailor. So Helen glowed with that serious enthusiasm which is
the soul of genius, for without it life becomes flat and gray, and
she passed many anxious, half-doubting hours until a courteous bank
official handed her a packet at the appointed time on Monday, and gave
her a receipt to sign, and asked her how she would take her hundred
pounds--did she want it all in notes or some in gold?

She was so unnerved by this sudden confirmation of her good fortune
that she stammered confusedly, "I--really--don't know."

"Well, it would be rather heavy in gold," came the smiling comment.
"This money, I understand, is paid to you for some journalistic
enterprise that will take you abroad. May I suggest that you should
carry, say, thirty pounds in notes and ten in gold, and allow me to
give you the balance in the form of circular notes, which are payable
only under your signature?"

"Yes," said Helen, rosy red at her own awkwardness, "that will be very
nice."

The official pushed across the counter some banknotes and sovereigns,
and summoned a commissionaire to usher her into the waiting room till
he had prepared the circular notes. The respite was a blessing. It
gave Helen time to recover her self possession. She opened the packet
and found therein coupons for the journey to and from St. Moritz,
together with a letter from the sleeping car company, from which she
gathered that a berth on the Engadine Express was provisionally
reserved in her name for the following Thursday, but any change to
a later date must be made forthwith, as the holiday pressure was
beginning. It was advisable too, she was reminded, that she should
secure her return berth before leaving London.

Each moment the reality of the tour became more patent. She might
feel herself bewitched; but pounds sterling and railway tickets were
tangible things, and not to be explained away by any fantasy. By the
time her additional wealth was ready she was better fitted to guard
it. She hurried away quite unconscious of the admiring eyes that were
raised from dockets and ledgers behind the grille. She made for the
court in which "The Firefly" had its abode. The squalor of the
passage, the poverty stricken aspect of the stairs,--items which had
prepared her on other occasions for the starvation rate of pay offered
for her work,--now passed unheeded. This affectation of scanty means
was humorous. Obviously, some millionaire had secured what the
newspapers called "a controlling interest" in "The Firefly."

She sought Mackenzie, the editor, and he received her with a manifest
reluctance to waste his precious time over details that was almost as
convincing as the money and vouchers she carried.

"Yes, Thursday will suit admirably," he said in reply to her
breathless questions. "You will reach Maloja on Friday evening, and
if you post the first article that day week it will arrive in good
time for the next number. As for the style and tone, I leave those
considerations entirely to you. So long as the matter is bright and
readable, that is all I want. I put my requirements clearly in my
letter. Follow that, and you cannot make any mistake."

Helen little realized how precise were the instructions given two
hours earlier to the editor, the bank clerk, and the sleeping car
company. Mackenzie's curt acceptance of her mission brought a
wondering cry to her lips.

"I am naturally overjoyed at my selection for this work," she said.
"May I ask how you came to think of me?"

"Oh, it is hard to say how these things are determined," he answered.
"We liked your crisp way of putting dull facts, I suppose, and thought
that a young lady's impressions of life in an Anglo-Swiss summer
community would be fresher and more attractive than a man's. That is
all. I hope you will enjoy your experiences."

"But, please, I want to thank you----"

"Not a word! Business is business, you know. If a thing is worth
doing, it must be done well. Good-by!"

He flattered himself that he could spend another man's money with as
lordly an air as the youngest journalist on Fleet-st. The difficulty
was to find the man with the money, and Mackenzie had given much
thought during the Sabbath to the potentialities that lay behind
Spencer's whim. He was sure the incident would not close with the
publication of Miss Wynton's articles. Judiciously handled, her
unknown benefactor might prove equally beneficial to "The Firefly."

So Helen tripped out into Fleet-st., and turned her pretty face
westward, and looked so eager and happy that it is not surprising if
many a man eyed her as she passed, and many a woman sighed to think
that another woman could find life in this dreary city such a joyous
thing.

A sharp walk through the Strand and across Trafalgar Square did a
good deal toward restoring the poise of her wits. For safety, she had
pinned the envelop containing her paper money and tickets inside her
blouse. The mere presence of the solid little parcel reminded her at
every movement that she was truly bound for the wonderful Engadine,
and, now that the notion was becoming familiar, she was the more
astonished that the choice of "The Firefly" had fallen on her. It was
all very well for Mr. Mackenzie to say that the paper would be
brightened by a woman's views on life in the high Alps. The poor worn
man looked as if such a holiday would have done him a world of good.
But the certain fact remained that there was no room for error. It was
she, Helen Wynton, and none other, for whom the gods had contrived
this miracle. If it had been possible, she would have crossed busy
Cockspur-st. with a hop, skip, and a jump in order to gain the
sleeping car company's premises.

She knew the place well. Many a time had she looked at the attractive
posters in the windows,--those gorgeous fly sheets that told of winter
in summer among the mountains of Switzerland and the Tyrol, and of
summer in winter along the sunlit shores of the Côte d'Azur. She
almost laughed aloud at the thought that possessed her as she waited
for a moment on the curb to allow a press of traffic to pass.

"If my luck holds till Christmas, I may be sent to Monte Carlo," she
said to herself. "And why not? It's the first step that counts, and
'The Firefly,' once fairly embarked on a career of wild extravagance,
may keep it up."

Under the pressure of that further inspiration she refused to wait any
longer, but dodged an omnibus, a motor car, and some hansoms, and
pushed open the swing doors of the Bureau de la Campagnie des
Wagons-Lits. She did not notice that the automobile stopped very
quickly a few yards higher up the street. The occupant, Mark Bower,
alighted, looked at her through the window to make sure he was not
mistaken, and followed her into the building. He addressed some
question to an attendant, and heard Helen say:

"Yes, please. Thursday will suit admirably. I am going straight
through to St. Moritz. I shall call on Wednesday and let you know what
day I wish to return."

If Bower had intended to speak to her, he seemed to change his mind
rather promptly. Helen's back was turned. She was watching a clerk
writing out a voucher for her berth in the sleeping car, and the
office was full of other prospective travelers discussing times and
routes with the officials. Bower thanked his informant for information
which he could have supplied in ampler detail himself. Then he went
out, and looked again at Helen from the doorway; but she was wholly
unaware of his presence.

Thus it came about, quite simply and naturally, that Mark Bower met
Miss Helen Wynton on the platform of Victoria Station on Thursday
morning, and learned that, like himself, she was a passenger by the
Engadine Express. He took her presence as a matter of course, hoped
she would allow him to secure her a comfortable chair on the steamer,
told her that the weather report was excellent, and remarked that they
might expect a pleasant crossing in the new turbine steamer.

 [Illustration: "I am going through to St. Moritz."
                              _Page 38_]

Then, having ascertained that she had a corner seat, and that her
luggage was registered through to St. Moritz (Helen having arrived at
the station a good hour before the train was due to start), he bowed
himself away, being far too skilled a stalker of such shy game to
thrust his company on her at that stage.

His attitude was very polite and friendly, and Helen was almost
grateful to the chance which had brought him there. She was feeling
just a trifle lonely in the midst of the gay and chattering throng
that crowded the station. The presence of one who was not wholly a
stranger, of a friend's friend, of a man whose name was familiar, made
the journey look less dreamlike. She was glad he had not sought to
travel in her carriage. That was tactful, and indeed his courtesy and
pleasant words during her first brief meeting with him in the
Embankment Hotel had conveyed the same favorable impression.

So when the hour hand of the big clock overhanging the center of
the platform pointed to eleven, the long train glided quietly
away with its load of pleasure-seekers, and neither Helen nor her
new acquaintance could possibly know that their meeting had been
witnessed, with a blank amazement that was rapidly transmuted into
sheer annoyance, by a young American engineer named Charles K.
Spencer.




CHAPTER III

WHEREIN TWO PEOPLE BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED


Mackenzie, of course, was aware that Miss Wynton would leave London
by the eleven o'clock train on Thursday, and Spencer saw no harm in
witnessing her departure. He found a good deal of quiet fun in noting
her animated expression and businesslike air. Her whole-souled
enjoyment of novel surroundings was an asset for the outlay of his
two hundred pounds, and he had fully and finally excused that piece
of extravagance until he caught sight of Bower strolling along the
platform with the easy confidence of one who knew exactly whom he
would meet and how he would account for his unbidden presence.

Spencer at once suspected the man's motives, not without fair cause.
They were, he thought, as plain to him as they were hidden from the
girl. Bower counterfeited the genuine surprise on Helen's face with
admirable skill; but, to the startled onlooker, peering beneath the
actor's mask, his stagy artifice was laid bare.

And Spencer was quite helpless, a condition that irritated him almost
beyond control. He had absolutely no grounds for interference. He
could only glower angrily and in silence at a meeting he could not
prevent. Conjecture might run riot as to the causes which had given
this sinister bend to an idyl, but perforce he must remain dumb.

From one point of view, it was lucky that Helen's self appointed
"godfather" was in a position not to misjudge her; from another, it
would have been better for Spencer's peace of mind were he left in
ignorance of the trap that was apparently being laid for her. Perhaps
Fate had planned this thing--having lately smiled on the American, she
may have determined to plague him somewhat. At any rate, in that
instant the whole trend of his purpose took a new turn. From a general
belief that he would never again set eyes on one in whose fortunes he
felt a transient interest, his intent swerved to a fixed resolve to
protect her from Bower. It would have puzzled him to assign a motive
for his dislike of the man. But the feeling was there, strong and
active. It even gave him a certain satisfaction to remember that he
was hostile to Bower before he had seen him.

Indeed, he nearly yielded to the momentary impulse that bade him
hasten to the booking office and secure a ticket for St. Moritz
forthwith. He dismissed the notion as quixotic and unnecessary.
Bower's attitude in not pressing his company on Miss Wynton at this
initial stage of the journey revealed a subtlety that demanded equal
restraint on Spencer's part. Helen herself was so far from suspecting
the truth that Bower would be compelled to keep up the pretense of a
casual rencontre. Nevertheless, Spencer's chivalric nature was stirred
to the depths. The conversation overheard in the Embankment Hotel had
given him a knowledge of the characteristics of two women that would
have amazed both of them were they told of it. He was able to measure
too the exact extent of Bower's acquaintance with Helen, while he was
confident that the relationship between Bower and Millicent Jaques had
gone a great deal further than might be inferred from the actress's
curt statement that he was one whom she "wished to avoid." These two
extremes could be reconciled only by a most unfavorable estimate of
Bower, and that the American conceded without argument.

Of course, there remained the possibility that Bower was really a
traveler that day by idle chance; but Spencer blew aside this
alternative with the first whiff of smoke from the cigar he lit
mechanically as soon as the train left the station.

"No," he said, in grim self communing, "the skunk found out somehow
that she was going abroad, and planned to accompany her. I could see
it in the smirk on his face as soon as he discovered her whereabouts
on the platform. If he means to summer at Maloja, I guess my thousand
dollars was expended to no good purpose, and the quicker I put up
another thousand to pull things straight the happier I shall be. And
let me tell you, mother, that if I get Helen through this business
well and happy, I shall quit fooling round as godfather, or stage
uncle, or any other sort of soft-hearted idiot. Meanwhile, Bower has
jumped my claim."

His glance happened to fall on an official with the legend "Ticket
Inspector" on the collar of his coat. He remembered that this man, or
some other closely resembling him, had visited the carriage in which
Bower traveled.

"Say," he cried, hailing him on the spur of the moment, "when does the
next train leave for St. Moritz?"

"At two-twenty from Charing Cross, sir. But the Engadine Express is
the best one. Did you miss it?"

"No. I just blew in here to see a friend off, and the trip kind of
appealed to me. Did you notice a reserved compartment for a Mr. Mark
Bower?"

"I know Mr. Bower very well, sir. He goes to Paris or Vienna twenty
times a year."

"To-day he is going to Switzerland."

"So he is, to Zurich, I think. First single he had. But he's sure to
bring up in Vienna or Frankfort. I wish I knew half what he knows
about foreign money business. I shouldn't be punching tickets here
very long. Thank you, sir. Charing Cross at two-twenty; but you may
have difficulty about booking a berth in the sleeper. Just now
everybody is crossing the Channel."

"It looks like that," said Spencer, who had obtained the information
he wanted. Taking a cab, he drove to the sleeping car company's
office, where he asked for a map of the Swiss railways. Zurich, as
Bower's destination, puzzled him; but he did not falter in his
purpose.

"The man is a rogue," he thought, "or I have never seen one. Anyhow, a
night in the train doesn't cut any ice, and Switzerland can fill the
bill for a week as well as London or Scotland."

He was fortunate in the fact that some person wished to postpone a
journey that day, and the accident assured him of comfortable quarters
from Calais onward. Then he drove to a bank, and to "The Firefly"
office. Mackenzie had just opened his second bottle of beer. By this
time he regarded Spencer as an amiable lunatic. He greeted him now
with as much glee as his dreary nature was capable of.

"Hello!" he said. "Been to see the last of the lady?"

"Not quite. I want to take back what I said about not going to
Switzerland. I'm following this afternoon."

"Great Scott! You're sudden."

"I'm built that way," said Spencer dryly. "Here are the sixty pounds
I promised you. Now I want you to do me a favor. Send a messenger to
the Wellington Theater with a note for Miss Millicent Jaques, and ask
her if she can oblige you with the present address of Miss Helen
Wynton. Make a pretext of work. No matter if she writes to her friend
and the inquiry leads to talk. You can put up a suitable fairy tale, I
have no doubt."

"Better still, let my assistant write. Then if necessary I can curse
him for not minding his own business. But what's in the wind?"

"I wish to find out whether or not Miss Jaques knows of this Swiss
journey; that is all. If the reply reaches you by one o'clock send it
to the Embankment Hotel. Otherwise, post it to me at the Kursaal,
Maloja-Kulm; but not in an office envelop."

"You'll come back, Mr. Spencer?" said the editor plaintively, for he
had visions of persuading the eccentric American to start a magazine
of his own.

"Oh, yes. You'll probably see me again within six days. I'll look in
and report progress. Good by."

A messenger caught him as he was leaving the hotel. Mackenzie had not
lost any time, and Miss Jaques happened to be at the theater.

"Sorry," she wrote, in the artistic script that looks so well in face
cream and soap advertisements, "I can't for the life of me remember
the number; but Miss Wynton lives somewhere in Warburton Gardens." The
signature, "Millicent Jaques," was an elegant thing in itself,
carefully thought out and never hurried in execution, no matter how
pressed she might be for time. Spencer was on the point of scattering
the note in little pieces along the Strand; but he checked himself.

"Guess I'll keep this as a souvenir," he said, and it found a place in
his pocketbook.

Helen Wynton, having crossed the Channel many times during her
childhood, was no novice amid the bustle and crush on the narrow pier
at Dover. She had dispensed with all accessories for the journey,
except the few articles that could be crammed into a handbag. Thus,
being independent of porters, she was one of the first to reach the
steamer's gangway. As usual, all the most sheltered nooks on board
were occupied. There seems to be a mysterious type of traveler who
inhabits the cross-Channel vessels permanently. No matter how speedy
may be the movements of a passenger by the boat-train, either at Dover
or Calais, the best seats on the upper deck invariably reveal the
presence of earlier arrivals by deposits of wraps and packages. This
phenomenon was not strange to Helen. A more baffling circumstance was
the altered shape of the ship. The familiar lines of the paddle
steamer were gone, and Helen was wondering where she might best bestow
herself and her tiny valise, when she heard Bower's voice.

"I took the precaution to telegraph from London to one of the ship's
officers," he said, and nodded toward a couple of waterproof rugs
which guarded a recess behind the Captain's cabin. "That is our
corner, I expect. My friend will be here in a moment."

Sure enough, a man in uniform approached and lifted his gold laced
cap. "We have a rather crowded ship, Mr. Bower," he said; "but you
will be quite comfortable there. I suppose you deemed the weather too
fine to need your usual cabin?"

"Yes. I have a companion to-day, you see."

Helen was a little bewildered by this; but it was very pleasant to
claim undisputed possession of a quiet retreat from which to watch
others trying to find chairs. And, although Bower had a place reserved
by her side, he did not sit down. He chatted for a few minutes on such
eminently safe topics as the smooth sea, the superiority of turbine
engines in the matter of steadiness, the advisability of lunching
in the train after leaving Calais, rather than on board the ship,
and soon betook himself aft, there to smoke and chat with some
acquaintances whom he fell in with. Dover Castle was becoming a gray
blur on the horizon when he spoke to Helen again.

"You look quite comfortable," he said pleasantly, "and it is wise not
to risk walking about if you are afraid of being ill."

"I used to cross in bad weather without consequences," she answered;
"but I am older now, and am doubtful of experiments."

"You were educated abroad, then?"

"Yes. I was three years in Brussels--three happy years."

"Ah! Why qualify them? All your years are happy, I should imagine, if
I may judge by appearances."

"Well, if happiness can be defined as contentment, you are right; but
I have had my sad periods too, Mr. Bower. I lost my mother when I was
eighteen, and that was a blow under which I have never ceased to
wince. Fortunately, I had to seek consolation in work. Added to good
health, it makes for content."

"You are quite a philosopher. Will you pardon my curiosity? I too lead
the strenuous life. Now, I should like to have your definition of
work. I am not questioning your capacity. My wonder is that you should
mention it at all."

"But why? Any man who knows what toil is should not regard women as
dolls."

"I prefer to look on them as goddesses."

Helen smiled. "I fear, then, you will deem my pedestal a sorry one,"
she said. "Perhaps you think, because you met me once in Miss Jaques's
company, and again here, traveling _de luxe_, that I am in her set. I
am not. By courtesy I am called a 'secretary'; but the title might be
shortened into 'typist.' I help Professor von Eulenberg with
his--scientific researches."

Though it was on the tip of her tongue to say "beetles," she
substituted the more dignified phrase. Bower was very nice and kind;
but she felt that "beetles" might sound somewhat flippant and lend a
too familiar tone to their conversation.

"Von Eulenberg? I have heard of him. Quite a distinguished man in his
own line; an authority on--moths, is it?"

"Insects generally."

She blushed and laughed outright, not only at the boomerang effect of
her grandiloquent description of the professor's industry, but at the
absurdity of her position. Above all else, Helen was candid, and there
was no reason why she should not enlighten a comparative stranger who
seemed to take a friendly interest in her.

"I ought to explain," she went on, "that I am going to the Engadine as
a journalist. I have had the good fortune to be chosen for a very
pleasant task. Hence this present grandeur, which, I assure you, is
not a usual condition of entomological secretaries."

Bower pretended to ward off some unexpected attack. "I have done
nothing to deserve a hard word like that, Miss Wynton," he cried. "I
shall not recover till we reach Calais. May I sit beside you while you
tell me what it means?"

She made room for him. "Strictly speaking, it is nonsense," she said.

"Excellent. That is the better line for women who are young and
pretty. We jaded men of the world hate to be serious when we leave
business behind. Now, you would scarce credit what a lively youngster
I am when I come abroad for a holiday. I always kiss my fingers to
France at the first sight of her fair face. She bubbles like her own
champagne, whereas London invariably reminds me of beer."

"Do I take it that you prefer gas to froth?"

"You offer me difficult alternatives, yet I accept them. Though gas
is as dreadful a description of champagne as entomological is of a
certain type of secretary, I would venture to point out that it
expands, effervesces, soars ever to greater heights; but beer, froth
and all, tends to become flat, stale, and unprofitable."

"I assure you my knowledge of both is limited. I had never even tasted
champagne until the other day."

"When you lunched with Millicent at the Embankment Hotel?"

"Well--yes. She was at school with me, and we met last week by
accident. She is making quite a success at the Wellington Theater, is
she not?"

"So I hear. I am a director of that concern; but I seldom go there."

"How odd that sounds to one who saves up her pennies to attend a
favorite play!"

"Then you must have my address, and when I am in town you need never
want a stall at any theater in London. Now, that is no idle promise. I
mean it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to think you
were enjoying something through my instrumentality."

"How exceedingly kind of you! I shall take you at your word. What girl
wouldn't?"

"I know quite a number who regard me as an ogre. I am not a lady's man
in the general sense of the term, Miss Wynton. I might tell you more
about myself if it were not for signs that the next five minutes will
bring us to Calais. You are far too independent, I suppose, that I
should offer to carry your bag; but will you allow me to reserve
a joint table for _déjeuner_? There will be a rush for the first
service, which is the best, as a rule, and I have friends at court on
this line. Please don't say you are not hungry."

"That would be impolite, and horribly untrue," laughed Helen.

He took the implied permission, and hurried away. They did not meet
again until he came to her carriage in the train.

"Is this where you are?" he cried, looking up at her through the open
window. "I am in the next block, as they say in America. When you are
ready I shall take you to the dining car. Come out on the platform.
The corridors are simply impassable. And here are baskets of peaches,
and ripe pears, and all manner of pleasant fruits. Yes, try the
corridor to the right, and charge resolutely. If you inflict the
maximum injury on others, you seldom damage yourself."

In a word, Mark Bower spoke as lightheartedly as he professed to feel,
and Helen had no cause whatever to be other than thankful for the
chance that brought him to Switzerland on the same day and in the same
train as herself. His delicate consideration for her well being was
manifested in many ways. That such a man, whom she knew to be a figure
of importance in the financial world, should take an interest in the
simple chronicles of her past life was a flattering thing in itself.
He listened sympathetically to the story of her struggles since the
death of her mother. The consequent stoppage of the annuity paid to
the widow of an Indian civilian rendered it necessary that Helen
should supplement by her own efforts the fifty pounds a year allotted
to her "until death or marriage."

"There are plenty of country districts where I could exist quite
easily on such a sum," she said; "but I declined to be buried alive in
that fashion, and I made up my mind to earn my own living. Somehow,
London appeals to young people situated as I was. It is there that the
great prizes are to be gained; so I came to London."

"From----" broke in Bower, who was peeling one of the peaches bought
at Calais.

"From a village near Sheringham, in Norfolk."

He nodded with smiling comprehension when she detailed her struggles
with editors who could detect no originality in her literary work.

"But that phase has passed now," he said encouragingly.

"Well, it looks like it. I hope so; for I am tired of classifying
beetles."

There--the word was out at last. Perhaps Bower wondered why she
laughed and blushed at the recollection of her earlier determination
to suppress von Eulenberg's "specimens" as a topic of conversation.
Already the stiffness of their talk on board the steamship seemed to
have vanished completely. It was really a pleasant way of passing the
time to sit and chat in this glass palace while the train skimmed over
a dull land of marshes and poplars.

"Beetles, though apt to be flighty, are otherwise dull creatures," he
said. "May I ask what paper you are representing on your present
tour?"

It was an obvious and harmless question; but Helen was loyal to her
bond. "It sounds absurd to have to say it, but I am pledged to
secrecy," she answered.

"Good gracious! Don't tell me you intend to interview anarchists,
or runaway queens, or the other disgruntled people who live in
Switzerland. Moreover, they usually find quarters in Geneva, while
you presumably are bound for the Engadine."

"Oh, no. My work lies in less excitable circles. 'Life in a Swiss
hotel' would be nearer the mark."

"Apart from the unusual surroundings, you will find it suspiciously
like life in a quiet Norfolk village, Miss Wynton," said Bower. He
paused, tasted the peach, and made a grimace. "Sour!" he protested.
"Really, when all is said and done, the only place in which one can
buy a decent peach is London."

"Ah, a distinct score for Britain!"

"And a fair hit to your credit. Let me urge in self defense that if
life in France bubbles, it occasionally leaves a bitter taste in the
mouth. Now you shall go and read, and sleep a little perhaps, if that
is not a heretical thing to suggest. We have the same table for
afternoon tea and dinner."

Helen had never met such a versatile man. He talked of most things
with knowledge and restraint and some humor. She could not help
admitting that the journey would have been exceedingly dull without
his companionship, and he had the tact to make her feel that he was
equally indebted to her for passing the long hours. At dinner she
noticed that they were served with dishes not supplied to others in
the dining car.

"I hope you have not been ordering a dreadfully expensive meal," she
ventured to say. "I must pay my share, you know, and I am quite an
economical person."

"There!" he vowed. "That is the first unkind word you have uttered.
Surely you will not refuse to be my guest? Indeed, I was hoping that
to-day marked the beginning of a new era, wherein we might meet at
times and criticize humanity to our hearts' content."

"I should feel unhappy if I did not pay," she insisted.

"Well, then, I shall charge you table d'hôte prices. Will that content
you?"

So, when the attendant came to the other tables, Helen produced her
purse, and Bower solemnly accepted her few francs; but no bill was
presented to him.

"You see," he said, smiling at her through a glass of golden wine,
"you have missed a great opportunity. Not one woman in a million can
say that she has dined at the railway company's expense in France."

She was puzzled. His manner had become slightly more confidential
during the meal. It needed no feminine intuition to realize that he
admired her. Excitement, the sea air, the heated atmosphere, and
unceasing onrush of the train, had flushed her cheeks and lent a
deeper shade to her brown eyes. She knew that Bower's was not the
only glance that dwelt on her with a curious and somewhat unnerving
appraisement. Other men, and not a few women, stared at her. The
mirror in her dressing room had told her that she was looking her
best, and her heart fluttered a little at the thought that she had
succeeded, without effort, in winning the appreciation of a man highly
placed in the world of fashion and finance. The conceit induced an odd
feeling of embarrassment. To dispel it she took up his words in a vein
of playful sarcasm.

"If you assure me that for some unexplained reason the railway
authorities are giving us this excellent dinner for nothing, please
return my money," she said.

"The gifts of the gods, and eke of railway companies, must be taken
without question," he answered. "No, I shall keep your pieces of
silver. I mean to invest them. It will amuse me to learn how much I
can make on an initial capital of twelve francs, fifty centimes. Will
you allow that? I shall be scrupulously accurate, and submit an
audited account at Christmas. Even my worst enemies have never alleged
dishonesty against me. Is it a bargain?"

"Y-yes," she stammered confusedly, hardly knowing what he meant. He
was leaning over the small table and looking steadfastly at her. She
noticed that the wine and food had made his skin greasy. It suddenly
occurred to her that Mark Bower resembled certain exotic plants which
must be viewed from a distance if they would gratify the critical
senses. The gloss of a careful toilet was gone. He was altogether
cruder, coarser, more animal, since he had eaten, though his
consumption of wine was quite moderate. His big, rather fierce
eyes were more than prominent now; they bulged. Certain Jewish
characteristics in his face had become accentuated. She remembered the
ancient habit of anointing with oil, and laughed at the thought, for
that was a little trick of hers to conceal nervousness.

"You doubt me, then?" he half whispered. "Or do you deem it beyond the
power of finance to convert so small a sum into hundreds--it may be
thousands--of pounds in six months?"

"Indeed I should credit you with ability to do that and more, Mr.
Bower," she said; "but I was wondering why you made such an offer to a
mere acquaintance,--one whom it is more than likely you will never
meet again."

The phrase had a harsh and awkward sound in her ears. Bower, to her
relief, seemed to ignore it.

"It is permissible to gratify an impulse once in awhile," he
countered. "And not to mention the audited accounts, there was a
matter of theater tickets that should serve to bring us together
again. Won't you give me your address, in London if not in
Switzerland? Here is mine."

He produced a pocketbook, and picked out a card. It bore his name and
his club. He added, in pencil, "50 Hamilton Place."

"Letters sent to my house reach me, no matter where I may happen to
be," he said.

The incident brought fresh tremors to Helen. Indeed, the penciled
address came as an unpleasant shock; for Millicent Jaques, on the day
they met in Piccadilly, having gone home with Helen to tea, excused an
early departure on the ground that she was due to dinner at that very
house.

But she took the card, and strove desperately to appear at ease, for
she had no cause to quarrel with one whose manners were so courteous.

"Thank you very much," she said. "If you care to see my articles in
the--in the paper, I shall send you copies. Now I must say good by. I
am rather tired. Before I go let me say how deeply indebted I feel for
your kindness to-day."

She rose. Bower stood up too, and bowed with smiling deference. "Good
night," he said. "You will not be disturbed by the customs people at
the frontier. I have arranged all that."

Helen made the best of her way along the swaying corridors till she
reached her section of the sleeping car; but Bower resumed his seat at
the table. He ordered a glass of fine champagne and held it up to the
light. There was a decided frown on his strong face, and the attendant
who served him imagined that there was something wrong with the
liqueur.

"_N'est-ce pas bon, m'sieur?_" he began.

"Will you go to the devil?" said Bower, speaking very slowly without
looking at him.

"_Oui, m'sieur, Je vous assure_," and the man disappeared.

It was not the wine, but the woman, that was perplexing him. Not often
had the lure of gold failed so signally. And why was she so manifestly
startled at the last moment? Had he gone too far? Was he mistaken in
the assumption that Millicent Jaques had said little or nothing
concerning him to her friend? And this commission too,--there were
inexplicable features about it. He knew a great deal of the ways of
newspapers, daily and weekly, and it was not the journalistic habit to
send inexperienced young women on costly journeys to write up Swiss
summer resorts.

He frowned still more deeply as he thought of the Maloja-Kulm Hotel,
for Helen had innocently affixed a label bearing her address on her
handbag. He peopled it with dozens of smart young men and not a few
older beaux of his own type. His features relaxed somewhat when he
remembered the women. Helen was alone, and far too good-looking to
command sympathy. There should be the elements of trouble in that
quarter. If he played his cards well, and he had no reason to doubt
his skill, Helen should greet him as her best friend when he surprised
her by appearing unexpectedly at the Maloja-Kulm.

Then he waxed critical. She was young, and lively, and unquestionably
pretty; but was she worth all this planning and contriving? She was by
way of being a prude too, and held serious notions of women's place in
the scheme of things. At any rate, the day's hunting had not brought
him far out of his path, Frankfort being his real objective, and he
would make up his mind later. Perhaps she would remove all obstacles
by writing to him on her return to London; but the recollection of her
frank, clear gaze, of lips that were molded for strength as well as
sweetness, of the dignity and grace with which the well shaped head
was poised on a white firm neck, warned him that such a woman might
surrender to love, but never to greed.

Then he laughed, and ordered another liqueur, and drank a toast to
to-morrow, when all things come to pass for the man who knows how to
contrive to-day.

In the early morning, at Basle, he awoke, and was somewhat angry with
himself when he found that his thoughts still dwelt on Helen Wynton.
In the cold gray glimmer of dawn, and after the unpleasant shaking his
pampered body had received all night, some of the romance of this
latest quest had evaporated. He was stiff and weary, and he regretted
the whim that had led him a good twelve hours astray. But he roused
himself and dressed with care. Some twenty minutes short of Zurich he
sent an attendant to Miss Wynton's berth to inquire if she would join
him for early coffee at that station, there being a wait of a quarter
of an hour before the train went on to Coire.

Helen, who was up and dressed, said she would be delighted. She too
had been thinking, and, being a healthy-minded and kind-hearted girl,
had come to the conclusion that her abrupt departure the previous
night was wholly uncalled for and ungracious.

So it was with a smiling face that she awaited Bower on the steps of
her carriage. She shook hands with him cordially, did not object in
the least degree when he seized her arm to pilot her through a noisy
crowd of foreigners, and laughed with utmost cheerfulness when they
both failed to drink some extraordinarily hot coffee served in glasses
that seemed to be hotter still.

Helen had the rare distinction of being quite as bright and pleasing
to the eye in the searching light of the sun's first rays as at any
other hour. Bower, though spruce and dandified, looked rather worn.

"I did not sleep well," he explained. "And the rails to the frontier
on this line are the worst laid in Europe."

"It is early yet," she said. "Why not turn in again when you reach
your hotel?"

"Perish the thought!" he cried. "I shall wander disconsolate by the
side of the lake. Please say you will miss me at breakfast. And, by
the way, you will find a table specially set apart for you. I suppose
you change at Coire?"

"How kind and thoughtful you are. Yes, I am going to the Engadine, you
know."

"Well, give my greetings to the high Alps. I have climbed most of them
in my time. More improbable things have happened than that I may renew
the acquaintance with some of my old friends this year. What fun if
you and I met on the Matterhorn or Jungfrau! But they are far away
from the valley of the inn, and perhaps you do not climb."

"I have never had the opportunity; but I mean to try. Moreover, it is
part of my undertaking."

"Then may we soon be tied to the same rope!"

Thus they parted, with cheery words, and, on Helen's side, a genuine
wish that they might renew a pleasant acquaintance. Bower waited on
the platform to see the last of her as the train steamed away.

"Yes, it is worth while," he muttered, when the white feathers on her
hat were no longer visible. He did not go to the lake, but to the
telegraph office, and there he wrote two long messages, which he
revised carefully, and copied. Yet he frowned again, even while he was
paying for their transmission. Never before had he taken such pains to
win any woman's regard. And the knowledge vexed him, for the taking of
pains was not his way with women.




CHAPTER IV

HOW HELEN CAME TO MALOJA


At Coire, or Chur, as the three-tongued Swiss often term it--German
being the language most in vogue in Switzerland--Helen found a
cheerful looking mountain train awaiting the coming of its heavy
brother from far off Calais. It was soon packed to the doors, for
those Alpine valleys hum with life and movement during the closing
days of July. Even in the first class carriages nearly every seat was
filled in a few minutes, while pandemonium reigned in the cheaper
sections.

Helen, having no cumbersome baggage to impede her movements, was swept
in on the crest of the earliest wave, and obtained a corner near the
corridor. She meant to leave her handbag there, stroll up and down the
station for a few minutes, mainly to look at the cosmopolitan crowd,
and perhaps buy some fruit; but the babel of English, German, French,
and Italian, mixed with scraps of Russian and Czech, that raged round
a distracted conductor warned her that the wiser policy was to sit
still.

An Englishwoman, red faced, elderly, and important, was offered a
center seat, facing the engine, in Helen's compartment. She refused
it. Her indignation was magnificent. To face the engine, she declared,
meant instant illness.

"I never return to this wretched country that I do not regret it!" she
shrilled. "Have you no telegraphs? Cannot your officials ascertain
from Zurich how many English passengers may be expected, and make
suitable provision for them?"

As this tirade was thrown away on the conductor, she proceeded to
translate it into fairly accurate French; but the man was at his
wits' end to accommodate the throng, and said so, with the breathless
politeness that such a _grande dame_ seemed to merit.

"Then you should set apart a special train for passengers from
England!" she declared vehemently. "I shall never come here
again--never! The place is overrun with cheap tourists. Moreover,
I shall tell all my friends to avoid Switzerland. Perhaps, when
British patronage is withdrawn from your railways and hotels, you
will begin to consider our requirements."

Helen felt that her irate fellow countrywoman was metaphorically
hurling large volumes of the peerage, baronetage, and landed gentry at
the unhappy conductor's head. Again he pointed out that there was a
seat at madam's service. When the train started he would do his best
to secure another in the desired position.

As the woman, whose proportions were generous, was blocking the
gangway, she received a forcible reminder from the end of a heavy
portmanteau that she must clear out of the way. Breathing dire
reprisals on the Swiss federal railway system, she entered
unwillingly.

"Disgraceful!" she snorted. "A nation of boors! In another second I
should have been thrown down and trampled on."

A stolid German and his wife occupied opposite corners, and the man
probably wondered why the _Englischer frau_ glared at him so fiercely.
But he did not move.

Helen, thinking to throw oil on the troubled waters, said pleasantly,
"Won't you change seats with me? I don't mind whether I face the
engine or not. In any case, I intend to stand in the corridor most of
the time."

The stout woman, hearing herself addressed in English, lifted her
mounted eyeglasses and stared at Helen. In one sweeping glance she
took in details. As it happened, the girl had expended fifteen of her
forty pounds on a neat tailor made costume, a smart hat, well fitting
gloves, and the best pair of walking boots she could buy; for, having
pretty feet, it was a pardonable vanity that she should wish them well
shod. Apparently, the other was satisfied that there would be no loss
of caste in accepting the proffered civility.

"Thank you. I am very much obliged," she said. "It is awfully sweet of
you to incommode yourself for my sake."

It was difficult to believe that the woman who had just stormed at
the conductor, who had the effrontery to subject Helen to that
stony scrutiny before she answered, could adopt such dulcet tones
so suddenly. Helen, frank and generous-minded to a degree, would
have preferred a gradual subsidence of wrath to this remarkable
_volte-face_. But she reiterated that she regarded her place in a
carriage as of slight consequence, and the change was effected.

The other adjusted her eyeglasses again, and passed in review the
remaining occupants of the compartment. They were "foreigners," whose
existence might be ignored.

"This line grows worse each year," she remarked, by way of a
conversational opening. "It is horrid traveling alone. Unfortunately,
I missed my son at Lucerne. Are your people on the train?"

"No. I too am alone."

"Ah! Going to St. Moritz?"

"Yes; but I take the diligence there for Maloja."

"The diligence! Who in the world advised that? Nobody ever travels
that way."

By "nobody," she clearly conveyed the idea that she mixed in the
sacred circle of "somebodies," carriage folk to the soles of their
boots, because Helen's guidebook showed that a diligence ran twice
daily through the Upper Engadine, and the Swiss authorities would not
provide those capacious four-horsed vehicles unless there were
passengers to fill them.

"Oh!" cried Helen. "Should I have ordered a carriage beforehand?"

"Most decidedly. But your friends will send one. They know you are
coming by this train?"

Helen smiled. She anticipated a certain amount of cross examination at
the hands of residents in the hotel; but she saw no reason why the
ordeal should begin so soon.

"I must take my luck then," she said. "There ought to be plenty of
carriages at St. Moritz."

Without being positively rude, her new acquaintance could not repeat
the question thus shirked. But she had other shafts in her quiver.

"You will stay at the Kursaal, of course?" she said.

"Yes."

"A passing visit, or for a period? I ask because I am going there
myself."

"Oh, how nice! I am glad I have met you. I mean to remain at Maloja
until the end of August."

"Quite the right time. The rest of Switzerland is unbearable in
August. You will find the hotel rather full. The Burnham-Joneses are
there,--the tennis players, you know,--and General and Mrs. Wragg and
their family, and the de la Veres, nominally husband and wife,--a most
charming couple individually. Have you met the de la Veres? No? Well,
don't be unhappy on Edith's account if Reginald flirts with you. She
likes it."

"But perhaps I might not like it," laughed Helen.

"Ah, Reginald has such fascinating manners!" A sigh seemed to deplore
the days of long ago, when Reginald's fascination might have displayed
itself on her account.

Again there was a break in the flow of talk, and Helen began to take
an interest in the scenery. Not to be balked, her inquisitor searched
in a _portmonnaie_ attached to her left wrist with a strap, and
produced a card.

"We may as well know each other's names," she cooed affably. "Here is
my card."

Helen read, "Mrs. H. de Courcy Vavasour, Villa Menini, Nice."

"I am sorry," she said, with a friendly smile that might have disarmed
prejudice, "but in the hurry of my departure from London I packed my
cards in my registered baggage. My name is Helen Wynton."

The eyeglasses went up once more.

"Do you spell it with an I? Are you one of the Gloucestershire
Wintons?"

"No. I live in town; but my home is in Norfolk."

"And whose party will you join at the Maloja?"

Helen colored a little under this rigorous heckling. "As I have
already told you, Mrs. Vavasour, I am alone," she said. "Indeed, I
have come here to--to do some literary work."

"For a newspaper?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Vavasour received this statement guardedly. If Helen was on the
staff of an important journal there was something to be gained by
being cited in her articles as one of the important persons
"sojourning" in the Engadine.

"It is really wonderful," she admitted, "how enterprising the great
daily papers are nowadays."

Helen, very new to a world of de Courcy Vavasours, and Wraggs, and
Burnham-Joneses, forgave this hawklike pertinacity for sake of the
apparent sympathy of her catechist. And she was painfully candid.

"The weekly paper I represent is not at all well known," she
explained; "but here I am, and I mean to enjoy my visit hugely. It is
the chance of a lifetime to be sent abroad on such a mission. I little
dreamed a week since that I should be able to visit this beautiful
country under the best conditions without giving a thought to the
cost."

Poor Helen! Had she delved in many volumes to obtain material that
would condemn her in the eyes of the tuft hunter she was addressing,
she could not have shocked so many conventions in so few words. She
was poor, unknown, unfriended! Worse than these negative defects, she
was positively attractive! Mrs. Vavasour almost shuddered as she
thought of the son "missed" at Lucerne, the son who would arrive at
Maloja on the morrow, in the company of someone whom he preferred to
his mother as a fellow traveler. What a pitfall she had escaped! She
might have made a friend of this impossible person! Nevertheless,
rendered wary by many social skirmishes, she did not declare war at
once. The girl was too outspoken to be an adventuress. She must wait,
and watch, and furbish her weapons.

Helen, whose brain was nimble enough to take in some of Mrs.
Vavasour's limitations, hoped that the preliminary inquiry into her
caste was ended. She went into the corridor. A man made room for
her with an alacrity that threatened an attempt to draw her into
conversation, so she moved somewhat farther away, and gave herself to
thought. If this prying woman was a fair sample of the people in the
hotel, it was obvious that the human element in the high Alps held a
suspicious resemblance to society in Bayswater, where each street is a
faction and the clique in the "Terrace" is not on speaking terms with
the clique in the "Gardens." Thus far, she owned to a feeling of
disillusionment in many respects.

Two years earlier, a naturalist in the Highlands had engaged von
Eulenberg to classify his collection, and Helen had gone to Inverness
with the professor's family. She saw something then of the glories of
Scotland, and her memories of the purple hills, the silvery lakes, the
joyous burns tumbling headlong through woodland and pasture, were not
dimmed by the dusty garishness of the Swiss scenery. True, Baedeker
said that these pent valleys were suffocating in midsummer. She could
only await in diminished confidence her first glimpse of the eternal
snows.

And again, the holiday makers were not the blithesome creatures of her
imagination. Some were reading, many sleeping, and the rest, for the
most part, talking in strange tongues of anything but the beauties
of the landscape. The Britons among them seemed to be brooding on
glaciers. A party of lively Americans were playing bridge, and a scrap
of gossip in English from a neighboring compartment revealed that some
woman who went to a dance at Montreux, "wore a cheap voile, my dear, a
last year's bargain, all crumpled and dirty. You never saw such a
fright!"

These things were trivial and commonplace; a wide gap opened between
them and Helen's day dreams of Alpine travel. By natural sequence of
ideas she began to contrast her present loneliness with yesterday's
pleasant journey, and the outcome was eminently favorable to Mark
Bower. She missed him. She was quite sure, had he accompanied her from
Zurich, that he would have charmed away the dull hours with amusing
anecdotes. Instead of feeling rather tired and sleepy, she would now
be listening to his apt expositions of the habits and customs of the
places and people seen from the carriage windows. For fully five
minutes her expressive mouth betrayed a little moue of disappointment.

And then the train climbed a long spiral which gave a series of
delightful views of a picturesque Swiss village,--exactly such a
cluster of low roofed houses as she had admired many a time in
photographs of Alpine scenery. An exclamation from a little boy who
clapped his hands in ecstasy caused her to look through a cleft in the
nearer hills. With a thrill of wonder she discovered there, remote
and solitary, all garbed in shining white, a majestic snow capped
mountain. Ah! this was the real Switzerland! Her heart throbbed, and
her breath came in fluttering gasps of excitement. How mean and
trivial were class distinctions in sight of nature's nobility! She was
uplifted, inspirited, filled with a sedate happiness. She wanted to
voice her gladness as the child had done. A high pitched female voice
said:

"Of course I had to call, because Jack meets her husband in the city;
but it is an awful bore knowing such people."

Then the train plunged into a noisome tunnel, and turned a complete
circle in the heart of the rock, and when it panted into daylight
again the tall square tower of the village church had sunk more deeply
into the valley. Far beneath, two bright steel ribbons--swallowed
by a cavernous mouth that belched clouds of dense smoke--showed the
strangeness of the route that led to the silent peaks. At times the
rails crossed or ran by the side of a white, tree lined track that
mounted ever upward. Though she could not recall the name of the pass,
Helen was aware that this was one of the fine mountain roads for which
Switzerland is famous. Pedestrians, singly or in small parties, were
trudging along sturdily. They seemed to be mostly German tourists,
jolly, well fed folk, nearly as many women as men, each one carrying
a rucksack and alpenstock, and evidently determined to cover a set
number of kilometers before night.

