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, signorina?" 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, signorina! 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 Moliere 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, signora. 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, signora," 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, signora; 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 cooperation, 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.



Millicent's first action after quitting the salle a manger had been to worm out of Leontine 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 chateau; 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 fraeulein 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 fraeulein. 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, signora. 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, signora. 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, signora, but there is a bit of really bad snow on the Sella Pass," urged Pietro apologetically at her shoulder, and she reentered 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 neve 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, signora, 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.