"That is the way in which I should like to see the Alps," thought
Helen. "I am sure they sing as they walk, and they miss nothing of
the grandeur and exquisite coloring of the hills. A train is very
comfortable; but it certainly brings to these quiet valleys a great
many people who would otherwise never come near them."

The force of this trite reflection was borne in on her by a loud
wrangle between the bridge players. A woman had revoked, and was quite
wroth with the man who detected her mistake.

At the next stopping place Helen bought some chocolates, and made a
friend of the boy, a tiny Parisian. The two found amusement in
searching for patches of snow on the northerly sides of the nearest
hills. Once they caught a glimpse of a whole snowy range, and they
shrieked so enthusiastically that the woman whose husband was also in
the city glanced at them with disapproval, as they interrupted a full
and particular if not true account of the quarrel between the Firs and
the Limes.

At last the panting engine gathered speed and rushed along a wide
valley into Samaden, Celerina, and St. Moritz. Mrs. Vavasour seemed to
be absorbed in a Tauchnitz novel till the last moment, and the next
sight of her vouchsafed to Helen was her departure from the terminus
in solitary state in a pair-horse victoria. It savored somewhat of
unkindness that she had not offered to share the roomy vehicle with
one who had befriended her.

"Perhaps she was afraid I might not pay my share of the hire," said
Helen to herself rather indignantly. But a civil hotel porter helped
her to clear the customs shed rapidly, secured a comfortable carriage,
advised her confidentially as to the amount that should be paid, and
promised to telephone to the hotel for a suitable room. She was
surprised to find how many of her fellow passengers were bound for
Maloja. Some she had encountered at various stages of the journey all
the way from London, while many, like Mrs. Vavasour, had joined the
train in Switzerland. She remembered too, with a quiet humor that had
in it a spice of sarcasm, that her elderly acquaintance had not come
from England, and had no more right to demand special accommodation at
Coire than the dozens of other travelers who put in an appearance at
each station after Basle.

She noticed that as soon as the luggage was handed to the driver to
be strapped behind each vehicle, the newcomers nearly all went to a
neighboring hotel for luncheon. Being a healthy young person, and
endowed with a sound digestion, Helen deemed this example too good not
to be followed. Then she began a two hours' drive through a valley
that almost shook her allegiance to Scotland. The driver, a fine
looking old man, with massive features and curling gray hair that
reminded her of Michelangelo's head of Moses, knowing the nationality
of his fare, resolutely refused to speak any other language than
English. He would jerk round, flourish his whip, and cry:

"Dissa pless St. Moritz Bad; datta pless St. Moritz Dorp."

Soon he announced the "Engelish kirch," thereby meaning the round
arched English church overlooking the lake; or it might be, with a
loftier sweep of the whip, "Piz Julier montin, mit lek Silvaplaner
See."

All this Helen could have told him with equal accuracy and even
greater detail. Had she not almost learned by heart each line of
Baedeker on the Upper Engadine? Could she not have reproduced from
memory a fairly complete map of the valley, with its villages,
mountains, and lakes clearly marked? But she would not on any account
repress the man's enthusiasm, and her eager acceptance of his quaint
information induced fresh efforts, with more whip waving.

"Piz Corvatsch! Him ver' big fellow. Twelf t'ousen foots. W'en me
guide him bruk ze leg."

She had seen that he was very lame as he hobbled about the carriage
tying up her boxes. So here was a real guide. That explained his
romantic aspect, his love of the high places. And he had been maimed
for life by that magnificent mountain whose scarred slopes were now
vividly before her eyes. The bright sunshine lit lakes and hills with
its glory. A marvelous atmosphere made all things visible with
microscopic fidelity. From Campfer to Silvaplana looked to be a ten
minutes' drive, and from Silvaplana to Sils-Maria another quarter of
an hour. Helen had to consult her watch and force herself to admit
that the horses were trotting fully seven miles an hour before she
realized that distances could be so deceptive. The summit of the
lordly Corvatsch seemed to be absurdly near. She judged it within the
scope of an easy walk between breakfast and afternoon tea from the
hotel on a tree covered peninsula that stretched far out into Lake
Sils-Maria, and she wondered why anyone should fall and break his leg
during such a simple climb. Just to make sure, she glanced at the
guidebook, and it gave her a shock when she saw the words, "Guides
necessary,"--"Descent to Sils practicable only for experts,"--"Spend
night at Roseg Inn,"--the route followed being that from Pontresina.

Then she recollected that the lovely valley she was traversing from
beginning to end was itself six thousand feet above sea level,--that
the observatory on rugged old Ben Nevis, which she had visited when in
Scotland, was, metaphorically speaking, two thousand feet beneath the
smooth road along which she was being driven, and that the highest
peak on Corvatsch was still six thousand feet above her head. All at
once, Helen felt subdued. The fancy seized her that the carriage was
rumbling over the roof of the world. In a word, she was yielding to
the exhilaration of high altitudes, and her brain was ready to spin
wild fantasies.

At Sils-Maria she was brought suddenly to earth again. It must not
be forgotten that her driver was a St. Moritz man, and therefore
at constant feud with the men from the Kursaal, who brought empty
carriages to St. Moritz, and went back laden with the spoil that would
otherwise have fallen to the share of the local livery stables. Hence,
he made it a point of honor to pass every Maloja owned vehicle on the
road. Six times he succeeded, but, on the seventh, reversing the moral
of Bruce's spider, he smashed the near hind wheel by attempting to
slip between a landau and a stone post. Helen was almost thrown into
the lake, and, for the life of her, she could not repress a scream.
But the danger passed as rapidly as it had risen, and all that
happened was that the carriage settled down lamely by the side of
the road, with its weight resting on one of her boxes.

The driver spoke no more English. He bewailed his misfortune in free
and fluent Italian of the Romansch order.

But he understood German, and when Helen demanded imperatively that
he should unharness the horses, and help to prop the carriage off a
crumpled tin trunk that contained her best dresses, he recovered his
senses, worked willingly, and announced with a weary grin that if the
_gnädische fräulein_ would wait a little half-hour he would obtain
another wheel from a neighboring forge.

Having recovered from her fright she was so touched by the poor
fellow's distress that she promised readily to stand by him until
repairs were effected. It was a longer job than either of them
anticipated. The axle was slightly bent, and a blacksmith had to bring
clamps and a jackscrew before the new wheel could be adjusted. Even
then it had an air of uncertainty that rendered speed impossible. The
concluding five miles of the journey were taken at a snail's pace, and
Helen reflected ruefully that it was possible to "bruk ze leg" on the
level high road as well as on the rocks of Corvatsch.

Of course, she received offers of assistance in plenty. Every carriage
that passed while the blacksmith was at work pulled up and placed a
seat therein at her command. But she refused them all. It was not that
she feared to desert her baggage, for Switzerland is proverbially
honest. The unlucky driver had tried to be friendly; his fault was due
to an excess of zeal; and each time she declined the proffered help
his furrowed face brightened. If she did not reach the hotel until
midnight she was determined to go there in that vehicle, and in none
other.

The accident threw her late, but only by some two hours. Instead of
arriving at Maloja in brilliant sunshine, it was damp and chilly when
she entered the hotel. A bank of mist had been carried over the summit
of the pass by a southwesterly wind. Long before the carriage crawled
round the last great bend in the road the glorious panorama of lake
and mountains was blotted out of sight. The horses seemed to be
jogging on through a luminous cloud, so dense that naught was visible
save a few yards of roadway and the boundary wall or stone posts on
the left side, where lay the lake. The brightness soon passed, as the
hurrying fog wraiths closed in on each other. It became bitterly cold
too, and it was with intense gladness that Helen finally stepped from
the outer gloom into a glass haven of warmth and light that formed a
species of covered-in veranda in front of the hotel.

She was about to pay the driver, having added to the agreed sum half
the cost of the broken wheel by way of a solatium, when another
carriage drove up from the direction of St. Moritz.

She fancied that the occupant, a young man whom she had never seen
before, glanced at her as though he knew her. She looked again to make
sure; but by that time his eyes were turned away, so he had evidently
discovered his mistake. Still, he seemed to take considerable
interest in her carriage, and Helen, ever ready to concede the most
generous interpretation of doubtful acts, assumed that he had heard
of the accident by some means, and was on the lookout for her.

It would indeed have been a fortunate thing for Helen had some Swiss
fairy whispered the news of her mishap in Spencer's ears during the
long drive up the mist laden valley. Then, at least, he might have
spoken to her, and used the informal introduction to make her further
acquaintance on the morrow. But the knowledge was withheld from him.
No hint of it was even flashed through space by that wireless
telegraphy which has existed between kin souls ever since men and
women contrived to raise human affinities to a plane not far removed
from the divine.

He had small store of German, but he knew enough to be perplexed by
the way in which Helen's driver expressed "beautiful thanks" for her
gift. The man seemed to be at once grateful and downhearted. Of
course, the impression was of the slightest, but Spencer had been
trained in reaching vital conclusions on meager evidence. He could not
wait to listen to Helen's words, so he passed into the hotel, having
the American habit of leaving the care of his baggage to the hall
porter. He wondered why Helen was so late in arriving that he had
caught her up on the very threshold of the Kursaal, so to speak. He
would not forget the driver's face, and if he met the man again, it
might be possible to find out the cause of the delay. He himself was
before time. The federal railway authorities at Coire, awaking to the
fact that the holiday rush was beginning, had actually dispatched a
relief train to St. Moritz when the second important train of the day
turned up as full as its predecessor.

At dinner Helen and he sat at little tables in the same section of the
huge dining hall. The hotel was nearly full, and it was noticeable
that they were the only persons who dined alone. Indeed, the head
waiter asked Spencer if he cared to join a party of men who sat
together; but he declined. There was no such general gathering of
women; so Helen was given no alternative, and she ate the meal in
silence.

She saw Mrs. Vavasour in a remote part of the salon. With her was a
vacuous looking young man who seldom spoke to her but was continually
addressing remarks to a woman at another table.

"That is the son lost at Lucerne," she decided, finding in his face
some of the physical traits but none of the calculating shrewdness of
his mother.

After a repast of many courses Helen wandered into the great hall,
found an empty chair, and longed for someone to speak to. At the first
glance, everybody seemed to know everybody else. That was not really
the case, of course. There were others present as neglected and
solitary as Helen; but the noise and merriment of the greater number
dominated the place. It resembled a social club rather than a hotel.

Her chair was placed in an alley along which people had to pass who
wished to reach the glass covered veranda. She amused herself by
trying to pick out the Wraggs, the Burnham-Joneses, and the de la
Veres. Suddenly she was aware that Mrs. Vavasour and her son were
coming that way; the son unwillingly, the mother with an air of
determination. Perhaps the Lucerne episode was about to be explained.

When young Vavasour's eyes fell on Helen, the boredom vanished from
his face. It was quite obvious that he called his mother's attention
to her and asked who she was. Helen felt that an introduction was
imminent. She was glad of it. At that moment she would have chatted
gayly with even a greater ninny than George de Courcy Vavasour.

But she had not yet grasped the peculiar idiosyncrasies of a
woman who was famous for snubbing those whom she considered to be
"undesirables." Helen looked up with a shy smile, expecting that the
older woman would stop and speak; but Mrs. Vavasour gazed at her
blankly--looked at the back of her chair through her body--and walked
on.

"I don't know, George," Helen heard her say. "There are a lot of new
arrivals. Some person of no importance, rather déclassée, I should
imagine by appearances. As I was telling you, the General has
arranged----"

Taken altogether, Helen had crowded into portions of two days many new
and some very unpleasant experiences.




CHAPTER V

AN INTERLUDE


Helen rose betimes next morning; but she found that the sun had kept
an earlier tryst. Not a cloud marred a sky of dazzling blue. The
phantom mist had gone with the shadows. From her bed room window she
could see the whole length of the Ober-Engadin, till the view was
abruptly shut off by the giant shoulders of Lagrev and Rosatch. The
brilliance of the coloring was the landscape's most astounding
feature. The lakes were planes of polished turquoise, the rocks pure
grays and browns and reds, the meadows emerald green, while the
shining white patches of snow on the highest mountain slopes helped to
blacken by contrast the somber clumps of pines that gathered thick
wherever man had not disputed with the trees the tenancy of each foot
of meager loam.

This morning glory of nature gladdened the girl's heart and drove
from it the overnight vapors. She dressed hurriedly, made a light
breakfast, and went out.

There was no need to ask the way. In front of the hotel the narrow
Silser See filled the valley. Close behind lay the crest of the pass.
A picturesque château was perched on a sheer rock overhanging the Vale
of Bregaglia and commanding a far flung prospect almost to the brink
of Como. On both sides rose the mountain barriers; but toward the east
there was an inviting gorge, beyond which the lofty Cima di Rosso
flung its eternal snows heavenward.

A footpath led in that direction. Helen, who prided herself on her
sense of locality, decided that it would bring her to the valley in
which were situated, as she learned by the map, a small lake and a
glacier.

"That will be a fine walk before lunch," she said, "and it is quite
impossible to lose the way."

So she set off, crossing the hotel golf course, and making for a
typical Swiss church that crowned the nearest of the foothills.
Passing the church, she found the double doors in the porch open, and
peeped in. It was a cozy little place, cleaner and less garish than
such edifices are usually on the Continent. The lamp burning before
the sanctuary showed that it was devoted to Roman Catholic worship.
The red gleam of the tiny sentinel conveyed a curiously vivid
impression of faith and spirituality. Though Helen was a Protestant,
she was conscious of a benign emotion arising from the presence of
this simple token of belief.

"I must ascertain the hours of service," she thought. "It will be
delightful to join the Swiss peasants in prayer. One might come near
the Creator in this rustic tabernacle."

She did not cross the threshold of the inner door. At present her mind
was fixed on brisk movement in the marvelous air. She wanted to absorb
the sunshine, to dispel once and for all the unpleasing picture of
life in the high Alps presented by the stupid crowd she had met in the
hotel overnight. Of course, she was somewhat unjust there; but women
are predisposed to trust first impressions, and Helen was no exception
to her sex.

Beyond the church the path was not so definite. Oddly enough, it
seemed to go along the flat top of a low wall down to a tiny mountain
stream. Steps were cut in the opposite hillside, but they were little
used, and higher up, among some dwarf pines and azaleas, a broader way
wound back toward the few scattered chalets that nestled under the
château.

As the guidebook spoke of a carriage road to Lake Cavloccio, and a
bridle path thence to within a mile of the Forno glacier, she came to
the conclusion that she was taking a short cut. At any rate, on the
summit of the next little hill she would be able to see her way quite
distinctly, so she jumped across the brook and climbed through the
undergrowth. Before she had gone twenty yards she stopped. She was
almost certain that someone was sobbing bitterly up there among the
trees. It had an uncanny sound, this plaint of grief in such a quiet,
sunlit spot. Still, sorrow was not an affrighting thing to Helen. It
might stir her sympathies, but it assuredly could not drive her away
in panic.

She went on, not noiselessly, as she did not wish to intrude on some
stranger's misery. Soon she came to a low wall, and, before she
quite realized her surroundings, she was looking into a grass grown
cemetery. It was a surprise, this ambush of the silent company among
the trees. Hidden away from the outer world, and so secluded that its
whereabouts remain unknown to thousands of people who visit the Maloja
each summer, there was an aspect of stealth in its sudden discovery
that was almost menacing. But Helen was not a nervous subject. The
sobbing had ceased, and when the momentary effect of such a depressing
environment had been resolutely driven off, she saw that a rusty iron
gate was open. The place was very small. There were a few monuments,
so choked with weeds and dank grass that their inscriptions were
illegible. She had never seen a more desolate graveyard. Despite the
vivid light and the joyous breeze rustling the pine branches, its air
of abandonment was depressing. She fought against the sensation as
unworthy of her intelligence; but she had some reason for it in the
fact that there was no visible explanation of the mourning she had
undoubtedly heard.

Then she uttered an involuntary cry, for a man's head and shoulders
rose from behind a leafy shrub. Instantly she was ashamed of her fear.
It was the old guide who acted as coachman the previous evening, and
he had been lying face downward on the grass in that part of the
cemetery given over to the unnamed dead.

He recognized her at once. Struggling awkwardly to his feet, he said
in broken and halting German, "I pray your forgiveness, _fräulein_. I
fear I have alarmed you."

"It is I who should ask forgiveness," she said. "I came here by
accident. I thought I could go to Cavloccio by this path."

She could have hit on no other words so well calculated to bring him
back to every day life. To direct the steps of wanderers in his
beloved Engadine was a real pleasure to him. For an instant he forgot
that they had both spoken German.

"No, no!" he cried animatedly. "For lek him go by village. Bad road
dissa way. No cross ze field. _Verboten!_"

Then Helen remembered that trespassers are sternly warned off the low
lying lands in the mountains. Grass is scarce and valuable. Until the
highest pastures yield to the arid rock, pedestrians must keep to the
beaten track.

"I was quite mistaken," she said. "I see now that the path I was
trying to reach leads here only. And I am very, very sorry I disturbed
you."

 [Illustration: "I fear I have alarmed you, _fräulein_."
                              _Page 88_]

He hobbled nearer, the ruin of a fine man, with a nobly proportioned
head and shoulders, but sadly maimed by the accident which, to all
appearances, made him useless as a guide.

"Pardon an old man's folly, _fräulein_," he said humbly. "I thought
none could hear, and I felt the loss of my little girl more than ever
to-day."

"Your daughter? Is she buried here?"

"Yes. Many a year has passed; but I miss her now more than ever. She
was all I had in the world, _fräulein_. I am alone now, and that is a
hard thing when the back is bent with age."

Helen's eyes grew moist; but she tried bravely to control her voice.
"Was she young?" she asked softly.

"Only twenty, _fräulein_, only twenty, and as tall and fair as
yourself. They carried her here sixteen years ago this very day. I did
not even see her. On the previous night I fell on Corvatsch."

"Oh, how sad! But why did she die at that age? And in this splendid
climate? Was her death unexpected?"

"Unexpected!" He turned and looked at the huge mountain of which the
cemetery hill formed one of the lowermost buttresses. "If the Piz
della Margna were to topple over and crush me where I stand, it would
be less unforeseen than was my sweet Etta's fate. But I frighten you,
lady,--a poor return for your kindness. That is your way,--through
the village, and by the postroad till you reach a notice board telling
you where to take the path."

There was a crude gentility in his manner that added to the pathos of
his words. Helen was sure that he wished to be left alone with his
memories. Yet she lingered.

"Please tell me your name," she said. "I may visit St. Moritz while I
remain here, and I shall try to find you."

"Christian Stampa," he said. He seemed to be on the point of adding
something, but checked himself. "Christian Stampa," he repeated, after
a pause. "Everybody knows old Stampa the guide. If I am not there, and
you go to Zermatt some day--well, just ask for Stampa. They will tell
you what has become of me."

She found it hard to reconcile this broken, careworn old man with her
cheery companion of the previous afternoon. What did he mean? She
understood his queer jargon of Italianized German quite clearly; but
there was a sinister ring in his words that blanched her face. She
could not leave him in his present mood. She was more alarmed now than
when she saw him rising ghostlike from behind the screen of grass and
weeds.

"Please walk with me to the village," she said. "All this beautiful
land is strange to me. It will divert your thoughts from a mournful
topic if you tell me something of its wonders."

He looked at her for an instant. Then his eyes fell on the church in
the neighboring hollow, and he crossed himself, murmuring a few words
in Italian. She guessed their meaning. He was thanking the Virgin for
having sent to his rescue a girl who reminded him of his lost Etta.

"Yes," he said, "I will come. If I were remaining in the Maloja,
_fräulein_, I would beg you to let me take you to the Forno, and
perhaps to one of the peaks beyond. Old as I am, and lame, you would
be safe with me."

Helen breathed freely again. She felt that she had been within
measurable distance of a tragedy. Nor was there any call on her wits
to devise fresh means of drawing his mind away from the madness that
possessed him a few minutes earlier. As he limped unevenly by her
side, his talk was of the mountains. Did she intend to climb? Well,
slow and sure was the golden rule. Do little or nothing during four or
five days, until she had grown accustomed to the thin and keen Alpine
air. Then go to Lake Lunghino,--that would suffice for the first real
excursion. Next day, she ought to start early, and climb the mountain
overlooking that same lake,--up there, on the other side of the
hotel,--all rock and not difficult. If the weather was clear, she
would have a grand view of the Bernina range. Next she might try the
Forno glacier. It was a simple thing. She could go to and from the
_cabane_ in ten hours. Afterward, the Cima di Rosso offered an easy
climb; but that meant sleeping at the hut. All of which was excellent
advice, though the reflection came that Stampa's "slow and sure"
methods were not strongly in evidence some sixteen hours earlier.

Now, the Cima di Rosso was in full view at that instant. Helen
stopped.

"Do you really mean to tell me that if I wish to reach the top of that
mountain, I must devote two days to it?" she cried.

Stampa, though bothered with troubles beyond her ken, forgot them
sufficiently to laugh grimly. "It is farther away than you seem to
think, _fräulein_; but the real difficulty is the ice. Unless you
cross some of the crevasses in the early morning, before the sun has
had time to undo the work accomplished by the night's frost, you run a
great risk. And that is why you must be ready to start from the
_cabane_ at dawn. Moreover, at this time of year, you get the finest
view about six o'clock."

The mention of crevasses was somewhat awesome. "Is it necessary to be
roped when one tries that climb?" she asked.

"If any guide ever tells you that you need not be roped while crossing
ice or climbing rock, turn back at once, _fräulein_. Wait for another
day, and go with a man who knows his business. That is how the
Alps get a bad name for accidents. Look at me! I have climbed the
Matterhorn forty times, and the Jungfrau times out of count, and never
did I or anyone in my care come to grief. 'Use the rope properly,' is
my motto, and it has never failed me, not even when two out of five of
us were struck senseless by falling stones on the south side of Monte
Rosa."

Helen experienced another thrill. "I very much object to falling
stones," she said.

Stampa threw out his hands in emphatic gesture. "What can one do?" he
cried. "They are always a danger, like the snow cornice and the
_névé_. There is a chimney on the Jungfrau through which stones are
constantly shooting from a height of two thousand feet. You cannot see
them,--they travel too fast for the eye. You hear something sing past
your ears, that is all. Occasionally there is a report like a gunshot,
and then you observe a little cloud of dust rising from a new scar on
a rock. If you are hit--well, there is no dust, because the stone goes
right through. Of course one does not loiter there."

Then, seeing the scared look on her face, he went on. "Ladies should
not go to such places. It is not fit. But for men, yes. There is the
joy of battle. Do not err, _fräulein_,--the mountains are alive. And
they fight to the death. They can be beaten; but there must be no
mistakes. They are like strong men, the hills. When you strive against
them, strain them to your breast and never relax your grip. Then they
yield slowly, with many a trick and false move that a man must learn
if he would look down over them all and say, 'I am lord here.' Ah me!
Shall I ever again cross the Col du Lion or climb the Great Tower?
But there! I am old, and thrown aside. Boys whom I engaged as porters
would refuse me now as their porter. Better to have died like my
friend, Michel Croz, than live to be a goatherd."

He seemed to pull himself up with an effort. "That way--to your
left--you cannot miss the path. _Addio, sigñorina_," and he lifted his
hat with the inborn grace of the peasantry of Southern Europe.

Helen was hoping that he might elect to accompany her to Cavloccio.
She would willingly have paid him for loss of time. Her ear was
becoming better tuned each moment to his strange patois. Though he
often gave a soft Italian inflection to the harsh German syllables,
she grasped his meaning quite literally. She had read so much about
Switzerland that she knew how Michel Croz was killed while descending
the Matterhorn after having made the first ascent. That historic
accident happened long before she was born. To hear a man speak of
Croz as a friend sounded almost unbelievable, though a moment's
thought told her that Whymper, who led the attack on the hitherto
impregnable Cervin on that July day in 1865, was still living, a keen
Alpinist.

She could not refrain from asking Stampa one question, though she
imagined that he was now in a hurry to take the damaged carriage back
to St. Moritz. "Michel Croz was a brave man," she said. "Did you know
him well?"

"I worshiped him, _fräulein_," was the reverent answer. "May I receive
pardon in my last hour, but I took him for an evil spirit on the day
of his death! I was with Jean Antoine Carrel in Signor Giordano's
party. We started from Breuil, Croz and his voyageurs from Zermatt.
We failed; he succeeded. When we saw him and his Englishmen on the
summit, we believed they were devils, because they yelled in triumph,
and started an avalanche of stones to announce their victory. Three
days later, Carrel and I, with two men from Breuil, tried again. We
gained the top that time, and passed the place where Croz was knocked
over by the English milord and the others who fell with him. I saw
three bodies on the glacier four thousand feet below,--a fine
burial-ground, better than that up there."

He looked back at the pines which now hid the cemetery wall from
sight. Then, with another courteous sweep of his hat, he walked away,
covering the ground rapidly despite his twisted leg.

If Helen had been better trained as a woman journalist, she would have
regarded this meeting with Stampa as an incident of much value. Long
experience of the lights and shades of life might have rendered her
less sensitive. As it was, the man's personality appealed to her. She
had been vouchsafed a glimpse into an abyss profound as that into
which Stampa himself peered on the day he discovered three of the
four who fell from the Matterhorn still roped together in death. The
old man's simple references to the terrors lurking in those radiant
mountains had also shaken her somewhat. The snow capped Cima di Rosso
no longer looked so attractive. The Orlegna Gorge had lost some of its
beauty. Though the sun was pouring into its wooded depths, it had
grown gloomy and somber in her eyes. Yielding to impulse, she loitered
in the village, took the carriage road to the château, and sat there,
with her back to the inner heights and her gaze fixed on the smiling
valley that opened toward Italy out of the Septimer Pass.

Meanwhile, Stampa hurried past the stables, where his horses were
munching the remains of the little oaten loaves which form the staple
food of hard worked animals in the Alps. He entered the hotel by the
main entrance, and was on his way to the manager's bureau, when
Spencer, smoking on the veranda, caught sight of him.

Instantly the American started in pursuit. By this time he had heard
of Helen's accident from one of yesterday's passers by. It accounted
for the delay; but he was anxious to learn exactly what had happened.

Stampa reached the office first. He was speaking to the manager, when
Spencer came in and said in his downright way:

"This is the man who drove Miss Wynton from St. Moritz last night. I
don't suppose I shall be able to understand what he says. Will you
kindly ask him what caused the trouble?"

"It is quite an easy matter," was the smiling response. "Poor Stampa
is not only too eager to pass every other vehicle on the road, but he
is inclined to watch the mountains rather than his horses' ears. He
was a famous guide once; but he met with misfortune, and took to
carriage work as a means of livelihood. He has damaged his turnout
twice this year; so this morning he was dismissed by telephone, and
another driver is coming from St. Moritz to take his place."

Spencer looked at Stampa. He liked the strong, worn face, with its
half wistful, half resigned expression. An uneasy feeling gripped him
that the whim of a moment in the Embankment Hotel might exert its
crazy influence in quarters far removed from the track that seemed
then to be so direct and pleasure-giving.

"Why did he want to butt in between the other fellow and the
landscape? What was the hurry, anyhow?" he asked.

Stampa smiled genially when the questions were translated to him. "I
was talking to the _sigñorina_," he explained, using his native
tongue, for he was born on the Italian side of the Bernina.

"That counts, but it gives no good reason why he should risk her
life," objected Spencer.

Stampa's weather furrowed cheeks reddened. "There was no danger," he
muttered wrathfully. "Madonna! I would lose the use of another limb
rather than hurt a hair of her head. Is she not my good angel? Has she
not drawn me back from the gate of hell? Risk her life! Are people
saying that because a worm-eaten wheel went to pieces against a
stone?"

"What on earth is he talking about?" demanded Spencer. "Has he been
pestering Miss Wynton this morning with some story of his present
difficulties?"

The manager knew Stampa's character. He put the words in kindlier
phrase. "Does the _sigñorina_ know that you have lost your situation?"
he said.

Even in that mild form, the suggestion annoyed the old man. He flung
it aside with scornful gesture, and turned to leave the office. "Tell
the gentleman to go to Zermatt and ask in the street if Christian
Stampa the guide would throw himself on a woman's charity," he
growled.

Spencer did not wait for any interpretation. "Hold on," he said
quietly. "What is he going to do now? Work, for a man of his years,
doesn't grow on gooseberry bushes, I suppose."

"Christian, Christian! You are hot-headed as a boy," cried the
manager. "The fact is," he went on, "he came to me to offer his
services. But I have already engaged more drivers than I need, and I
am dismissing some stable men. Perhaps he can find a job in St.
Moritz."

"Are his days as guide ended?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I believe he is as active as ever; but people
won't credit it. And you cannot blame them. When one's safety depends
on a man who may have to cling to an ice covered rock like a fly to a
window-pane, one is apt to distrust a crooked leg."

"Did he have an accident?"

The manager hesitated. "It is part of his sad history," he said. "He
fell, and nearly killed himself; but he was hurrying to see the last
of a daughter to whom he was devoted."

"Is he a local man, then?"

"No. Oh, no! The girl happened to be here when the end came."

"Well, I guess he will suit my limited requirements in the fly and
window-pane business while I remain in Maloja," said Spencer. "Tell
him I am willing to put up ten francs a day and extras for his
exclusive services as guide during my stay."

Poor Stampa was nearly overwhelmed by this unexpected good fortune. In
his agitation he blurted out, "Ah, then, the good God did really send
an angel to my help this morning!"

Spencer, however, reviewing his own benevolence over a pipe outside
the hotel, expressed the cynical opinion that the hot sun was
affecting his brain. "I'm on a loose end," he communed. "Next time I
waft myself to Europe on a steamer I'll bring my mother. It would be a
bully fine notion to cable for her right away. I want someone to take
care of me. It looks as if I had a cinch on running this hotel
gratis. What in thunder will happen next?"

He could surely have answered that query if he had the least inkling
of the circumstances governing Helen's prior meeting with Stampa. As
it was, the development of events followed the natural course. While
Spencer strolled off by the side of the lake, the old guide lumbered
into the village street, and waited there, knowing that he would
waylay the _bella Inglesa_ on her return. Though she came from the
château and not from Cavloccio, he did not fail to see her.

At first she was at a loss to fathom the cause of Stampa's delight,
and still less to understand why he should want to thank her with such
exuberance. She imagined he was overjoyed at having gone back to his
beloved profession, and it was only by dint of questioning that she
discovered the truth. Then it dawned on her that the man had been
goaded to desperation by the curt message from St. Moritz,--that he
was sorely tempted to abandon the struggle, and follow into the
darkness the daughter taken from him so many years ago,--and the
remembrance of her suspicion when they were about to part at the
cemetery gate lent a serious note to her words of congratulation.

"You see, Stampa," she said, "you were very wrong to lose faith this
morning. At the very moment of your deepest despair Heaven was
providing a good friend for you."

"Yes, indeed, _fräulein_. That is why I waited here. I felt that I
must thank you. It was all through you. The good God sent you----"

"I think you are far more beholden to the gentleman who employed you
than to me," she broke in.

"Yes, he is splendid, the young _voyageur_; but it was wholly on your
account, lady. He was angry with me at first, because he thought I
placed you in peril in the matter of the wheel."

Helen was amazed. "He spoke of me?" she cried.

"Ah, yes. He did not say much, but his eyes looked through me. He has
the eyes of a true man, that young American."

She was more bewildered than ever. "What is his name?" she asked.

"Here it is. The director wrote it for me, so that I may learn how to
pronounce it."

Stampa produced a scrap of paper, and Helen read, "Mr. Charles K.
Spencer."

"Are you quite certain he mentioned me?" she repeated.

"Can I be mistaken, _fräulein_. I know, because I studied the labels
on your boxes. Mees Hélène Weenton--so? And did he not rate me about
the accident?"

"Well, wonders will never cease," she vowed; and indeed they were only
just beginning in her life, which shows how blind to excellent
material wonders can be.

At luncheon she summoned the head waiter. "Is there a Mr. Charles K.
Spencer staying in the hotel?" she asked.

"Yes, madam."

"Will you please tell me if he is in the room?"

The head waiter turned. Spencer was studying the menu. "Yes, madam.
There he is, sitting alone, at the second table from the window."

It was quite to be expected that the subject of their joint gaze
should look at them instantly. There is a magnetism in the human eye
that is unfailing in that respect, and its power is increased a
hundredfold when a charming young woman tries it on a young man who
happens to be thinking of her at the moment.

Then Spencer realized that Stampa had told Helen what had taken place
in the hotel bureau, and he wanted to kick himself for having
forgotten to make secrecy a part of the bargain.

Helen, knowing that he knew, blushed furiously. She tried to hide her
confusion by murmuring something to the head waiter. But in her heart
she was saying, "Who in the world is he? I have never seen him before
last night. And why am I such an idiot as to tremble all over just
because he happened to catch me looking at him?"




CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLEFIELD


Both man and woman were far too well bred to indulge in an
_oeillade_. The knowledge that each was thinking of the other led
rather to an ostentatious avoidance of anything that could be
construed into any such flirtatious overture.

Though Stampa's curious statement had puzzled Helen, she soon hit on
the theory that the American must have heard of the accident to her
carriage. Yes, that supplied a ready explanation. No doubt he kept a
sharp lookout for her on the road. He arrived at the hotel almost
simultaneously with herself, and she had not forgotten his somewhat
inquiring glance as they stood together on the steps. With the
chivalry of his race in all things concerning womankind, he was eager
to render assistance, and under the circumstances he probably wondered
what sort of damsel in distress it was that needed help. It was
natural enough too that in engaging Stampa he should refer to the
carelessness that brought about the collapse of the wheel. Really,
when one came to analyze an incident seemingly inexplicable, it
resolved itself into quite commonplace constituents.

She found it awkward that he should be sitting between her and a
window commanding the best view of the lake. If Spencer had been at
any other table, she could have feasted her eyes on the whole expanse
of the Ober-Engadin Valley. Therefore she had every excuse for looking
that way, whereas he had none for gazing at her. Spencer appeared to
be aware of this disability. For lack of better occupation he
scrutinized the writing on the menu with a prolonged intentness worthy
of a gourmand or an expert graphologist.

Helen rose first, and that gave him an opportunity to note her
graceful carriage. Though born in the States, he was of British stock,
and he did not share the professed opinion of the American humorist
that the typical Englishwoman is angular, has large feet, and does not
know how to walk. Helen, at any rate, betrayed none of these elements
of caricature. Though there were several so-called "smart" women in
the hotel,--women who clung desperately to the fringe of Society on
both sides of the Atlantic,--his protégée was easily first among the
few who had any claim to good looks.

Helen was not only tall and lithe, but her movements were marked by a
quiet elegance. It was her custom, in nearly all weathers, to walk
from Bayswater to Professor von Eulenberg's study, which, needless to
say, was situated near the British Museum. She usually returned by a
longer route, unless pelting rain or the misery of London snow made
the streets intolerable. Thus there was hardly a day that she did not
cover eight miles at a rapid pace, a method of training that eclipsed
all the artifices of beauty doctors and schools of deportment. Her
sweetly pretty face, her abundance of shining brown hair, her slim,
well proportioned figure, and the almost athletic swing of her well
arched shoulders, would entitle her to notice in a gathering of
beauties far more noted than those who graced Maloja with their
presence that year. In addition to these physical attractions
she carried with her the rarer and indefinable aura of the born
aristocrat. As it happened, she merited that description both by birth
and breeding; but there is a vast company entitled to consideration
on that score to whom nature has cruelly denied the necessary
hallmarks--otherwise the pages of Burke would surely be embellished
with portraits.

Indeed, so far as appearance went, it was rather ludicrous to regard
Helen as the social inferior of any person then resident in the
Kursaal, and it is probable that a glimmering knowledge of this fact
inflamed Mrs. de Courcy Vavasour's wrath to boiling point, when a few
minutes later, she saw her son coolly walk up to the "undesirable"
and enter into conversation with her.

Helen was seated in a shady corner. A flood of sunlight filled the
glass covered veranda with a grateful warmth. She had picked up an
astonishingly well written and scholarly guide book issued by the
proprietors of the hotel, and was deep in its opening treatise on the
history and racial characteristics of the Engadiners, when she was
surprised at hearing herself addressed by name.

"Er--Miss--er--Wynton, I believe?" said a drawling voice.

Looking up, she found George de Courcy Vavasour bending over her in an
attitude that betokened the utmost admiration for both parties to the
tête-à-tête. Under ordinary conditions,--that is to say, if Vavasour's
existence depended on his own exertions,--Helen's eyes would have
dwelt on a gawky youth endowed with a certain pertness that might in
time have brought him from behind the counter of a drapery store to
the wider arena of the floor. As it was, a reasonably large income
gave him unbounded assurance, and his credit with a good tailor was
unquestionable. He represented a British product that flourishes best
in alien soil. There exists a foreign legion of George de Courcy
Vavasours, flaccid heroes of fashion plates, whose parade grounds
change with the seasons from Paris to the Riviera, and from the
Riviera to some nook in the Alps. Providence and a grandfather have
conspired in their behalf to make work unnecessary; but Providence,
more far-seeing than grandfathers, has decreed that they shall be
effete and light brained, so the type does not endure.

Helen, out of the corner of her eye, became aware that Mrs. de Courcy
Vavasour was advancing with all the plumes of the British matron
ruffled for battle. It was not in human nature that the girl should
not recall the slight offered her the previous evening. With the
thought came the temptation to repay it now with interest; but she
thrust it aside.

"Yes, that is my name," she said, smiling pleasantly.

"Well--er--the General has asked me to--er--invite you take part in
some of our tournaments. We have tennis, you know, an' golf, an'
croquet, an' that sort of thing. Of course, you play tennis, an' I
rather fancy you're a golfer as well. You look that kind of girl--Eh,
what?"

He caressed a small mustache as he spoke, using the finger and thumb
of each hand alternately, and Helen noticed that his hands were
surprisingly large when compared with his otherwise fragile frame.

"Who is the General?" she inquired.

"Oh, Wragg, you know. He looks after everything in the amusement line,
an' I help. Do let me put you down for the singles an' mixed doubles.
None of the women here can play for nuts, an' I haven't got a partner
yet for the doubles. I've been waitin' for someone like you to turn
up."

"You have not remained long in suspense," she could not help saying.
"You are Mr. Vavasour, are you not?"

"Yes, better known as Georgie."

"And you arrived in Maloja last evening, I think. Well, I do play
tennis, or rather, I used to play fairly well some years ago----"

"By gad! just what I thought. Go slow in your practice games, Miss
Wynton, an' you'll have a rippin' handicap."

"Would that be quite honest?" said Helen, lifting her steadfast brown
eyes to meet his somewhat too free scrutiny.

"Honest? Rather! You wait till you see the old guard pullin' out a bit
when they settle down to real business. But the General is up to their
little dodges. He knows their form like a book, an' he gets every one
of 'em shaken out by the first round--Eh, what?"

"The arrangement seems to be ideal if one is friendly with the
General," said Helen.

Vavasour drew up a chair. He also drew up the ends of his trousers,
thus revealing that the Pomeranian brown and myrtle green stripes in
his necktie were faithfully reproduced in his socks, while these
master tints were thoughtfully developed in the subdominant hues of
his clothes and boots.

"By Jove! what a stroke of luck I should have got hold of you first!"
he chuckled. "I'm pretty good at the net, Miss Wynton. If we manage
things properly, we ought to have the mixed doubles a gift with plus
half forty, an' in the ladies' singles you'll be a Queen's Club
champion at six-stone nine--Eh, what?"

Though Vavasour represented a species of inane young man whom Helen
detested, she bore with him because she hungered for the sound of an
English voice in friendly converse this bright morning. At times her
life was lonely enough in London; but she had never felt her isolation
there. The great city appealed to her in all its moods. Her cheerful
yet sensitive nature did not shrink from contact with its hurrying
crowds. The mere sense of aloofness among so many millions of people
brought with it the knowledge that she was one of them, a human atom
plunged into a heedless vortex the moment she passed from her house
into the street.

Here in Maloja things were different. While her own identity was laid
bare, while men and women canvassed her name, her appearance, her
occupation, she was cut off from them by a social wall of their
own contriving. The attitude of the younger women told her that
trespassers were forbidden within that sacred fold. She knew now that
she had done a daring thing--outraged one of the cheap conventions--in
coming alone to this clique-ridden Swiss valley. Better a thousand
times have sought lodgings in some small village inn, and mixed with
the homely folk who journeyed thither on the diligence or tramped
joyously afoot, than strive to win the sympathy of any of these
shallow nonentities of the smart set.

Even while listening to "Georgie's" efforts to win her smiles with
slangy confidences, she saw that Mrs. Vavasour had halted in mid
career, and joined a group of women, evidently a mother and two
daughters, and that she herself was the subject of their talk. She
wondered why. She was somewhat perplexed when the conclave broke up
suddenly, the girls going to the door, Mrs. Vavasour retreating
majestically to the far end of the veranda, and the other elderly
woman drawing a short, fat, red faced man away from a discussion with
another man.

"Jolly place, this," Vavasour was saying. "There's dancin' most
nights. The dowager brigade want the band to play classical music, an'
that sort of rot, you know; but Mrs. de la Vere and the Wragg girls
like a hop, an' we generally arrange things our own way. We'll have a
dance to-night if you wish it; but you must promise to----"

"Georgie," cried the pompous little man, "I want you a minute!"

Vavasour swung round. Evidently he regarded the interruption as "a
beastly bore." "All right, General," he said airily. "I'll be there
soon. No hurry, is there?"

"Yes, I want you now!" The order was emphatic. The General's only
military asset was a martinet voice, and he made the most of it.

"Rather rotten, isn't it, interferin' with a fellow in this way?"
muttered Vavasour. "Will you excuse me? I must see what the old boy is
worryin' about. I shall come back soon--Eh, what?"

"I am going out," said Helen; "but we shall meet again. I remain here
a month."

"You'll enter for the tournament?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I--think so. It will be something to do."

"Thanks awfully. And don't forget to-night."

Helen laughed. She could not help it. The younger members of the Wragg
family were eying her sourly through the glass partition. They seemed
to be nice girls too, and she made up her mind to disillusion them
speedily if they thought that she harbored designs on the callow youth
whom they probably regarded as their own special cavalier.

When she passed through the inner doorway to go to her room she
noticed that the General was giving Georgie some instructions which
were listened to in sulky silence. Indeed, that remarkable ex-warrior
was laying down the law of the British parish with a clearness that
was admirable. He had been young himself once,--dammit!--and had as
keen an eye for a pretty face as any other fellow; but no gentleman
could strike up an acquaintance with an unattached female under the
very nose of his mother, not to mention the noses of other ladies who
were his friends. Georgie broke out in protest.

"Oh, but I say, General, she is a lady, an' you yourself said----"

"I know I did. I was wrong. Even a wary old bird like me can make a
mistake. Mrs. Vavasour has just warned my wife about her. It's no
good arguing, Georgie, my boy. Nowadays you can't draw the line too
rigidly. Things permissible in Paris or Nice won't pass muster here.
I'm sorry, Georgie. She's a high stepper and devilish taking, I admit.
Writes for some ha'penny rag--er--for some cheap society paper, I
hear. Why, dash it all, she will be lampooning us in it before we know
where we are. Just you go and tell your mother you'll behave better in
future. Excellent woman, Mrs. Vavasour. She never makes a mistake.
Gad! don't you remember how she spotted that waiter from the Ritz who
gulled the lot of us at the Jetée last winter? Took him for the French
marquis he said he was, every one of us, women and all, till Mrs. V.
fixed her eye on him and said, 'Gustave!' Damme! how he curled up!"

George was still obdurate. A masquerading waiter differed from Helen
in many essentials. "He was a Frenchman, an' they're mostly rotters.
This girl is English, General, an' I shall look a proper sort of an
ass if I freeze up suddenly after what I've said to her."

"Not for the first time, my boy, and mebbe not for the last." Then, in
view of the younger man's obvious defiance, the General's white
mustache bristled. "Of course, you can please yourself," he growled:
"but neither Mrs. Wragg nor my daughters will tolerate your
acquaintance with that person!"

"Oh, all right, General," came the irritated answer. "Between you an'
the mater I've got to come to heel; but it's a beastly shame, I say,
an' you're all makin' a jolly big mistake."

Georgie's intelligence might be superficial; but he knew a lady when
he met one, and Helen had attracted him powerfully. He was thanking
his stars for the good fortune that numbered him among the earliest of
her acquaintances in the hotel, and it was too bad that the barring
edict should have been issued against her so unexpectedly. But he was
not of a fighting breed, and he quailed before the threat of Mrs.
Wragg's displeasure.

Helen, after a delightful ramble past the château and along the
picturesque turns and twists of the Colline des Artistes, returned in
time for tea, which was served on the veranda, the common rendezvous
of the hotel during daylight. No one spoke to her. She went out again,
and walked by the lake till the shadows fell and the mountains
glittered in purple and gold. She dressed herself in a simple white
evening frock, dined in solitary state, and ventured into the ball
room after dinner.

Georgie was dancing with Mrs. de la Vere, a languid looking woman who
seemed to be pining for admiration. At the conclusion of the waltz
that was going on when Helen entered, Vavasour brought his partner a
whisky and soda and a cigarette. He passed Helen twice, but ignored
her, and whirled one of the Wragg girls off into a polka. Again he
failed to see her when parties were being formed for a quadrille. Even
to herself she did not attempt to deny a feeling of annoyance, though
she extracted a bitter amusement from the knowledge that she had been
slighted by such a vapid creature.

She was under no misconception as to what had happened. The women were
making a dead set against her. If she had been plain or dowdy, they
might have been friendly enough. It was an unpardonable offense that
she should be good looking, unchaperoned, and not one of the queerly
assorted mixture they deemed their _monde_. For a few minutes she was
really angry. She realized that her only crime was poverty. Given a
little share of the wealth held by many of these passée matrons and
bold-eyed girls, she would be a reigning star among them, and could
act and talk as she liked. Yet her shyness and reserve would have been
her best credentials to any society that was constituted on a sounder
basis than a gathering of snobs. Among really well-born people she
would certainly have been received on an equal footing until some
valid reason for ostracism was forthcoming. The imported limpets on
this Swiss rock of gentility were not sure of their own grip. Hence,
they strenuously refused to make room for a newcomer until they were
shoved aside.

Poor, disillusioned Helen! When she went to church she prayed to the
good Lord to deliver her and everybody else from envy, hatred, and
malice, and all uncharitableness. She felt now that there might well
be added to the Litany a fresh petition which should include British
communities on the Continent in the list of avoidable evils.

At that instant the piquant face and figure of Millicent Jaques rose
before her mind's eye. She pictured to herself the cool effrontery
with which the actress would crush these waspish women by creating
a court of every eligible man in the place. It was not a healthy
thought, but it was the offspring of sheer vexation, and Helen
experienced her second temptation that day when de la Vere, the
irresistible "Reginald" of Mrs. Vavasour's sketchy reminiscences,
came and asked her to dance.

She recognized him at once. He sat with Mrs. de la Vere at table,
and never spoke to her unless it was strictly necessary. He had
distinguished manners, a pleasant voice, and a charming smile, and he
seemed to be the devoted slave of every pretty woman in the hotel
except his wife.

"Please pardon the informality," he said, with an affability that
cloaked the impertinence. "We are quite a family party at Maloja. I
hear you are staying here some weeks, and we are bound to get to know
each other sooner or later."

Helen could dance well. She was so mortified by the injustice meted
out to her that she almost accepted de la Vere's partnership on the
spur of the moment. But her soul rebelled against the man's covert
insolence, and she said quietly:

"No, thank you. I do not care to dance."

"May I sit here and talk?" he persisted.

"I am just going," she said, "and I think Mrs. de la Vere is looking
for you."

By happy chance the woman in question was standing alone in the center
of the ball room, obviously in quest of some man who would take her to
the foyer for a cigarette. Helen retreated with the honors of war; but
the irresistible one only laughed.

"That idiot Georgie told the truth, then," he admitted. "And she knows
what the other women are saying. What cats these dear creatures can
be, to be sure!"

Spencer happened to be an interested onlooker. Indeed, he was trying
to arrive at the best means of obtaining an introduction to Helen when
he saw de la Vere stroll leisurely up to her with the assured air of
one sated by conquest. The girl brushed close to him as he stood in
the passage. She held her head high and her eyes were sparkling. He
had not heard what was said; but de la Vere's discomfiture was so
patent that even his wife smiled as she sailed out on the arm of a
youthful purveyor of cigarettes.

Spencer longed for an opportunity to kick de la Vere; yet, in some
sense, he shared that redoubtable lady-killer's rebuff. He too was
wondering if the social life of a Swiss hotel would permit him to seek
a dance with Helen. Under existing conditions, it would provide quite
a humorous episode, he told himself, to strike up a friendship with
her. He could not imagine why she had adopted such an aloof attitude
toward all and sundry; but it was quite evident that she declined
anything in the guise of promiscuous acquaintance. And he, like her,
felt lonely. There were several Americans in the hotel, and he would
probably meet some of the men in the bar or smoking room after the
dance was ended. But he would have preferred a pleasant chat with
Helen that evening, and now she had gone to her room in a huff.

Then an inspiration came to him. "Guess I'll stir up Mackenzie to send
along an introduction," he said. "A telegram will fix things."

It was not quite so easy to explain matters in the curt language of
the wire, he found, and it savored of absurdity to amaze the
beer-drinking Scot with a long message. So he compromised between
desire and expediency by a letter.

     "DEAR MR. MACKENZIE," he wrote, "life is not rapid at this
     terminus. It might take on some new features if I had the
     privilege of saying 'How de do' to Miss Wynton. Will you
     oblige me by telling her that one of your best and newest
     friends happens to be in the same hotel as her charming
     self, and that if she gets him to sparkle, he (which is I)
     will help considerable with copy for 'The Firefly.' Advise
     me by same post, and the rest of the situation is up to
     yours faithfully,

                              "C. K. S."

The letter was posted, and Spencer waited five tiresome days. He
saw little or nothing of Helen save at meals. Once he met her on a
footpath that runs through a wood by the side of the lake to the
little hamlet of Isola, and he was minded to raise his hat, as he
would have done to any other woman in the hotel whom he encountered
under similar circumstances; but she deliberately looked away, and his
intended courtesy must have passed unheeded.

As he sedulously avoided any semblance of dogging her footsteps, he
could not know how she was being persecuted by de la Vere, Vavasour,
and one or two other men of like habit. That knowledge was yet to
come. Consequently he deemed her altogether too prudish, and was so
out of patience with her that he and Stampa went off for a two days'
climb by way of the Muretto Pass to Chiareggio and back to Sils-Maria
over the Fex glacier.

Footsore and tired, but thoroughly converted to the marvels of the
high Alps, he reached the Kursaal side by side with the postman who
brought the chief English mail about six o'clock each evening.

He waited with an eager crowd of residents while the hall porter
sorted the letters. There were some for him from America, and one from
London in a handwriting that was strange to him. But he had quick
eyes, and he saw that a letter addressed to Miss Helen Wynton, in the
flamboyant envelope of "The Firefly," bore the same script.

Mackenzie had risen to the occasion. He even indulged in a classical
joke. "There is something in the name of Helen that attracts," he
said. "Were it not for the lady whose face drew a thousand ships to
Ilium, we should never have heard of Paris, or Troy, or the heel of
Achilles, and all these would be greatly missed."

"And I should never have heard of Mackenzie or Maloja," thought
Spencer, sinking into a chair and looking about to learn whether or
not the girl would find her letter before he went to dress for dinner.
He was sure she knew his name. Perhaps when she read the editor's
note, she too would search the spacious lounge with those fine eyes of
hers for the man described therein. If that were so, he meant to go to
her instantly, discuss the strangeness of the coincidence that led to
two of Mackenzie's friends being at the hotel at the same time, and
suggest that they should dine together.

The project seemed feasible, and it was decidedly pleasant in
perspective. He longed to compare notes with her,--to tell her the
quaint stories of the hills related to him by Stampa in a medley of
English, French, Italian, and German; perhaps to plan delightful trips
to the fairyland in company.

People began to clear away from the hall porter's table; yet Helen
remained invisible. He could hardly have missed her; but to make
certain he rose and glanced at the few remaining letters. Yes, "The
Firefly's" gaudy imprint still gleamed at him. He turned way,
disappointed. After his long tramp and a night in a weird Italian inn,
a bath was imperative, and the boom of the dressing gong was imminent.

He was crossing the hall toward the elevator when he heard her voice.

"I am so glad you are keen on an early climb," she was saying, with
a new note of confidence that stirred him strangely. "I have been
longing to leave the sign boards and footpaths far behind, but I felt
rather afraid of going to the Forno for the first time with a guide.
You see, I know nothing about mountaineering, and you can put me up to
all the dodges beforehand."

"Show you the ropes, in fact," agreed the man with her, Mark Bower.

Spencer was so completely taken by surprise that he could only stare
at the two as though they were ghosts. They had entered the hotel
together, and had apparently been out for a walk. Helen picked up her
letter and held it carelessly in her hand while she continued to talk
with Bower. Her pleasurable excitement was undeniable. She regarded
her companion as a friend, and was evidently overjoyed at his
presence. Spencer banged into the elevator, astonished the attendant
and two other occupants by the savagery of his command, "Au deuxième,
vite!" and paced through a long corridor with noisy clatter of
hob-nailed boots.

He was in a rare fret and fume when he sat down to dinner alone. Bower
was at Helen's table. It was brightened by rare flowers not often seen
in sterile Maloja. A bottle of champagne rested in an ice bucket by
his side. He had brought with him the atmosphere of London, of the
pleasant life that London offers to those who can buy her favors.
Truly this Helen, all unconsciously, had not only found the heel of a
modern Achilles, but was wounding him sorely. For now Spencer knew
that he wanted to see her frank eyes smiling into his as they were
smiling into Bower's, and, no matter what turn events took, a sinister
element had been thrust into a harmless idyl by this man's arrival.




CHAPTER VII

SOME SKIRMISHING


Later, the American saw the two sitting in the hall. They were
chatting with the freedom of old friends. Helen's animated face showed
that the subject of their talk was deeply interesting. She was telling
Bower of the slights inflicted on her by the other women; but Spencer
interpreted her intent manner as supplying sufficient proof of a
stronger emotion than mere friendliness. He was beginning to detest
Bower.

It was his habit to decide quickly when two ways opened before him.
He soon settled his course now. To remain in the hotel under present
conditions involved a loss of self respect, he thought. He went to the
bureau, asked for his account, and ordered a carriage to St. Moritz
for the morrow's fast train to England.

The manager was politely regretful. "You are leaving us at the wrong
time, sir," he said. "Within the next few days we ought to have a
midsummer storm, when even the lower hills will be covered with snow.
Then, we usually enjoy a long spell of magnificent weather."

"Sorry," said Spencer. "I like the scramble up there," and he nodded
in the direction of the Bernina range, "and old Stampa is a gem of a
guide; but I can hardly put off any longer some business that needs
attention in England. Anyhow, I shall come back, perhaps next month.
Stampa says it is all right here in September."

"Our best month, I assure you, and the ideal time to drop down into
Italy when you are tired of the mountains."

"I must let it go at that. I intend to fix Stampa so that he can
remain here till the end of the season. So you see I mean to return."

"He was very fortunate in meeting you, Mr. Spencer," said the manager
warmly.

"Well, it is time he had a slice of luck. I've taken a fancy to the
old fellow. One night, in the Forno hut, he told me something of his
story. I guess it will please him to stop at the Maloja for awhile."

"He told you about his daughter?" came the tentative question.

"Not all. I am afraid there was no difficulty in filling in the
blanks. I heard enough to make me respect him and sympathize with his
troubles."

The manager shook his head, with the air of one who recalls that
which he would willingly have forgotten. "Such incidents are rare
in Switzerland," he said. "I well remember the sensation her death
created. She was such a pretty girl. The young men at Pontresina
called her 'The Edelweiss' because she was so inaccessible. In fact,
poor Stampa had educated her beyond her station, and that is not
always good for a woman, especially in these quiet valleys, where
knowledge of cattle and garden produce is a better asset than speaking
French and playing the piano."

Spencer agreed. He could name other districts where the same rule held
good. He stood for a moment in the spacious hall to light a cigar.
Involuntarily he glanced at Helen. She met his gaze, and said
something to Bower that caused the latter also to turn and look.

"She has read Mackenzie's letter," thought Spencer, taking refuge
behind a cloud of smoke. "It will be bad behavior on my part to leave
the hotel without making my bow. Shall I go to her now, or wait till
morning?"

He reflected that Helen might be out early next day. If he presented
his introduction at once, she would probably ask him to sit with her a
little while, and then he must become acquainted with Bower. He
disliked the notion; but he saw no way out of it, unless indeed Helen
treated him with the chilling abruptness she meted out to other men in
the hotel who tried to become friendly with her. He was weighing the
pros and cons dispassionately, when the English chaplain approached.

"Do you play bridge, Mr. Spencer?" he asked.

"I know the leads, and call 'without' on the least provocation," was
the reply.

"You are the very man I am searching for, and I have the authority of
the First Book of Samuel in my quest."

"Well, now, that is the last place in which I should expect to find my
bridge portrait."

"Don't you remember how Saul's servants asked his permission to 'seek
out a man who is a cunning player'? That is exactly what I am doing.
Come to the smoking room. There are two other men there, and one is a
fellow countryman of yours."

The Rev. Mr. Hare was a genial soul, a Somersetshire vicar who took
his annual holiday by accepting a temporary position in some Alpine
village where there was an English church. He did not dream that he
was acting the part of Hermes, messenger of the gods, at that moment,
for indeed his appearance on the scene just then changed the whole
trend of Spencer's actions.

"What a delightful place this is!" he went on as they walked together
through a long corridor. "But what is the matter with the people? They
don't mix. I would not have believed that there were so many prigs in
the British Isles."

Some such candid opinion had occurred to Spencer; but, being an
American, he thought that perhaps he might be mistaken. "The English
character is somewhat adaptable to environment, I have heard. That is
why you send out such excellent colonists," he said.

"Doesn't that go rather to prove that everybody here should be hail
fellow well met?"

"Not at all. They take their pose from the Alps,--snow, glaciers, hard
rock, you know,--that is the subtlety of it."

The vicar laughed. "You have given me a new point of view," he said.
"Some of them are slippery customers too. Yes, one might carry the
parallel a long way. But here we are. Now, mind you cut me as a
partner. I have tried the others, and found them severely critical--as
bridge players. You look a stoic."

The vicar had his wish. Spencer and he opposed a man from Pittsburg,
named Holt, and Dunston, an Englishman.

While the latter was shuffling the cards for Hare's deal he said
something that took one, at least, of his hearers by surprise. "Bower
has turned up, I see. What has brought him to the Engadine at this
time of year I can't guess, unless perhaps he is interested in a
pretty face."

"At this time of the year," repeated Spencer. "Isn't this the season?"

"Not for him. He used to be a famous climber; but he has given it up
since he waxed fat and prosperous. I have met him once or twice at
St. Moritz in the winter. Otherwise, he usually shows up in the
fashionable resorts in August,--Ostend, or Trouville, or, if he is
livery, Vichy or Aix-les-Bains,--anywhere but this quiet spot.
Bower likes excitement too. He often opens a thousand pound bank at
baccarat, whereas people are shocked in Maloja at seeing Hare play
bridge at tenpence a hundred."

"I leave it, partner," broke in the vicar, to whom the game was the
thing.

"No trumps," said Spencer, without giving the least heed to his cards.
It was true his eyes were resting on the ace, king, and queen of
spades; but his mind was tortured by the belief that by his fantastic
conceit in sending Helen to this Alpine fastness he had delivered her
bound to the vultures.

"Double no trumps," said Dunston, gloating over the possession of a
long suit of hearts and three aces. Hare looked anxious, and Spencer
suddenly awoke to the situation.

"Satisfied," he said.

Holt led the three of hearts, and Spencer spread his cards on the
table with the gravity of a Sioux chief. In addition to the three high
spades he held six others.

"Really!" gasped the parson, "a most remarkable declaration!"

Yet there was an agitated triumph in his voice that was not pleasant
hearing for Dunston, who took the trick with the ace of hearts and
led the lowest of a sequence to the queen.

"Got him!" panted Hare, producing the king.

The rest was easy. The vicar played a small spade and scored
ninety-six points without any further risk.

"It is magnificent; but it is not bridge," said the man from
Pittsburg. Dunston simply glowered.

"Partner," demanded Hare timidly, "may I ask why you called 'no
trumps' on a hand like that?"

"Thought I would give you a chance of distinguishing yourself,"
replied Spencer. "Besides, that sort of thing rattles your opponents
at the beginning of a game. Keep your nerve now, _padre_, and you have
'em in a cleft stick."

As it happened, Holt made a "no trump" declaration on a very strong
hand; but Spencer held seven clubs headed by the ace and king.

He doubled. Holt redoubled. Spencer doubled again.

Hare flushed somewhat. "Allow me to say that I am very fond of bridge;
but I cannot take part in a game that savors of gambling, even for low
stakes," he broke in.

"Shall we let her go at forty-eight points a trick?" Spencer asked.

"Yep!" snapped Holt. "Got all the clubs?"

"Not all--sufficient, perhaps."

He played the ace. Dunston laid the queen and knave on the table.
Spencer scored the winning trick before his adversary obtained an
opening.

"You have a backbone of cast steel," commented Dunston, who was an
iron-master. "Do you play baccarat?" he went on, with curious
eagerness.

"I regret to state that my education was completed in a Western mining
camp."

"Will you excuse the liberty, and perhaps Mr. Hare won't listen for a
moment?--but I will finance you in three banks of a thousand each,
either banking or punting, if you promise to take on Bower. I can
arrange it easily. I say this because you personally may not care to
play for high sums."

The suggestion was astounding, coming as it did from a stranger; but
Spencer merely said:

"You don't like Bower, then?"

"That is so. I have business relations with him occasionally, and
there he is all that could be wished. But I have seen him clean out
more than one youngster ruthlessly,--force the play to too high
stakes, I mean. I think you could take his measure. Anyhow, I am
prepared to back you."

"I'm leaving here to-morrow."

"Ah, well, we may have another opportunity. If so, my offer holds."

"Guess you haven't heard that Spencer is the man who bored a tunnel
through the Rocky Mountains?" said Holt.

"No. You must tell me about it. Sorry, Mr. Hare, I am stopping the
game."

Spencer continued to have amazing good fortune, and he played with
skill, but without any more fireworks. At the close of the sitting the
vicar said cheerfully:

"You are not a ladies' man, Mr. Spencer. You know the old
proverb,--lucky at cards, unlucky in love? But let me hope that it
does not apply in your case."

"Talking about a ladies' man, who is the girl your friend Bower dined
with?" asked Holt. "She has been in the hotel several days; but she
didn't seem to be acquainted with anybody in particular until he blew
in this afternoon."

"She is a Miss Helen Wynton," said the vicar. "I like her very much
from what little I have seen of her. She attended both services on
Sunday, and I happen to be aware of the fact that she was at mass in
the Roman church earlier. I wanted her to play the harmonium next
Sunday; but she declined, and gave me her reasons too."

"May I ask what they were?" inquired Spencer.

"Well, speaking in confidence, they were grievously true. Some
miserable pandering to Mrs. Grundy has set the other women against
her; so she declined to thrust herself into prominence. I tried to
talk her out of it, but failed."

"Who is Mrs. Grundy, anyhow?" growled Holt.

The others laughed.

"She is the Medusa of modern life," explained the vicar. "She turns to
stone those who gaze on her. Most certainly she petrifies all good
feeling and Christian tolerance. Why, I actually heard a woman whose
conduct is not usually governed by what I hold to be good taste sneer
at Miss Wynton this evening. 'The murder is out now,' she said.
'Bower's presence explains everything.' Yet I am able to state that
Miss Wynton was quite unprepared for his arrival. By chance I was
standing on the steps when he drove up to the hotel, and it was
perfectly clear from the words they used that neither was aware that
the other was in Maloja."

Spencer leaned over toward the iron-master. "Tell you what," he said;
"I've changed my mind about the trip to England to-morrow. Get up that
game with Bower. I'll stand the racket myself unless you want to go
half shares."

"Done! I should like to have an interest in it. Not that I am pining
for Bower's money, and it may be that he will win ours; but I am keen
on giving him a sharp run. At Nice last January not a soul in the
Casino would go Banco when he opened a big bank. They were afraid of
him."

While he was speaking, Dunston's shrewd eyes dwelt on the younger
man's unmoved face. He wondered what had caused this sudden veering of
purpose. It was certainly not the allurement of heavy gambling, for
Spencer had declined the proposal as coolly as he now accepted it.
Being a man of the world, he thought he could peer beneath the mask.
To satisfy himself, he harked back to the personal topic.

"By the way, does anyone know who Miss Wynton is?" he said. "That
inveterate gossip, Mrs. Vavasour, who can vouch for every name in the
Red Book, says she is a lady journalist."

"That, at any rate, is correct," said the vicar. "In fact, Miss Wynton
herself told me so."

"Jolly fine girl, whatever she is. To give Bower his due, he has
always been a person of taste."

"I have reason to believe," said Spencer, "that Miss Wynton's
acquaintance with Mr. Bower is of the slightest."

His words were slow and clear. Dunston, sure now that his guess was
fairly accurate, hastened to efface an unpleasant impression.

"Of course, I only meant that if Bower is seen talking to any woman,
it may be taken for granted that she is a pretty one," he explained.
"But who's for a drink? Perhaps we shall meet our expected opponent in
the bar, Mr. Spencer."

"I have some letters to write. Fix that game for to-morrow or next
day, and I'll be on hand."

Dunston and Holt paid the few shillings they owed, and went out.

Hare did not move. He looked anxious, almost annoyed. "It is
exceedingly ridiculous how circumstances pass beyond a man's control
occasionally," he protested. "Am I right in assuming that until this
evening neither Bower nor Dunston was known to you, Mr. Spencer?"

"Absolutely correct, vicar. I have never yet spoken to Bower, and you
heard all that passed between Dunston and myself."

"Then my harmless invitation to you to join in a game at cards has led
directly to an arrangement for play at absurdly high figures?"

"It seems to me, Mr. Hare, that Bower's tracks and mine are destined
to cross in more ways than one in the near future," said Spencer
coolly.

But the vicar was not to be switched away from the new thought that
was troubling him. "I will not ask what you mean," he said, gazing
steadfastly at the American. "My chief concern is the outcome of my
share in this evening's pleasant amusement. I cannot shut my ears to
the fact that you have planned the loss or gain of some thousands of
pounds on the turn of a card at baccarat."

"If it is disagreeable to you----"

"How can it be otherwise? I am a broad-minded man, and I see no harm
whatever in playing bridge for pennies; but I am more pained than I
care to confess at the prospect of such a sequel to our friendly
meeting to-night. If this thing happens,--if a small fortune is won or
lost merely to gratify Dunston's whim,--I assure you that I shall
never touch a card again as long as I live."

Then Spencer laughed. "That would be too bad, Mr. Hare," he cried.
"Make your mind easy. The game is off. Count on me for the tenpence a
hundred limit after dinner to-morrow."

"Now, that is quite good and kind of you. Dunston made me very
miserable by his mad proposition. Of course, both he and Bower are
rich men, men to whom a few thousand pounds are of little importance;
or, to be accurate, they profess not to care whether they win or lose,
though their wealth is not squandered so heedlessly when it is wanted
for some really deserving object. But perhaps that is uncharitable. My
only wish is to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your
generous promise."

"Is Bower so very rich then? Have you met him before?"

"He is a reputed millionaire. I read of him in the newspapers at
times. In my small country parish such financial luminaries twinkle
from a far sky. It is true he is a recent light. He made a great deal
of money in copper, I believe."

"What kind of character do you give him,--good, bad, or indifferent?"

Hare's benevolent features showed the astonishment that thrilled him
at this blunt question. "I hardly know what to say----" he stammered.

Spencer liked this cheery vicar and resolved to trust him. "Let me
explain," he said. "You and I agree in thinking that Miss Wynton is an
uncommonly nice girl. I am not on her visiting list at present, so my
judgment is altruistic. Suppose she was your daughter or niece, would
you care to see her left to that man's mercies?"

The clergyman fidgeted a little before he answered. Spencer was a
stranger to him, yet he felt drawn toward him. The strong, clear cut
face won confidence. "If it was the will of Heaven, I would sooner see
her in the grave," he said, with solemn candor.

Spencer rose. He held out his hand. "I guess it's growing late," he
cried, "and our talk has swung round to a serious point. Sleep well,
Mr. Hare. That game is dead off."

As he passed the bar he heard Bower's smooth, well rounded accents
through the half-open door. "Nothing I should like better," he was
saying. "Are you tired? If not, bring your friend to my rooms now.
Although I have been in the train all night, I am fit as a fiddle."

"Let me see. I left him in the smoking room with our _padre_----"

It was Dunston who spoke; but Bower broke in:

"Oh, keep the clergy out of it! They make such a song about these
things if they hear of them."

"I was going to say that if he is not there he will be in his room. He
is two doors from me, No. 61, I think. Shall I fetch him?"

"Do, by all means. By Jove! I didn't expect to get any decent play
here!"

Spencer slipped into a small vestibule where he had left a hat and
overcoat. He remained there till Dunston crossed the hall and entered
the elevator. Then he went out, meaning to stroll and smoke in the
moonlight for an hour. It would be easier to back out of the promised
game in the morning than at that moment. Moreover, in the clear, still
air he could plan a course of action, the need of which was becoming
insistent.

He was blessed, or cursed, with a stubborn will, and he knew it.
Hitherto, it had been exercised on a theory wrapped in hard granite,
and the granite had yielded, justifying the theory. Now he was brought
face to face with a woman's temperament, and his experience of that
elusive and complex mixture of attributes was of the slightest.
Attractive young women in Colorado are plentiful as cranberries; but
never one of them had withdrawn his mind's eye from his work. Why,
then, was he so ready now to devote his energies to the safeguarding
of Helen Wynton? It was absurd to pretend that he was responsible for
her future well-being because of the whim that sent her on a holiday.
She was well able to take care of herself. She had earned her own
living before he met her; she had risen imperiously above the petty
malice displayed by some of the residents in the hotel; there was a
reasonable probability that she might become the wife of a man highly
placed and wealthy. Every consideration told in favor of a policy of
non-interference. The smoking of an inch of good cigar placed the
matter in such a convincing light that Spencer was half resolved to
abide by his earlier decision and leave Maloja next morning.

But the other half, made up of inclination, pleaded against all the
urging of expediency. He deemed the vicar an honest man, and that
stout-hearted phrase of his stuck. Yet, whether he went or stayed, the
ultimate solution of the problem lay with Helen herself. Once on
speaking terms with her, he could form a more decided view. It was
wonderful how one's estimate of a man or woman could be modified in
the course of a few minutes' conversation. Well, he would settle
things that way, and meanwhile enjoy the beauty of a wondrous night.

A full moon was flooding the landscape with a brilliance not surpassed
in the crystal atmosphere of Denver. The snow capped summit of the
Cima di Rosso was fit to be a peak in Olympus, a silver throned height
where the gods sat in council. The brooding pines perched on the
hillside beyond the Orlegna looked like a company of gigantic birds
with folded wings. From the road leading to the village he could hear
the torrent itself singing its mad song of freedom after escaping from
the icy caverns of the Forno glacier. Quite near, on the right, the
tiny cascade that marks the first seaward flight of the Inn mingled
its sweet melody with the orchestral thunder of the more distant
cataracts plunging down the precipices toward Italy. It was a night
when one might listen to the music of the spheres, and Spencer was
suddenly jarred into unpleasant consciousness of his surroundings by
the raucous voices of some peasants bawling a Romansch ballad in a
wayside wine house.

Turning sharply on his heel, he took the road by the lake. There at
least he would find peace from the strenuous amours of Margharita as
trolled by the revelers. He had not gone three hundred yards before he
saw a woman standing near the low wall that guarded the embanked
highway from the water. She was looking at the dark mirror of the
lake, and seemed to be identifying the stars reflected in it. Three or
four times, as he approached, she tilted her head back and gazed at
the sky. The skirt of a white dress was visible below a heavy ulster;
a knitted shawl was wrapped loosely over her hair and neck, and the
ends were draped deftly across her shoulders; but before she turned to
see who was coming along the road Spencer had recognized her. Thus, in
a sense, he was a trifle the more prepared of the two for this
unforeseen meeting, and he hailed it as supplying the answer to his
doubts.

"Now," said he to himself, "I shall know in ten seconds whether or not
I travel west by north to-morrow."

Helen did not avert her glance instantly. Nor did she at once resume a
stroll evidently interrupted to take in deep breaths of the beauty of
the scene. That was encouraging to the American,--she expected him to
speak to her.

He halted in the middle of the road. If he was mistaken, he did not
wish to alarm her. "If you will pardon the somewhat unorthodox time
and place, I should like to make myself known to you, Miss Wynton," he
said, lifting his cap.

"You are Mr. Spencer?" she answered, with a frank smile.

"Yes, I have a letter of introduction from Mr. Mackenzie."

"So have I. What do we do next? Exchange letters? Mine is in the
hotel."

"Suppose we just shake?"

"Well, that is certainly the most direct way."

Their hands met. They were both aware of a whiff of nervousness. For
some reason, the commonplace greetings of politeness fell awkwardly
from their lips. In such a predicament a woman may always be trusted
to find the way out.

"It is rather absurd that we should be saying how pleased we are that
Mr. Mackenzie thought of writing those letters, while in reality I am
horribly conscious that I ought not to be here at all, and you are
probably thinking that I am quite an amazing person," and Helen
laughed light heartedly.

"That is part of my thought," said Spencer.

"Won't you tell me the remainder?"

"May I?"

"Please do. I am in chastened mood."

"I wish I was skilled in the trick of words, then I might say
something real cute. As it is, I can only supply a sort of condensed
statement,--something about a nymph, a moonlit lake, the spirit of the
glen,--nice catchy phrases every one,--with a line thrown in from
Shelley about an 'orbéd maiden with white fire laden.' Let me go back
a hundred yards, Miss Wynton, and I shall return with the whole thing
in order."

"With such material I believe you would bring me a sonnet."

"No. I hail from the wild and woolly West, where life itself is a
poem; so I stick to prose. There is a queer sort of kink in human
nature to account for that."

"On the principle that a Londoner never hears the roar of London, I
suppose?"

"Exactly. An old lady I know once came across a remarkable instance of
it. She watched a ship-wreck, the real article, with all the scenic
accessories, and when a half drowned sailor was dragged ashore she
asked him how he felt at that awful moment. And what do you think he
said?"

"Very wet," laughed Helen.

"No, that is the other story. This man said he was very dry."

"Ah, the one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, which reminds me
that if I remain here much longer talking nonsense I shall lose the
good opinion I am sure you have formed of me from Mr. Mackenzie's
letter. Why, it must be after eleven o'clock! Are you going any
farther, or will you walk with me to the hotel?"

"If you will allow me----"

"Indeed, I shall be very glad of your company. I came out to escape my
own thoughts. Did you ever meet such an unsociable lot of people as
our fellow boarders, Mr. Spencer? If it was not for my work, and the
fact that I have taken my room for a month, I should hie me forthwith
to the beaten track of the vulgar but good natured tourist."

"Why not go? Let me help you to-morrow to map out a tour. Then I shall
know precisely where to waylay you, for I feel the chill here too."

"I wish I could fall in with the first part of your proposal, though
the second rather suggests that you regard Mr. Mackenzie's letter of
introduction as a letter of marque."

"At any rate, I am an avowed pirate," he could not help retorting.
"But to keep strictly to business, why not quit if you feel like
wandering?"

"Because I was sent here, on a journalistic mission which I understand
less now than when I received it in London. Of course, I am delighted
with the place. It is the people I--kick at? Is that a quite proper
Americanism?"

"It seems to fit the present case like a glove, or may I say, like a
shoe?"

"Now you are laughing at me, inwardly of course, and I agree with you.
Ladies should not use slang, nor should they promenade alone in Swiss
valleys by moonlight. My excuse is that I did not feel sleepy, and
the moon tempted me. Good night."

They were yet some little distance from the hotel, and Spencer was at
a loss to account for this sudden dismissal. She saw the look of
bewilderment in his face.

"I have found a back stairs door," she explained, with a smile. "I
really don't think I should have dared to come out at half-past ten if
I had to pass the Gorgons in the foyer."

She flitted away by a side path, leaving Spencer more convinced than
ever that he had blundered egregiously in dragging this sedate and
charming girl from the quiet round of existence in London to the
artificial life of the Kursaal. Some feeling of unrest had driven her
forth to commune with the stars. Was she asking herself why she was
denied the luxuries showered on the doll-like creatures whose
malicious tongues were busy the instant Bower set foot in the hotel?
It would be an ill outcome of his innocent subterfuge if she returned
to England discontented and rebellious. She was in "chastened mood,"
she had said. He wondered why? Had Bower been too confident,--too sure
of his prey to guard his tongue? Of all the unlooked for developments
that could possibly be bound up with the harmless piece of midsummer
madness that sent Helen Wynton to Switzerland, surely this roué's
presence was the most irritating and perplexing.

Then from the road came another stanza from the wine bibbers, now
homeward bound. They were still howling about Margharita in long
sustained cadences. And Spencer knew his Faust. It was to the moon
that the lovesick maiden confided her dreams, and Mephisto was at hand
to jog the elbow of his bewitched philosopher at exactly the right
moment.

Spencer threw his cigar into the gurgling rivulet of the Inn. He
condemned Switzerland, and the Upper Engadine, and the very great
majority of the guests in the Kursaal, in one emphatic malediction,
and went to his room, hoping to sleep, but actually to lie awake for
hours and puzzle his brains in vain effort to evolve a satisfying
sequel to the queer combination of events he had set in motion when he
ran bare headed into the Strand after Bower's motor car.




CHAPTER VIII

SHADOWS


"It is a glorious morning. If the weather holds, your first visit to
the real Alps should be memorable," said Bower.

Helen had just descended the long flight of steps in front of the
hotel. A tender purple light filled the valley. The nearer hills were
silhouetted boldly against a sky of primrose and pink; but the misty
depths where the lake lurked beneath the pines had not yet yielded
wholly to the triumph of the new day. The air had a cold life in it
that invigorated while it chilled. It resembled some _vin frappé_ of
rare vintage. Its fragrant vivacity was ready to burst forth at the
first encouraging hint of a kindlier temperature.

"Why that dubious clause as to the weather?" asked Helen, looking at
the golden shafts of sunlight on the topmost crags of Corvatsch and
the Piz della Margna. Those far off summits were so startlingly vivid
in outline that they seemed to be more accessible than the mist
shrouded ravines cleaving their dun sides. It needed an effort of the
imagination to correct the erring testimony of the eye.

"The moods of the hills are variable, my lady,--femininely fickle, in
fact. There is a proverb that contrasts the wind with woman's mind;
but the disillusioned male who framed it evidently possessed little
knowledge of weather changes in the high Alps, or else he----"

"Did you beguile me out of my cozy room at six o'clock on a frosty
morning to regale me with stale jibes at my sex?"

"Perish the thought, Miss Wynton! My only intent was to explain that
the ancient proverb maker, meaning to be rude, might have found a
better simile."

"Meanwhile, I am so cold that the only mood left in my composition is
one of impatience to be moving."

"Well, I am ready."

"But where is our guide?"

"He has gone on in front with the porter."

"Porter! What is the man carrying?"

"The wherewithal to refresh ourselves when we reach the hut."

"Oh," said Helen, "I had no idea that mountaineering was such a
business. I thought the essentials were a packet of sandwiches and a
flask."

"You will please not be flippant. Climbing is serious work. And you
must moderate your pace. If you walk at that rate from here to Forno,
you will be very, very ill before you reach the hut."

"Ill! How absurd!"

"Not only absurd but disagreeable,--far worse than crossing the
Channel. Even old hands like me are not free from mountain sickness,
though it seizes us at higher altitudes than we shall reach to-day. In
the case of a novice, anything in the nature of hurrying during the
outward journey is an unfailing factor."

They were crossing the golf links, and the smooth path was tempting to
a good walker. Helen smiled as she accommodated herself to Bower's
slower stride. Though the man might possess experience, the woman had
the advantage of youth, the unattainable, and this wonderful hour
after dawn was stirring its ichor in her veins.

"I suppose that is what Stampa meant when he took 'Slow and Sure' for
his motto," she said.

"Stampa! Who is Stampa?"

There was a sudden rasp of iron in his voice. As a rule Bower spoke
with a cultivated languor that almost veiled the staccato accents of
the man of affairs. Helen was so surprised by this unwarranted clang
of anger that she looked at him with wide open eyes.

"He is the driver I told you of, the man who took the wheel off my
carriage during the journey from St. Moritz," she explained.

"Oh, of course. How stupid of me to forget! But, by the way, did you
mention his name?"

"No, I think not. Someone interrupted me. Mr. Dunston came and spoke
to you----"

He laughed gayly and drew in deep breaths of the keen air. He was
carrying his ice ax over his left shoulder. With his right hand he
brushed away a disturbing thought. "By Jove! yes! Dunston dragged me
off to open a bank at baccarat, and you will be glad to hear that I
won five hundred pounds."

"I am glad you won; but who lost so much money?"

"Dunston dropped the greater part of it. Your American friend, Mr.
Spencer, was rather inclined to brag of his prowess in that direction,
it appears. He even went so far as to announce his willingness to play
for four figures; but he backed out of it."

"Do you mean that Mr. Spencer wanted to stake a thousand pounds on a
single game at cards?"

"Evidently he did not want to do it, but he talked about it."

"Yet he impressed me as being a very clear-headed and sensible young
man," said Helen decisively.

"Here, young lady, I must call you to account! In what category do you
place me, then?"

"Oh, you are different. I disapprove of anyone playing for such high
stakes; but I suppose you are used to it and can afford it, whereas a
man who has his way to make in the world would be exceedingly foolish
to do such a thing."

"Pray, how did you come to measure the extent of Spencer's finances?"

"Dear me! Did I say that?"

"I am sorry. Of course, I had no wish to speak offensively. What I
mean is that he may be quite as well able to run a big bank at
baccarat as I am."

"He was telling me yesterday of his early struggles to gain a footing
in some mining community in Colorado, and the impression his words
left on me was that he is still far from wealthy; that is, as one
understands the term. Here we are at the footpath. Shall we follow it
and scramble up out of the ravine, or do you prefer the carriage
road?"

"The footpath, please. But before we drop the subject of cards, which
is unquestionably out of place on a morning like this, let me say that
perhaps I have done the American an injustice. Dunston is given to
exaggeration. He has so little control over his face that it is rank
robbery to bet with him. Such a man is apt to run to extremes. It may
be that Spencer was only talking through his hat, as they say in New
York."

Helen had the best of reasons for rejecting this version of the story.
Her perceptive faculties, always well developed, were strung to high
tension in Maloja. The social pinpricks inflicted there had rendered
her more alert, more cautious, than was her wont. She was quite sure,
for instance, judging from a number of slight indications, that
Spencer was deliberately avoiding any opportunity of making Bower's
acquaintance. More than once, when an introduction seemed to be
imminent, the American effaced himself. Other men in the hotel were
not like that--they rather sought the great man's company. She
wondered if Bower had noticed it. Despite his candid, almost generous,
disclaimer of motive, there was an undercurrent of hostility in his
words that suggested a feeling of pique. She climbed the rocky path in
silence until Bower spoke again.

"How do the boots go?" he asked.

"Splendidly, thanks. It was exceedingly kind of you to take such
trouble about them. I had no idea one had to wear such heavy nails,
and that tip of yours about the extra stockings is excellent."

"You will acknowledge the benefit most during the descent. I have
known people become absolutely lame on the home journey through
wearing boots only just large enough for ordinary walking. As for the
clamping of the nails over the edges of the soles, the sharp stones
render that imperative. When you have crossed a moraine or two, and a
peculiarly nasty _geröll_ that exists beyond the hut, if we have time
to make an easy ascent, you will understand the need of extra strong
footwear."

Helen favored him with a shy smile. "Long hours of reading have
revealed the nature of a moraine," she said; "but, please, what is a
_geröll_?"

"A slope of loose stones. Let me see, what do they call it in
Scotland and Cumberland? Ah, yes, a scree. On the French side of the
Alps the same thing is known as a _casse_."

"How well you know this country and its ways! Have you climbed many of
the well known peaks?"

"Some years ago I scored my century beyond twelve thousand feet. That
is pretty fair for an amateur."

"Have you done the Matterhorn?"

"Yes, four times. Once I followed Tyndall's example, and converted the
summit into a pass between Switzerland and Italy."

"How delightful! I suppose you have met many of the famous guides?"

He laughed pleasantly. "One does not attempt the Cervin or the
Jungfrau without the best men, and in my time there were not twenty,
all told. I had a long talk with our present guide last night, and
found I had used many a track he had only seen from the valley."

"Then----"

A loud toot on a cowhorn close at hand interrupted her. The artist was
a small boy. He appeared to be waiting expectantly on a hillock for
someone who came not.

"Is that a signal?" she asked.

"Yes. He is a _gaumer_, or cowherd,--another word for your Alpine
vocabulary,--the burgher whose cattle he will drive to the pasture has
probably arranged to meet him here."

Bower was always an interesting and well informed companion. Launched
now into a congenial topic, he gave Helen a thoroughly entertaining
lecture on the customs of a Swiss commune. He pointed out the
successive tiers of pastures, told her their names and seasons of use,
and even hummed some verses of the cow songs, or _Kuh-reihen_, which
the men sing to the cattle, addressing each animal by name.

An hour passed pleasantly in this manner. Their guide, a man named
Josef Barth, and the porter, who answered to "Karl," awaited them at
the milk chalet by the side of Lake Cavloccio. Bower, evidently
accustomed to the leadership of expeditions of this sort, tested their
ice axes and examined the ropes slung to Barth's rucksack.

"The Forno is a glacier _de luxe_," he explained to Helen; "but it is
always advisable to make sure that your appliances are in good order.
That _pickel_ you are carrying was made by the best blacksmith in
Grindelwald, and you can depend on its soundness; but these men are so
familiar with their surroundings that they often provide themselves
with frayed ropes and damaged axes."

"In addition to my boots, therefore, I am indebted to you for a
special brand of ice ax," she cried.

"Your gratitude now is as nothing to the ecstasy you will display when
Karl unpacks his load," he answered lightly. "Now, Miss Wynton, _en
route_! You know the path to the glacier already, don't you?"

"I have been to its foot twice."

"Then you go in front. There is no room to walk two abreast. Before we
tackle the ice we will call a halt for refreshments."

From that point till the glacier was reached the climb was laboriously
simple. There was no difficulty and not the slightest risk, even for a
child; but the heavy gradient and the rarefied air made it almost
impossible to sustain a conversation unless the speakers dawdled.
Helen often found herself many yards in advance of the others. She
simply could not help breasting the steeper portions of the track. She
was drawn forward by an intense eagerness to begin the real business
of the day. Bower did not seek to restrain her. He thought her high
spirits admirable, and his gaze dwelt appreciatively on her graceful
poise as she stopped on the crest of some small ravine and looked back
at the plodders beneath. Attractive at all times, she was bewitching
that morning to a man who prided himself on his athletic tastes. She
wore a white knitted jersey and a short skirt, a costume seemingly
devised to reveal the lines of a slender waist and supple limbs. A
white Tam o' Shanter was tied firmly over her glossy brown hair with a
silk motor veil, and the stout boots which she had surveyed so
ruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening after
interviewing the village shoemaker, were by no means so cumbrous in
use as her unaccustomed eyes had deemed them. Even the phlegmatic
guide was stirred to gruff appreciation when he saw her vault on to a
large flat boulder in order to examine an iron cross that surmounted
it.

"_Ach, Gott!_" he grunted, "that Englishwoman is as surefooted as a
chamois."

But Helen had found a name and a date on a triangular strip of metal
attached to the cross. "Why has this memorial been placed here?" she
asked. Bower appealed to Barth; but he shook his head. Karl gave
details.

"A man fell on the Cima del Largo. They carried him here, and he died
on that rock."

"Poor fellow!" Some of the joyous light left Helen's face. She had
passed the cross before, and had regarded it as one of the votive
offerings so common by the wayside in Catholic countries, knowing that
in this part of Switzerland the Italian element predominated among the
peasants.

"We get a fine view of the Cima del Largo from the _cabane_," said
Bower unconcernedly.

Helen picked a little blue flower that nestled at the base of the
rock. She pinned it to her jersey without comment. Sometimes the
callousness of a man was helpful, and the shadow of a bygone tragedy
was out of keeping with the glow of this delightful valley.

The curving mass of the glacier was now clearly visible. It looked
like some marble staircase meant to be trodden only by immortals. Ever
broadening and ascending until it filled the whole width of the rift
between the hills, it seemed to mount upward to infinity. The sidelong
rays of the sun, peeping over the shoulders of Forno and Roseg, tinted
the great ice river with a sapphire blue, while its higher reaches
glistened as though studded with gigantic diamonds. Near at hand,
where the Orlegna rushed noisily from thraldom, the broken surface was
somber and repellent. In color a dull gray, owing to the accumulation
of winter débris and summer dust, it had the aspect of decay and
death; it was jagged and gaunt and haggard; the far flung piles of the
white moraine imposed a stony barrier against its farther progress.
But that unpleasing glimpse of disruption was quickly dispelled by the
magnificent volume and virgin purity of the glacier as a whole. Helen
tried to imagine herself two miles distant, a tiny speck on the great
floor of the pass. That was the only way to grasp its stupendous size,
though she knew that it mounted through five miles of rock strewn
ravine before it touched the precipitous saddle along which runs the
border line between Italy and Switzerland.

Karl's sigh of relief as he deposited his heavy load on a tablelike
boulder brought Helen back from the land of dreams. To this sturdy
peasant the wondrous Forno merely represented a day's hard work, at an
agreed sum of ten francs for carrying nearly half a hundredweight, and
a liberal _pour-boire_ if the voyageurs were satisfied.

Sandwiches and a glass of wine, diluted with water brought by the
guide from a neighboring rill,--glacier water being used only as a
last resource,--were delectable after a steady two hours' walk. The
early morning meal of coffee and a roll had lost some of its flavor
when consumed apparently in the middle of the night, and Helen was
ready now for her breakfast. While they were eating, Bower and Josef
Barth cast glances at some wisps of cloud drifting slowly over the
crests of the southern hills. Nothing was said. The guide read his
patron's wishes correctly. Unless some cause far more imperative than
a slight mist intervened, the day's programme must not be abandoned.
So there was no loitering. The sun was almost in the valley, and the
glacier must be crossed before the work of the night's frost was
undone.

When they stepped from the moraine on to the ice Barth led, Helen
followed, Bower came next, with Karl in the rear.

If it had not been for the crisp crunching sound of the hobnails amid
the loose fragments on the surface, and the ring of the _pickel's_
steel-shod butt on the solid mass beneath, Helen might have fancied
that she was walking up an easy rock-covered slope. Any delusion on
that point, however, was promptly dispelled by a glimpse of a narrow
crevasse that split the foot of the glacier lengthwise.

She peered into its sea-green depths awesomely. It resembled a
toothless mouth gaping slowly open, ready enough to swallow her, but
too inert to put forth the necessary effort. And the thought reminded
her of something. She halted and turned to Bower.

"Ought we not to be roped?" she asked.

He laughed, with the quiet confidence of the expert mountaineer.
"Why?" he cried. "The way is clear. One does not walk into a crevasse
with one's eyes open."

"But Stampa told me that I should refuse to advance a yard on ice or
difficult rock without being roped."

"Stampa, your cab driver?"

There was no reason that she could fathom why her elderly friend's
name should be repeated with such scornful emphasis.

"Ah, yes. He is that because he is lame," she protested. "But he was
one of the most famous guides in Zermatt years ago."

She swung round and appealed to Barth, who was wondering why his
employers were stopping before they had climbed twenty feet. "Are you
from Zermatt?" she demanded.

"No, _fräulein_--from Pontresina. Zermatt is a long way from here."

"But you know some of the Zermatt men, I suppose? Have you ever heard
of Christian Stampa?"

"Most certainly, _fräulein_. My father helped him to build the first
hut on the Hörnli Ridge."

"Old Stampa!" chimed in Karl from beneath. "It will be long ere he is
forgotten. I was one of four who carried him down from Corvatsch to
Sils-Maria the day after he fell. He was making the descent by
night,--a mad thing to do,--and there was murder in his heart, they
said. But I never believed it. We shared a bottle of Monte Pulciano
only yesterday, just for the sake of old times, and he was as merry as
Hans von Rippach himself."

Bower was stooping, so Helen could not see his face. He seemed to be
fumbling with a boot lace.

"You hear, Mr. Bower?" she cried. "I am quoting no mean authority."

He did not answer. He had untied the lace and was readjusting it. The
girl realized that to a man of his portly build his present attitude
was not conducive to speech. It had an additional effect which did not
suggest itself to her. The effort thus demanded from heart and lungs
might bring back the blood to a face blanched by a deadly fear.

Karl was stocked with reminiscences of Stampa. "I remember the time
when people said Christian was the best man in the Bernina," he said.
"He would never go back to the Valais after his daughter died. It was
a strange thing that he should come to grief on a cowherd's track like
that over Corvatsch. But Etta's affair----"

"_Schweige!_" snarled Bower, straightening himself suddenly. His dark
eyes shot such a gleam of lambent fury at the porter that the man's
jaw fell. The words were frozen on his lips. He could not have been
stricken dumb more effectually had he come face to face with one of
the horrific sprites described in the folklore of the hills.

Helen was surprised. What had poor Karl done that he should be bidden
so fiercely to hold his tongue? Then she thought that Bower must have
recalled Stampa's history, and feared that perhaps the outspoken
peasant might enter into a piquant account of some village scandal. A
chambermaid in the hotel, questioned about Stampa, had told her that
the daughter he loved so greatly had committed suicide. Really, she
ought to be grateful to her companion for saving her from a passing
embarrassment. But she had the tact not to drop the subject too
quickly.

"If Barth and you agree that roping is unnecessary, of course I
haven't a word to say in the matter," she volunteered. "It was rather
absurd of me to mention it in the first instance."

"No, you were right. I have never seen Stampa; but his name is
familiar. It occurs in most Alpine records. Barth, fix the rope before
we go farther. The _fräulein_ wishes it."

The rush of color induced by physical effort--effort of a tensity that
Helen was wholly unaware of--was ebbing now before a numbing terror
that had come to stay. His face was drawn and livid. His voice had the
metallic ring in it that the girl had detected once already that day.
Again she experienced a sense of bewilderment that he should regard a
trivial thing so seriously. She was not a child. The world of to-day
pulsated with far too many stories of tragic passion that she should
be shielded so determinedly from any hint of an episode that doubtless
wrung the heart's core of this quiet valley one day in August sixteen
years ago. In some slight degree Bower's paroxysm of anger was a
reflection on her own good taste, for she had unwittingly given rise
to it.

Nevertheless, she felt indebted to him. To extricate both Bower and
herself from an awkward situation she took a keen interest in Barth's
method of adjusting the rope. The man did not show any amazement at
Bower's order. He was there to earn his fee. Had these mad English
told him to cut steps up the gentle slope in front he would have
obeyed without protest, though it was more than strange that this much
traveled _voyageur_ should adopt such a needless precaution.

As a matter of fact, under Barth's guidance, a blind cripple could
have surmounted the first kilometer of the Forno glacier. The track
lay close to the left bank of the moraine. It curved slightly to the
right and soon the exquisite panorama of Monte Roseg, the Cima di
Rosso, Monte Sissone, Piz Torrone, and the Castello group opened up
before the climbers. Helen was enchanted. Twice she half turned to
address some question to Bower; but on each occasion she happened to
catch him in the act of swallowing some brandy from a flask. Governed
by an unaccountable timidity, she pretended not to notice his
actions, and diverted her words to Barth, who told her the names of
the peaks and pointed to the junctions of minor ice fields with the
main artery of the Forno.

Bower did not utter a syllable until they struck out toward the center
of the glacier. A crevasse some ten feet in width and seemingly
hundreds of feet deep, barred the way; but a bridge of ice, covered
with snow, offered safe transit. The snow carpet showed that a number
of climbers had passed quite recently in both directions. Even Helen,
somewhat awed by the dimensions of the rift, understood that the
existence of this natural arch was as well recognized by Alpinists as
Waterloo Bridge is known to dwellers on the south side of the Thames.

"Now, Miss Wynton, you should experience your first real thrill," said
Bower. "This bridge forms here every year at this season, and an army
might cross in safety. It is the genuine article, the first and
strongest of a series. Yet here you cross the Rubicon. A mixture of
metaphors is allowable in high altitudes, you know."

Helen, almost startled at first by the unaffected naturalness of his
words, was unfeignedly relieved at finding him restored to the normal.
Usually his supply of light-hearted badinage was unceasing. He knew
exactly when and how to season it with more serious statements. It is
this rare quality that makes tolerable a long day's solitude _à deux_.

 [Illustration: She flourished her ice axe bravely.
                              _Page 163_]

"I am not Cæsar's wife," she replied; "but for the credit of womankind
in general I shall act as though I was above suspicion--of
nervousness."

She did not look round. Barth was moving quickly, and she had no
desire to burden him with a drag on the rope. When she was in the
center of the narrow causeway, a snow cornice in the lip of the
crevasse detached itself under the growing heat of the sun and
shivered down into the green darkness. The incident brought her heart
into her mouth. It served as a reminder that this solid ice river was
really in a state of constant change and movement.

Bower laughed, with all his customary gayety of manner. "That came at
a dramatic moment," he said. "Too bad it could not let you pass
without giving you a quake!"

"I am not a bit afraid."

"Ah, but I can read your thoughts. There is a bond of sympathy between
us."

"Hemp is a non-conductor."

"You are willfully misunderstanding me," he retorted.

"No. I honestly believed you felt the rope quiver a little."

"Alas! it is the atmosphere. My compliments fall on idle ears."

Barth interrupted this play of harmless chaff by jerking some remark
over his shoulder. "Looks like a _guxe_," he said gruffly.

"Nonsense!" said Bower,--"a bank of mist. The sun will soon melt it."

"It's a _guxe_, right enough," chimed in Karl, who had recovered his
power of speech. "That is why the boy was blowing his horn--to show he
was bringing the cattle home."

"Well, then, push on. The sooner we are in the hut the better."

"Please, what is a _guxe_?" asked Helen, when the men had nothing more
to say.

"A word I would have wished to add later to your Alpine phrase book.
It means a storm, a blizzard."

"Should we not return at once in that event?"

"What? Who said just now she was not afraid?"

"But a storm in such a place!"

"These fellows smell a _tourmente_ in every little cloud from the
southwest. We may have some wind and a light snowfall, and that will
be an experience for you. Surely you can trust me not to run any real
risk?"

"Oh, yes. I do, indeed. But I have read of people being caught in
these storms and suffering terribly."

"Not on the Forno, I assure you. I don't wish to minimize the perils
of your first ascent; but it is only fair to say that this is an
exhibition glacier. If it was nearer town you would find an orchestra
in each amphitheater up there, with sideshows in every couloir.
Jesting apart, you are absolutely safe with Barth and me, not to
mention the irrepressible gentleman who carries our provisions."

Helen was fully alive to the fact that a woman who joins a
mountaineering party should not impose her personal doubts on men who
are willing to go on. She flourished her ice ax bravely, and cried,
"Excelsior!"

In the next instant she regretted her choice of expression. The moral
of Longfellow's poem might be admirable, but the fate of its hero was
unpleasantly topical. Again Bower laughed.

"Ah!" he said. "Will you deny now that I am a first rate receiver of
wireless messages?"

She had no breath left for a quip. Barth was hurrying, and the thin
air was beginning to have its effect. When an unusually smooth stretch
of ice permitted her to take her eyes from the track for a moment she
looked back to learn the cause of such haste. To her complete
astonishment, the Maloja Pass and the hills beyond it were dissolved
in a thick mist. A monstrous cloud was sweeping up the Orlegna Valley.
As yet, it was making for the Muretto Pass rather than the actual
ravine of the Forno; but a few wraiths of vapor were sailing high
overhead, and it needed no weatherwise native to predict that ere long
the glacier itself would be covered by that white pall. She glanced at
Bower.

He smiled cheerfully. "It is nothing," he murmured.

"I really don't care," she said. "One does not shirk an adventure
merely because it is disagreeable. The pity is that all this lovely
sunshine must vanish."

"It will reappear. You will be charmed with the novelty in an hour or
less."

"Is it far to the hut?"

"Hardly twenty minutes at our present pace."

A growl from Barth stopped their brief talk. Another huge crevasse
yawned in front. There was an ice bridge, with snow, like others they
had crossed; but this was a slender structure, and the leader stabbed
it viciously with the butt of his ax before he ventured on it. The
others kept the rope taut, and he crossed safely. They followed. As
Helen gained the further side she heard Bower's chuckle:

"Another thrill!"

"I am growing quite used to them," she said.

"Well, it may help somewhat if I tell you that the temporary departure
of the sun will cause this particular bridge to be ten times as strong
when we return."

"Attention!" cried Barth, taking a sharp turn to the left. The meaning
of his warning was soon apparent. They had to descend a few feet of
rough ice, and Helen found, to her great relief it must be confessed,
that they were approaching the lateral moraine. Already the sky was
overcast. The glacier had taken to itself a cold grayness that was
disconcerting. The heavy mist fell on them with inconceivable
rapidity. Shining peaks and towering precipices of naked rock were
swept out of sight each instant. The weather had changed with a
magical speed. The mist advanced with the rush of an express train,
and a strong wind sprang up as though it had burst through a
restraining wall and was bent on overwhelming the daring mortals who
were penetrating its chosen territory.

Somehow--anyhow--Helen scrambled on. She was obliged to keep eyes and
mind intent on each step. Her chief object was to imitate Barth, to
poise, and jump, and clamber with feet and hands exactly as he did. At
this stage the rope was obviously a hindrance; but none of the men
suggested its removal, and Helen had enough to occupy her wits without
troubling them by a question. Even in the stress of her own breathless
exertions she had room in her mind for a wondering pity for the
heavily laden Karl. She marveled that anyone, be he strong as Samson,
could carry such a load and not fall under it. Yet he was lumbering
along behind Bower with a clumsy agility that was almost supernatural
to her thinking. She was still unconscious of the fact that most of
her own struggles were due more to the rarefied air than to the real
difficulties of the route.

At last, when she really thought she must cry out for a rest, when a
steeper climb than any hitherto encountered had bereft her almost of
the power to take another upward spring to the ledge of some enormous
boulder, when her knees and ankles were sore and bruised, and the
skin of her fingers was beginning to fray under her stout gloves, she
found herself standing on a comparatively level space formed of broken
stones. A rough wall, surmounted by a flat pitched roof, stared at her
out of the mist. In the center of the wall a small, square, shuttered
window suggested a habitation. Her head swam, and her eyes ached
dreadfully; but she knew that this was the hut, and strove desperately
to appear self possessed.

"Accept my congratulations, Miss Wynton," said a low voice at her ear.
"Not one woman in a thousand would have gone through that last
half-hour without a murmur. You are no longer a novice. Allow me to
present you with the freedom of the Alps. This is one of the many
châteaux at your disposal."

A wild swirl of sleet lashed them venomously. This first whip of the
gale seemed to have the spitefulness of disappointed rage.

Helen felt her arm grasped. Bower led her to a doorway cunningly
disposed out of the path of the dreaded southwest wind. At that
instant all the woman in her recognized that the man was big, and
strong, and self reliant, and that it was good to have him near,
shouting reassuring words that were whirled across the rock-crowned
glacier by the violence of the tempest.




CHAPTER IX

"ETTA'S FATHER"


Though the hut was a crude thing, a triumph of essentials over
luxuries, Helen had never before hailed four walls and a roof with
such heartfelt, if silent, thanksgiving. She sank exhausted on a rough
bench, and watched the matter-of-fact Engadiners unpacking the stores
and firewood carried in their rucksacks. Their businesslike air
supplied the tonic she needed. Though the howling storm seemed to
threaten the tiny refuge with destruction, these two men set to work,
coolly and methodically, to prepare a meal. Barth arranged the
contents of Karl's bulky package on a small table, and the porter
busied himself with lighting a fire in a Swiss stove that stood in the
center of the outer room. An inner apartment loomed black and
uninviting through an open doorway. Helen discovered later that some
scanty accommodation was provided there for those who meant to sleep
in the hut in readiness for an early ascent, while it supplied a
separate room in the event of women taking part in an expedition.

Bower offered her a quantity of brandy and water. She declined it,
declaring that she needed only time to regain her breath. He was a man
who might be trusted not to pester anyone with well meant but useless
attentions. He went to the door, lit a cigarette, and seemed to be
keenly interested in the sleet as it pelted the moraine or gathered in
drifts in the minor fissures of the glacier.

Within a remarkably short space of time, Karl had concocted two cups
of steaming coffee. Helen was then all aglow. Her strength was
restored. The boisterous wind had crimsoned her cheeks beneath the
tan. She had never looked such a picture of radiant womanhood as after
this tussle with the storm. Luckily her clothing was not wet, since
the travelers reached the _cabane_ at the very instant the elements
became really aggressive. It was a quite composed and reinvigorated
Helen who summoned Bower from his contemplation of the weather
portents.

"We may be besieged," she cried; "but at any rate we are not on famine
rations. What a spread! You could hardly have brought more food if you
fancied we might be kept here a week."

The sustained physical effort called for during the last part of the
climb seemed to have dispelled his fit of abstraction. Being an
eminently adaptable man, he responded to her mood. "Ah, that sounds
more like the enthusiast who set forth so gayly from the Kursaal this
morning," he answered, pulling the door ajar before he took a seat by
her side on the bench. "A few minutes ago you were ready to condemn me
as several kinds of idiot for going on in the teeth of our Switzers'
warnings. Now, confess!"

"I don't think I could have climbed another ten yards," she admitted.

"Our haste was due to Barth's anxiety. He wanted to save you from a
drenching. It was a near thing, and with the thermometer falling a
degree a minute soaked garments might have brought very unpleasant
consequences. But that was our only risk. Old mountaineer as I am, I
hardly expected such a blizzard in August, after such short notice
too. Otherwise, now that we are safely housed, you are fortunate in
securing a memorable experience. The storm will soon blow over; but it
promises to be lively while it lasts."

Helen was sipping her coffee. Perhaps her eyes conveyed the question
her tongue hesitated to utter. Bower smiled pleasantly, and
gesticulated with hands and shoulders in a way that was foreign to
his studiously cultivated English habit of repose. Indeed, with his
climber's garb he seemed to have acquired a new manner. There was a
perplexing change in him since the morning.

"Yes," he said. "I understand perfectly. You and I might sing _lieder
ohne worte_, Miss Wynton. I have known these summer gales to last four
days; but pray do not be alarmed," for Helen nearly dropped her cup in
quick dismay; "my own opinion is that we shall have a delightful
afternoon. Of course, I am a discredited prophet. Ask Barth."

The guide, hearing his name mentioned, glanced at them, though he was
engaged at the moment in taking the wrappings off a quantity of bread,
cold chicken, and slices of ham and beef. He agreed with Bower. The
barometer stood high when they left the hotel. He thought, as all men
think who live in the open, that "the sharper the blast the sooner
it's past."

"Moreover," broke in Karl, who refused to be left out of the
conversation, "Johann Klucker's cat was sitting with its back to the
stove last evening."

This bit of homely philosophy brought a ripple of laughter from Helen,
whereupon Karl explained.

"Cats are very wise, _fräulein_. Johann Klucker's cat is old.
Therefore she is skilled in reading the tokens of the weather. A cat
hates wind and rain, and makes her arrangements accordingly. If she
washes herself smoothly, the next twelve hours will be fine. If she
licks against the grain, it will be wet. When she lies with her back
to the fire, there will surely be a squall. When her tail is up and
her coat rises, look out for wind."

"Johann Klucker's cat has settled the dispute," said Bower gravely in
English. "A squall it is,--a most suitable prediction for a cat,--and
I am once more rehabilitated in your esteem, I hope?"

A cold iridescence suddenly illumined the gloomy interior of the hut.
It gave individuality to each particle of sleet whirling past the
door. Helen thought that the sun had broken through the storm clouds
for an instant; but Bower said quietly:

"Are you afraid of lightning?"

"Not very. I don't like it."

"Some people collapse altogether when they see it. Perhaps when
forewarned you are forearmed."

A low rumble boomed up the valley, and the mountain echoes muttered in
solemn chorus.

"We are to be spared none of the scenic accessories, then?" said
Helen.

"None. In fact, you will soon see and hear a thunder storm that would
have delighted Gustave Doré. Please remember that it cannot last long,
and that this hut has been built twenty years to my knowledge."

Helen sipped her coffee, but pushed away a plate set before her by
Barth. "If you don't mind, I should like the door wide open," she
said.

"You prefer to lunch later?"

"Yes."

"And you wish to face the music--is that it?"

"I think so."

"Let me remind you that Jove's thunderbolts are really forged on the
hilltops."

"I am here; so I must make the best of it. I shall not scream, or
faint, if that is what you dread."

"I dread nothing but your anger for not having turned back when a
retreat was possible. I hate turning back, Miss Wynton. I have never
yet withdrawn from any enterprise seriously undertaken, and I was
determined to share your first ramble among my beloved hills."

Another gleam of light, bluer and more penetrating than its
forerunner, lit the brown rafters of the _cabane_. It was succeeded by
a crash like the roar of massed artillery. The walls trembled. Some
particles of mortar rattled noisily to the floor. A strange sound of
rending, followed by a heavy thud, suggested something more tangible
than thunderbolts. Bower kicked the door and it swung inward.

"An avalanche," he said. "Probably a rockfall too. Of course, the hut
stands clear of the track of unpleasant visitors of that description."

Helen had not expected this courageous bearing in a man of Bower's
physical characteristics. Hitherto she had regarded him as somewhat
self indulgent, a Sybarite, the product of modernity in its London
aspects. His demeanor in the train, in the hotel, bespoke one
accustomed to gratify the flesh, who found all the world ready to
pander to his desires. Again she was conscious of that instinctive
trustfulness a woman freely reposes in a dominant man. Oddly enough,
she thought of Spencer in the same breath. An hour earlier, had she
been asked which of these two would command her confidence during a
storm, her unhesitating choice would have favored the American. Now,
she was at least sure that Bower's coolness was not assumed. His
attitude inspired emulation. She rose and went to the door.

"I want to see an avalanche," she cried. "Where did that one fall?"

Bower followed her. He spoke over her shoulder. "On Monte Roseg, I
expect. The weather seems to be clearing slightly. This tearing wind
will soon roll up the mist, and the thunder will certainly start
another big rock or a snowslide. If you are lucky, you may witness
something really fine."

A dazzling flash leaped over the glacier. Although the surrounding
peaks were as yet invisible through the haze of sleet and vapor,
objects near at hand were revealed with uncanny distinctness. Each
frozen wave on the surface of the ice was etched in sharp lines. A
cluster of séracs on a neighboring icefall showed all their mad chaos.
The blue green chasm of a huge crevasse was illumined to a depth far
below any point to which the rays of the sun penetrated. On the
neighboring slope of Monte Roseg the crimson and green and yellow
mosses were given sudden life against the black background of rock.
Every boulder here wore a somber robe. They were stark and grim. The
eye instantly caught the contrast to their gray-white fellows piled on
the lower moraine or in the bed of the Orlegna.

Helen was quick to note the new tone of black amid the vividly white
patches of snow. She waited until the deafening thunder peal was dying
away in eerie cadences. "Why are the rocks black here and almost white
in the valley?" she asked.

"Because they are young, as rocks go," was the smiling answer. "They
have yet to pass through the mill. They will be battered and bruised
and polished before they emerge from the glacier several years hence
and a few miles nearer peace. In that they resemble men. 'Pon my word,
Miss Wynton, you have caused me to evolve a rather poetic explanation
of certain gray hairs I have noticed of late among my own raven
locks."

"You appear to know and love these hills so well that I wonder--if you
will excuse a personal remark--I wonder you ever were able to tear
yourself away from them."

"I have missed too much of real enjoyment in the effort to amass
riches," he said slowly. "Believe me, that thought has held me
since--since you and I set foot on the Forno together."

"But you knew? You were no stranger to the Alps? I am beginning to
understand that one cannot claim kinship with the high places until
they stir the heart more in storm than in sunshine. When I saw all
these giants glittering in the sun like knights in silver armor, I
described them to myself as gloriously beautiful. Now I feel that they
are more than that,--they are awful, pitiless in their indifference
to frail mortals; they carry me into a dim region where life and death
are terms without meaning."

"Yes, that is the true spirit of the mountains. I too used to look on
them with affectionate reverence, and you recall the old days.
Perhaps, if I am deemed worthy, you will teach me the cult once more."

He bent closer. Helen became conscious that in her enthusiasm she had
spoken unguardedly. She moved away, slightly but unmistakably, a step
or two out into the open, for the hut on that side was not exposed to
the bitter violence of the wind.

"It is absurd to imagine us in a change of rôle," she cried. "I should
play the poorest travesty of Mentor to your Telemachus. Oh! What is
that?"

While she was speaking, another blinding flare of lightning flooded
moraine and glacier and pierced the veil of sleet. Her voice rose
almost to a shriek. Bower sprang forward. His left hand rested
reassuringly across her shoulders.

"Better come inside the hut," he began.

"But I saw someone--a white face--staring at me down there!"

"It is possible. There is no cause for fear. A party may have crossed
from Italy. There would be none from the Maloja at this hour."

Helen was actually trembling. Bower drew her a little nearer. He
himself was unnerved, a prey to wilder emotions than she could guess
till later days brought a fuller understanding. It was a mad trick of
fate that threw the girl into his embrace just then, for another
far-flung sheet of fire revealed to her terrified vision the figures
of Spencer and Stampa on the rocks beneath. With brutal candor, the
same flash showed her nestling close to Bower. For some reason, she
shuddered. Though the merciful gloom of the next few seconds restored
her faculties, her face and neck were aflame. She almost felt that she
had been detected in some fault. Her confusion was not lessened by
hearing a muttered curse from her companion. Careless of the stinging
sleet, she leaped down to a broad tier of rock below the plateau of
the hut and cried shrilly:

"Is that really you, Mr. Spencer?"

A more tremendous burst of thunder than any yet experienced dwarfed
all other sounds for an appreciable time. The American scrambled up,
almost at her feet, and stood beside her. Stampa came quick on his
heels, moving with a lightness and accuracy of foothold amazing in one
so lame.

"Just me, Miss Wynton. Sorry if I have frightened you, but our old
friend here was insistent that we should hurry. I have been tracking
you since nine o'clock."

Spencer's words were nonchalantly polite. He even raised his cap,
though the fury of the ice laden blast might well have excused this
formal act of courtesy. Helen was still blushing so painfully that she
became angry with herself, and her voice was hardly under control.
Nevertheless, she managed to say:

"How kind and thoughtful of you! I am all right, as you see. Mr. Bower
and the guide were able to bring me here before the storm broke. We
happened to be standing near the door, watching the lightning. When I
caught a glimpse of you I was so stupidly startled that I screamed and
almost fell into Mr. Bower's arms."

Put in that way, it did not sound so distressing. And Spencer had no
desire to add further difficulties to a situation already awkward.

"Guess you scared me too," he said. "I suppose, now we are at the hut,
Stampa will not object to my waiting five minutes or so before we
start for home."

"Surely you will lunch with us. Everything is set out on the table,
and we have food enough for a regiment."

"You would need it if you remained here another couple of hours, Miss
Wynton. Stampa tells me that a first rate _guxe_, which is Swiss for a
blizzard, I believe, is blowing up. This thunder storm is the
preliminary to a heavy downfall of snow. That is why I came. If we are
not off the glacier before two o'clock, it will become impassable till
a lot of the snow melts."

"What is that you are saying?" demanded Bower bruskly. Helen and the
two men had reached the level of the _cabane_; but Stampa, thinking
they would all enter, kept in the rear, "If that fairy tale accounts
for your errand, you are on a wild goose chase, Mr. Spencer."

He had not heard the American's words clearly; but he gathered
sufficient to account for the younger man's motive in following them,
and was furiously annoyed by this unlooked for interruption. He had no
syllable of thanks for a friendly action. Though no small risk
attended the crossing of the Forno during a gale, it was evident he
strongly resented the presence of both Spencer and the guide.

Helen, after her first eager outburst, was tongue tied. She saw that
her would-be rescuers were dripping wet, and was amazed that Bower
should greet them so curtly, though, to be sure, she believed
implicitly that the storm would soon pass. Stampa was already inside
the hut. He was haranguing Barth and the porter vehemently, and they
were listening with a curious submissiveness.

Spencer was the most collected person present. He brushed aside
Bower's acrimony as lightly as he had accepted Helen's embarrassed
explanation. "This is not my hustle at all," he said. "Stampa heard
that his adored _sigñorina_----"

"Stampa! Is that Stampa?"

Bower's strident voice was hushed to a hoarse murmur. It reminded one
of his hearers of a growling dog suddenly cowed by fear. Helen's ears
were tuned to this perplexing note; but Spencer interpreted it
according to his dislike of the man.

"Stampa heard," he went on, with cold-drawn precision, "that Miss
Wynton had gone to the Forno. He is by far the most experienced guide
to be found on this side of the Alps, and he believes that anyone
remaining up here to-day will surely be imprisoned in the hut a week
or more by bad weather. In fact, even now an hour may make all the
difference between danger and safety. Perhaps you can convince him he
is wrong. I know nothing about it, beyond the evidence of my senses,
backed up by some acquaintance with blizzards. Anyhow, I am inclined
to think that Miss Wynton will be wise if she listens to the points of
the argument in the hotel."

"Perhaps it would be better to return at once," said Helen timidly.
Her sensitive nature warned her that these two men were ready to
quarrel, and that she herself, in some nebulous way, was the cause of
their mutual enmity.

Beyond this her intuition could not travel. It was impossible that she
should realize how sorely her wish to placate Bower disquieted
Spencer. He had seen the two under conditions that might, indeed, be
explicable by Helen's fright; but he would extend no such charitable
consideration to Bower, whose conduct, no matter how it was viewed,
made him a rival. Yes, it had come to that. Spencer had hardly spoken
a word to Stampa during the toilsome journey from Maloja. He had
looked facts stubbornly in the face, and the looking served to clear
certain doubts from his heart and brain. He wanted to woo and win
Helen for his wife. He was enmeshed in a net of his own contriving,
and its strands were too strong to be broken. If Helen was reft from
him now, he would gaze on a darkened world for many a day.

But he was endowed with a splendid self control. That element of cast
steel in his composition, discovered by Dunston after five minutes'
acquaintance, kept him rigid under the strain.

"Sorry I should figure as spoiling your excursion, Miss Wynton," he
was able to say calmly; "but, when all is said and done, the weather
is bad, and you will have plenty of fine days later."

Bower crept nearer. His action suggested stealth. Although the wind
was howling under the deep eaves of the hut, he almost whispered.
"Yes, you are right--quite right. Let us go now--at once. With you and
me, Mr. Spencer, Miss Wynton will be safe--safer than with the guides.
They can follow with the stores. Come! There is no time to be lost!"

The others were so taken aback by his astounding change of front that
they were silent for an instant. It was Helen who protested, firmly
enough.

"The lightning seems to have given us an attack of nerves," she said.
"It would be ridiculous to rush off in that manner----"

"But there is peril--real peril--in delay. I admit it. I was wrong."

Bower's anxiety was only too evident. Spencer, regarding him from a
single viewpoint, deemed him a coward, and his gorge rose at the
thought.

"Oh, nonsense!" he cried contemptuously. "We shall be two hours on the
glacier, so five more minutes won't cut any ice. If you have food and
drink in there, Stampa certainly wants both. We all need them. We have
to meet that gale all the way. The two hours may become three before
we reach the path."

Helen guessed the reason of his disdain. It was unjust; but the moment
did not permit of a hint that he was mistaken. To save Bower from
further commitment--which, she was convinced, was due entirely to
regard for her own safety--she went into the hut.

"Stampa," she said, "I am very much obliged to you for taking so much
trouble. I suppose we may eat something before we start?"

"Assuredly, _fräulein_," he cried. "Am I not here? Were it to begin to
snow at once, I could still bring you unharmed to the chalets."

Josef Barth had borne Stampa's reproaches with surly deference; but he
refused to be degraded in this fashion--before Karl, too, whose tongue
wagged so loosely.

"That is the talk of a foolish boy, not of a man," he cried
wrathfully. "Am I not fitted, then, to take mademoiselle home after
bringing her here?"

"Truly, on a fine day, Josef," was the smiling answer.

"I told monsieur that a _guxe_ was blowing up from the south; so did
Karl; but he would not hearken. _Ma foi!_ I am not to blame." Barth,
on his dignity, introduced a few words of French picked up from the
Chamounix men. He fancied they would awe Stampa, and prove
incidentally how wide was his own experience.

The old guide only laughed. "A nice pair, you and Karl," he shouted.
"Are the voyageurs in your care or not? You told monsieur, indeed! You
ought to have refused to take mademoiselle. That would have settled
the affair, I fancy."

"But this monsieur knows as much about the mountains as any of us. He
might surprise even you, Stampa. He has climbed the Matterhorn from
Zermatt and Breuil. He has come down the rock wall on the Col des
Nantillons. How is one to argue with such a _voyageur_ on this child's
glacier?"

Stampa whistled. "Oh--knows the Matterhorn, does he? What is his
name?"

"Bower," said Helen,--"Mr. Mark Bower."

"What! Say that again, _fräulein_! Mark Bower? Is that your English
way of putting it?"

Helen attributed Stampa's low hiss to a tardy recognition of Bower's
fame as a mountaineer. Though the hour was noon, the light was feeble.
Veritable thunder clouds had gathered above the mist, and the
expression of Stampa's face was almost hidden in the obscurity of the
hut.

"That is his name," she repeated. "You must have heard of him. He was
well known on the high Alps--years ago." She paused before she added
those concluding words. She was about to say "in your time," but the
substituted phrase was less personal, since the circumstances under
which Stampa ceased to be a notability in "the street" at Zermatt were
in her mind.

"God in heaven!" muttered the old man, passing a hand over his face as
though waking from a dream,--"God in heaven! can it be that my prayer
is answered at last?" He shambled out.

Spencer had waited to watch the almost continuous blaze of lightning
playing on the glacier. Distant summits were now looming through the
diminishing downpour of sleet. He was wondering if by any chance
Stampa might be mistaken. Bower stood somewhat apart, seemingly
engaged in the same engrossing task. The wind was not quite so fierce
as during its first onset. It blew in gusts. No longer screaming in a
shrill and sustained note, it wailed fitfully.

Stampa lurched unevenly close to Bower. He was about to touch him on
the shoulder; but he appeared to recollect himself in time.

"Marcus Bauer," he said in a voice that was terrible by reason of its
restraint.

Bower wheeled suddenly. He did not flinch. His manner suggested a
certain preparedness. Thus might a strong man face a wild beast when
hope lay only in the matching of sinew against sinew. "That is not my
name," he snarled viciously.

"Marcus Bauer," repeated Stampa in the same repressed monotone, "I am
Etta's father."

"Why do you address me in that fashion? I have never before seen you."

"No. You took care of that. You feared Etta's father, though you cared
little for Christian Stampa, the guide. But I have seen you, Marcus
Bauer. You were slim then--an elegant, is it not?--and many a time
have I hobbled into the Hotel Mont Cervin to look at your portrait in
a group lest I should forget your face. Yet I passed you just now!
Great God! I passed you."

A ferocity glared from Bower's eyes that might well have daunted
Stampa. For an instant he glanced toward Spencer, whose clear cut
profile was silhouetted against a background of white-blue ice now
gleaming in a constant flutter of lightning. Stampa was not yet aware
of the true cause of Bower's frenzy. He thought that terror was
spurring him to self defense. An insane impulse to kill, to fight with
the nails and teeth, almost mastered him; but that must not be yet.

"It is useless, Marcus Bauer," he said, with a calmness so horribly
unreal that its deadly intent was all the more manifest. "I am the
avenger, not you. I can tear you to pieces with my hands when I will.
It would be here and now, were it not for the presence of the English
_sigñorina_ who saved me from death. It is not meet that she should
witness your expiation. That is to be settled between you and me
alone."

Bower made one last effort to assert himself. "You are talking in
riddles, man," he said. "If you believe you have some long forgotten
grievance against one of my name, come and see me to-morrow at the
hotel. Perhaps----"

"Yes, I shall see you to-morrow. Do not dream that you can escape me.
Now that I know you live, I would search the wide world for you.
Blessed Mother! How you must have feared me all these years!"

Stampa was using the Romansch dialect of the Italian Alps. Bower spoke
in German. Spencer heard them indistinctly. He marveled that they
should discuss, as he imagined, the state of the weather with such
subdued passion.

"Hello, Christian," he cried, "the clouds are lifting somewhat. Where
is your promised snow?"

Stampa peered up into Bower's face; for his twisted leg had reduced
his own unusual height by many inches. "To-morrow!" he whispered. "At
ten o'clock--outside the hotel. Then we have a settlement. Is it so?"

There was no answer. Bower was wrestling with a mad desire to grapple
with him and fling him down among the black rocks. Stampa crept
nearer. A ghastly smile lit his rugged features, and his _pickel_
clattered to the broken shingle at his feet.

"I offer you to-morrow," he said. "I am in no hurry. Have I not waited
sixteen years? But it may be that you are tortured by a devil, Marcus
Bauer. Shall it be now?"

The clean-souled peasant believed that the millionaire had a
conscience. Not yet did he understand that balked desire is stronger
than any conscience. It really seemed that nothing could withhold
these two from mortal struggle then and there. Spencer was regarding
them curiously; but they paid no heed to him. Bower's tongue was
darting in and out between his teeth. The red blood surged to his
temples. Stampa was still smiling. His lips moved in the strangest
prayer that ever came from a man's heart. He was actually thanking the
Madonna--mother of the great peacemaker--for having brought his enemy
within reach!

"Mr. Bower!" came Helen's voice from the door of the _cabane_. "Why
don't you join us? And you, Mr. Spencer? Stampa, come here and eat at
once."

"To-morrow, at ten? Or now?" the old man whispered again.

"To-morrow--curse you!"

Stampa twisted himself round. "I am not hungry, _fräulein_," he cried.
"I ate chocolate all the way up the glacier. But do you be speedy. We
have lost too much time already."

Bower brushed past, and the guide stooped to recover his ice ax.
Spencer, though troubled sufficiently by his own disturbing fantasies,
did not fail to notice their peculiar behavior. But he answered Helen
with a pleasant disclaimer.

"Christian kept his hoard a secret, Miss Wynton. I too have lost my
appetite," said he.

"Once we start we shall hardly be able to unpack the hamper again,"
said Helen.

The American was trying her temper. She suspected that he carried his
hostility to the absurd pitch of refusing to partake of any food
provided by Bower. It was a queer coincidence that Spencer harbored
the same notion with regard to Stampa, and wondered at it.

"I shall starve willingly," he said. "It will be a just punishment for
declining the good things that did not tempt me when they were
available."

Bower poured out a quantity of wine and drank it at a gulp. He
refilled the glass and nearly emptied it a second time. But he touched
not a morsel of meat or bread. Helen, fortunately, attributed the
conduct of the men to spleen. She ate a sandwich, and found that she
was far more ready for a meal than she had imagined.

Stampa's broad frame darkened the doorway. He told Karl not to burden
himself with anything save the cutlery. Now that he was the skilled
guide again, the leader in whom they trusted, his worn face was
animated and his voice eager.

Helen heard Spencer's exclamation without.

"By Jove, Stampa! you are right! Here comes the snow."

"Quick, quick!" cried Stampa. "_Vorwärtz_, Barth. You lead. Stop at my
call. Karl next--then the _fräulein_ and my monsieur. Yours follows,
and I come last."

"No, no!" burst out Bower, lowering a third glass of wine from his
lips.

"_Che diavolo!_ It shall be as I have said!" shouted Stampa, with an
imperious gesture. Helen remarked it; but things were being done and
said that were inexplicable. Even Bower was silenced.

"Are we to be roped, then?" growled Barth.

"Have you never crossed ice during a snow storm?" asked Stampa.

In a few minutes they were ready. The lightning flashes were less
frequent, and the thunder was muttering far away amid the secret
places of the Bernina. The wind was rising again. Instead of sleet it
carried snowflakes, and these did not sting the face nor patter on the
ice. But they clung everywhere, and the sable rocks were taking unto
themselves a new garment.

"_Vorwärtz!_" rang out Stampa's trumpet like call, and Barth leaped
down into the moraine.




CHAPTER X

ON THE GLACIER


Barth, a good man on ice and rock, was not a genius among guides.
Faced by an apparently unscalable rock wall, or lost in a wilderness
of séracs, he would never guess the one way that led to success. But
he was skilled in the technic of his profession, and did not make the
mistake now of subjecting Helen or Spencer to the risk of an ugly
fall. The air temperature had dropped from eighty degrees Fahrenheit
to below freezing point. Rocks that gave safe foothold an hour earlier
were now glazed with an amalgam of sleet and snow. If, in his dull
mind, he wondered why Spencer came next to Helen, rather than Bower or
Stampa,--either of whom would know exactly when to give that timely
aid with the rope that imparts such confidence to the novice,--he said
nothing. Stampa's eye was on him. His pride was up in arms. It
behooved him to press on at just the right pace, and commit no
blunder.

Helen, who had been glad to get back to the moraine during the ascent,
was ready to breathe a sigh of relief when she felt her feet on the
ice again. Those treacherous rocks were affrighting. They bereft her
of trust in her own limbs. She seemed to slip here and there without
power to check herself. She expected at any moment to stumble
helplessly on some cruelly sharp angle of a granite boulder, and find
that she was maimed so badly as to render another step impossible.
More than once she was sensible that the restraining pull on the rope
alone held her from disaster. Her distress did not hinder the growth
of a certain surprise that the American should be so sure footed, so
quick to judge her needs. When by his help a headlong downward plunge
was converted into a harmless slide over the sloping face of a rock,
she half turned.

"I must thank you for that afterward," she said, with a fine effort at
a smile.

"Eyes front, please," was the quiet answer.

Under less strenuous conditions it might have sounded curt; but the
look that met hers robbed the words of their tenseness, and sent the
hot blood tingling in her veins. Bower had never looked at her like
that. Just as some unusually vivid flash of lightning revealed the
hidden depths of a crevasse, bringing plainly before the eye chinks
and crannies not discernible in the strongest sunlight, so did the
glimpse of Spencer's soul illumine her understanding. He was not only
safeguarding her, but thinking of her, and the stolen knowledge set up
a bewildering tumult in her heart.

"Attention!" shouted Barth, halting and making a drive at something
with his ax.

The line stopped. Stampa's ringing voice came over Helen's head:

"What is that ahead there?"

"A new fall, I think. We ought to leave the moraine a little lower
down; but this was not here when we ascended."

How either man, Stampa especially, could see anything at all, was
beyond the girl's comprehension. The snow was absolutely blinding. The
wind was full in their faces, and it carried the huge flakes upward.
They seemed to spring from beneath rather than drop from the clouds.
Ever and anon a weirdly blue gleam of lightning would give a demoniac
touch to a scene worthy of the Inferno.

"Make for the ice--quick!" cried Stampa, and Barth turned sharply to
the left. Falling stones were now their chief danger, and both men
were anxious to avoid it.

After a brief scramble they mounted the curving glacier. A fiercer
gust shrieked at them and swept some small space clear of snow. Helen
had a dim vision of lightning playing above the crest of a great mound
on the edge of the ice field,--a mound that she did not remember
seeing before. Then the gale sank back to its sustained howling, the
snow swirled in denser volume, and the specter vanished.

Ere they had gone another hundred yards, Barth's hoarse warning
checked them again. "The bridge has fallen!" was his cry. "There has
been an ice movement."

There was a question in the man's words. Here was a nice point
submitted to his judgment,--whether to follow the line of the recently
formed schrund yawning at his feet, or endeavor to cross it, or go
back to the scene of the landslip? That was where Barth was lacking.
In that instant he resigned his pride of place without further effort
to retain it. He was in the van, but did not lead. Thenceforth Stampa
was master.

"What is the width--ten meters?" demanded the old guide cheerfully.

"About that."

"All the better. It is not deep here. The shock of that avalanche
opened it up. You will find a way down. Cut the steps close together.
You know how to polish them, Karl?"

"Yes, I can do that," said the porter.

"And watch the _sigñorina's_ feet."

"Yes, I'll take care."

Barth was peering fixedly into the chasm. To Helen's fancy it was
bottomless, though in reality it was not more than forty feet deep,
and the two walls fell away from each other at a practicable angle. In
normal summer weather, a small crevasse always formed there owing to
the glacier flowing over a transverse ridge of rock beneath. To-day
the impact of many thousands of tons of débris had disrupted the ice
to an unusual extent. Having decided on the best line, the leading
guide stepped over into space. Helen heard his ax ringing as he
fashioned secure foothold down the steep ledge he had selected. He was
quite trustworthy in such work.

Stampa, who had a thought for none save Helen, gave her a reassuring
word. "Barth will find a way, _fräulein_," he said. "And Herr Spencer
knows how you should cross your feet and carry your ax, while Karl
will see to your foothold. Remember too that you will be at the bottom
before I begin the descent, so no harm can come to you. Try and stand
straight. Don't lean against the slope. Lean away from it. Don't be
afraid. Don't trust to the rope or the grip of the ax. Rely on your
own stand."

It was no time to pick and choose phrases, yet Helen realized the
oddity of the absence of any reference to Bower. One other in the
party had a thought somewhat akin to hers; but he slurred it over in
his mind, and seized the opportunity to help her by a casual remark.

"Guess you hardly expected genuine ice work in to-day's trip?" he
said. "Stampa and I had a lot of it last week. It's as easy as walking
down stairs when you know how."

"I don't think I am afraid," she answered; "but I should have
preferred to walk up stairs first. This is rather reversing the
natural order of things, isn't it?"

"Nature loves irregularities. That is why the prize girl in every
novel has irregular features. A heroine with a Greek face would kill a
whole library."

"_Vorwärtz--es geht!_"

Barth's gruff voice sounded hollow from the depths. Karl, in his turn,
went over the lip of the crevasse. Helen, conscious of an exaltation
that lifted her out of the region of ignoble fear, looked down. She
could see now what was being done. Barth was swinging his ax and
smiting the ice with the adz. His head was just below the level of her
feet, though he was distant the full length of two sections of the
rope. He had cut broad black steps. They did not seem to present any
great difficulty. Helen found herself speculating on the remarkable
light effects that made these notches black in a gray-green wall.

"Right foot first," said Spencer quietly. "When that is firmly fixed,
throw all your weight on it, and bring the left down. Then the right
again. Hold the pick breast high."

"So!" cried Karl appreciatively, watching her first successful effort.

As Spencer was lowering himself into the crevasse, he heard something
that set his nimble wits agog. Stampa, the valiant and light hearted
Stampa, the genial companion who had laughed and jested even when they
were crossing an ice slope on the giant Monte della Disgrazia,--a
traverse of precarious clinging, where a slip meant death a thousand
feet below,--was muttering strangely at Bower.

"_Schwein-hund!_" he was saying, "if any evil befalls the _fräulein_,
I shall drive my ax between your shoulder blades."

There was no reply. Spencer was sure he was not mistaken. Though the
guide spoke German, he knew enough of that language to understand this
comparatively simple sentence. Quite as amazing as Stampa's threat was
Bower's silent acceptance of it. He began to piece together some
fleeting impressions of the curious wrangle between the two outside
the hut. He recalled Bower's extraordinary change of tone when told
that a man named Christian Stampa had followed him from Maloja.

Helen was just taking another confident step forward and down,
balancing herself with graceful assurance. Spencer had a few seconds
in which to steal a backward glance, and a flash of lightning happened
to glimmer on Bower's features. The American was not given to fanciful
imaginings; but during many a wild hour in the Far West he had seen
the baleful frown of murder on a man's face too often not to recognize
it now in this snow scourged cleft of a mighty Alpine glacier. Yet he
was helpless. He could neither speak nor act on a mere opinion. He
could only watch, and be on his guard. From that moment he tried to
observe every movement not only of Helen but of Bower.

The members of the party were roped at intervals of twenty feet.
Allowing for the depth of the crevasse, the amount of rope taken up in
their hands ready to be served out as occasion required, and the
inclination of Barth's line of descent, the latter ought to be
notching the opposing wall before Stampa quitted the surface of the
glacier. Though Spencer could not see Stampa now, he knew that the
rear guide was bracing himself strongly against any tell-tale jerk,
with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick
of his ax deeply into the surface ice. It was Bower's business to keep
the rope quite taut both above and below; but the American was sure
that he was gathering the slack behind him with his right hand while
he carried the ax in his left, and did not use it to steady himself.

Spencer assumed, from various comments by Helen and others, that Bower
was an adept climber. Therefore, the passage of a schrund, or large,
shallow crevasse was child's play to him. This departure from all the
canons of the craft as imparted by Stampa during their first week on
the hills together, struck Spencer as exceedingly dangerous. He
reflected that were it not for the words he had overheard, he would
never have known of this curious proceeding. Indeed, but for those
words, with their sinister significance augmented by Bower's devilish
expression, had he even looked back by chance, the maneuver might not
have attracted his attention. What, then, did it imply? Why should a
skilled mountaineer break an imperative rule that permits of no
exceptions? He continued to watch Bower even more closely. He devoted
to the task every instant that consideration for Helen's safety and
his own would allow.

There was not much light in the crevasse. Heavy clouds and the
smothering snow wraiths hid the travelers under a dense pall that
suggested the approach of night, although the actual time was about
half past one o'clock in the afternoon. The wind seemed to delight in
torturing them with minute particles of ice that stung with a peculiar
sensation of burning. These were bad enough. To add to their miseries,
fine, powdery snowflakes settled on eyes and eyelids with blinding
effect.

During a particularly baffling gust Helen uttered a slight
exclamation. Instantly Spencer stiffened himself, and Barth and Karl
halted.

"It is nothing," she cried. "For a second I could not see."

Barth's ax rang out again. The vibrations of each lusty blow could be
felt distinctly along the solid ice wall. After a last downward step
he would begin to notch his way up the other side, where the angle was
much more favorable to rapid progress. Spencer stole another glance
over his shoulder. Bower had fully ten feet of the rearmost section of
rope in hand. His head was thrown well back. Standing with his face to
the ice, he was striving to look over the lip of the schrund. Stampa,
feeling a steady tension, must be expecting the announcement
momentarily that Barth was crossing the narrow crevice at the bottom.
Helen and Karl, intent on the operations of the leader, paid heed to
nothing else; but Spencer was fascinated by Bower's peculiar actions.

At last, Barth's deep bass reverberated triumphantly upward.
"_Vorwärtz!_"

"_Vorwärtz_, Stampa!" repeated Bower, suddenly changing the ice ax to
his right hand and stretching the left as far along the rope and as
high up as possible. Simultaneously he raised the ax. Then, and not
till then, did Spencer understand. Stampa must be on the point of
relaxing his grip and preparing to descend. If Bower cut the rope with
a single stroke of the adz, a violent tug at the sundered end would
precipitate Stampa headlong into the crevasse, while there would be
ample evidence to show that he had himself severed the rope by a
miscalculated blow. The fall would surely kill him. When his corpse
was recovered, it would be found that the cut had been made much
closer to his own body than to that of his nearest neighbor.

"Stop!" roared Spencer, all a-quiver with wrath at his discovery.

Obedience to the climbers' law held the others rigid. That command
implied danger. It called for an instant tightening of every muscle to
withstand the strain of a slip. Even Bower, a man on the very brink of
committing a fiendish crime, yielded to a subconscious acceptance of
the law, and kept himself braced in his steps.

The American was well fitted to handle a crisis of that nature. "Hold
fast, Stampa!" he shouted.

"What is wrong?" came the ready cry, for the rear guide had already
driven the pick of his ax into the ice again after having withdrawn
it.

Then Spencer spoke English. "I happen to be watching you," he said
slowly, never relaxing a steel-cold scrutiny of Bower's livid face.
"You seem to forget what you are doing. Follow me until you have taken
up the slack of the rope. Do you understand?"

Bower continued to gaze at him with lack-luster eyes. All he realized
was that his murderous design was frustrated; but how or why he
neither knew nor cared.

"Do you hear me?" demanded Spencer even more sternly. "Come along, or
I shall explain myself more fully!"

Without answering, the other made shift to move. Spencer, however,
meant to save the unwitting guide from further hazard.

"Don't stir, Stampa, till I give the order!" he sang out.

"All right, monsieur, but we are losing time. What is Barth doing
there? _Saperlotte!_ If I were in front----"

Bower, who owned certain strong qualities, swallowed something, took
three strides downward, and said calmly: "I was waiting to give
Stampa a hand. He is lame, you know."

Helen, of course, heard all that passed. She had long since abandoned
the effort to disentangle the skein of that day's events. Everybody
was talking and acting unnaturally. Perhaps the ravel of things would
clear itself when they regained the commonplace world of the hotel. In
any case, she wished the men would hurry, for it was unutterably cold
in the crevasse.

At last, then, there was a movement ahead.

Barth began to mount. Muttering an instruction to Karl that he was to
give the girl a friendly pull, he cut smaller steps more widely apart
and at a steeper gradient. Soon they were on the floor of the ice and
hurrying to the next bridge. Not a word was spoken by anyone. The fury
of the gale and the ever gathering snow made it imperative that not a
moment should be wasted. The lightning was decreasing perceptibly,
while the occasional peals of thunder were scarcely audible above the
soughing of the wind. A tremendous crash on the right announced the
fall of another avalanche; but it did not affect the next broad
crevasse. The bridge they had used a few hours earlier stood firm.
Indeed, it was new welded by regelation since the sun's rays had
disappeared.

The leader kept a perfect line, never deviating from the right track.
Helen, who had completely lost her bearings, thought they had a long
way farther to go, when she saw Barth stop and begin to unfasten the
rope. Then a thrust with the butt of her _pickel_ told her that she
was standing on rock. When she cleared her eyes of the flying snow,
she saw a well defined curving ribbon amid the white chaos. It was the
path, covered six inches deep. The violent exertions of nearly three
hours since she left the hut had induced a pleasant sense of languor.
Did she dare to suggest it, she would have liked to sit down and rest
for awhile.

Bower, who had substituted reasoned thought for his madness, addressed
Spencer with easy complacence while Barth was unroping them. "Why did
you believe that I was doing a risky thing in stopping to assist
Stampa?" he asked.

"I guess you know best," was the uncompromising answer.

"Yes, I think I do. Of course, I could not argue the matter then, but
I fancy my climbing experience is far greater than yours, Mr.
Spencer."

His sheer impudence was admirable. He even smiled in the superior way
of an expert lecturing a novice. But Spencer did not smile.

"Do you really want to hear my views on your conduct?" he said.

"No, thanks. The discussion might prove interesting, but we can
adjourn it to the coffee and cigar period after dinner."

His eyes fell under Spencer's contemptuous glance. Yet he carried
himself bravely. Though the man he meant to kill, and another man who
had read his inmost thought in time to prevent a tragedy, were looking
at him fixedly, he turned away with a laugh on his lips.

"I am afraid, Miss Wynton, you will regard me in future as a broken
reed where Alpine excursions are concerned," he said.

"You were mistaken--that is obvious," said Helen frankly. "But so was
Barth. He agreed that the storm would be only a passing affair. Don't
you think we are very deeply indebted to Mr. Spencer and Stampa for
coming to our assistance?"

"I do, indeed. Stampa, one can reward in kind. This sort of thing used
to be his business, I hear. As for Mr. Spencer, a smile from you will
repay him tenfold."

"Herr Spencer," broke in Stampa, "you go on with the _sigñorina_ and
see that she does not slip. She is tired. Marcus Bauer and I have
matters to discuss."

The old man's unwonted harshness appealed to the girl as did the host
of other queer happenings on that memorable day. Bower moved uneasily.
A vindictive gleam shot from his eyes. Helen missed none of this. But
she was fatigued, and her feet were cold and wet, while the sleet
encountered on the upper glacier had almost soaked her to the skin.
Nevertheless, she strove bravely to lighten the cloud that seemed to
have settled on the men.

"That means a wordy warfare," she said gayly. "I pity you, Mr. Bower.
You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a
foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of
us up there in the hut!"

He bowed gracefully, with a hint of the foreign air she had noted once
before. "I would have brought you safely out of greater perils," he
said; "but every dog has his day, and this is Stampa's."

"_En route!_" cried the guide impatiently. He loathed the sight of
Bower standing there, smiling and courteous, in the presence of one
whom he regarded as a Heaven-sent friend and protectress. Spencer
attributed his surliness to its true cause. It supplied another bit
of the mosaic he was slowly piecing together. Greatly as he preferred
Helen's company, he was willing to sacrifice at least ten minutes of
it, could he but listen to the "discussion" between Stampa and Bower.

Therein he would have erred greatly. Helen was tired, and she admitted
it. She did not decline his aid when the path was steep and slippery.
In delightful snatches of talk they managed to say a good deal to each
other, and Helen did not fail to make plain the exact circumstances
under which she first caught sight of Spencer outside the hut. When
they arrived at the carriage road, which begins at Lake Cavloccio,
they could walk side by side and chat freely. Here, in the valley,
matters were normal. The snow did not place such a veil on all things.
The windings of the road often brought them abreast of the four men
in the rear. Bower was trudging along alone, holding his head down,
and seemingly lost in thought.

Close behind him came Stampa and the Engadiners. Karl, of course, was
talking--the others might or might not be lending their ears to his
interminable gossip.

"We are outstripping our companions. Don't you think we ought to wait
for them?" said Helen once, when Bower chanced to look her way.

"No," said Spencer.

"You are exceedingly positive."

"I tried to be exceedingly negative."

"But why?"

"I rather fancy that they would jar on us."

"But Stampa's promised lecture appears to have ended?"

"I think it never began. It is a safe bet that Mr. Bower and he have
not exchanged a word since our last halt."

Helen laughed. "A genuine case of Greek meeting Greek," she said.
"Stampa is an excellent guide, I am sure; but Mr. Bower does really
know these mountains. I suppose anyone is liable to err in forecasting
Alpine weather."

"That is nothing. If it were you or I, Stampa would dismiss the point
with a grin. You heard how he chaffed Barth, yet trusted him with the
lead? No. These two have an old feud to settle. You will hear more of
it."

"A feud! Mr. Bower declared to me that Stampa was absolutely unknown
to him."

"It isn't necessary to know a man before you hate him. I can give you
a heap of historic examples. For instance, who has a good word to say
for Ananias?"

The girl understood that he meant to parry her question with a quip.
The cross purposes so much in evidence all day were baffling and
mysterious to its close.

"My own opinion is that both you and Stampa have taken an unreasonable
dislike to Mr. Bower," she said determinedly. The words were out
before she quite realized their import. She flushed a little.

Spencer was gazing down into the gorge of the Orlegna. The brawling
torrent chimed with his own mood; but his set face gave no token of
the storm within. He only said quietly, "How good it must be to have
you as a friend!"

"I have no reason to feel other than friendly to Mr. Bower," she
protested hotly. "It was the rarest good fortune for me that he came
to Maloja. I met him once in London, and a second time, by accident,
during my journey to Switzerland. Yet, widely known as he is in
society, he was sufficiently large minded to disregard the sneers and
innuendoes of some of those horrid women in the hotel. He has gone out
of his way to show me every kindness. Why should I not repay it by
speaking well of him?"

"I shall lay my head on the nearest tree stump, and you can smite me
with your ax, good and hard," said Spencer.

She laughed angrily. "I don't know what evil influence is possessing
us," she cried. "Everything is awry. Even the sun refuses to shine.
Here am I storming at one to whom I owe my life----"

"No," he broke in decisively. "Don't put it that way, because the
whole credit of the relief expedition is due to Stampa. Say, Miss
Wynton, may I square my small services by asking a favor?"

"Oh, yes, indeed."

"Well, then, if it lies in your power, keep Stampa and Bower apart. In
any event, don't intervene in their quarrel."

"So you are quite serious in your belief that there is a quarrel?"

The American saw again in his mind's eye the scene in the crevasse
when Bower had raised his ax to strike. "Quite serious," he replied,
and the gravity in his voice was so marked that Helen placed a
contrite hand on his arm for an instant.

"Please, I am sorry if I was rude to you just now," she said. "I have
had a long day, and my nerves are worn to a fine edge. I used to
flatter myself that I hadn't any nerves; but they have come to the
surface here. It must be the thin air."

"Then it is a bad place for an American."

"Ah, that reminds me of something I had forgotten. I meant to ask you
how you came to remain in the Maloja. Is that too inquisitive on my
part? I can account for the presence of the other Americans in the
hotel. They belong to the Paris colony, and are interested in tennis
and golf. I have not seen you playing either game. In fact, you moon
about in solitary grandeur, like myself. And--oh, dear! what a string
of questions!--is it true that you wanted to play baccarat with Mr.
Bower for a thousand pounds?"

"It is true that I agreed to share a bank with Mr. Dunston, and the
figure you mention was suggested; but I backed out of the
proposition."

"Why?"

"Because your friend, Mr. Hare, thought he was responsible, in a
sense, having introduced me to Dunston; so I let up on the idea,--just
to stop him from feeling bad about it."

"You really meant to play in the first instance?"

"Yes."

"Well, it was very wicked of you. Only the other day you were telling
me how hard you had to work before you saved your first thousand
pounds."

"From that point of view my conduct was idiotic. But I would like to
carry the story a little further, Miss Wynton. I was in a mood that
night to oppose Mr. Bower for a much more valuable stake if the chance
offered."

"It is rather shocking," said Helen.

"I suppose so. Of course, there are prizes in life that cannot be
measured by monetary standards."

He was not looking at the Orlegna now, and the girl by his side well
knew it. The great revelation that flooded her soul with light while
crossing the Forno came back with renewed power. She did not pretend
to herself that the words were devoid of a hidden meaning, and her
heart fluttered with subtle ecstasy. But she was proud and self
reliant, so proud that she crushed the tumult in her breast, so self
reliant that she was able to give him a timid smile.

"That deals with the second head of the indictment, then," she said
lightly. "Now for the first. Why did you select the Engadine for your
holiday?"

"If I could tell you that, I should know something of the occult
impulses that govern men's lives. One minute I was in London, meaning
to go north. The next I was hurrying to buy a ticket for St. Moritz."

"But----" She meant to continue, "you arrived here the same day as I
did." Somehow that did not sound quite the right thing to say. Her
tongue tripped; but she forced herself to frame a sentence. "It is odd
that you, like myself, should have hit upon an out of the way place
like Maloja. The difference is that I was sent here, whereas you came
of your own free will."

"I guess you are right," said he, laughing as though she had uttered
an exquisite joke. "Yes, that is just it. I can imagine two young
English swallows, meeting in Algeria in the winter, twittering
explanations of the same sort."

"I don't feel a bit like a swallow, and I am sure I can't twitter, and
as for Algeria, a home of sunshine--well, just look at it!" She waved
a hand at the darkening panorama of hills and pine woods, all etched
in black lines and masses, where rocks and trees and houses broke the
dead white of the snow mantle.

They happened to be crossing a bridge that spans the Orlegna before it
takes its first frantic plunge towards Italy. Bower, who had quickened
his pace, took the gesture as a signal, and sent an answering
flourish. Helen stopped. He evidently wished to overtake them.

"More explanations," murmured Spencer.

"But he was mistaken. I was calling Nature to witness that your simile
was not justified."

"Tell you what," he said in a low voice, "if this storm has blown over
by the morning, meet me after breakfast, and we will walk down the
valley to Vicosoprano for luncheon. There is a diligence back in the
afternoon. We can stroll there in three hours, and I shall have time
to clear up this swallow proposition."

"That will be delightful, if the weather improves."

"It will. I will compel it."

Bower was nearing them rapidly. A constrained silence fell between
them. To end it, Helen cried:

"Well, are you feeling duly humbled, Mr. Bower?"

He did not seem to understand her meaning. Apparently, he might have
forgotten that Stampa still lived. Then he roused his wits with an
effort. "Not humbled, but elated," he said. "Have I not led you to
feats of derring-do? Why, the Wragg girls will be green with envy when
they hear of your exploits."

He swung round the corner to the bridge. After a smiling glance at
Spencer's impassive face, he turned to Helen. "You have come out of
the ordeal with flying colors," he said. "That flower you picked on
the way up has not withered. Give it to me as a memento."

The words were almost a challenge. The girl hesitated.

"No," she said. "I must find you some other souvenir."

"But I want that--if----"

"There is no 'if.' You forget that I took it from--from the boulder
marked by a cross."

"I am not superstitious."

"Nor am I. Nevertheless, I should not care to give you such a symbol."

She caught Bower and Spencer exchanging a strange look. These men
shared some secret that they sedulously kept from her. Perhaps the
American meant to enlighten her during their projected walk to
Vicosoprano.

Stampa and the others approached. Together they climbed the little
hill leading to the summit of the pass. In the village they said "Good
night" to the two guides and Karl.

Helen promised laughingly to make the acquaintance of Johann Klucker's
cat at the first opportunity. She was passing through a wicket that
protects the footpath across the golf links, when she heard Stampa
growl:

"_Morgen früh!_"

"_Ja!_" snapped Bower.

She smiled to herself at the thought that things were going to happen
to-morrow. She was right. But she had not yet done with the present
day. When she entered the cozy and brilliantly lighted veranda of the
hotel, the first person her amazed eyes alighted upon was Millicent
Jaques.




CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED HOUR


"Millicent! You here!" Helen breathed the words in an undertone that
carried more than a hint of dismay.

It was one of those rare crises in life when the brain receives a
presage of evil without any prior foundation of fact. Helen had every
reason to welcome her friend, none to be chilled by her unexpected
presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted
Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that
was owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did she
aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright
particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread
in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age
and sex who could speak of the golden years when they were children
together,--the years when Helen's father was the prospective governor
of an Indian province as large as France; when the tuft hunters now
gathered in Maloja would have fawned on her mother in hope of
subsequent recognition.

Why, then, did Helen falter in her greeting? Who can tell? She herself
did not know, unless it was that Millicent rose so leisurely from the
table at which she was drinking a belated cup of tea, and came toward
her with a smile that had no warmth in it.

"So you have returned," she said, "and with both cavaliers?"

Helen was conscious of a queer humming noise in her head. She was
incapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she had
left in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The veranda
was full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished them
from links and tennis court. This August afternoon was dark as
mid-December at the same hour. But the rendezvous was brilliantly
lighted, and the reappearance of the climbers, whose chances of safety
had been eagerly debated since the snow storm began, drew all eyes.
Someone had whispered too that the beautiful woman who arrived from
St. Moritz half an hour earlier, who sat in her furs and sipped her
tea after a long conversation with a clerk in the bureau, was none
other than Millicent Jaques, the dancer, one of the leading lights of
English musical comedy.

The peepers and whisperers little dreamed that she could be awaiting
the party from the Forno. Now that her vigil was explained, for Bower
had advanced with ready smile and outstretched hand, the Wraggs and
Vavasours and de la Veres--all the little coterie of gossips and
scandalmongers--were drawn to the center of the hall like steel
filings to a magnet.

Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough to
feel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflower
blue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of a
crevasse. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean to
forego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately,
with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floor
by her friend's strange words.

"I--I am so surprised----" she half stammered in an agony of confused
doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a few
trying seconds.

Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpse
of Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen's sake, in the presence
of that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood of
sarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips.

"Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day," he said coolly. "She must go
straight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk after
dinner." Without further preamble, he took Helen's arm.

Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid no
heed to the man. "I shall not detain you long," she said, looking only
at Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage training
rendered audible throughout the large hall. "I only wished to assure
myself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, even
when I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let me
congratulate you on your conquest--and Mr. Mark Bower on his," she
added, with clever pretense of afterthought.

Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; but
they uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent's
object. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way.

Bower dropped Helen's arm, and strode close to the woman who had
struck this shrewd blow at him. "I give you this one chance!" he
muttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. "Go to your room, or sit
down somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put things
straight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in your
suspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, you
will regret it to your dying hour!"

Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that his
nearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with due
semblance of real amusement. "What! Has she made a fool of you too?"
she cried bitingly.

Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. She
fainted.

Spencer, in his own vivid phrase, was "looking for trouble" the
instant he caught sight of the actress. Had some Mahatma-devised magic
lantern focused on the screen of his inner consciousness a complete
narrative of the circumstances which conspired to bring Millicent
Jaques to the Upper Engadine, he could not have mastered cause and
effect more fully. The unlucky letter he asked Mackenzie to send to
the Wellington Theater--the letter devised as a probe into Bower's
motives, but which was now cruelly searching its author's heart--had
undoubtedly supplied to a slighted woman the clew to her rival's
identity. Better posted than Bower in the true history of Helen's
visit to Switzerland, he did not fail to catch the most significant
word in Millicent's scornful greeting.

"And with _both_ cavaliers!"

In all probability, she knew the whole ridiculous story, reading into
it the meaning lent by jealous spleen, and no more to be convinced of
error than the Forno glacier could be made to flow backward.

 [Illustration: "No," said Spencer, "ring for the elevator."
                              _Page 217_]

But if his soul was vexed by a sense of bygone folly, his brain was
cool and alert. He saw Helen sway slightly. He caught her before she
collapsed where she stood. He gathered her tenderly in his arms. She
might have been a tired child, fallen asleep too soon. Her limp head
rested on his shoulder. Through the meshes of her blue veil he could
see the sudden pallor of her cheeks. The tint of the silk added to
the lifelessness of her aspect. Just then Spencer's heart was sore
within him, and he was an awkward man to oppose.

George de Courcy Vavasour happened to crane his neck nearer at the
wrong moment. The American sent him flying with a vigorous elbow
thrust. He shoved Bower aside with scant ceremony. Millicent Jaques
met a steely glance that quelled the vengeful sparkle in her own eyes,
and caused her to move quickly, lest, perchance, this pale-faced
American should trample on her. Before Bower could recover his
balance, for his hobnails caused him to slip on the tiled floor,
Spencer was halfway across the inner hall, and approaching the
elevator.

An official of the hotel hastened forward with ready proffer of help.
"This way," he said sympathetically. "The lady was overcome by the
heat after so many hours in the intense cold. It often occurs. She
will recover soon. Bring her to a chair in the office."

But Spencer was not willing that Helen's first wondering glance should
rest on strangers, or that, when able to walk to her own apartments,
she should be compelled to pass through the ranks of gapers in the
lounge.

"No," he said. "Ring for the elevator. This lady must be taken to her
room,--No. 80, I believe,--then the manageress and a chambermaid can
attend to her. Quick! the elevator!"

Bower turned on Millicent like an angry bull. "You have chosen your
own method," he growled. "Very well. You shall pay for it."

Her venom was such that she was by no means disturbed by his threat.
"The other man--the American who brought her here--seems to have
bested you throughout," she taunted him.

He drew himself up with a certain dignity. He was aware that every
tongue in the place was stilled, that every ear was tuned to catch
each note of this fantastic quartet,--a sonata appassionata in which
vibrated the souls of men and women. He looked from Millicent's pallid
face to the faces of the listeners, some of whom made pretense of
polite indifference, while others did not scruple to exhibit their
eager delight. If nothing better, the episode would provide an
abundance of spicy gossip during the enforced idleness caused by the
weather.

"The lady whom you are endeavoring to malign, will, I hope, do me the
honor of becoming my wife," he said. "That being so, she is beyond the
reach of the slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl."

He spoke slowly, with the air of a man who weighed his words. A thrill
that could be felt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, the
millionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerful
group in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and the
provinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be created
a peer with the next change of government,--that he should openly
declare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was a
sensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as an
ex-chorus girl offered another _bonne bouche_ to the crowd. She would
never again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, or
any other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned,
the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of West
End burlesque was snuffed out.

Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. "A charming
and proper sentiment," she cried with well simulated flippancy. "The
marriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, provided
always that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who is
paying his future wife's expenses during her present holiday."

Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallow
worldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadabouts
who pose as British society on the Continent, that already the current
of opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen's favor. The
remarkable change dated from the moment of Bower's public announcement
of his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lost
opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence--and the
worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the
company--that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding
fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. Mark
Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that
she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried
her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole
week without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favor
only to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet that
more than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of a
promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such
a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should
not miss the hook for lack of a bait.

Oddly enough, the Rev. Philip Hare gave voice to a general sentiment
when he interfered in the duel. He, like others, was waiting for
his letters. He saw Helen come in, and was hurrying to offer his
congratulations on her escape from the storm, when the appearance of
Millicent prevented him from speaking at once. The little man was hot
with vexation at the scene that followed. He liked Helen; he was
unutterably shocked by Millicent's attack; and he resented the unfair
and untrue construction that must be placed on her latest innuendo.

"As one who has made Miss Wynton's acquaintance in this hotel," he
broke in vehemently, "I must protest most emphatically against the
outrageous statement we have just heard. If I may say it, it is
unworthy of the lady who is responsible for it. I know nothing of your
quarrel, nor do I wish to figure in it; but I do declare, on my honor
as a clergyman of the Church of England, that Miss Wynton's conduct
in Maloja has in no way lent itself to the inference one is compelled
to draw from the words used."

"Thank you, Mr. Hare," said Bower quietly, and a subdued murmur of
applause buzzed through the gathering.

There is a legend in Zermatt that Saint Theodule, patron of the
Valais, wishing to reach Rome in a hurry, sought demoniac aid to
surmount the impassable barrier of the Alps. Opening his window, he
saw three devils dancing merrily on the housetops. He called them.
"Which of you is the speediest?" he asked. "I," said one, "I am
swift as the wind."--"Bah!" cried the second, "I can fly like a
bullet."--"These two talk idly," said the third. "I am quick as the
thought of a woman." The worthy prelate chose the third. The hour
being late, he bargained that he should be carried to Rome and back
before cockcrow, the price for the service to be his saintly soul. The
imp flew well, and returned to the valley of the Rhone long ere dawn.
Joyous at his gain, he was about to bound over the wall of the
episcopal city of Sion, when St. Theodule roared lustily, "_Coq,
chante! Que tu chantes! Ou que jamais plus tu ne chantes!_" Every cock
in Sion awoke at his voice, and raised such a din that the devil
dropped a bell given to his saintship by the Holy Father, and Saint
Theodule was snug and safe inside it.

The prelate was right in his choice of the third. The thoughts of two
women took wings instantly. Mrs. de la Vere, throwing away a
half-smoked cigarette, hurried out of the veranda. Millicent Jaques,
whose carriage was ready for the long drive to St. Moritz, decided to
remain in Maloja.

The outer door opened, with a rush of cold air and a whirl of snow.
People expected the postman; but Stampa entered,--only Stampa, the
broken survivor of the little band of guides who conquered the
Matterhorn. He doffed his Alpine hat, and seemed to be embarrassed by
the unusually large throng assembled in the passageway. Bower saw him,
and strode away into the dimly lighted foyer.

"Pardon, _'sieurs et 'dames_," said Stampa, advancing with his uneven
gait, a venerable and pathetic figure, the wreck of a giant, a man who
had aged years in a single day. He went to the bureau, and asked
permission to seek Herr Spencer in his room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Helen was struggling back to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joined
the kindly women who were loosening her bodice and chafing her hands
and feet.

The first words the girl heard were in English. A woman's voice was
saying cheerfully, "There, my dear!" a simple formula of marvelous
recuperative effect,--"there now! You are all right again. But your
room is bitterly cold. Won't you come into mine? It is quite near,
and my stove has been alight all day."

Helen, opening her eyes, found herself gazing up at Mrs. de la Vere.
Real sympathy ranks high among good deeds. The girl's lips quivered.
Returning life brought with it tears.

The woman whom she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside her
on the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. "Don't cry, you
dear thing," she cooed gently. "There is nothing to cry about. You are
a bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scored
heavily off all of us--and not least off the creature who upset you.
Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor is
empty. It is only a few steps."

"Come with you?"

"Yes, you are shivering with the cold, and my room is gloriously
warm."

"But----"

"There are no buts. Marie will bring a basin of nice hot soup. While
you are drinking it she will set your stove going. I know exactly how
you feel. The whole world is topsyturvy, and you don't think there is
a smile in your make-up, as that dear American man who carried you
here would say."

Helen recovered her senses with exceeding rapidity. Mrs. de la Vere
was already leading her to the door.

"What! Mr. Spencer--did he----"

"He did. Come, now. I shall tell you all the trying details when you
are seated in my easy chair, and wrapped in the duckiest Shetland
shawl that a red headed laird sent me last Christmas. Excellent! Of
course you can walk! Isn't every other woman in the hotel well aware
how you got that lovely figure? Yes, in that chair. And here is the
shawl. It's just like being cuddled by a woolly lamb."

Mrs. de la Vere turned the keys in two doors. "Reggie always knocks,"
she explained; "but some inquisitive cat may follow me here, and I am
sure you don't wish to be gushed over now, after everybody has been so
horrid to you."

"You were not," said Helen gratefully.

"Yes, I was, in a way. I hate most women; but I admired you ever since
you took the conceit out of that giddy husband of mine. If I didn't
speak, it arose from sheer laziness--a sort of drifting with the
stream, in tow of the General and that old mischief maker, Mrs.
Vavasour. I'm sorry, and you will be quite justified to-morrow morning
in sailing past me and the rest as though we were beetles."

Then Helen laughed, feebly, it is true, but with a genuine mirth that
chased away momentarily the evergrowing memory of Millicent's
injustice. "Why do you mention beetles?" she asked. "It is part of my
every day work to classify them."

Mrs. de la Vere was puzzled. "I believe you have said something very
cutting," she cried. "If you did, we deserve it. But please tell me
the joke. I shall hand it on to the Wraggs."

"There is no joke. I act as secretary to a German professor of
entomology--insects, you know; he makes beetles a specialty."

The other woman's eye danced. "It is all very funny," she said, "and
I still have my doubts. Never mind. I want to atone for earlier
shortcomings. I felt that someone really ought to tell you what took
place in the outer foyer after you sank gracefully out of the act. Mr.
Bower----"

A tap on the door leading into the corridor interrupted her. It was
Marie, armed with chicken broth and dry toast. Mrs. de la Vere, who
seemed to be filled with an honest anxiety to place Helen at her ease,
persuaded her to begin sipping the compound.

"Well, what did Mr. Bower do?" demanded Helen, who was wondering now
why she had fainted. The accusation brought against her by Millicent
Jaques was untrue. Why should it disturb her so gravely? It did not
occur to her that the true cause was physical,--a too sudden change of
temperature.

"He sat on that young woman from the Wellington Theater very severely,
I assure you. From her manner we all imagined she had some sort of
claim on him; but if she was laboring under any such delusion he cured
her. He said--Are you really strong enough to stand a shock?"

"Twenty shocks. I can't think how I could have been so silly----"

"Nerves, my dear. We all have 'em. Sometimes, if I didn't smoke I
should scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirting
openly with her friends. I'm no saint; but my wickedness is defensive.
Now, are you ready?"

"Quite ready."

"Mr. Bower told us, _tout le monde_, you know, that he meant to marry
you."

"Oh!" said Helen.

During an appreciable pause neither woman spoke. Helen was not sure
whether she wanted to laugh or be angry. Mrs. de la Vere eyed her
curiously. The girl's face was yet white and drawn. It was impossible
to guess how the great news affected her. The de la Veres were poor on
two thousand a year. What did it feel like to be the prospective bride
of a millionaire, especially when you were--what was it?--secretary to
a man who collected beetles!

"Did Mr. Bower assign any reason for making that remarkable
statement?" said Helen at last.

"He explained that the fact--I suppose it is a fact--would safeguard
you from the malice of an ex-coryphée. Indeed, he put it more
brutally. He spoke of the 'slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.'
The English term sounds a trifle harsher than the French, don't you
think?"

It began to dawn on Helen that Mrs. de la Vere's friendliness might
have a somewhat sordid foundation. Was she tending her merely to
secure the freshest details of an affair that must be causing many
tongues to wag?

"I am acquiring new theories of life since I came to Maloja," she said
slowly. "One would have thought that I might be the first person to be
made aware of Mr. Bower's intentions."

"Oh, this is really too funny. May I light a cigarette?"

"Please do. And now it is my turn to ask you to point out the
exquisite humor of the situation."

"Don't be vexed with me, child. You needn't say another word if you
don't wish it; but surely you are not annoyed because I have given you
the tip as to what took place in the hall?"

"You have been exceedingly good----"

"No. I haven't. I was just as nasty as the others, and I sneered like
the rest when Bower showed up a fortnight since. I was wrong, and I
apologize for it. Regard me as in sackcloth and ashes. But my heart
went out to you when you dropped like a log among all those staring
people. I've--I've done it myself, and my case was worse than yours.
Once in my life I loved a man, and I came home one day from the
hunting field to read a telegram from the War Office. He was
'missing,' it said--missing--in a rear-guard action in Tirah. Do you
know what that means?"

A cloud of smoke hid her face; but it could not stifle the sob in her
voice. There was a knock at the door.

"Are you there, Edith?" demanded Reginald de la Vere.

"Yes. Go away! I'm busy."

"But----"

"Go away, I tell you!"

Then she jerked a scornful hand toward the door. "Six months later I
was married--men who are missed among the Afridis don't come back,"
she said.

"I'm more sorry than I can put into words!" murmured Helen.

"For goodness' sake don't let us grow sentimental. Shall we return to
our sheep? Don't be afraid that I shall pasture the goats in the hall
on your confidences. Hasn't Bower asked you?"

"No."

"Then his action was all the more generous. He meant to squelch that
friend of yours--is she your friend?"

"She used to be," said Helen sadly.

"And what do you mean to do about it? You will marry Bower, of
course?"

Helen's heart fluttered. Her color rose in a sudden wave. "I--I don't
think so," she breathed.

"Don't you? Well, I like you the better for saying so. I can picture
myself putting the same questions to one of the Wragg girls--to both
of 'em, in fact. I am older than you, and very much wiser in some of
the world's ways, and my advice is, Don't marry any man unless you are
sure you love him. If you do love him, you may keep him, for men are
patient creatures. But that is for you to decide. I can't help you
there. I am mainly concerned, for the moment, in helping you over the
ice during the next day or two--if you will let me, that is. Probably
you have determined not to appear in public to-night. That will be a
mistake. Wear your prettiest frock, and dine with Reggie and me. We
shall invite Mr. Bower to join us, and two other people--some man and
woman I can depend on to keep things going. If we laugh and kick up no
end of a noise, it will not only worry the remainder of the crowd, but
you score heavily off the theatrical lady. See?"

"I can see that you are acting the part of the good Samaritan," cried
Helen.

"Oh, dear, no--nothing so antiquated. Look at your future
position--the avowed wife of a millionaire. Eh, what? as Georgie
says."

"But I am not anything of the kind. Mr. Bower----"

"Mr. Bower is all right. He has the recognized history of the man who
makes a good husband, and you can't help liking him, unless--unless
there is another man."

"There, at least, I am----" Helen hesitated. Something gripped her
heart and checked the modest protestation of her freedom.

Mrs. de la Vere laughed. "If you are not sure, you are safe," she
said, with a hard ring in her utterance that belied her easygoing
philosophy. "Really, you bring me back a lost decade. Now, Helen--may
I call you Helen?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, then, don't forget that my name is Edith. You have just half an
hour to dress. I need every second of the time; so off you run to your
room. As I hear Reggie flinging his boots around next door, I shall
hurry him and arrange about the table. Call for me. We must go to the
foyer together. Now kiss me, there's a dear."

Helen was wrestling with her refractory tresses--for the coiffure that
suits glaciers and Tam o'Shanters is not permissible in evening
dress--when a servant brought her a note.

     "DEAR MISS WYNTON," it ran,--"If you are able to come down
     to dinner, why not dine with me? Sincerely,

                              "CHARLES K. SPENCER."

She blushed and laughed a little. "I am in demand," she thought,
flashing a pardonable glance at her own face in the mirror. She read
the brief invitation again. Spencer had a trick of printing the K
in his signature. It caught her fancy. It suggested strength,
trustworthiness. She did not know then that one of the shrewdest
scoundrels in the Western States had already commented on certain
qualities betokened by that letter in Spencer's name.

"I cannot refuse," she murmured. "To be candid, I don't want to
refuse. What shall I do?"

Bidding the servant wait, she twisted her hair into a coil, threw a
wrap round her shoulders, and tapped on Mrs. de la Vere's door.

"_Entrez!_" cried that lady.

"I am in a bit of difficulty," said Helen. "Mr. Spencer wishes me to
dine with him. Would you----"

"Certainly. I'll ask him to join us. Reggie will see him too. Really,
Helen, this is amusing. I am beginning to suspect you."

So Spencer received a surprising answer. He read it without any sign
of the amusement Mrs. de la Vere extracted from the situation, for
Helen took care to recite the whole arrangement.

"I'm going through with this," he growled savagely, "even if I have to
drink Bower's health--damn him!"




CHAPTER XII

THE ALLIES


Seldom, if ever, has a more strangely assorted party met at dinner
than that which gathered in the Hotel Kursaal under the social wing of
Mrs. de la Vere. Her husband, while being coached in essentials, was
the first to discover its incongruities.

"Where Miss Wynton is concerned, you are warned off," his wife told
him dryly. "You must console yourself with Mrs. Badminton-Smythe. She
will stand anything to cut out a younger and prettier woman."

"Where do you come in, Edie?" said he; for Mrs. de la Vere's delicate
aristocratic beauty seemed to be the natural complement of her
sporting style, and to-night there was a wistful charm in her face
that the lively Reginald had not seen there before.

She turned aside, busying herself with her toilet. "I don't come in.
I went out five years ago," she cried, with a mocking laugh.

"Do you know," he muttered, "I often wonder why the deuce you an' I
got married."

"Because, sweet Reginald, we were made for each other by a wise
Providence. What other woman of your acquaintance would tolerate
you--as a husband?"

"Oh, dash it all! if it comes to that----"

"For goodness' sake, don't fuss, or begin to think. Run away and
interview the head waiter. Then you are to buttonhole Bower and the
American. I am just sending a chit to the Badminton-Smythes."

"Who is my partner?"

"Lulu, of course."

De la Vere was puzzled, and looked it. "I suppose it is all right," he
growled. "Still, I can't help thinking you've got something up your
sleeve, Edie."

She stamped a very pretty foot angrily. "Do as I tell you! Didn't
you hear what Bower said? He will be everlastingly obliged to us for
coming to the rescue in this fashion. Next time you have a flutter in
the city, his friendship may be useful."

"By gad!" cried Reginald, beginning, as he fancied, to see light,
"something seems to have bitten you this evening. Tell you what--Lulu
is a non-runner. Get Bower to put you on to a soft thing in Africans,
an' you an' I will have a second honeymoon in Madeira next winter.
Honor bright! I mean it."

She seized a silver mounted brush from the dressing table with the
obvious intent of speeding his departure. He dodged out, and strolled
down the corridor.

"Never saw Edie in that sort of tantrum before," he said to himself.
"If she only knew how sick I was of all this jolly rot, p'r'aps we'd
run better in double harness."

So it came to pass, when the company assembled in the great dining
room, that Bower sat on Mrs. de la Vere's left, and Spencer on her
right. Beyond them, respectively, were Lulu Badminton-Smythe and her
husband, and between these latter were de la Vere and Helen. Thus, the
girl was separated from the two men whom her shrewd eyed hostess had
classed as rivals, while the round table made possible a general
conversation.

The talk could hardly fail to turn on the day's adventures. Spencer,
who had never before in his life thrust himself forward in a social
gathering, did so now with fixed purpose. He meant to eclipse Bower in
a territory where that polished man of the world was accustomed to
reign unchallenged. But he had the wisdom to wait. He guessed, not
without good cause, that more than one late arrival would pause beside
their table and make polite inquiries as to the climbers' well being.
These interruptions were fatal to Bower's well balanced periods. The
journey to the hut, therefore, was dealt with jerkily.

When Spencer took up the thread, he caught and held the attention of
his hearers. In this he was helped considerably by his quaint idioms.
To English ears, American expressions are always amusing. Spencer, of
course, could speak quite as correct English as anyone present; but
he realized that in this instance a certain amount of picturesque
exaggeration would lend itself to humor. His quick ear too had missed
none of the queer mixture of prayers and objurgations with which Karl
and the two guides hailed every incident. His selections set them all
in a roar. In fact, they were the liveliest party in the room. Many an
eye was drawn by a merriment that offered such striking contrast to
the dramatic episode in the outer hall.

"The one person missing from that crowd is the stage lady," was Miss
Gladys Wragg's caustic comment, when Badminton-Smythe evoked a fresh
outburst by protesting that he forgot to eat his fish owing to
Spencer's beastly funny yarn.

And Miss Wragg's criticism was justified. It only needed Millicent's
presence to add a wizard's touch to the amazement with which Mrs.
Vavasour and others of her kind regarded the defection of the de la
Veres and the Badminton-Smythes. But Millicent was dining in her own
room. The last thing she dreamed of was that Helen would face the
other residents in the hotel after the ordeal she had gone through an
hour earlier. She half expected that Bower would endeavor to meet her
privately while dinner was being served. She was ready for him. She
prepared a number of sarcastic little speeches, each with a subtle
venom of its own, and even rehearsed a pose or two with a view toward
scenic effect. But she had neither taken Bower's measure nor counted
on Mrs. de la Vere's superior strategy. All that happened was that she
ate a lukewarm meal, and was left to wonder at her one-time admirer's
boldness in accepting a situation that many a daring man would have
striven to evade.

After dinner it was the custom of the habitués to break up into small
groups and arrange the night's amusement. Dancing claimed the younger
element, while card games had their devotees. Mrs. de la Vere danced
invariably; but to-night she devoted herself to Helen. She was under
no illusions. Bower and Spencer were engaged in a quiet duel, and the
victor meant to monopolize the girl for the remainder of the evening.
That was preventable. They could fight their battle on some other
occasion. At present there was one thing of vital importance,--the
unpleasant impression created by the actress's bitter attack must be
dissipated, and Mrs. de la Vere, secretly marveling at her own
enthusiasm, aimed at the achievement.

"Don't be drawn away from me on any pretext," she whispered, linking
her arm through Helen's as they passed out into the foyer. "And be
gracious to everybody, even to those who have been most cattish."

Helen was far too excited and grateful to harbor animosity. Moreover,
she dreaded the chance of being left alone with Bower. As he had
already declared his intentions publicly, she was sure he would seize
the first opportunity to ask her to marry him. And what would be her
answer? She hardly knew. She must have time to think. She must search
her own heart. She almost flinched from the succeeding thought,--was
it that her soul had found another mate? If that was so, she must
refuse Bower, though the man she was learning to love might pass out
of her life and leave her desolate.

She liked Bower, even respected him. Never for an instant had the
notion intruded that he had followed her to Switzerland with an
unworthy motive. To her mind, nothing could be more straightforward
than their acquaintance. The more she reflected on Millicent Jaques's
extraordinary conduct, the more she was astounded by its utter
baselessness. And Bower was admirable in many ways. He stood high in
the opinion of the world. He was rich, cultured, and seemingly very
deeply enamored of her undeserving self. What better husband could any
girl desire? He would give her everything that made life worth living.
Indeed, if the truth must be told, she was phenomenally lucky.

Thus did she strive to silence misgivings, to quell doubt, to order
and regulate a blurred medley of subconscious thought. While laughing,
and talking, and making the most successful efforts to be at ease
with the dozens of people who came and spoke to Mrs. de la Vere and
herself, she felt like some frail vessel dancing blithely in a swift,
smooth current, yet hastening ever to the verge of a cataract.

Once Bower approached, skillfully piloting Mrs. Badminton-Smythe; for
Reginald, tiring of the rôle thrust on him by his wife, had gone to
play bridge. It was his clear intent to take Helen from her chaperon.

"It is still snowing, though not so heavily," he said. "Come on the
veranda, and look at the landscape. The lake is a pool of ink in the
middle of a white table cloth."

"The snow will be far more visible in the morning, and we have a lot
of ice to melt here," interposed Mrs. de la Vere quickly.

The man and woman, both well versed in the ways of society, looked
each other squarely in the eye. Though disappointed, the man
understood, was even appreciative.

"Miss Wynton is fortunate in her friends," he said, and straightway
went to the writing room. He felt that Helen was safe with this
unexpected ally. He could afford to bide his time. Nothing could now
undo the effect of his open declaration while flouting Millicent
Jaques. If he gave that wayward young person a passing thought, it was
one of gladness that she had precipitated matters. There remained only
an unpleasant meeting with Stampa in the morning. He shuddered at the
recollection that he had nearly done a foolish thing while crossing
the crevasse. What sinister influence could have so weakened his
nerve as to make him think of murder? Crime was the last resource of
impaired intellect. He was able to laugh now at the stupid memory of
it.

True, the American----

By the way, what did Millicent mean by her shrewish cry that Spencer
was paying for Helen's holiday? So engrossed was he in other
directions that his early doubts with regard to "The Firefly's"
unprecedented enterprise in sending a representative to this
out-of-the-way Swiss valley had been lulled to sleep. Of course, he
had caused certain inquiries to be made--that was his method. One of
the telegrams he dispatched from Zurich after Helen's train bustled
off to Coire started the investigation. Thus far, a trusted clerk
could only ascertain that the newspaper had undoubtedly commissioned
the girl on the lines indicated. Still, the point demanded attention.
He resolved to telegraph further instructions in the morning, with
Spencer's name added as a clew, though, to be sure, he was not done
with Millicent yet. He would reckon with her also on the morrow.
Perhaps, if he annoyed her sufficiently, she might explain that
cryptic taunt.

Could he have seen a letter that was brought to Spencer's room before
dinner, the telegram would not have been written. Mackenzie, rather
incoherent with indignation, sent a hurried scrawl.

     "DEAR MR. SPENCER," it ran,--"A devil of a thing has
     happened. To-day," the date being three days old, "I went
     out to lunch, leaving a thick headed subeditor in charge. I
     had not been gone ten minutes when a stage fairy, all frills
     and flounces, whisked into the office and asked for Miss
     Wynton's address. My assistant succumbed instantly. He was
     nearly asphyxiated with joy at being permitted to entertain,
     not unawares, that angel of musical comedy, Miss Millicent
     Jaques. His maundering excuse is that you yourself seemed to
     acknowledge Miss Jaques's right to be acquainted with her
     friend's whereabouts. I have good reason to believe that the
     frail youth not only spoke of Maloja, but supplied such
     details as were known to him of your kindness in the matter.
     I have cursed him extensively; but that can make no amends.
     At any rate, I feel that you should be told, and it only
     remains for me to express my lasting regret that the
     incident should have occurred."

This letter, joined to certain lurid statements made by Stampa, had
induced Spencer to accept Mrs. de la Vere's invitation. Little as he
cared to dine in Bower's company, it was due to Helen that he should
not refuse. He was entangled neck and heels in a net of his own
contriving. For very shame's sake, he could not wriggle out, leaving
Helen in the toils.

Surely there never was a day more crammed with contrarieties. He
witnessed his adversary's rebuff, and put it down to its rightful
cause. No sooner had he discovered Mrs. de la Vere's apparent motive
in keeping the girl by her side, than he was buttonholed by the Rev.
Philip Hare.

"You know I am not an ardent admirer of Bower," said the cleric; "but
I must admit that it was very manly of him to make that outspoken
statement about Miss Wynton."

"What statement?" asked Spencer.

"Ah, I had forgotten. You were not present, of course. He made the
other woman's hysterical outburst supremely ridiculous by saying, in
effect, that he meant to marry Miss Wynton."

"He said that, eh?"

"Yes. He was quite emphatic. I rebuked Miss Jaques myself, and he
thanked me."

"Everything was nicely cut and dried in my absence, it seems."

"Well--er----"

"The crowd evidently lost sight of the fact that I had carried off the
prospective bride."

"N-no. Miss Jaques called attention to it."

"Guess her head is screwed on straight, _padre_. She made a bad break
in attacking Miss Wynton; but when she set about Bower she was running
on a strong scent. Sit tight, Mr. Hare. Don't take sides, or whoop up
the wrong spout, and you'll see heaps of fun before you're much
older."

Mightily incensed, the younger man turned away. The vicar produced his
handkerchief and trumpeted into it loudly.

"God bless my soul!" he said, and repeated the pious wish, for he felt
that it did him good, "how does one whoop up the wrong spout? And what
happens if one does? And how remarkably touchy everybody seems to
be. Next time I apply to the C.M.S. for an Alpine station, I shall
stipulate for a low altitude. I am sure this rarefied air is bad for
the nerves."

Nevertheless, Hare's startling communication was the one thing needed
to clear away the doubts that beset Spencer at the dinner table. He
had seen Mrs. de la Vere enter Helen's bedroom when he left the girl
in charge of a gesticulating maid; but an act of womanly solicitude
did not explain the friendship that sprang so suddenly into existence.
Now he understood, or thought he understood, which is a man's way when
he seeks to interpret a woman's mind. Mrs. de la Vere, like the rest,
was dazzled by Bower's wealth. After ignoring Helen during the past
fortnight, she was prepared to toady to her instantly in her new guise
as the chosen bride of a millionaire. The belief added fuel to the
fire already raging in his breast.

There never was man more loyal to woman in his secret meditations than
Spencer; but his gorge rose at the sight of Helen's winsome gratitude
to one so unworthy of it. With him, now as ever, to think was to act.

Watching his chance, he waylaid Helen when her vigilant chaperon was
momentarily absorbed in a suggestion that private theatricals and the
rehearsal of a minuet would relieve the general tedium while the snow
held.

"Spare me five minutes, Miss Wynton," he said. "I want to tell you
something."

Mrs. de la Vere pirouetted round on him before the girl could answer.

"Miss Wynton is just going to bed," she informed him graciously. "You
know how tired she is, Mr. Spencer. You must wait till the morning."

"I don't feel like waiting; but I promise to cut down my remarks to
one minute--by the clock." He answered Mrs. de la Vere, but looked at
Helen.

Her color rose and fell almost with each beat of her heart. She saw
the steadfast purpose in his eyes, and shrank from the decision she
would be called upon to make. Hardly realizing what form the words
took, she gave faint utterance to the first lucid idea that presented
itself. "I think--I must really--go to my room," she murmured. "You
wouldn't--like me--to faint twice in one evening--Mr. Spencer?"

It was an astonishing thing to say, the worst thing possible. It
betrayed an exact knowledge of his purpose in seeking this interview.
His eyes blazed with a quick light. It seemed that he was answered
before he spoke.

"Not one second. Go away, do!" broke in Mrs. de la Vere, whisking
Helen toward the elevator without further parley. But she shot a
glance at Spencer over her shoulder that he could not fail to
interpret as a silent message of encouragement. Forthwith he viewed
her behavior from a more favorable standpoint.

"Guess the feminine make-up is more complex than I counted on," he
communed, as he bent over a table to find a match, that being a
commonplace sort of action calculated to disarm suspicion, lest others
might be observing him, and wondering why the women retired so
promptly.

"I like your American, my dear," said Mrs. de la Vere sympathetically,
in the solitude of the corridor.

Helen was silent.

"If you want to cry, don't mind me," went on the kindly cynic. "I'm
coming in with you. I'll light up while you weep, and then you must
tell me all about it. That will do you a world of good."

"There's n-n-nothing to tell!" bleated Helen.

"Oh yes, there is. You silly child, to-morrow you will have to choose
between those two men. Which shall it be? I said before dinner that I
couldn't help you to decide. Perhaps I was mistaken. Anyhow, I'll
try."

       *       *       *       *       *

At midnight the snow storm ceased, the wind died away, and the still
air deposited its vapor on hills and valley in a hoar frost. The sun
rose with a magnificent disregard for yesterday's riot.

Spencer's room faced the southeast. When the valet drew his blind in
the morning the cold room was filled with a balmy warmth. A glance
through the window, however, dispelled a germ of hope that Helen and
he might start on the promised walk to Vicosoprano. The snow lay deep
in the pass, and probably extended a mile or two down into the Vale
of Bregaglia. The rapid thaw that would set in during the forenoon
might clear the roads before sunset. Next day, walking would be
practicable; to-day it meant wading.

He looked through the Orlegna gorge, and caught the silvery sheen of
the Cima di Rosso's snow capped summit. Hardly a rock was visible. The
gale had clothed each crag with a white shroud. All day long the upper
reaches of the glacier would be pelted by avalanches. It struck him
that an early stroll to the highest point of the path beyond Cavloccio
might be rewarded with a distant view of several falls. In any case,
it provided an excellent pretext for securing Helen's company, and he
would have cheerfully suggested a trip in a balloon to attain the same
object.

The temperature of his bath water induced doubts as to the imminence
of the thaw. Indeed, the air was bitterly cold as yet. The snow lay
closely on roads and meadow land. It had the texture of fine powder.
Passing traffic left shallow, well defined marks. A couple of
stablemen swung their arms to restore circulation. The breath of
horses and cattle showed in dense clouds.

For once in his life the color of a tie and the style of his clothes
became matters of serious import. At first, he was blind to the humor
of it. He hesitated between the spruce tightness of a suit fashioned
by a New York tailor and the more loosely designed garments he had
purchased in London. Then he laughed and reddened. Flinging both
aside, he chose the climber's garb worn the previous day, and began to
dress hurriedly. Therein he was well advised. Nothing could better
become his athletic figure. He was that type of man who looks thinner
when fully clothed. He had never spared himself when asking others to
work hard, and he received his guerdon now in a frame of iron and
sinews of pliant steel.

Helen usually came down to breakfast at half-past eight. She had the
healthy British habit of beginning the day with a good meal, and
Spencer indulged in the conceit that he might be favored with a
tête-à-tête before they started for the projected walk. Neither Bower
nor Mrs. de la Vere ever put in an appearance at that hour. Though
Americans incline to the Continental manner of living, this true
Westerner found himself a sudden convert to English methods. In a
word, he was in love, and his lady could not err. To please her he was
prepared to abjure iced water--even to drink tea.

But, as often happens, his cheery mood was destined to end in
disappointment. He lingered a whole hour in the _salle à manger_,
but Helen came not. Then he rose in a panic. What if she had
breakfasted in her room, and was already basking in the sunlit
veranda--perhaps listening to Bower's eloquence? He rushed out so
suddenly that his waiter was amazed. Really, these Americans were
incomprehensible--weird as the English. The two races dwelt far
apart, but they moved in the same erratic orbit. To the stolid German
mind they were human comets, whose comings and goings were not to be
gaged by any reasonable standard.

No, the veranda was empty--to him. Plenty of people greeted him; but
there was no Helen. Ultimately he reflected that their appointment was
for ten o'clock. He calmed down, and a pipe became obvious. He was
enjoying that supremest delight of the smoker--the first soothing
whiffs of the day's tobacco--when a servant brought him a note. The
handwriting was strange to his eyes; but a premonition told him that
it was Helen's. Somehow, he expected that she would write in a clear,
strong, legible way. He was not mistaken. She sent a friendly little
message that she was devoting the morning to work. The weather made it
impossible to go to Vicosoprano, and in any event she did not feel
equal to a long walk. "Yesterday's events," she explained, "took more
out of me than I imagined."

Well, she had been thinking of him, and that counted. He was staring
at the snow covered tennis courts, and wondering how soon the valley
would regain its summer aspect, when Stampa limped into sight round
the corner of the hotel. He stood at the foot of the broad flight of
steps, as though waiting for someone. Spencer was about to join him
for a chat, when he recollected that Bower and the guide had an
arrangement to meet in the morning.

With the memory came a queer jumble of impressions. Stampa's story,
told overnight, was a sad one; but the American was too fair minded to
affect a moral detestation of Bower because of a piece of folly that
wrecked a girl's life sixteen years ago. If the sins of a man's youth
were to shadow his whole life, then charity and regeneration must be
cast out of the scheme of things. Moreover, Bower's version of the
incident might put a new face on it. There was no knowing how he too
had been tempted and suffered. That he raged against the resurrection
of a bygone misdeed was shown by his mad impulse to kill Stampa on the
glacier. That such a man, strong in the power of his wealth and social
position, should even dream of blotting out the past by a crime,
offered the clearest proof of the frenzy that possessed him as soon as
he recognized Etta Stampa's father.

Not one word of his personal belief crossed Spencer's lips during the
talk with the guide. Rather did he impress on his angry and vengeful
hearer that a forgotten scandal should be left in its tomb. He took
this line, not that he posed as a moralist, but because he hated to
acknowledge, even to himself, that he was helped in his wooing by
Helen's horror of his rival's lapse from the standard every pure
minded woman sets up in her ideal lover. Ethically, he might be wrong;
in his conscience he was justified. He had suffered too grievously
from every species of intrigue and calumny during his own career not
to be ultra-sensitive in regard to the use of such agents.

Yet, watching the bent and crippled old man waiting there in the snow,
a sense of pity and mourning chilled his heart with ice cold touch.

"If I were Stampa's son, if that dead girl were my sister, how would
_I_ settle with Bower?" he asked, clenching his pipe firmly between
his teeth. "Well, I could only ask God to be merciful both to him and
to me."

"Good gracious, Mr. Spencer! why that fierce gaze at our delightful
valley?" came the voice of Mrs. de la Vere. "I am glad none of us can
give you the address of the Swiss clerk of the weather--or you would
surely slay him."

He turned. Convention demanded a smile and a polite greeting; but
Spencer was not conventional. "You are a thought reader, Mrs. de la
Vere," he said.

"'One of my many attractions,' you should have added."

"I find this limpid light too critical."

"Oh, what a horrid thing to tell any woman, especially in the early
morning!"

"I have a wretched habit of putting the second part of a sentence
first. I really intended to say--but it is too late."

"It is rather like swallowing the sugar coating after the pill; but
I'll try."

"Well, then, this crystal atmosphere does not lend itself to the
obvious. If we were in London, I should catalogue your bewitchments
lest you imagined I was blind to them."

"That sounds nice, but----"

"It demands analysis, so I have failed doubly."

"I don't feel up to talking like a character in one of Henry James's
novels. And you were much more amusing last night. Have you seen Miss
Jaques this morning?"

"No. That is, I don't think so."

"Do you know her?"

"No."

"It would be a kind thing if someone told her that there are other
places in Switzerland where she will command the general admiration
she deserves."

"I am inclined to believe that there is a man in the hotel who can put
that notion before her delicately."

Spencer possessed the unchanging gravity of expression that the whole
American race seems to have borrowed from the Red Indian. Mrs. de la
Vere's eyes twinkled as she gazed at him.

"You didn't hear what was said last night," she murmured. "Where
Millicent Jaques is concerned, delicacy is absent from Mr. Bower's
make-up--is that good New York?"

"It would be understood."

This time he smiled. Mrs. de la Vere wished to be a friend to Helen.
Whatsoever her motive, the wish was excellent.

"You are severe," she pouted. "Of course I ought not to mimic you----"

"Pray do. I had no idea I spoke so nicely."

"Thank you. But I am serious. I have espoused Miss Wynton's cause, and
there will be nothing but unhappiness for her while that other girl
remains here."

"I hope you are mistaken," he said slowly, meeting her quizzing glance
without flinching.

"That is precisely where a woman's point of view differs from a
man's," she countered. "In our lives we are swayed by things that men
despise. We are conscious of sidelong looks and whisperings. We dread
the finger of scorn. When you have a wife, Mr. Spencer, you will begin
to realize the limitations of the feminine horizon."

"Are you asking me to take this demonstrative young lady in hand?"

"I believe you would succeed."

Spencer smiled again. He had not credited Mrs. de la Vere with such
fine perceptiveness. If her words meant anything, they implied an
alliance, offensive and defensive, for Helen's benefit and his own.

"Guess we'll leave it right there till I've had a few words with Miss
Wynton," he said, dropping suddenly into colloquial phrase.

"A heart to heart talk, in fact." She laughed pleasantly, and opened
her cigarette case.

"Tell you what, Mrs. de la Vere," he said, "if ever you come to
Colorado I shall hail you as a real cousin!"

Then a silence fell between them. Bower was walking out of the hotel.
He passed close in front of the glass partition, and might have seen
them if his eyes were not as preoccupied as his mind. But he was
looking at Stampa, and frowning in deep thought. The guide heard his
slow, heavy tread, and turned. The two met. They exchanged no word,
but went away together, the lame peasant hobbling along by the side of
the tall, well dressed plutocrat.

"How odd!" said Mrs. de la Vere. "How exceedingly odd!"




CHAPTER XIII

THE COMPACT


"Now, what have you to say? We are safe from meddlers here."

Bower spoke curtly. Stampa and he were halfway across the narrow strip
of undulating meadow land which shut off the hotel from the village.
They had followed the footpath, a busy thoroughfare bombarded with
golf balls on fine mornings, but likely to be unfrequented till the
snow melted. Receiving no answer, Bower glanced sharply at his
companion; but the old guide might be unaware of his presence, so
steadily did he trudge onward, with downcast, introspective eyes.
Resolved to make an end of a silence that was irksome, Bower halted.

Then, for the first time, Stampa opened his lips. "Not here," he said.

"Why not? We are alone."

"You must come with me, Herr Baron."

"That is not my title."

"It used to be. It will serve as well as any other."

"I refuse to stir a yard farther."

"Then," said Stampa, "I will kill you where you stand!"

Neither in voice nor feature did he exhibit any emotion. He merely
put forward an all-sufficing reason, and left it at that.

Bower was no coward. Though the curiously repressed manner of the
threat sent a wave of blood from his face to his heart, he strode
suddenly nearer. Ready and eager to grapple with his adversary before
a weapon could be drawn, he peered into the peasant's care lined face.

"So that is your plan, is it?" he said thickly. "You would entice me
to some lonely place, where you can shoot or stab me at your own good
pleasure. Fool! I can overpower you instantly, and have you sent to a
jail or a lunatic asylum for the rest of your life."

"I carry no knife, nor can I use a pistol, Herr Baron," was the
unruffled answer. "I do not need them. My hands are enough. You are a
man, a big, strong man, with all a man's worst passions. Have you
never felt that you could tear your enemy with your nails, choke him
till the bones of his neck crackled, and his tongue lolled out like a
panting dog's? That is how I too may feel if you deny my request. And
I will kill you, Marcus Bauer! As sure as God is in Heaven, I will
kill you!"

Fear now lent its blind fury to the instinct of self preservation.
Bower leaped at Stampa, determined to master him at the first
onslaught. But he was heavy and slow, inert after long years of
physical indolence. The older man, awkward only because of his
crippled leg, swung himself clear of Bower's grip, and sprang out
of reach.

"If there be any who look, 'tis you who risk imprisonment," he said
calmly, with a touch of humor that assuredly he did not intend.

Bower knew then how greatly he had erred. It was a mistake ever to
have agreed to meet Stampa alone--a much greater one not to have
waited to be attacked. As Stampa said truly, if anyone in the village
had seen his mad action, there would be testimony that he was the
aggressor. He frowned at Stampa in a bull-like rage, glowering at him
in a frenzy of impotence. This dour old man opposed a grim barrier to
his hopes. It was intolerable that he, Mark Bower the millionaire, a
man who held within his grasp all that the material world has to give,
should be standing there at the mercy of a Swiss peasant. Throughout
the dreary vigil of the night he had pondered this thing, and could
find no loophole of escape. The record of that accursed summer sixteen
years ago was long since obliterated in the history of Marcus Bauer,
the emotional youth who made love to a village belle in Zermatt, and
posed as an Austrian baron among the English and Italians who at that
time formed the select band of climbers in the Valais. But the
short-lived romance was dead and buried, and its memory brought the
taste of Dead Sea ashes to the mouth.

Marcus Bauer had become a naturalized Englishman. The mock barony was
replaced by a wealth that might buy real titles. But the crime still
lived, and woe to Mark Bower, the financial magnate, if it was brought
home to him! He had not risen above his fellows without making
enemies. He well knew the weakness and the strength of the British
social system, with its strange complacency, its "allowances," its
hysterical prudery, its queer amalgam of Puritanism and light hearted
forbearance. He might gamble with loaded dice in the City, and people
would applaud him as cleverer and shrewder than his opponents. His
name might be coupled with that of a pretty actress, and people would
only smile knowingly. But let a hint of his betrayal of Etta Stampa
and its attendant circumstances reach the ears of those who hated him,
and he would sink forthwith into the slough of rich parvenus who eke
out their lives in vain efforts to enter the closely guarded circle
from which he had been expelled.

If that was the only danger, he might meet and vanquish it. The
unscrupulous use of money, backed up by the law of libel, can do a
great deal to still the public conscience. There was another, more
subtle and heart searching.

He was genuinely in love with Helen Wynton. He had reached an age when
position and power were more gratifying than mere gilded Bohemianism.
He could enter Parliament either by way of Palace Yard or through
the portals of the Upper House. He owned estates in Scotland and the
home counties, and his Park Lane mansion figured already in the
address books of half the peerage. It pleased him to think that in
placing a charming and gracious woman like Helen at the head of his
household, she would look to him as the lodestar of her existence,
and not tolerate him with the well-bred hauteur of one of the many
aristocratic young women who were ready enough to marry him, but who,
in their heart of hearts, despised him. He had deliberately avoided
that sort of matrimonial blunder. It promised more than it fulfilled.
He refused to wed a woman who deemed her social rank dearly bartered
for his money.

Yet, before ever the question arose, he knew quite well that this
girl whom he had chosen--the poorly paid secretary of some harmless
enthusiast, the strangely selected correspondent of an insignificant
journal--would spurn him with scorn if she heard the story Stampa
might tell of his lost daughter. That was the wildest absurdity in the
mad jumble of events which brought him here face to face with a broken
and frayed old man,--one whom he had never seen before the previous
day. It was of a piece with this fantasy that he should be standing
ankle deep in snow under the brilliant sun of August, and in risk, if
not in fear, of his life within two hundred yards of a crowded hotel
and a placid Swiss village.

His usually well ordered brain rebelled against these manifest
incongruities. His passion subsided almost as quickly as it had
arisen. He moistened his cold lips with his tongue, and the action
seemed to restore his power of speech.

"I suppose you have some motive in bringing me here. What is it?" he
said.

"You must come to the cemetery. It is not far."

This unlooked for reply struck a new note. It had such a bizarre
effect that Bower actually laughed. "Then you really are mad?" he
guffawed harshly.

"No, not at all. I was on the verge of madness the other day; but I
was pulled back in time, thanks to the Madonna, else I might never
have met you."

"Do you expect me to walk quietly to the burial ground in order that I
may be slaughtered conveniently?"

"I am not going to kill you, Marcus Bauer," said Stampa. "I trust the
good God will enable me to keep my hands off you. He will punish you
in His own good time. You are safe from me."

"A moment ago you spoke differently."

"Ah, that was because you refused to come with me. Assuredly I shall
bring either you or your lying tongue to Etta's grave this morning.
But you will come now. You are afraid, Herr Baron. I see it in your
eyes, and you value that well-fed body of yours too highly not to do
as I demand. Believe me, within the next few minutes you shall either
kneel by my little girl's grave or tumble into your own."

"I am not afraid, Stampa. I warn you again that I am more than a match
for you. Yet I would willingly make any reparation within my power for
the wrong I have done you."

"Yes, yes--that is all I ask--reparation, such as it is. Not to me--to
Etta. Come then. I have no weapon, I repeat. You trust to your size
and strength; so, by your own showing, you are safe. But you must
come!"

A gleam of confidence crept into Bower's eyes. Was it not wise to
humor this old madman? Perhaps, by displaying a remorse that was not
all acting, he might arrange a truce, secure a breathing space. He
would be free to deal with Millicent Jaques. He might so contrive
matters that Helen should be far removed from Stampa's dangerous
presence before the threatened disclosure was made. Yes, a wary
prudence in speech and action might accomplish much. Surely he dared
match his brain against a peasant's.

"Very well," he said, "I shall accompany you. But remember, at the
least sign of violence, I shall not only defend myself, but drag you
off to the communal guardhouse."

Without any answer, Stampa resumed his steady plodding through the
snow. Bower followed, somewhat in the rear. He glanced sharply back
toward the hotel. So far as he could judge, no one had witnessed that
frantic spring at his tormentor. At that hour, nearly every resident
would be on the sunlit veranda. He wondered whether or not Helen and
Millicent had met again. He wished now he had interviewed Millicent
last night. Her problem was simple enough,--a mere question of terms.
Spite had carried her boldly through the scene in the foyer; but she
was far too sensible a young woman to persist in a hopeless quarrel.

It was one of the fatalities that dogged his footsteps ever since he
came to Maloja that the only person watching him at the moment should
happen to be Millicent herself. Her room was situated at the back of
the hotel, and she had fallen asleep after many hours of restless
thought. When the clang of a bell woke her with a start she found that
the morning was far advanced. She dressed hurriedly, rather in a panic
lest her quarry might have evaded her by an early flight. The fine
panorama of the Italian Alps naturally attracted her eyes. She was
staring at it idly, when she saw Bower and Stampa crossing the open
space in front of her bed room window.

Stampa, of course, was unknown to her. In some indefinable way
his presence chimed with her fear that Bower would leave Maloja
forthwith. Did he intend to post through the Vale of Bregaglia to
Chiavenna? Then, indeed, she might be called on to overcome unforeseen
difficulties. She appreciated his character to the point of believing
that Helen was his dupe. She regretted now that she was so foolish as
to attack her one-time friend openly. Far better have asked Helen to
visit her privately, and endeavor to find out exactly how the land lay
before she encountered Bower. At any rate, she ought to learn without
delay whether or not he was hiring post horses in the village. If so,
he was unwilling to meet her, and the battle royal must take place in
London.

A maid entered with coffee and rolls.

"Who is that man with the English monsieur?" inquired Millicent,
pointing to the two.

The servant was a St. Moritz girl, and a glance sufficed. "That? He is
Christian Stampa, madam. He used to drive one of Joos's carriages; but
he had a misfortune. He nearly killed a lady whom he was bringing to
the hotel, and was dismissed in consequence. Now he is guide to an
American gentleman. My God! but they are droll, the Americans!"

The maid laughed, and created a clatter with basin and hot water can.
Millicent, forcing herself to eat quickly, continued to gaze after
the pair. The description of Stampa's employer interested her. His
drollery evidently consisted in hiring a cripple as guide.

"Is the American monsieur named Charles K. Spencer?" she said,
speaking very clearly.

"I do not know, madam. But Marie, who is on the second, can tell me.
Shall I ask?"

"Do, please."

Léontine bustled out. Just then Millicent was amazed by Bower's
extraordinary leap at Stampa and the guide's agile avoidance of his
would-be assailant. The men faced each other as though a fight was
imminent; but the upshot was that they walked on together quietly. Be
sure that two keen blue eyes watched their every motion thenceforth,
never leaving them till they entered the village street and
disappeared behind a large chalet.

"And what did it all mean? Mark Bower--scuffling with a villager!"

Millicent's smooth forehead wrinkled in earnest thought. How queer
it would be if Bower was trying to force Spencer's guide into the
commission of a crime! He would stop at nothing. He believed he could
bend all men, and all women too, to his will. Was he angered by
unexpected resistance? She hoped the maid would hurry with her news.
Though she meant to go at once to the village, it would be a point
gained if she was certain of Stampa's identity.

She was already veiled and befurred when Léontine returned. Yes, Marie
had given her full information. Madam had heard, perhaps, how Herr
Bower and the pretty English mademoiselle were in danger of being
snowed up in the Forno hut yesterday. Well, Stampa had gone with his
_voyageur_, Monsieur Spensare, to their rescue. And the young lady was
the one whom Stampa had endangered during his career as a cab driver.
Again, it was droll.

Millicent agreed. For the second time, she resolved to postpone her
journey to St. Moritz.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bower was surprised when Stampa led him into the main road. Having
never seen any sign of a cemetery at Maloja, he guessed vaguely that
it must be situated close to the church. Therein, in a sense, he was
right. It will be remembered how Helen's solitary ramble on the
morning after her arrival in Maloja brought her to the secluded
graveyard. She first visited the little Swiss tabernacle which had
attracted her curiosity, and thence took the priest's path to the last
resting place of his flock. But Stampa had a purpose in following a
circuitous route. He turned sharply round the base of a huge pile of
logs, stacked there in readiness for the fires of a long winter.

"Look!" he said, throwing open the half door of a cattle shed behind
the timber. "They found her here on the second of August, a Sunday
morning, just before the people went to early mass. By her side was a
bottle labeled 'Poison.' She bought it in Zermatt on the sixth of
July. So, you see, my little girl had been thinking a whole month of
killing herself. Poor child! What a month! They tell me, Herr Baron,
you left Zermatt on the sixth of July?"

Bower's face had grown cold and gray while the old man was speaking.
He began to understand. Stampa would spare him none of the horror of
the tragedy from which he fled like a lost soul when the news of it
reached the hotel. Well, he would not draw back now. If Stampa and he
were destined to have a settlement, why defer it? This was his day of
reckoning,--of atonement, he hoped,--and he would not shirk the
ordeal, though his flesh quivered and his humbled pride lashed him
like a whip.

The squalid stable was peculiarly offensive. Owing to the gale, the
cattle that ought to be pasturing in the high alp were crowded there
in reeking filth. Yesterday, not long before this hour, he was humming
verses of cow songs to Helen, and beguiling the way to the Forno with
a recital of the customs and idyls of the hills. What a spiteful thing
was Fate! Why had this doting peasant risen from the dead to drag him
through the mire of a past transgression? If Stampa betrayed anger,
if his eyes and voice showed the scorn and hatred of a man justly
incensed because of his daughter's untimely death, the situation would
be more tolerable. But his words were mild, biting only by reason of
their simple pathos. He spoke in a detached manner. He might be
relating the unhappy story of some village maid of whom he had no
personal knowledge. This complete self effacement grated on Bower's
nerves. It almost spurred him again to ungovernable rage. But he
realized the paramount need of self control. He clenched his teeth in
the effort to bear his punishment without protest.

And Stampa seemed to have the gift of divination. He read Bower's
heart. By some means he became aware that the unsavory shed was
loathsome to the fine gentleman standing beside him.

"Etta was always so neat in her dress that it must have been a
dreadful thing to see her laid there," he went on. "She fell just
inside the door. Before she drank the poison she must have looked once
at the top of old Corvatsch. She thought of me, I am sure, for she had
my letter in her pocket telling her that I was at Pontresina with my
voyageurs. And she would think of you too,--her lover, her promised
husband."

Bower cleared his throat. He tried to frame a denial; but Stampa waved
the unspoken thought aside.

"Surely you told her you would marry her, Herr Baron?" he said gently.
"Was it not to implore you to keep your vow that she journeyed all the
way from Zermatt to the Maloja? She was but a child, an innocent and
frightened child, and you should not have been so brutal when she came
to you in the hotel. Ah, well! It is all ended and done with now. It
is said the Madonna gives her most powerful aid to young girls who
seek from her Son the mercy they were denied on earth. And my Etta has
been dead sixteen long years,--long enough for her sin to be cleansed
by the fire of Purgatory. Perhaps to-day, when justice is done to her
at last, she may be admitted to Paradise. Who can tell? I would ask
the priest; but he would bid me not question the ways of Providence."

At last Bower found his voice. "Etta is at peace," he muttered. "We
have suffered for our folly--both of us. I--I could not marry her. It
was impossible."

Stampa did look at him then,--such a look as the old Roman may have
cast on the man who caused him to slay his loved daughter. Yet, when
he spoke, his words were measured, almost reverent. "Not impossible,
Marcus Bower. Nothing is impossible to God, and He ordained that you
should marry my Etta."

"I tell you----" began Bower huskily; but the other silenced him with
a gesture.

"They took her to the inn,--they are kind people who live there,--and
someone telegraphed to me. The news went to Zermatt, and back to
Pontresina. I was high up in the Bernina with my party. But a friend
found me, and I ran like a madman over ice and rock in the foolish
belief that if only I held my little girl in my arms I should kiss her
back to life again. I took the line of a bird. If I had crossed the
Muretto, I should not be lame to-day; but I took Corvatsch in my path,
and I fell, and when I saw Etta's grave the grass was growing on it.
Come! The turf is sixteen years old now."

Breaking off thus abruptly, he swung away into the open pasture.
Bower, heavy with wrath and care, strode close behind. He strove to
keep his brain intent on the one issue,--to placate this sorrowing old
man, to persuade him that silence was best.

Soon they reached a path that curved upward among stunted trees. It
ended at an iron gate in the center of a low wall. Bower shuddered.
This, then, was the cemetery. He had never noticed it, though in
former years he could have drawn a map of the Maloja from memory, so
familiar was he with every twist and turn of mountain, valley, and
lake. The sun was hot on that small, pine sheltered hillock. The snow
was beginning to melt. It clogged their feet, and left green patches
where their footprints would have been clearly marked an hour earlier.
And they were not the only visitors that day. There were signs of one
who had climbed the hill since the snow ceased falling.

Inside the wall the white covering lay deep. Bower's prominent eyes,
searching everywhere with furtive horror, saw that a little space had
been cleared in one corner. The piled up snow was strewed with broken
weeds and tufts of long grass. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the
edges of a grave. He paused, irresolute, unnerved, yet desperately
determined to fall in with Stampa's strange mood.

"There is nothing to fear," said the old man gently. "They brought her
here. You are not afraid--you, who clasped her to your breast, and
swore you loved her?"

Bower's face, deathly pale before, flamed into sudden life. The strain
was unbearable. He could feel his own heart beating violently. "What
do you want me to do?" he almost shouted. "She is dead! My repentance
is of no avail! Why are you torturing me in this manner?"

"Softly, son-in-law, softly! You are disturbed, or you would see the
hand of Providence in our meeting. What could be better arranged? You
have returned after all these years. It is not too late. To-day you
shall marry Etta!"

Bower's neck was purple above the line of his white collar. The veins
stood out on his temples. He looked like one in the throes of
apoplexy.

"For Heaven's sake! what do you mean?" he panted.

"I mean just what I say. This is your wedding day. Your bride lies
there, waiting. Never did woman wait for her man so still and
patient."

"Come away, Stampa! This thing must be dealt with reasonably. Come
away! Let us find some less mournful place, and I shall tell you----"

"Nay, even yet you do not understand. Well, then, Marcus Bauer, hear
me while you may. I swear you shall marry my girl, if I have to recite
the wedding prayers over your dead body. I have petitioned the Madonna
to spare me from becoming a murderer, and I give you this last chance
of saving your dirty life. Kneel there, by the side of the grave, and
attend to the words that I shall read to you, or you must surely die!
You came to Zermatt and chose my Etta. Very well, if it be God's will
that she should be the wife of a scoundrel like you, it is not for me
to resist. Marry her you shall, here and now! I will bind you to her
henceforth and for all eternity, and the time will come when her
intercession may drag you back from the hell your cruel deed
deserves."

With a mighty effort, Bower regained the self-conceit that Stampa's
words, no less than the depressing environment, had shocked out of
him. The grotesque nature of the proposal was a tonic in itself.

"If I had expected any such folly on your part, I should not have come
with you," he said, speaking with something of his habitual dignity.
"Your suggestion is monstrous. How can I marry a dead woman?"

Stampa's expression changed instantly. Its meek sorrow yielded to a
ferocity that was appalling. Already bent, he crouched like a wild
beast gathering itself for an attack.

"Do you refuse?" he asked, in a low note of intense passion.

"Yes, curse you! And mutter your prayers in your own behalf. You need
them more than I."

Bower planted himself firmly, right in the gateway. He clenched his
fists, and savagely resolved to batter this lunatic's face into a
pulp. He had a notion that Stampa would rush straight at him, and give
him an opportunity to strike from the shoulder, hard and true. He was
bitterly undeceived. The man who was nearly twenty years his senior
jumped from the top of a low monument on to the flat coping stones of
the wall. From that greater height he leaped down on Bower, who struck
out wildly, but without a tithe of the force needed to stop the impact
of a heavily built adversary. He had to change feet too, and he was
borne to the earth by that catamount spring before he could avoid it.
For a few seconds the two writhed in the snow in deadly embrace. Then
Stampa remained uppermost. He had pinned Bower to the ground face
downward. Kneeling on his shoulders, with the left hand gripping his
neck and the right clutching his hair and scalp, he pulled back the
wretched man's head till it was a miracle that the spinal column was
not broken.

"Now!" he growled, "are you content?"

There was no reply. It was a physical impossibility that Bower should
speak. Even in his tempest of rage Stampa realized this, and loosened
his grip sufficiently to give his opponent a moment of precious
breath.

"Answer!" he muttered again. "Promise you will obey, you brute, or I
crack your neck!"

Bower gurgled something that sounded like an appeal for mercy. Stampa
rose at once, but took the precaution to close the gate, since they
had rolled into the cemetery during their short fight.

"_Saperlotte!_" he cried, "you are not the first who deemed me
helpless because of my crooked leg. You might have run from me, Marcus
Bauer; you could never fight me. Were I at death's door, I would
still have strength left to throttle you if once my fingers closed
round your throat."

Bower raised himself on hands and knees. He cut an abject figure; but
he was beyond all thought of appearances. For one dread moment his
life had trembled in the balance. That glimpse of death and of the
gloomy path beyond was affrighting. He would do anything now to gain
time. Wealth, fame, love itself, what were they, each and all, when
viewed from the threshold of that barrier which admits a man once and
for ever?

In deep, laboring gasps his breath came back. The blood coursed freely
again in his veins. He lived--ah, that was everything--he still lived!
He scrambled to his feet, bare headed, yellow skinned, dazed, and
trembling. His eyes dwelt on Stampa with a new timidity. He found
difficulty in straightening his limbs. He was quite insensible of his
ridiculous aspect. His clothing, even his hair, was matted with soft
snow. In a curiously servile way, he stooped to pick up his cap.

Stampa lurched toward the tiny patch of grass from which he had
cleared the snow soon after daybreak. "Kneel here at her feet!" he
said.

Bower approached, with a slow, dragging movement. Without a word of
protest, he sank to his knees. The snow in his hair began to melt. He
passed his hands over his face as though shutting out some horrific
vision.

Stampa produced from his pocket a frayed and tattered prayer book--an
Italian edition of the Paroissien Romain. He opened it at a marked
page, and began to read the marriage ritual. Though the words were
Latin, and he was no better educated than any other peasant in the
district, he pronounced the sonorous phrases with extraordinary
accuracy. Of course, he was an Italian, and Latin was not such an
incomprehensible tongue to him as it would prove to a German or
Englishman of his class. Moreover, the liturgy of the Church of Rome
is familiar to its people, no matter what their race. Bower, stupefied
and benumbed, though the sun was shining brilliantly, and a constant
dripping from the pine branches gave proof of a rapid thaw, listened
like one in a trance. He understood scattered sentences, brokenly, yet
with sufficient comprehension.

"_Confiteor Deo omnipotenti_," mumbled Stampa, and the bridegroom in
this strange rite knew that he was making the profession of a faith he
did not share. His mind cleared by degrees. He was still under the
spell of bodily fear, but his brain triumphed over physical stress,
and bade him disregard these worn out shibboleths. Nevertheless, the
words had a tremendous significance.

"_Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum ...
dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus
nostris...._"

It was quite easy to follow their general drift. Anyone who had ever
recited the Lord's Prayer in any language would realize that he was
asking the Deity to forgive him his trespasses as he forgave those who
trespassed against him. And there came to the kneeling man a thrilling
consciousness that Stampa was appealing for him in the name of the
dead girl, the once blushing and timid maid whose bones were crumbling
into dust beneath that coverlet of earth and herbage. There could be
no doubting the grim earnestness of the reader. It mattered not a jot
to Stampa that he was usurping the functions of the Church in an
outlandish travesty of her ritual. He was sustained by a fixed
belief that the daughter so heartlessly reft from him was present in
spirit, nay, more, that she was profoundly grateful for this belated
sanctifying of an unhallowed love. Bower's feelings or convictions
were not of the slightest consequence. He owed it to Etta to make
reparation, and the duty must be fulfilled to the utmost letter.

Strong man as he was, Bower nearly fainted. He scarce had the faculty
of speech when Stampa bade him make the necessary responses in
Italian. But he obeyed. All the time the devilish conviction grew that
if he persisted in this flummery he might emerge scatheless from a
ghastly ordeal. The punishment of publicity was the one thing he
dreaded, and that might be avoided--for Etta's sake. So he obeyed,
with cunning pretense of grief, trying to veil the malevolence in his
heart.

At last, when the solemn "_per omnia secula_ _seculorum_" and a
peaceful "Amen" announced the close of this amazing marriage service,
Stampa looked fixedly at his supposed son-in-law.

"Now, Marcus Bauer," he said, "I have done with you. See to it that
you do not again break your plighted vows to my daughter! She is your
wife. You are her husband. Not even death can divide you. Go!"

His strong, splendidly molded face, massive and dignified, cast in
lines that would have appealed to a sculptor who wished to limn the
features of a patriarch of old, wore an aspect of settled calm. He was
at peace with all the world. He had forgiven his enemy.

Bower rose again stiffly. He would have spoken; but Stampa now fell on
his knees and began to pray silently. So the millionaire, humbled
again and terror stricken by the sinister significance of those
concluding words, yet not daring to question them, crept out of the
place of the dead. As he staggered down the hillside he looked back
once. He had eyes only for the little iron gate, but Stampa came not.

Then he essayed to brush some of the clinging snow off his clothes. He
shook himself like a dog after a plunge into water. In the distance he
saw the hotel, with its promise of luxury and forgetfulness. And he
cursed Stampa with a bitter fury of emphasis, trying vainly to
persuade himself that he had been the victim of a maniac's delusion.




CHAPTER XIV

WHEREIN MILLICENT ARMS FOR THE FRAY


Millicent was wondering how she would fare in the deep snow in boots
that were never built for such a test. She was standing on the swept
roadway between the hotel and the stables, and the tracks of her
quarry were plainly visible. But the hope of discovering some
explanation of Bower's queer behavior was more powerful than her dread
of wet feet. She was gathering her skirts daintily before taking the
next step, when the two men suddenly reappeared.

They had left the village and were crossing the line of the path.
Shrinking back under cover of an empty wagon, she watched them.
Apparently they were heading for the Orlegna Gorge, and she scanned
the ground eagerly to learn how she could manage to spy on them
without being seen almost immediately. Then she fell into the same
error as Helen in believing that the winding carriage road to the
church offered the nearest way to the clump of firs and azaleas by
which Bower and Stampa would soon be hidden.

Three minutes' sharp walking brought her to the church, but there the
highway turned abruptly toward the village. As one side of the small
ravine faced south, the sun's rays were beginning to have effect, and
a narrow track, seemingly leading to the hill, was almost laid bare.
In any event, it must bring her near the point where the men vanished,
so she went on breathlessly. Crossing the rivulet, already swollen
with melting snow, she mounted the steps cut in the hillside. It was
heavy going in that thin air; but she held to it determinedly.

Then she heard men's voices raised in anger. She recognized one. Bower
was speaking German, Stampa a mixture of German and Italian. Millicent
had a vague acquaintance with both languages; but it was of the
Ollendorf order, and did not avail her in understanding their rapid,
excited words. Soon there were other sounds, the animal cries, the
sobs, the labored grunts of men engaged in deadly struggle. Thoroughly
alarmed, more willing to retreat than advance, she still clambered on,
impelled by irresistible desire to find out what strange thing was
happening.

At last, partly concealed by a dwarf fir, she could peer over a wall
into the tiny cemetery. She was too late to witness the actual fight;
but she saw Stampa spring upright, leaving his prostrate opponent
apparently lifeless. She was utterly frightened. Fear rendered her
mute. To her startled eyes it seemed that Bower had been killed by the
crippled man. Soon that quite natural impression yielded to one of
sustained astonishment. Bower rose slowly, a sorry spectacle. To her
woman's mind, unfamiliar with scenes of violence, it was surprising
that he did not begin at once to beat the life out of the lame old
peasant who had attacked him so viciously. When Stampa closed the gate
and motioned Bower to kneel, when the tall, powerfully built man knelt
without protest, when the reading of the Latin service began,--well,
Millicent could never afterward find words to express her conflicting
emotions.

But she did not move. Crouching behind her protecting tree, guarding
her very breath lest some involuntary cry should betray her presence,
she watched the whole of the weird ceremonial. She racked her brains
to guess its meaning, strained her ears to catch a sentence that might
be identified hereafter; but she failed in both respects. Of course,
it was evident that someone was buried there, someone whose memory the
wild looking villager held dear, someone whose grave he had forced
Bower to visit, someone for whose sake he was ready to murder Bower if
the occasion demanded. So much was clear; but the rest was blurred, a
medley of incoherences, a waking nightmare.

Oddly enough, it never occurred to her that a woman might be lying in
that dreary tenement. Her first vague imagining suggested that Bower
had committed a crime, killed a man, and that an avenger had dragged
him to his victim's last resting place. That Stampa was laboriously
plodding through the marriage ritual was a fantastic conceit of which
she received no hint. There was nothing to dissolve the mist in her
mind. She could only wait, and marvel.

As the strange scene drew to its close, she became calmer. She
reflected that some sort of registry would be kept of the graves. A
few dismal monuments, and two rows of little black wooden crosses that
stuck up mournfully out of the snow, gave proof positive of that. She
counted the crosses. Stampa was standing near the seventh from a tomb
easily recognizable at some future time. Bower faced it on his knees.
She could not see him distinctly, as he was hidden by the other man's
broad shoulders; but she did not regret it, because the warm brown
tints of her furs against the background of snow and foliage might
warn him of her presence. She thanked the kindly stars that brought
her here. No matter what turn events took now, she hoped to hold the
whip hand over Bower. There was a mystery to be cleared, of course;
but with such materials she could hardly fail to discover its true
bearings.

So she watched, in tremulous patience, quick to note each movement of
the actors in a drama the like to which she had never seen on the
stage.

At last Bower slunk away. She heard the crunching of his feet on the
snow, and, when Stampa ceased his silent prayer, she expected that he
would depart by the same path. To her overwhelming dismay, he wheeled
round and looked straight at her. In reality his eyes were fixed on
the hills behind her. He was thinking of his unhappy daughter. The
giant mass of Corvatsch was associated in his mind with the girl's
last glimpse of her beloved Switzerland, while on that same memorable
day it threw its deep shadow over his own life. He turned to the
mountain to seek its testimony,--as it were, to the consummation of a
tragedy.

But Millicent could not know that. Losing all command of herself, she
shrieked in terror, and ran wildly among the trees. She stumbled and
fell before she had gone five yards over the rough ground. Quite in a
panic, confused and blinded with snow, she rose and ran again, only to
find herself speeding back to the burial ground. Then, in a very agony
of distress, she stood still. Stampa was looking at her, with mild
surprise displayed in every line of his expressive features.

"What are you afraid of, _sigñorina_?" he asked in Italian.

She half understood, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.
Her terror was manifest, and he pitied her.

He repeated his question in German. A child might have recognized that
this man of the benignant face and kindly, sorrow laden eyes intended
no evil.

"I am sorry. I beg your pardon, Herr Stampa," she managed to stammer.

"Ah, you know me, then, _sigñorina_! But everybody knows old Stampa.
Have you lost your way?"

"I was taking a little walk, and happened to approach the cemetery. I
saw----"

"There is nothing to interest you here, madam, and still less to cause
fear. But it is a sad place, at the best. Follow that path. It will
lead you to the village or the hotel."

Her fright was subsiding rapidly. She deemed the opportunity too good
to be lost. If she could win his confidence, what an immense advantage
it would be in her struggle against Bower! Summoning all her energies,
and trying to remember some of the German sentences learned in her
school days, she smiled wistfully.

"You are in great trouble," she murmured. "I suppose Herr Bower has
injured you?"

Stampa glanced at her keenly. He had the experience of sixty years
of a busy life to help him in summing up those with whom he came in
contact, and this beautiful, richly dressed woman did not appeal to
his simple nature as did Helen when she surprised his grief on a
morning not so long ago. Moreover, the elegant stranger was little
better than a spy, for none but a spy would have wandered among the
rocks and shrubs in such weather, and he was in no mood to suffer her
inquiries.

"I am in no trouble," he said, "and Herr Bauer has not injured me."

"But you fought," she persisted. "I thought you had killed him. I
almost wish you had. I hate him!"

"It is a bad thing to hate anyone. I am three times your age; so you
may, or may not, regard my advice as excellent. Come round by the
corner of the wall, and you will reach the path without walking in the
deep snow. Good morning, madam."

He bowed with an ease that would have proclaimed his nationality if he
had not been an Italian mountaineer in every poise and gesture.
Stooping to recover his Alpine hat, which was lying near the cross at
the head of the grave, he passed out through the gate before Millicent
was clear of the wall. He made off with long, uneven, but rapid
strides, leaving her hot with annoyance that a mere peasant should
treat her so cavalierly. Though she did not understand all he said,
she grasped its purport. But her soreness soon passed. The great fact
remained that she shared some secret with him and Bower, a secret of
an importance she could not yet measure. She was tempted to go inside
the cemetery, and might have yielded to the impulse had not a load of
snow suddenly tumbled off the broad fronds of a pine. The incident
set her heart beating furiously again. How lonely was this remote
hilltop! Even the glorious sunshine did not relieve its brooding
silence.

Thus it came about that these three people went down into the valley,
each within a short distance of the others, and Spencer saw them all
from the high road, where he was questioning an official of the
federal postoffice as to the method of booking seats in the banquette
of the diligence from Vicosoprano.

That he was bewildered by the procession goes without saying. Where
had they been, and how in the name of wonder could the woman's
presence be accounted for? The polite postmaster must have thought
that the Englishman was very dense that morning. Several times he
explained fully that the two desired seats in the diligence must be
reserved from Chiavenna. As many times did Spencer repeat the
information without in the least seeming to comprehend it. He spoke
with the detached air of a boy in the first form reciting the fifth
proposition in Euclid. At last the postmaster gave it up in despair.

"You see that man there?" he said to a keenly interested policeman
when Spencer strolled away in the direction of the village. "He is of
the most peculiar. He talks German like a parrot. He must be a rich
American. Perhaps he wants to buy a diligence."

"_Wer weiss?_" said the other. "Money makes some folk mad."

And, indeed, through Spencer's brain was running a Bedlamite jingle,
a triolet of which the dominant line was Bower, Stampa, and Millicent
Jaques. The meeting of Bower and Stampa was easy of explanation. After
the guide's story of the previous evening, nothing but Stampa's death
or Bower's flight could prevent it. But the woman from the Wellington
Theater, how had she come to know of their feud? He was almost tempted
to quote the only line of Molière ever heard beyond the shores of
France.

Like every visitor to the Maloja, he was acquainted with each of
its roads and footpaths except the identical one that these three
descended. Where did it lead to? Before he quite realized what he was
doing, he was walking up the hill. In places where the sun had not yet
caught the snow there was a significant trail. Bower had come and gone
once, Stampa, or some man wearing village-made boots, twice; but
the single track left by Millicent's smart footwear added another
perplexing item to the puzzle. So he pressed on, and soon was gazing
at the forlorn cemetery, with its signs of a furious struggle between
the gateposts, the uncovered grave space, and Millicent's track round
two corners of the square built wall.

It was part of his life's training to read signs. The mining engineer
who would hit on a six-inch lode in a mountain of granite must combine
imagination with knowledge, and Spencer quickly made out something of
the silent story,--something, not all, but enough to send him in
haste to the hotel by the way Millicent had arrived on the scene.

"Guess there's going to be a heap of trouble round here," he said to
himself. "Helen must be recalled to London. It's up to me to make the
cable hot to Mackenzie."

He had yet to learn that the storm which brought about a good deal of
the preceding twenty-four hours' excitement had not acted in any
niggardly fashion. It had laid low whole sections of the telegraph
system on both sides of the pass during the night. Gangs of men were
busy repairing the wires. Later in the day, said a civil spoken
attendant at the _bureau des postes_, a notice would be exhibited
stating the probable hour of the resumption of service.

"Are the wires down beyond St. Moritz?" asked Spencer.

"I cannot give an assurance," said the clerk; "but these southwest
gales usually do not affect the Albula Pass. The road to St. Moritz is
practicable, as this morning's mail was only forty minutes behind
time."

Spencer ordered a carriage, wrote a telegram, and gave it to the
driver, with orders to forward it from St. Moritz if possible. And
this was the text:

     "MACKENZIE, 'FIREFLY' OFFICE, FLEET-ST., LONDON. Wire Miss
     Wynton positive instructions to return to England
     immediately. Say she is wanted at office. I shall arrange
     matters before she arrives. This is urgent. SPENCER."

A heavy weight gradually lifted off his shoulders as he watched the
wheels of the vehicle churning up the brown snow broth along the
valley road. Within two hours his message would reach a telegraph
office. Two more would bring it to Mackenzie. With reasonable luck,
the line repairers would link Maloja to the outer world that
afternoon, and Helen would hie homeward in the morning. It was a pity
that her holiday and his wooing should be interfered with; but who
could have foretold that Millicent Jaques would drop from the sky in
that unheralded way? Her probable interference in the quarrel between
Stampa and Bower put Mrs. de la Vere's suggestion out of court. A
woman bent on requiting a personal slight would never consent to
forego such a chance of obtaining ample vengeance as Bower's earlier
history provided.

In any case, Spencer was sure that the sooner Helen and he were
removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He
hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth
for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the
hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would
not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before
the year was much older.

He disliked this secret plotting and contriving. He adopted such
methods only because they offered the surest road to success. Were he
to consult his own feelings, he would go straight to Helen, tell her
how chance had conspired with vagrom fancy to bring them together, and
ask her to believe, as all who love are ready to believe, that their
union was predestined throughout the ages.

But he could not explain his presence in Switzerland without referring
to Bower, and the task was eminently distasteful. In all things
concerning the future relations between Helen and himself, he was done
with pretense. If he could help it, her first visit to the Alps should
not have its record darkened by the few miserable pages torn out of
Bower's life. After many years the man's sin had discovered him. That
which was then done in secret was now about to be shrieked aloud from
the housetops. "Even the gods cannot undo the past," said the old
Greeks, and the stern dogma had lost nothing of its truth with the
march of the centuries. Indeed, Spencer regretted his rival's
threatened exposure. If it lay in his power, he would prevent it:
meanwhile, Helen must be snatched from the enduring knowledge of her
innocent association with the offender and his pillory. He set his
mind on the achievement. To succeed, he must monopolize her company
until she quitted the hotel en route for London.

Then he thought of Mrs. de la Vere as a helper. Her seeming
shallowness, her glaring affectations, no longer deceived him.
The mask lifted for an instant by that backward glance as she
convoyed Helen to her room the previous night had proved altogether
ineffective since their talk on the veranda. He did not stop to ask
himself why such a woman, volatile, fickle, blown this way and that
by social zephyrs, should champion the cause of romance. He simply
thanked Heaven for it, nor sought other explanation than was given
by his unwavering belief in the essential nobility of her sex.

Therein he was right. Had he trusted to her intuition, and told
Millicent Jaques at the earliest possible moment exactly how matters
stood between Helen and himself, it is only reasonable to suppose that
the actress would have changed her plan of campaign. She had no
genuine antipathy toward Helen, whose engagement to Spencer would be
her strongest weapon against Bower. As matters stood, however, Helen
was a stumbling block in her path, and her jealous rage was in process
of being fanned to a passionate intensity, when Spencer, searching for
Mrs. de la Vere, saw Millicent in the midst of a group composed of the
Vavasours, mother and son, the General, and his daughters.

Mrs. de Courcy Vavasour was the evil spirit who brought about this
sinister gathering. She was awed by Bower, she would not risk a
snubbing from Mrs. de la Vere, and she was exceedingly annoyed to
think that Helen might yet topple her from her throne. To one of her
type this final consideration was peculiarly galling. And the
too susceptible Georgie would be quite safe with the lady from
the Wellington Theater. Mrs. Vavasour remembered the malice in
Millicent's fine eyes when she refused to quail before Bower's wrath.
A hawk in pursuit of a plump pigeon would not turn aside to snap up an
insignificant sparrow. So, being well versed in the tactics of these
social skirmishes, she sought Millicent's acquaintance.

The younger woman was ready to meet her more than halfway. The hotel
gossips were the very persons whose aid she needed. A gracious smile
and a pouting complaint against the weather were the preliminaries. In
two minutes they were discussing Helen, and General Wragg was drawn
into their chat. Georgie and the Misses Wragg, of course, came
uninvited. They scented scandal as jackals sniff the feast provided by
the mightier beasts.

Millicent, really despising these people, but anxious to hear the
story of Bower's love making, made no secret of her own sorrows. "Miss
Wynton was my friend," she said with ingenuous pathos. "She never met
Mr. Bower until I introduced her to him a few days before she came to
Switzerland. You may guess what a shock it gave me when I heard that
he had followed her here. Even then, knowing how strangely coincidence
works at times, I refused to believe that the man who was my promised
husband would abandon me under the spell of a momentary infatuation.
For it can be nothing more."

"Are you sure?" asked the sympathetic Mrs. Vavasour.

"By gad!" growled Wragg, "I'm inclined to differ from you there, Miss
Jaques. When Bower turned up last week they met as very old friends, I
can assure you."

"Obviously a prearranged affair," said Mrs. Vavasour.

"None of us has had a look in since," grinned Georgie vacuously. "Even
Reggie de la Vere, who is a deuce of a fellah with the girls, could
not get within yards of her."

This remark found scant favor with his audience. Miss Beryl Wragg, who
had affected de la Vere's company for want of an eligible bachelor,
pursed her lips scornfully.

"I can hardly agree with that," she said. "Edith de la Vere may be a
sport; but she doesn't exactly fling her husband at another woman's
head. Anyhow, it was amazing bad form on her part to include Miss
Wynton in her dinner party last night."

Millicent's blue eyes snapped. "Did Helen Wynton dine in public
yesterday evening?" she demanded.

"Rather! Quite a lively crowd they were too."

"Indeed. Who were the others?"

"Oh, the Badminton-Smythes, and the Bower man, and that
American--what's his name?"

Then Millicent laughed shrilly. She saw her chance of delivering a
deadly stroke, and took it without mercy. "The American? Spencer? What
a delightful mixture! Why, he is the very man who is paying Miss
Wynton's expenses."

"So you said last night. A somewhat--er--dangerous statement," coughed
the General.

"Rather stiff, you know--Eh, what?" put in Georgie.

His mother silenced him with a frosty glance. "Of course you have good
reasons for saying that?" she interposed.

Spencer passed at that instant, and there was a thrilling pause.
Millicent was well aware that every ear was alert to catch each
syllable. When she spoke, her words were clear and precise.

"Naturally, one would not say such a thing about any girl without the
utmost certainty," she purred. "Even then, there are circumstances
under which one ought to try and forget it. But, if it is a question
as to my veracity in the matter, I can only assure you that Miss
Wynton's mission to Switzerland on behalf of 'The Firefly' is a mere
blind for Mr. Spencer's extraordinary generosity. He is acting through
the paper, it is true. But some of you must have seen 'The Firefly.'
How could such a poor journal afford to pay a young lady one hundred
pounds and give her a return ticket by the Engadine express for four
silly articles on life in the High Alps? Why, it is ludicrous!"

"Pretty hot, I must admit," sniggered Georgie, thinking to make peace
with Beryl Wragg; but she seemed to find his humor not to her taste.

"It is the kind of arrangement from which one draws one's own
conclusions," said Mrs. Vavasour blandly.

"But, I say, does Bower know this?" asked Wragg, swinging his
eyeglasses nervously. Though he dearly loved these carpet battles, he
was chary of figuring in them, having been caught badly more than once
between the upper and nether millstones of opposing facts.

"You heard me tell him," was Millicent's confident answer. "If he
requires further information, I am here to give it to him. Indeed, I
have delayed my departure for that very reason. By the way, General,
do you know Switzerland well?"

"Every hotel in the country," he boasted proudly.

"I don't quite mean in that sense. Who are the authorities? For
instance, if I had a friend buried in the cemetery here, to whom
should I apply for identification of the grave?"

The General screwed up his features into a judicial frown.
"Well--er--I should go to the communal office in the village, if I
were you," said he.

Braving his mother's possible displeasure, George de Courcy Vavasour
asserted his manliness for Beryl's benefit.

"I know the right Johnny," he said. "Let me take you to him, Miss
Jaques--Eh, what?"

Millicent affected to consider the proposal. She saw that Mrs.
Vavasour was content. "It is very kind of you," she said, with her
most charming smile. "Have we time to go there before lunch?"

"Oh, loads."

"I am walking toward the village. May I come with you?" asked Beryl
Wragg.

"That will be too delightful," said Millicent.

Georgie, feeling the claws beneath the velvet of Miss Wragg's voice,
could only suffer in silence. The three went out together. The two
women did the talking, and Millicent soon discovered that Bower had
unquestionably paid court to Helen from the first hour of his arrival
in the Maloja, whereas Spencer seemed to be an utter stranger to her
and to every other person in the place. This statement offered a
curious discrepancy to the story retailed by Mackenzie's assistant.
But it strengthened her case against Helen. She grew more determined
than ever to go on to the bitter end.

A communal official raised no difficulty about giving the name of the
occupant of the grave marked by the seventh cross from the tomb she
described. A child was buried there, a boy who died three years ago.
With Beryl Wragg's assistance, she cross examined the man, but could
not shake his faith in the register.

The parents still lived in the village. The official knew them, and
remembered the boy quite well. He had contracted a fever, and died
suddenly.

This was disappointing. Millicent, prepared to hear of a tragedy, was
confronted by the commonplace. But the special imp that attends all
mischief makers prompted her next question.

"Do you know Christian Stampa, the guide?" she asked.

The man grinned. "Yes, _sigñora_. He has been on the road for years,
ever since he lost his daughter."

"Was he any relation to the boy? What interest would he have in this
particular grave?"

The custodian of parish records stroked his chin. He took thought, and
reached for another ledger. He ran a finger through an index and
turned up a page.

"A strange thing!" he cried. "Why, that is the very place where Etta
Stampa is buried. You see, _sigñora_," he explained, "it is a small
cemetery, and our people are poor."

Etta Stampa! Was this the clew? Millicent's heart throbbed. How stupid
that she had not thought of a woman earlier!

"How old was Etta Stampa?" she inquired.

"Her age is given here as nineteen, _sigñora_; but that is a guess. It
was a sad case. She killed herself. She came from Zermatt. I have
lived nearly all my life in this valley, and hers is the only suicide
I can recall."

"Why did she kill herself, and when?"

The official supplied the date; but he had no knowledge of the affair
beyond a village rumor that she had been crossed in love. As for poor
old Stampa, who met with an accident about the same time, he never
mentioned her.

"Stampa is the lame Johnny who went up the Forno yesterday,"
volunteered Georgie, when they quitted the office. "But, I say, Miss
Jaques, his daughter couldn't be a friend of yours?"

Millicent did not answer. She was thinking deeply. Then she realized
that Beryl Wragg was watching her intently.

"No," she said, "I did not mean to convey that she was my friend; only
that one whom I know well was interested in her. Can you tell me how I
can find out more of her history?"

"Some of the villagers may help," said Miss Wragg. "Shall we make
inquiries? It is marvelous how one comes across things in the most
unlikely quarters."

Vavasour, whose stroll with a pretty actress had resolved itself into
a depressing quest into the records of the local cemetery, looked at
his watch. "Time's up," he announced firmly. "The luncheon gong will
go in a minute or two, and this keen air makes one peckish--Eh, what?"

So Millicent returned to the hotel, and when she entered the dining
room she saw Helen and Spencer sitting with the de la Veres. Edith de
la Vere stared at her in a particularly irritating way. Cynical
contempt, bored amusement, even a quizzical surprise that such a
vulgar person could be so well dressed, were carried by wireless
telegraphy from the one woman to the other. Millicent countered with a
studied indifference. She gave her whole attention to the efforts of
the head waiter to find a seat to her liking. He offered her the
choice between two. With fine self control, she selected that which
turned her back on Helen and her friends.

She had just taken her place when Bower came in. He stopped near the
door, and spoke to an under manager; but his glance swept the crowded
room. Spencer and Helen happened to be almost facing him, and the girl
was listening with a smile to something the American was saying. But
there was a conscious shyness in her eyes, a touch of color on her sun
browned face, that revealed more than she imagined.

Bower, who looked ill and old, hesitated perceptibly. Then he seemed
to reach some decision. He walked to Helen's side, and bent over her
with courteous solicitude. "I hope that I am forgiven," he said.

She started. She was so absorbed in Spencer's talk, which dealt with
nothing more noteworthy than the excursion down the Vale of Bregaglia,
which he secretly hoped would be postponed, that she had not observed
Bower's approach.

"Forgiven, Mr. Bower? For what?" she asked, blushing now for no
assignable reason.

"For yesterday's fright, and its sequel."

"But I enjoyed it thoroughly. Please don't think I am only a fair
weather mountaineer."

"No. I am not likely to commit that mistake. It was feminine spite,
not elemental, that I fancied might have troubled you. Now I am going
to face the enemy alone. Pity me, and please drink to my success."

He favored Spencer and the de la Veres with a comprehensive nod, and
turned away, well satisfied that he had claimed a condition of
confidence, of mutual trust, between Helen and himself.

Millicent was reading the menu when she heard Bower's voice at her
shoulder. "Good morning, Millicent," he said. "Shall we declare a
truce? May I eat at your table? That, at least, will be original.
Picture the amazement of the mob if the lion and the lamb split a
small bottle."

He was bold; but chance had fenced her with triple brass. "I really
don't feel inclined to forgive you," she said, with a quite forgiving
smile.

He sat down. The two were watched with discreet stupefaction by many.

"Never give rein to your emotions, Millicent. You did so last night,
and blundered badly in consequence. Artifice is the truest art, you
know. Let us, then, be unreal, and act as though we were the dearest
friends."

"We are, I imagine. Self interest should keep us solid."

Bower affected a momentary absorption in the wine list. He gave his
order, and the waiter left them.

"Now, I want you to be good," he said. "Put your cards on the table,
and I will do the same. Let us discuss matters without prejudice, as
the lawyers say. And, in the first instance, tell me exactly what
you imply by the statement that Mr. Charles K. Spencer, of Denver,
Colorado, as he appears in the hotel register, is responsible for
Helen Wynton's presence here to-day."




CHAPTER XV

A COWARD'S VICTORY


"It is a queer story," said Bower.

"Because it is true," retorted Millicent.

"Yet she never set eyes on the man until she met him here."

"That is rather impossible, isn't it?"

"It is a fact, nevertheless. On the day I arrived in Maloja, a letter
came from the editor of 'The Firefly,' telling her that he had written
to Spencer, whom he knew, and suggested that they should become
acquainted."

"These things are easily managed," said Millicent airily.

"I accept Miss Wynton's version." Bower spoke with brutal frankness.
The morning's tribulation had worn away some of the veneer. He fully
expected the girl to flare into ill suppressed rage. Then he could
deal with her as he liked. He had not earned his repute in the city
of London without revealing at times the innate savagery of his
nature. As soon as he had taunted his adversaries into a passion,
he found the weak joints in their armor. He was surprised now that
Millicent should laugh. If she was acting, she was acting well.

"It is too funny for words to see you playing the trustful swain," she
said.

"One necessarily believes the best of one's future wife."

"So you still keep up that pretense? It was a good line in last
night's situation; but it becomes farcical when applied to light
comedy."

"I give you credit for sufficient wit to understand why I joined you
here. We can avoid unpleasant explanations. I am prepared to bury the
hatchet--on terms."

"Terms?"

"Yes. You are a blackmailer, a somewhat dangerous one. You tempt me to
revise the wisest of La Rochefoucauld's maxims, and say that every
woman is at heart a snake. You owe everything to me; yet you are not
content. Without my help you would still be carrying a banner in the
chorus. Unless I continue my patronage, that is what you must go back
to. Don't imagine that I am treating with you out of sentiment. For
Helen's sake, for her sake only, I offer a settlement."

Millicent's eyes narrowed a little; but she affected to admire the
gleaming beads in a glass of champagne. "Pray continue," she said.
"Your views are interesting."

There was some danger lest Bower should reverse his wonted procedure,
and lose his own temper in this unequal duel. They both spoke in low
tones. Anyone watching them would find the smiles of conventionality
on their lips. To all outward seeming, they were indulging in a
friendly gossip.

"Of course, you want money," he said. "That is the be-all and
end-all of your existence. Very well. Write a letter to Miss Wynton
apologizing for your conduct, take yourself away from here at three
o'clock, and from St. Moritz by the next train, and I not only
withdraw my threat to bar you in the profession but shall hand you
a check for a thousand pounds."

Millicent pretended to consider his proposal. She shook her head. "Not
nearly enough," she said, with a sweetly deprecatory moue.

"It is all you will get. I repeat that I am doing this to spare
Helen's feelings. Perhaps I am ill advised. You have done your worst
already, and it only remains for me to crush you. But I stick to the
bargain--for five minutes."

"Dear, dear!" she sighed. "Only five minutes? Do you get rid of your
troubles so quickly? How nice to be a man, and to be able to settle
matters with such promptitude."

Bower was undeniably perplexed; but he held to his line. Unwavering
tenacity of purpose was his chief characteristic. "Meanwhile," he
said, "let us talk of the weather."

"A most seasonable topic. It was altogether novel this morning to wake
and find the world covered with snow."

"If the Maloja is your world, you must have thought it rather
chilling," he laughed.

"Yes, cold, perhaps, but fascinating. I went for a walk. You see, I
wanted to be alone, to think what I should do for the best. A woman is
so helpless when she has to fight a big, strong man like you. Chance
led me to the cemetery. What an odd little place it is? Wouldn't you
hate to be buried there?"

It was now Millicent's turn to be surprised. Not by the slightest
tremor did Bower betray the shock caused by her innuendo. His nerves
were proof against further assault that day. Fear had conquered him
for an instant when he looked into the gate of darkness. With its
passing from before his eyes, his intellect resumed its sway, and he
weighed events by that nicely adjusted balance. None but a man who
greatly dared would be sitting opposite Millicent at that moment. None
but a fool would have failed to understand her. But he gave no sign
that he understood. He refilled his glass, and emptied it with the
gusto of a connoisseur.

"That is a good wine," he said. "Sometimes pints are better than
quarts, although of the same vintage. Waiter, another half bottle,
please."

"No more for me, of course," murmured Millicent. "I must keep my
head clear,--so much depends on the next five minutes."

"Three, to be exact."

"Ah, then, I must use them to advantage. Shall I tell you more about
my early stroll?"

"What time did you go out?"

"Soon after ten o'clock."

"You saw--what?"

"A most exciting struggle--and--what shall I call it?--a ceremony."

Bower was silent for an appreciable time. He watched a waiter
uncorking the champagne. When the bottle was placed on the table he
pretended to read the label. He was thinking that Stampa's marriage
service was not so futile, after all. It had soon erected its first
barrier. Millicent, who had qualities rare in a woman, turned and
looked at a clock. Incidentally, she discovered that Spencer was
devoting some attention to the proceedings at her table. Still Bower
remained silent. She stole a glance at him. She was conscious that an
abiding dread was stealing into her heart; but her stage training came
to her aid, and she managed to say evenly:

"My little ramble does not appear to interest you?"

"It does," he said. "I have been arguing the pros and cons of a
ticklish problem. There are two courses to me. I can either bribe
you, or leave you to your own devices. The latter method implies the
interference of the police. I dislike that. Helen would certainly be
opposed to it. I make the one thousand into five; but I want your
answer now."

"I accept," she said instantly.

"Ah, but you are trembling. Queer, isn't it, how thin is the partition
between affluence and a prison? There are dozens of men who stand high
in commercial circles in London who ought to be in jail. There are
quite as many convicts in Portland who reached penal servitude along
precisely the same road. That is the penalty of being found out. Let
me congratulate you. And do try another glass of this excellent wine.
You need it, and you have to pack your belongings at once, you know."

"Thank you."

Her eyes sparkled. Her well modulated voice was hardly under control.
Five thousand pounds was a great deal of money; but the tragedy of
Etta Stampa's life might have been worth more. How could she find out
the whole truth? She must accomplish that, in some way.

Therein, however, she greatly miscalculated. Bower divined her thought
almost before it was formed. "For goodness' sake, let us put things in
plain English!" he said. "I am paying you handsomely to save the woman
I am going to marry from some little suffering and heartache. Perhaps
it is unnecessary. Her fine nature might forgive a man a transgression
of his youth. At any rate, I avert the risk by this payment. The check
will be payable to you personally. In other words, you must place it
to your own account in your bank. Any breach of our contract in letter
or spirit during the next two days will be punished by its stoppage.
After that time, the remotest hint on your part of any scandalous
knowledge affecting me, or Helen, or the causes which led to my
present weakness in allowing you to blackmail me, will imply the
immediate issue of a warrant for your arrest. Need I explain the
position at greater length?"

"No," said Millicent, who wished now that she had bitten off the end
of her tongue before she vented her spleen to the Vavasours and the
Wraggs.

"On second thoughts," went on Bower unconcernedly, "I forego the
stipulation as to a letter of apology. I don't suppose Helen will
value it. Assuredly, I do not."

The cheapening of her surrender stung more than she counted on. "I
have tried to avoid the appearance of uncalled for rudeness to-day,"
she blurted out.

"Well--yes. What is the number of your room?"

She told him.

"I shall send the check to you at once. Have you finished?"

He accompanied her to the door, bowed her out, and came back. Smiling
affably, he pulled a chair to Mrs. de la Vere's side.

"I quite enjoyed my luncheon," he said. "You all heard that stupid
outburst of Millicent's last night; so there is no harm in telling
you that she regrets it. She is leaving the hotel forthwith."

Helen rose suddenly. "She is one of my few friends," she said. "I
cannot let her go in anger."

"She is unworthy of your friendship," exclaimed Bower sharply. "Take
my advice and forget that she exists."

"You cannot forget that anyone exists, or has existed," said Spencer
quietly.

"What? You too?" said Bower. His eyes sought the American's, and
flashed an unspoken challenge.

He felt that the world was a few hundred years too old. There were
historical precedents for settling affairs such as that now troubling
him by means that would have appealed to him. But he opposed no
further hindrance to Helen's departure. Indeed, he perceived that her
meeting with Millicent would provide in some sense a test of his own
judgment. He would soon learn whether or not money would prevail.

He waited a little while, and then sent his valet with the check and a
request for an acknowledgment. The man brought him a scribbled note:

     "Was rather taken aback by appearance of H. She says you
     told her I was leaving the hotel. We fell on each other's
     neck and wept. Is that right? M. J."

He cut the end off a cigar, lit the paper with a match, and lit the
cigar with the paper.

"Five thousand pounds!" he said to himself. "It is a lot of money to
one who has none. I remember the time when I would have sold my soul
to the devil for half the amount."

But that was not a pleasing notion. It suggested that, by evil hazard,
some such contract had, in fact, been made, but forgotten by one of
the parties to it. So he dismissed it. Having disposed of Stampa and
Millicent, practically between breakfast and lunch, there were no
reasons why he should trouble further about them. The American
threatened a fresh obstacle. He was winning his way with Helen
altogether too rapidly. In the light of those ominous words at the
luncheon table his close association with Stampa indicated a definite
knowledge of the past. Curse him! Why did he interfere?

Bower was eminently a selfish man. He had enjoyed unchecked success
for so long a time that he railed now at the series of mischances that
tripped the feet of his desires. Looking back through recent days, he
was astonished to find how often Spencer had crossed his path. Before
he was four hours in Maloja, Helen, in his hearing, had singled out
the American for conjecture and scrutiny. Then Dunston spoke of the
same man as an eager adversary at baccarat; but the promised game was
arranged without Spencer's coöperation, greatly to Dunston's loss. A
man did not act in such fashion without some motive. What was it? This
reserved, somewhat contemptuous rival had also snatched Helen from
his company many times. He had undoubtedly rendered some service in
coming to the Forno hut; but Bower's own lapse from sanity on that
occasion did not escape his notice. Finally, this cool mannered, alert
youngster from the New World did not seem to care a fig for any prior
claim on Helen's affections. His whole attitude might be explained by
the fact that he was Stampa's employer, and had won the old guide's
confidence.

Yes, the American was the real danger. That pale ghost conjured from
the grave by Stampa was intangible, powerless, a dreamlike wraith
evoked by a madman's fancy. Already the fear engendered myopia of the
morning was passing from Bower's eyes. The passage of arms with
Millicent had done him good. He saw now that if he meant to win Helen
he must fight for her.

Glancing at his watch, he found that the time was a quarter to three.
He opened a window in his sitting room, which was situated in the
front of the hotel. By leaning out he could survey the carriage stand
at the foot of the long flight of steps. A pair-horse vehicle was
drawn up there, and men were fastening portly dress baskets in the
baggage carrier over the hind wheels.

He smiled. "The pretty dancer travels luxuriously," he thought. "I
wonder whether she will be honest enough to pay her debts with my
money?"

He still hated her for having dragged him into a public squabble. He
looked to the future to requite him. A year, two years, would soon
pass. Then, when funds were low and engagements scarce, she would
appeal to him again, and his solicitors would reply. He caught himself
framing curt, stinging sentences to be embodied in the letter; but he
drew himself up with a start. Surely there was something very wrong
with Mark Bower, the millionaire, when he gloated over such paltry
details. Why, his reflections were worthy of that old spitfire, Mrs.
de Courcy Vavasour.

His cigar had gone out. He threw it away. It had the taste of
Millicent's cheap passion. A decanter of brandy stood on the table,
and he drank a small quantity, though he had imbibed freely of
champagne at luncheon. He glanced at a mirror. His face was flushed
and care lined, and he scowled at his own apparition.

"I must go and see the last of Millicent. It will cheer me up," he
said to himself.

When he entered the foyer, Millicent was already in the veranda, a
dainty picture in furs and feathers. Somewhat to his surprise, Helen
was with her. A good many people were watching them covertly, a quite
natural proceeding in view of their strained relations overnight.

 [Illustration: "It will paralyze the dowager brigade if we hug each
  other."
                              _Page 309_]

Millicent's first action after quitting the _salle à manger_ had been
to worm out of Léontine the full, true, and particular history of Etta
Stampa, or so much of the story as was known to the hotel servants.
The recital was cut short by Helen's visit, but resumed during
packing operations, as Millicent had enlarged her store of knowledge
considerably during the process of reconciliation.

So, alive to possibilities going far beyond a single check, even for
five thousand pounds, at the last moment she sent a message to Helen.

     "Come and see me off," she wrote. "It will simply paralyze
     the dowager brigade if we hug each other on the mat."

Helen agreed. She was not sorry that her critics should be paralyzed,
or stupefied, or rendered incapable in some way of inflicting further
annoyance. In her present radiant mood, nearly all her troubles having
taken unto themselves wings, she looked on yesterday's episode in the
light of a rather far fetched joke. Bower stood so high in her esteem
that she was sure the outspoken announcement of his intentions was
dictated chiefly by anger at Millicent's unfair utterances. Perhaps he
had some thought of marriage; but he must seek a wife in a more
exalted sphere. She felt in her heart that Spencer was only awaiting a
favorable opportunity to declare his love, and she did not strive to
repress the wave of divine happiness that flooded her heart at the
thought.

After much secret pondering and some shy confidences intrusted to Mrs.
de la Vere, she had resolved to tell him that if he left the Maloja at
once--an elastic phrase in lovers' language--and came to her in
London next month, she would have an answer ready. She persuaded
herself that there was no other honorable way out of an embarrassing
position. She had come to Switzerland for work, not for love making.
Spencer would probably wish to marry her forthwith, and that was not
to be thought of while "The Firefly's" commission was only half
completed. All of which modest and maidenly reasoning left wholly out
of account Spencer's strenuous wooing; it is chronicled here merely to
show her state of mind when she kissed Millicent farewell.

It is worthy of note also that two young people who might be expected
to take the liveliest interest in each other's company were steadfast
in their determination to separate. Each meant to send the other back
to England with the least possible delay, and both were eager to fly
into each other's arms--in London! Whereat the gods may have laughed,
or frowned, as the case may be, if they glanced at the horoscopes of
certain mortals pent within the mountain walls of the Upper Engadine.

While Helen was still gazing after Millicent's retreating carriage,
Bower came from the darksome foyer to the sunlit veranda. "So you
parted the best of friends?" he said quietly.

She turned and looked at him with shining eyes. "I cannot tell you how
pleased I am that a stupid misunderstanding should be cleared away!"
she said.

"Then I share your pleasure, though, to be candid, I was thinking
that a woman's kiss has infinite gradations. It may savor of Paradise
or the Dead Sea."

"But she told me how grieved she was that she had behaved so
foolishly, and appealed to me not to let the folly of a day break the
friendship of years."

"Ah! Millicent picks up some well turned sentiments on the stage. Come
out for a little stroll, and tell me all about it."

Helen hesitated. "It will soon be tea time," she said, with a self
conscious blush. She had promised Spencer to walk with him to the
château; but her visit to Millicent had intervened, and he was not on
the veranda at the moment.

"We need not go far. The sun has garnished the roads for us. What do
you say if we make for the village, and interview Johann Klucker's cat
on the weather?"

His tone was quite reassuring. To her transparent honesty of purpose
it seemed better that they should discuss Millicent's motive in coming
to the hotel and then dismiss it for ever. "A most excellent idea,"
she cried lightly. "I have been writing all the morning, so a breath
of fresh air will be grateful."

They passed down the steps.

They had not gone more than a few paces when the driver of an empty
carriage pulled up his vehicle and handed Bower a telegram.

"They gave it to me at St. Moritz, Herr Bower," he said. "I took a
message there for Herr Spencer, and they asked me to bring this to
you, as it would reach you more quickly than if it came by the post."

Bower thanked the man, and opened the envelop. It was a very long
telegram; but he only glanced at it in the most cursory manner before
putting it in a pocket.

At a distant corner of the road by the side of the lake, Millicent
turned for a last look at the hotel and waved a hand at them. Helen
replied.

"I almost wish now she was staying here a few days," she said
wistfully. "She ought to have seen our valley in its summer greenery."

"I fear she brought winter in her train," was Bower's comment. "But
the famous cat must decide. Here, boy," he went on, hailing a village
urchin, "where is Johann Klucker's house?"

The boy pointed to a track that ran close to the right bank of the
tiny Inn. He explained volubly, and was rewarded with a franc.

"Do you know this path?" asked Bower. "Klucker's chalet is near the
waterfall, which should be a fine sight owing to the melting snow."

It was Helen's favorite walk. She would have preferred a more
frequented route; but the group of houses described by the boy was
quite near, and she could devise no excuse for keeping to the busy
highway. As the path was narrow she walked in front. The grass and
flowers seemed to have drawn fresh tints from the snow, which had
cleared away with magical rapidity from this sheltered spot. But
the little rivulet, usually diamond bright, was now a turbulent and
foaming stream. Care was needed not to slip. If anyone fell into that
miniature torrent, it would be no easy matter to escape without broken
bones.

"Would you ever believe that a few hours' snow, followed by a hot sun,
would make such a difference to a mere ribbon of water like this?" she
asked, when they were passing through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock
through which the Inn roared with a quite respectable fury.

"I am in a mood to believe anything," said Bower. "Do you remember our
first meeting at the Embankment Hotel? Who would have imagined then
that Millicent Jaques, a few weeks later, would rush a thousand miles
to the Maloja and scream her woes to Heaven and the multitude. Neither
you nor I, I fancy, had seen her during the interval. Did she tell you
the cause of her extraordinary behavior?"

"No. I did not ask her. But it scarce needed explanation, Mr. Bower.
I--I fear she suspected me of flirting. It was unjust; but I can well
conceive that a woman who thinks her friend is robbing her of a man's
affections does not wait to consider nice points of procedure."

"Surely Millicent did not say that I had promised to marry her?"

Though Helen was not prepared for this downright plunge into an
embarrassing discussion, she managed to evade a direct answer. "There
was more than a suggestion of that in her words last night," she said.
"Perhaps she thought so in all seriousness. You seem to have
undeceived her to-day, and I am sure you must have dealt with her
kindly, or she would not have acknowledged her mistake in such frank
terms to me. There, now! That is the end of a very disagreeable
episode. Shall we say no more about it?"

Helen was flushed and hurried of speech: but she persevered bravely,
hoping that Bower's tact would not desert him at this crisis. She
quickened her pace a little, with the air of one who has said the last
word on a difficult topic and is anxious to forget it.

Bower overtook her. He grasped her shoulder almost roughly, and drew
her round till she faced him. "You are trying to escape me, Helen!" he
said hoarsely. "That is impossible. Someone must have told you what I
said to Millicent in the hearing of all who chose to listen. Her
amazing outburst forced from me an avowal that should have been made
to you alone. Helen, I want you to be my wife. I love you better than
all the world. I have my faults,--what man is flawless?--but I have
the abiding virtue of loving you. I shall make your life happy, Helen.
For God's sake do not tell me that you are already promised to
another!"

His eyes blazed into hers with a passion that was appalling in its
intensity. She seemed to lose the power to speak or move. She looked
up at him like a frightened child, who hears strange words that she
does not comprehend. Thinking he had won her, he threw his arms about
her and strained her fiercely to his breast. He strove to kiss away
the tears that began to fall in piteous protest; but she bent her head
as if in shame.

"Oh, please let me go!" she sobbed. "Please let me go! What have I
done that you should treat me so cruelly."

"Cruelly, Helen? How should I be cruel to you whom I hold so dear?"

Still he clasped her tightly, hardly knowing what he did in his
transport of joy at the belief that she was his.

She struggled to free herself. She shrank from this physical contact
with a strange repulsion. She felt as a timid animal must feel when
some lord of the jungle pulls it down and drags it to his lair. Bower
was kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hair, finding a mad rapture
in the fragrance of her skin. He crushed her in a close embrace that
was almost suffocating.

"Oh, please let me go!" she wailed. "You frighten me. Let me go! How
dare you!"

She fought so wildly that he yielded to a dim sense that she was in
earnest. He relaxed his grip. With the instinct of a hunted thing, she
took a dangerous leap for safety clean across the swollen Inn. Luckily
she alighted on a broad boulder, or a sprained ankle would have been
the least penalty for that desperate means of escape.

As she stood there, with tears streaming down her face and the crimson
brand of angry terror on her brow, the dreadful knowledge that he had
lost her smote Bower like a rush of cold air from a newly opened tomb.
Between them brawled the tiny torrent. It offered no bar to an active
man; but even in his panic of sudden perception he resisted the
impulse that bade him follow.

"Helen," he pleaded, stretching forth his hands in frenzied gesture,
"why do you cast me off? I swear by all a man holds sacred that I mean
no wrong. You are dear to me as life itself. Ah, Helen, say that I may
hope! I do not even ask for your love. I shall win that by a lifetime
of devotion."

At last she found utterance. He had alarmed her greatly; but no woman
can feel it an outrage that a man should avow his longing. And she
pitied Bower with a great pity. Deep down in her heart was a suspicion
that they might have been happy together had they met sooner. She
would never have loved him,--she knew that now beyond cavil,--but if
they were married she must have striven to make life pleasant for him,
while she drifted down the smooth stream of existence free from either
abiding joys or carking sorrows.

"I am more grieved than I can tell that this should have happened,"
she said, striving hard to restrain the sob in her voice, though it
gave her words the ring of genuine regret. "I little dreamed that
you thought of me in that way, Mr. Bower. But I can never marry
you--never, no matter what the circumstances! Surely you will help me
to dispel the memory of a foolish moment. It has been trying to both
of us. Let us pretend that it never was."

Had she struck him with a whip he could not have flinched so visibly
beneath the lash as from the patent honesty of her words. For a time
he did not answer, and the sudden calm that came quick on the heels of
frenzy had in it a weird peacefulness.

Neither could ever again forget the noisy rush of the stream, the glad
singing of birds in a thicket overhanging the bank, the tinkle of the
cow bells as the cattle began to climb to the pastures for a luxurious
hour ere sundown. It was typical of their lives that they should be
divided by the infant Inn, almost at its source, and that thenceforth
the barrier should become ever wider and deeper till it reached the
infinite sea.

He seemed to take his defeat well. He was pale, and his lips twitched
with the effort to attain composure. He looked at Helen with a hungry
longing that was slowly acknowledging restraint.

"I must have frightened you," he said, breaking a silence that was
growing irksome. "Of course I apologize for that. But we cannot leave
things where they are. If you must send me away from you, I may at
least demand a clear understanding. Have no fear that I shall distress
you further. May I join you, or will you walk to the bridge a little
higher up?"

"Let us return to the hotel," she protested.

"No, no. We are not children. We have broken no law of God or man. Why
should I be ashamed of having asked you to marry me, or you to listen,
even though it be such a hopeless fantasy as you say?"

Helen, deeply moved in his behalf, walked to a bridge of planks a
little distance up stream. Bower joined her there. He had deliberately
resolved to do a dastardly thing. If Spencer was the cause of Helen's
refusal, that obstacle, at any rate, could be smashed to a pulp.

"Now, Helen," he said, "I want you to believe that your happiness is
my only concern. Perhaps, at some other time, you may allow me to
renew in less abrupt manner the proposal I have made to-day. But when
you hear all that I have to tell, you will be forced to admit that I
placed your high repute above every other consideration in declaring
my love before, rather than after, you learned how and why you came to
Switzerland."

His manner was becoming more calm and judicial each moment. It reacted
on Helen, who gazed at him with a very natural surprise in her still
tear-laden eyes.

"That, at least, is simple enough," she cried.

"No. It is menacing, ugly, a trick calculated to wound you sorely.
When first it came to my ears I refused to credit the vile meanness of
it. You saw that telegram which reached my hands as we quitted the
hotel? It is a reply to certain inquiries I caused to be made in
London. Read it."

Helen took the crumpled sheets of thin paper and began to read. Bower
watched her face with a maleficent confidence that might have warned
her had she seen it. But she paid heed to nothing else at that moment
save the mysterious words scrawled in a foreign handwriting:

     "Have investigated 'Firefly' incident fully. Pargrave
     compelled Mackenzie to explain. The American, Charles K.
     Spencer, recently residing at Embankment Hotel, is paying
     Miss Helen Wynton's expenses, including cost of publishing
     her articles. He followed her on the day of her departure,
     and has since asked Mackenzie for introduction. Pargrave
     greatly annoyed, and holds Mackenzie at your disposal.

                              "KENNETT."

Helen went very white; but she spoke with a firmness that was amazing,
even to Bower. "Who is Kennett?" she said.

"One of my confidential clerks."

"And Pargrave?"

"The proprietor of 'The Firefly.'"

"Did Millicent know of this--plot?"

"Yes."

Then she murmured a broken prayer. "Ah, dear Heaven!" she complained,
"for what am I punished so bitterly?"

Karl, the voluble and sharp-eyed, retailed a bit of gossip to Stampa
that evening as they smoked in Johann Klucker's chalet. "As I was
driving the cattle to the middle alp to-day, I saw our _fräulein_ in
the arms of the big _voyageur_," he said.

Stampa withdrew his pipe from between his teeth. "Say that again," he
whispered, as though afraid of being overheard.

Karl did so, with fuller details.

"Are you sure?" asked Stampa.

Karl sniffed scornfully. "_Ach, Gott!_ How could I err?" he cried.
"There are not so many pretty women in the hotel that I should not
recognize our _fräulein_. And who would forget Herr Bower? He gave me
two louis for a ten francs job. We must get them together on the hills
again, Christian. He will be soft hearted now, and pay well for taking
care of his lady."

"Yes," said Stampa, resuming his pipe. "You are right, Karl. There is
no place like the hills. And he will pay--the highest price, look you!
_Saperlotte!_ I shall exact a heavy fee this time."




CHAPTER XVI

SPENCER EXPLAINS


A sustained rapping on the inner door of the hut roused Helen from
dreamless sleep. In the twilight of the mind that exists between
sleeping and waking she was bewildered by the darkness, perhaps
baffled by her novel surroundings. She strove to pierce the gloom with
wide-open, unseeing eyes, but the voice of her guide broke the spell.

"Time to get up, _sigñora_. The sun is on the rock, and we have a
piece of bad snow to cross."

Then she remembered, and sighed. The sigh was involuntary, the half
conscious tribute of a wearied heart. It needed an effort to brace
herself against the long hours of a new day, the hours when thoughts
would come unbidden, when regrets that she was fighting almost
fiercely would rush in and threaten to overwhelm her. But Helen was
brave. She had the courage that springs from the conviction of having
done that which is right. If she was a woman too, with a woman's
infinite capacity for suffering--well, that demanded another sort
of bravery, a resolve to subdue the soul's murmurings, a spiritual
teeth-clenching in the determination to prevail, a complete acceptance
of unmerited wrongs in obedience to some inexplicable decree of
Providence.

So she rose from a couch which at least demanded perfect physical
health ere one could find rest on it, and, being fully dressed, went
forth at once to drink the steaming hot coffee that filled the tiny
hut with its fragrance.

"A fine morning, Pietro?" she asked, addressing the man who had
summoned her.

"_Si, sigñora._ Dawn is breaking with good promise. There is a slight
mist on the glacier; but the rock shows clear in the sun."

She knew that an amiable grin was on the man's face; but it was so
dark in the _cabane_ that she could see little beyond the figures of
the guide and his companion. She went to the door, and stood for a
minute on the narrow platform of rough stones that provided the only
level space in a witches' cauldron of moss covered boulders and rough
ice. Beneath her feet was an ultramarine mist, around her were masses
of black rock; but overhead was a glorious pink canopy, fringed by
far flung circles of translucent blue and tenderest green. And this
heaven's own shield was ever widening. Eastward its arc was broken
by an irregular dark mass, whose pinnacles glittered like burnished
gold. That was the Aguagliouls Rock, which rises so magnificently
in the midst of a vast ice field, like some great portal to the
wonderland of the Bernina. She had seen it the night before, after
leaving the small restaurant that nestles at the foot of the Roseg
Glacier. Then its scarred sides, brightened by the crimson and violet
rays of the setting sun, looked friendly and inviting. Though its base
was a good mile distant across the snow-smoothed surface of the ice,
she could discern every crevice and ledge and steep couloir. Now, all
these distinguishing features were merged in the sea-blue mist. The
great wall itself seemed to be one vast, unscalable precipice, capped
by a series of shining spires.

And for the first time in three sorrowful days, while her eyes dwelt
on that castle above the clouds, the mysterious grandeur of nature
healed her vexed spirit, and the peace that passeth all understanding
fell upon her. The miserable intrigues and jealousies of the past
weeks were so insignificant, so far away, up here among the mountains.
Had she only consulted her own happiness, she mused, she would not
have ordered events differently. There was no real reason why she
should have flown from the hotel like a timid deer roused by hounds
from a thicket. Instead of doubling and twisting from St. Moritz to
Samaden, and back by carriage to a remote hotel in the Roseg Valley,
she might have remained and defied her persecutors. But now the fume
and fret were ended, and she tried to persuade herself she was glad.
She felt that she could never again endure the sight of Bower's face.
The memory of his passionate embrace, of his blazing eyes, of the
thick sensual lips that forced their loathsome kisses upon her, was
bitter enough without the need of reviving it each time they met. She
was sorry it was impossible to bid farewell to Mrs. de la Vere. Any
hint of her intent would have drawn from that well-disposed cynic a
flood of remonstrance hard to stem; though nothing short of force
would have kept Helen at Maloja once she was sure of Spencer's double
dealing.

Of course, she might write to Mrs. de la Vere when she was in calmer
mood. It would be easier then to pick and choose the words that would
convey in full measure her detestation of the American. For she hated
him--yes, hatred alone was satisfying. She despised her own heart
because it whispered a protest. Yet she feared him too. It was from
him that she fled. She admitted this to her honest mind while she
watched the spreading radiance of the new day. She feared the candor
of his steady eyes more than the wiles and hypocrisies of Bower and
her false friend, Millicent. By a half miraculous insight into the
history of recent events, she saw that Bower had followed her to
Switzerland with evil intent.

But the discovery embittered her the more against Spencer, who had
lured her there deliberately, than against Bower who knew of it, nor
scrupled to use the knowledge as best it marched with his designs. It
was nothing to her, she told herself, that Spencer no less than Bower
had renounced his earlier purpose, and was ready to marry her. She
still quivered with anger at the thought that she had fallen so
blindly into the toils. Even though she accepted Mackenzie's
astounding commission, she might have guessed that there was some
ignoble element underlying it. She felt now that it was possible to be
prepared,--to scrutinize occurrences more closely, to hold herself
aloof from compromising incidents. The excursion to the Forno, the
manifest interest she displayed in both men, the concealment of her
whereabouts from friends in London, her stiff lipped indifference to
the opinion of other residents in the hotel,--these things, trivial
individually, united into a strong self indictment.

As for Spencer, though she meant, above all things, to avoid meeting
him, and hoped that he was now well on his way to the wide world
beyond Maloja, she would never forgive him--no, never!

"I am sorry to hurry you, _sigñora_, but there is a bit of really bad
snow on the Sella Pass," urged Pietro apologetically at her shoulder,
and she reëntered the hut at once, sitting down to that which she
deemed to be her last meal on the Swiss side of the Upper Engadine.

It was in a hotel at St. Moritz that she had settled her route with
the aid of a map and a guidebook. When, on that day of great
happenings, she quitted the Kursaal-Maloja, she stipulated that the
utmost secrecy should be observed as to her departure. Her boxes and
portmanteau were brought from her room by the little used exit she had
discovered soon after her arrival. A closed carriage met her there in
the dusk, and she drove straight to St. Moritz station. Leaving her
baggage in the parcels office, she sought a quiet hotel for the night,
registering her room under her mother's maiden name of Trenholme. She
meant to return to England by the earliest train in the morning; but
her new-born terror of encountering Spencer set in motion a scheme for
evading pursuit either by him or Bower.

By going up the Roseg Valley, and carrying the barest necessaries for
a few days' travel, she could cross the Bernina range into Italy,
reach the rail at Sondrio, and go round by Como to Lucerne and thence
to Basle, whither the excellent Swiss system of delivering passengers'
luggage would convey her bulky packages long before she was ready to
claim them.

With a sense of equity that was creditable, she made up her mind to
expend every farthing of the money received from "The Firefly." She
had kept her contract faithfully: Mackenzie, therefore, or Spencer,
must abide by it to the last letter. The third article of the series
was already written and in the post. The fourth she wrote quietly in
her room at the St. Moritz hotel, nor did she stir out during the
next day until it was dark, when she walked a few yards up the main
street to buy a rucksack and an alpenstock.

Early next morning, close wrapped and veiled, she took a carriage to
the Restaurant du Glacier. Here she met an unforeseen check. The local
guides were absent in the Bernina, and the hotel proprietor--good,
careful man!--would not hear of intrusting the pretty English girl to
inexperienced villagers, but persuaded her to await the coming of a
party from Italy, whose rooms were bespoke. Their guides, in all
probability, would be returning over the Sella Pass, and would charge
far less for the journey.

He was right. On the afternoon of the following day, three tired
Englishmen arrived at the restaurant, and their hardy Italian pilots
were only too glad to find a _voyageur_ ready to start at once for the
Mortel hut, whence a nine hours' climb would take them back to the Val
Malenco, provided they crossed the dangerous névé on the upper part of
the glacier soon after daybreak.

Pietro, the leader, was a cheery soul. Like others of his type in the
Bernina region, he spoke a good deal of German, and his fund of
pleasant anecdote and reminiscence kept Helen from brooding on her own
troubles during the long evening in the hut.

And now, while she was finishing her meal in the dim light of dawn,
and the second guide was packing their few belongings, Pietro regaled
her with a legend of the Monte del Diavolo, which overlooks Sondrio
and the lovely valley of the Adda.

"Once upon a time, _sigñora_, they used to grow fine grapes there," he
said, "and the wine was always sent to Rome for the special use of the
Pope and his cardinals. That made the people proud, and the devil took
possession of them, which greatly grieved a pious hermit who dwelt in
a cell in the little Val Malgina, by the side of a torrent that flows
into the Adda. So one day he asked the good Lord to permit the devil
to visit him; but when Satan appeared the saint laughed at him. 'You!'
he cried. 'Who sent for you? You are not the Prince of the Infernal
Regions?'--'Am I not?' said the stranger, with a truly fiendish grin.
'Just try my powers, and see what will happen!'--'Very well,' said the
saint, 'produce me twenty barrels of better wine than can be grown in
Sondrio.' So old Barbariccia stamped his hoof, and lo! there were the
twenty barrels, while the mere scent of them nearly made the saint
break a vow that he would never again taste fermented wine. But he
held fast, and said, 'Now, drink the lot.'--'Oh, nonsense!' roared the
devil. 'Pooh!' said the hermit, 'you're not much of a devil if you
can't do in a moment what the College of Cardinals can do in a week.'
That annoyed Satan, and he put away barrel after barrel, until the
saint began to feel very uneasy. But the last barrel finished him, and
down he went like a log, whereupon the holy man put him into one of
his own tubs and sent him to Rome to be dealt with properly. There
was a tremendous row, it is said, when the cask was opened. In the
confusion, Satan escaped; but in revenge for the trick that had been
played on him, he put a blight on the vines of the Adda, and from that
day to this never a liter of decent wine came out of Sondrio."

"I guess if that occurred anywhere in Italy nowadays, they'd lynch the
hermit," said a voice in English outside.

Helen screamed, and the two Italians were startled. No one was
expected at the hut at that hour. Its earliest visitors should come
from the inner range, after a long tramp from Italy or Pontresina.

"Sorry if I scared you," said Spencer, his tall figure suddenly
darkening the doorway; "but I didn't like to interrupt the story."

Helen sprang to her feet. Her cheeks, blanched for a few seconds,
became rosy red. "You!" she cried. "How dare you follow me here?"

In the rapidly growing light she caught a transitory gleam in the
American's eyes, though his face was as impassive as usual. And the
worst of it was that it suggested humor, not resentment. Even in the
tumult of wounded pride that took her heart by storm, she realized
that her fiery vehemence had gone perilously near to a literal
translation of the saintly scoff at old Barbariccia. And, now if ever,
she must be dignified. Anger yielded to disdain. In an instant she
grew cold and self collected.

"I regret that in my surprise I spoke unguardedly," she said. "Of
course, this hut is open to everyone----"

"Judging by the look of things between here and the hotel, we shall
not be worried by a crowd," broke in Spencer. "I meant to arrive half
an hour earlier; but that slope on the Alp Ota offers surprising
difficulties in the dark."

"I wished to say, when you interrupted me, that I am leaving at once,
so my presence can make little difference to you," said Helen grandly.

"That sounds more reasonable than it really is," was the quietly
flippant reply.

"It conveys my intent. I have no desire to prolong this conversation,"
she cried rather more flurriedly.

"Now, there I agree with you. We have started on the wrong set of
rails. It is my fault. I ought to have coughed, or fallen down the
moraine, or done any old thing sooner than butt into the talk so
unexpectedly. If you will allow me, I'll begin again right now."

He turned to the Italians, who were watching and listening in curious
silence, trying to pick up an odd word that would help to explain the
relations between the two.

"Will you gentlemen take an interest in the scenery for five minutes?"
he asked, with a smile.

Though the valley of the Adda may have lost its wine, it will never
lose its love of romance. The polite Italians raised their hats and
went out. Helen, drawing a long breath, withdrew somewhat into the
shadow. She felt that she would have more command over herself if the
American could not see her face. The ruse did not avail her at all.
Spencer crossed the floor of the hut until he looked into her eyes.

"Helen," he said, "why did you run away from me?"

The tender reproach in his voice almost unnerved her; but she answered
simply, "What else would you have me do, once I found out the
circumstances under which I came to Switzerland?"

"It may be that you were not told the truth. Who was your informant?"

"Mr. Bower."

"None other?"

"What, then? Is my pitiful story the property of the hotel?"

"It is now. I took care of that. Some of the people there had been
spreading a misleading version, and it was necessary to correct it.
The women, of course, I could not deal with. As the General was an old
man, I picked out George de Courcy Vavasour as best fitted to digest
the wrong edition. I made him eat it. It seemed to disagree with him;
but he got through with an effort."

Helen felt that she ought to decline further discussion. But she was
tongue tied. Spencer was regarding her so fixedly that she began to
fear lest he might notice the embarrassed perplexity that she herself
was quite conscious of.

"Will you be good enough to explain exactly what you mean?" she said,
forcing the question mechanically from her lips.

"That is why I am here. I assure you that subterfuge can never again
exist between you and me," said he earnestly. "You can accept my words
literally. Acting for himself and others, Vavasour wrote on paper the
lying insinuations made by Miss Jaques, and ate them--both words and
paper. He happened to use the thin, glazed, Continental variety, so
what it lost in bulk it gained in toughness. He didn't like it, and
said so; but he had to do it."

She was nervously aware of a wish to laugh; but unless she gave way to
hysteria that was not to be thought of. Trying to retreat still
farther into the friendly shade, she backed round the inner end of the
table, but found the way blocked by a rough bench. Something must be
said or done to extricate herself. The dread that her voice might
break was becoming an obsession.

"You speak of a false version, and that implies a true one," she
managed to say constrainedly. "How far was Mr. Bower's statement false
or true?"

"I settled that point too. Mr. Bower told you the facts. The deduction
he forced on you was a lie. To my harmless notion of gratifying a
girl's longing for a holiday abroad he added the motive that inspired
his own journey. I overheard your conversation with Miss Jaques in the
Embankment Hotel; I saw Bower introduced to you; I saw him looking for
you in Victoria Station, and knew that he represented the meeting as
accidental. I felt a certain responsibility on your account; so I
followed by the next train. Bower played his cards so well that I
found myself in a difficult position. I was busy guessing; but was
unable to prove anything, while the one story I was sure of was not in
the game. And then, you see, he wanted to make you his wife, which
brought about the real complication. I haven't much use for him; but I
must be fair, and Bower's only break was when he misrepresented my
action in subsidizing 'The Firefly.' I don't deny he was pretty mad at
the idea of losing you, and jealousy will often drive a man to do a
mean thing which might otherwise be repugnant to his better
nature----"

"Jealousy!" shrilled Helen, her woman's wit at last finding a joint in
his armor. Yet never did woman err more than she in thinking that her
American suitor would flinch beneath the shaft.

"That is the word," was the quiet reply.

She flared into indignant scorn. "Pray tell me why he or any other man
should feel jealous of you where I am concerned," she said.

"I am going to tell you right away--Helen. But that is the last
chapter. There is quite a long record as to the way I hit on your
track in St. Moritz, and heard of you by telephone last night. Of
course, that part of the story will keep----"

"Is it necessary that I should hear any portion of it?" she
interrupted, hoping to irritate him, and thus lessen the strain
imposed by his studiously tranquil manner.

"Well, it ought to interest you. But it has humorous points to which I
can't do justice under present conditions. You are right, Helen--you
most always are. The real question at issue is my position in the
deal, which becomes quite clear when I say that you are the only woman
I have ever loved or ever shall love. More than that, you are the only
woman to whom I have ever spoken a word of love, and as I have set
about loving the dearest and prettiest and healthiest girl I have ever
seen, it is safe to figure that you will have sole claim on all the
nice things I can try to say to any woman during the remainder of my
life."

He hesitated a moment. He did not appear to notice that Helen, after a
rebellious gasp or two, had suddenly become very still.

"I suppose I ought to have fixed up a finer bit of word painting than
that," he continued slowly. "As a matter of fact, I don't mind
admitting that ever since eleven o'clock last night, when the
proprietor of the hotel below there telephoned to me that Miss
Trenholme had gone to the Mortel hut with two guides, I have been
rehearsing X plus Y multiplied by Z ways of telling you just how dear
you are to me. But they all vanished like smoke when I saw your sweet
face. You tried to be severe with me, Helen; but your voice didn't
ring true, and you are the poorest sort of prevaricator I know. And
the reason those set forms wouldn't work at the right moment is that
they were addressed to the silent air. You are near me now, my sweet.
You are almost in my arms. You are in my arms, Helen, and it sounds
just right to keep on telling you that I love you now and shall love
you for ever. Oh, my dear, my dear, you must never, never, run away
again! Search the dictionary for all the unkindest things you can say
about me; but don't run away ... for I know now that when you are
absent the day is night and the night is akin to death."

       *       *       *       *       *

Guide Pietro was somewhat a philosopher. Stamping about on the tiny
stone plateau of the hut to keep at bay the cold mists from the
glacier, he happened to glance through the open door. He drew away
instantly.

"Bartelommeo," he said to his companion, "we shall not cross the Sella
to-day with our charming _voyageur_."

Bartelommeo was surprised. He looked at the clean cut crest of the
rock, glowing now in vivid sunlight. Argument was not required; he
pointed silently with the stem of his pipe.

"Yes," murmured Pietro. "We couldn't have a better day for the pass.
It is not the weather."

"Then what is it?" asked Bartelommeo, moved to speech.

"She is going the other way. Didn't you catch the tears in her voice
yesterday? She smiled at my stories, and carried herself bravely; but
her eyes were heavy, and the corners of her mouth drooped when she was
left to her thoughts. And again, my friend, did you not see her face
when the young _sigñor_ arrived?"

"She was frightened."

Pietro laughed softly. "A woman always fears her lover," he said.
"That is just the reason why you married Caterina. You liked her for
her shyness. It made you feel yourself a man--a devil of a fellow.
Don't you remember how timid she was, how she tried to avoid you, how
she would dodge into anybody's chalet rather than meet you?"

"But how do you know?" demanded Bartelommeo, waking into resentful
appreciation of Pietro's close acquaintance with his wooing.

"Because I married Lola two years earlier. Women are all the same, no
matter what country they hail from--nervous as young chamois before
marriage--but after! Body of Bacchus! Was it on Wednesday that
Caterina hauled you out of the albergo to chop firewood?"

Bartelommeo grunted, and put his pipe in his mouth again.




CHAPTER XVII

THE SETTLEMENT


Though Helen was the better linguist, it was left to Spencer to
explain that circumstances would prevent the lady from going to
Malenco that day. He did not fully understand why the men should
exchange glances of darksome intelligence when he made this statement.
He fancied they were disappointed at losing a good customer; so he
went on brokenly:

"You are in no hurry, eh? Well, then, take us across the glacier to
the Aguagliouls. We should obtain a fine view from the summit, and get
back to the hotel for luncheon. I will pay the same rates as for the
Sella."

Both guides were manifestly pleased. Pietro began a voluble recital of
the glories that would meet their enraptured gaze from the top of the
mighty rock.

"You will see the Bernina splendidly," he cried, "and Roseg too, and
the Glüschaint and Il Chapütschin. If the lady will trust to us, we
can bring her down the Tschierva glacier safely. You are a climber,
_sigñor_, else you could never have crossed the Ota before dawn. But
let us make another cup of coffee. The middle Roseg ice is safe at any
hour, and if we are on the rock by nine o'clock that will be perfect
for the sun."

Already a grand panorama of glaciers and peaks was unfolding itself. A
cloudless sky promised a lovely August day, and what that means in the
high Alps the mountaineer alone can tell. But Spencer turned his back
on the outer glory. He had eyes only for Helen, while she, looking
mistily at the giant rock across the valley, saw it not at all, for
she was peering into her own soul, and found the prospect dazzling in
its pure delight.

So they sat down to a fresh brew of coffee, and Spencer horrified
Helen by a confession that he had eaten nothing since the previous
evening. Her tender solicitude for his needs, her hasty unpacking of
rolls and sandwiches, her anxiety that he should endeavor to consume
the whole of the provisions intended for the day's march, were all
sufficing guerdon for the sufferings of those miserable days since the
hour when Mrs. de la Vere told him that Helen had gone. It was a new
experience for Spencer to have a gracious and smiling woman so greatly
concerned for his welfare; but it was decidedly agreeable. These
little attentions admitted so much that she dared not tell--as yet.
And he had such a budget of news for her! Though he found it difficult
to eat and talk at the same time, he boldly made the attempt.

"Stampa was the genius who really unraveled the mystery," he said.
"Certainly, I managed to discover, in the first instance, that you had
deposited your baggage in your own name. Had all else failed, I should
have converted myself into a label and stuck to your boxes till you
claimed them at Basle; but once we ascertained that you had not
quitted St. Moritz by train, Stampa did the rest. He knows St. Moritz
like a book, and it occurred to him that you had changed your
name----"

"Why, I wonder?" she broke in.

"That is rather hard to say." He wrestled valiantly with the leg of a
tough chicken, and thus was able to evade the question.

Poor Stampa! clinging tenaciously to the belief that Helen bore some
resemblance to his lost daughter, remembered that when Etta made her
sorrowful journey from Zermatt she gave another name at the little
hostelry in Maloja where she ended her life.

"Anyhow," went on Spencer, having dexterously severed the joint, "he
tracked you from St. Moritz to the Roseg. He even hit on the shop in
which you bought your rucksack and alpenstock. Then he put me on to
the telephone, and the remainder of the chase was up to me."

"I am sorry now that the dear old man did not come with you," cried
Helen. "I look on him as the first of my friends in Switzerland, and
shall be more than pleased to see him again."

"I pressed him to come along; but he refused. I don't wish to pain
you, dearest, but I guess he wants to keep track of Bower."

Helen, who had no inkling of the tragedy that linked those two,
blushed to her ears at the recollection of her parting from the
millionaire.

"Do you--do you know that Mr. Bower proposed to me?" she stammered.

"He told me that, and a lot more."

"Did you quarrel?"

"We--said things. But I couldn't treat Bower as I handled Georgie. I
was forced to admit his good taste, you see."

"Well, dear, promise me----"

"That I sha'n't slay him! Why, Helen, if he is half the man I take him
for, he will come to our wedding. I told Mrs. de la Vere I should
bring you back, and she agreed that there was nothing else to be
done."

The color ebbed and flowed on Helen's face at an alarming rate. "What
in the world are you talking about?" she asked, with a calm severity
that her fluttering heart denied.

Spencer laughed so happily that Pietro, who understood no word of what
his voyageurs were saying, gave Bartelommeo a sapient wink.

"Well, now," he cried, "wouldn't we be the queerest pair of zanies to
go all that long way to London to get married when a parson, and a
church, and all the needful consular offices are right here under our
noses, so to speak. Why, we have a ready-made honeymoon staring us in
the face. We'll just skate round Switzerland after your baggage and
then drop down the map into Italy. I figured it all out last night,
together with 'steen methods of making the preliminary declaration.
I'll tell you the whole scheme while we--Oh, well, if you're in a real
hurry to cross the glacier, I must defer details and talk in
headlines."

For Helen, absolutely scarlet now, had risen with a tragic air and
bade the guides prepare for instant departure.

The snow lay deep on the Roseg, and roping was essential, though
Pietro undertook to avoid any difficult crevasses. He led, Spencer
followed, with Helen next, and Bartelommeo last. They reached the
opposite moraine in half an hour, and began to climb steadily. The
rock which looked so forbidding from the hut was by no means steep and
not at all dangerous. They had plenty of time, and often stopped to
admire the magnificent vistas of the Val Roseg and the Bernina range
that were gradually unfolding before their eyes. Soon they were on a
level with the hut, the Alpine palace that had permitted their first
embrace.

"When we make our next trip to St. Moritz, Helen, we must seek out
the finest and biggest photograph of the Mortel that money can buy,"
said Spencer.

Helen was standing a little above him on a broad ledge. Her hand was
resting on his shoulder.

"Oh, look!" she cried suddenly, pointing with her alpenstock to the
massive mountain wall that rose above the _cabane_. A few stones had
fallen above a widespread snow slope. The stones started an avalanche,
and the roar of the tremendous cascade of snow and rock was distinctly
audible.

Pietro uttered an exclamation, and hastily unslung a telescope. He
said something in a low tone to Bartelommeo; but Spencer and Helen
grasped its meaning.

The girl's eyes dilated with terror. "There has been an accident!" she
whispered. Bartelommeo took the telescope in his turn and evidently
agreed with the leading guide.

"A party has fallen on Corvatsch," said Pietro gravely. "Two men are
clinging to a ledge. It is not a bad place; but they cannot move. They
must be injured, and there may be others--below."

"Let us go to their assistance," said Spencer instantly.

"_Per certo, sigñor._ That is the law of the hills. But the _sigñora_?
What of her?"

"She will remain at the hut."

"I will do anything you wish," said Helen sorrowfully, for her
gladness had been changed to mourning by the fearsome tidings that
two, if not more, human beings were in imminent danger on the slopes
of the very hill that had witnessed the avowal of her love. They raced
back over the glacier, doubling on their own track, and were thus
enabled to travel without precaution.

Leaving Helen at the hut, the men lost no time in beginning the
ascent. They were gone so long that she was almost frantic with dread
in their behalf; but at last they came, slowly, with the tread of
care, for they were carrying the body of a man.

While they were yet a couple of hundred feet above the hut, Spencer
intrusted the burden to the Italians alone. He advanced with rapid
strides, and Helen knew that he brought bad news.

"Come, dear one," he said gently. "We must go to the inn and send
help. Our guides are bringing an injured man to the hut, and there is
one other whom we left on the mountain."

"Dead?"

"Yes, killed instantly by a stone. That was all. Just a mishap--one of
the things that can never be avoided in climbing. But come, dear. More
men are needed, and a doctor. This poor fellow is badly hurt."

"Can I do nothing for him?" she pleaded.

A species of fright twitched his grave face for an instant. "No, no,
that is not to be thought of," he urged. "Pietro says he has some
little skill in these matters. He can do all that is needed until a
doctor arrives. Believe me, Helen, it is imperative that we should
reach the hotel without delay."

She went with him at once. "Who is it?" she asked. He steeled himself
to answer according to his intent. Though he had vowed that never
again would he utter a syllable to his love that was not transparently
true, how could he tell her then that Stampa was stretched lifeless on
the broad bosom of Corvatsch, and that the Italians were carrying
Bower, crushed and raving in delirium, to the hut.

"An Englishman and his guide, I am sorry to say," was his prepared
reply. "The guide is dead; but his employer can be saved, I am sure,
if only we rush things a bit. Now, Helen, let us go at top speed. No
talking, dear. We must make the hotel under the hour."

They did it, and help was soon forthcoming. Then Spencer ordered a
carriage, and insisted that Helen should drive to Maloja forthwith. He
would stay at Roseg, he said, to make certain that everything possible
was done for the unfortunate climber. Indeed, when his beloved was
lost to sight down the winding road that leads to the main valley of
the Engadine, he accompanied the men who went to the Mortel. Halfway
they met Pietro and Bartelommeo carrying Bower on an improvised
stretcher, ice axes and a blanket.

By this time, under the stimulus of wine and warmth, Bower had
regained his senses. He recognized Spencer, and tried to speak; but
the American told him that even the least excitement must be avoided.

Once the hotel was reached, and they were waiting for the doctor,
Bower could not be restrained.

"It was you who rescued me?" he said feebly.

"I, and two Italian guides. We saw the accident from the other side of
the Roseg glacier."

"Yes. Stampa pointed you out to me. I could not believe my eyes. I
watched you till the thought came that Stampa had befooled me. Then he
pushed me off the rock where we were standing. I broke my leg in the
fall; but he held me there on the rope and taunted me. Great God! how
I suffered!"

"You really ought not to talk about it," said Spencer soothingly.

"Why not? He brought me there to kill me, he said. The cunning old fox
told me that I would find Helen in the Mortel hut, and offered to take
me to her by a short cut over Corvatsch. And I believed him! I was
mad, I suppose. We did the Marmoré ascent by the light of the stars.
Do you realize what that means? It is a hard climb for experts in
broad daylight. But I meant to beat you, Spencer. Stampa vowed you
were in St. Moritz. And again I believed him! Think of it--I was
hoodwinked by an old peasant."

"Hush! Try and forget things till your broken limb is fixed."

"What does it matter? Confound it! you've won; so let me tell my
story. I must have lost my senses when I saw you and Helen leaving the
glacier with two strange guides. I forgot all else in my rage. I stood
there, frozen, bewitched. Stampa was watching me all the time, and the
instant I turned to revile him he threw me off my balance with a
thrust of his ax. 'Now you are going to die, Marcus Bauer!' he said,
grinning at me with a lunatic's joy. He even gloated over the
unexpected injury I received in falling. My groans and cries were so
pleasing to him that he did not cut the rope at once as he meant to
do, but kept me dangling there, listening to his reproaches. Then the
stones fell, and pinned him to the ledge; but not one touched me, and
I hauled myself up, broken leg and all, till I crawled on to the big
rock that rested on his body. You found me there, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wish you luck. I meant to snatch Helen from you, even at the
twelfth hour; but Stampa over-reached me. That mock marriage of his
contriving had more power than I counted on. Curse it! how these
crushed bones are beginning to ache! Give me some brandy. I want to
drink Helen's health, and my own, and yours, damn you! See that you
treat her well and make her life happy! She is worthy of all your
love, and I suppose she loves you, whereas I might have striven for
years to win her affection and then failed in the end."

Late that night Spencer arrived at the Maloja. Helen was waiting for
him, as he had telephoned the hour he might be expected. Rumor had
brought the news of Stampa's death and Bower's accident. Then she
understood why her lover had sent her away so quickly. She was
troubled all day, blaming herself as the unconscious cause of so much
misery. Spencer saw that the full truth alone would dispel her self
reproach. So he told her everything, even showing her Millicent's
letter and a telegram received from Mackenzie, in which the editor of
"The Firefly" put it quite plainly that the proprietor of the magazine
had forbidden him (Mackenzie) from taking any steps whatever with
regard to Helen's return to England without definite instructions.

The more she learned of the amazing web of intrigue and
misunderstanding that surrounded her movements since she left the
Embankment Hotel after that memorable luncheon with Millicent, the
less inclined she was to deny Spencer's theory that Fate had brought
them together.

"I cleared out of Colorado as though a tarantula had bitten me," he
said. "I traveled five thousand miles to London, saw you, fooled
myself into the belief that I was intended by Providence to play the
part of a heavy uncle, and kept up that notion during another
thousand-mile trip to this delightful country. Then you began to reach
out for me, Helen----"

"I did nothing of the kind!" she protested.

"Oh, yes, you did,--just grabbed me good and hard,--and when Bower
showed up I stacked my chips on the table and sat down to the game.
What am I talking about? I don't know. Kiss me good night, sweetheart,
and don't you give a red cent who's looking. For once in a way, I
don't mind admitting that I'm tired--all in. I could sleep on a row of
porcupines."

       *       *       *       *       *

Stampa was buried in the grave that held his daughter's remains.
Spencer purchased the space for a suitable monument, and the
inscription does not fail to record the fact that one of the men who
first conquered the Matterhorn had paid tribute to the mountains by
meeting his death on Corvatsch.

The American went many times to visit Bower at the Roseg inn. He found
his erstwhile rival resigned to the vagaries of fortune. The doctors
summoned from St. Moritz deemed his case so serious that they brought
a specialist from Paris, and the great surgeon announced that the
millionaire's leg would be saved; but there must remain a permanent
stiffness.

"I know what that means," said Bower, with a wry smile. "It is a
legacy from Stampa. That is really rather funny, considering that the
joke is against myself. By the way, did I tell you I gave Millicent
Jaques a check for five thousand pounds to stop her tongue?"

"I guessed the check, but couldn't guess the amount."

"She wrote last week, threatening all sorts of terrible things because
I withheld payment. You will remember that when you and I placed on
record our mutual opinion of each other, we agreed at any rate that it
was a mean thing on her part to give away our poor Helen to the
harpies in the hotel. So I telegraphed at once to my bankers, and Miss
Millicent didn't make good, as you would put it. Now she promises to
'expose' me. Humorous, isn't it?"

"I think you ought to marry her," said Spencer, with that immobile
look of his.

"Perhaps I may, one of these days. But first she must learn to behave
herself. A nice girl, Millicent. She would look decorative, sitting
beside an invalid in a carriage. Yes, I'll think of it. Meanwhile, I
shall chaff her about the five thousand and see how she takes it."

Millicent behaved. Helen saw that she did.

On a day in September, after a wedding that was attended by as many
people as could be crowded into the little English church at Maloja,
Mr. and Mrs. Charles K. Spencer drove over the pass and down the Vale
of Bregaglia en route to Como, Milan, and Venice. At the wedding
breakfast, when Mrs. de la Vere officiated as hostess, the Rev. Philip
Hare amused the guests by stating that he had taken pains to discover
what the initial "K" represented in his American friend's name.

"His second name is Knox," said the vicar, "and I understand that he
is a direct descendant of a famous Scottish divine known to history as
a very stubborn person. Well, it has been said by a gentleman present
that Mr. Spencer has a backbone of cast steel, so the 'K' is fully
accounted for, while the singular affinity of steel of any variety for
a magnet gives a ready explanation of the admirable union which has
resulted from the chance that brought the bride and bridegroom under
the same roof."

Everybody said that Hare was much happier on such occasions than in
the pulpit, and even the Wragg girls were heard to admit that Helen
looked positively charming.

So it is clear that many hatchets were blunted in Maloja, which is as
it should ever be in such a fairyland, and that Helen, looking back at
the mighty chain of the Alps from the deck of a steamer on Lake Como,
had no reason to regret the day when first she crossed that solemn
barrier.

                              THE END




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