PART II

I

THE MAKER OF RUINS

OF all the lakes of Lombardy Orta is the least frequented. It is lost

in the reputation of the Lago Maggiore like a small boat in the wake of

a vessel.

From the train which runs along its border the voyager is content to

regard it negligently and does not deign to stop. He sees the clearly

drawn lines of the wooded mountains that shut it in, and the hollows

of the valleys where the white villages half hide themselves like a

flock of sheep in a pasture. He catches a hasty glimpse of a little

hill planted with trees thrust forth on a promontory into the waters,

of a straggling town on the bank, of an island all built up, and in

this rapid flight he imagines he has culled the smiling delicacy of

this landscape, which indeed stores up and epitomises the whole charm

of the Lombardy country: a mixture of grace and harshness. The shore

of the lake rounds itself off lazily, but the contours of the hills

against the horizon are crisp and well marked, not soft and vaporous

as under the paler skies of Switzerland and Savoy. In the evening they

seem to sink deep into the clear background. The almost symmetrical

undulations of the hills repeat the same forms, exaggerating themselves

accordingly as one looks toward the north, so that one feels almost as

if they could be measured by the clearly marked stages with which the

Novare plain comes up at last against the formidable barrier of the

Alps.

Orta Novarese is not yet equipped for the reception of travellers,

and on that account enjoys its fortunate neglect. A single hotel on

the side of the Sacred Mount--Orta is crowned by a little mountain,

where twenty chapels, scattered among the trees, illustrate the life

and miracles of St. Francis of Assisi--the Hotel Belvedere, from

spring until the beginning of winter, receives a limited number of

lodgers. But all through the green of the woods, along the lake’s edge,

one discovers country houses, where the aristocracy of the province

come for rest and recreation. The iron gates are left open, and from

well-kept gardens comes a perfume of flowers that is quite delicious

after the musty smell of table-d’hôte that vitiates one’s stay at

Pollanza or Baveno.

Fleeing from the large towns where they had spent the stormy months of

winter, Mrs. Frasne and Maurice Roquevillard had installed themselves

at the Belvedere in May. They had been tempted to stay on there because

they were tired of change, as well as by the moderate prices, so that

they found themselves still there at the end of October. An exceptional

autumn followed almost slyly in the steps of summer, and but for the

shorter days, and a little freshness in the air, or the timid gold

that began to touch the foliage, the sun would have inspired unlimited

confidence in good weather.

This morning, in the sitting-room of their suite at the hotel, the

young man was occupied with the translating of a little Italian book,

_Vita dei SS_. _Jiulio e Giuliano_, a history of those two

apostles who came from the Ægean Sea in the fourth century to preach

the gospel in Orta. A passage taken from Lamartine, and left there in

the original text, held him longer than the obscurest phrase. In a

reverie he lifted his head from the prospect near the window. His eyes

disdained the bouquet of trees which finished off the peninsula below

him, the calm and transparent lake, the little island, a place where

enchantments were performed in ancient days, which the poetic author of

the biography compared to a camellia on a silver plate. Spontaneously

they sought the ridge of the mountains which barred the horizon, as if

he would pierce them and look beyond. While he was thus absorbed, a

white form glided into the room and bent over his shoulder to glance

at the open book. From among the foreign phrases the passage from

Lamartine detached itself in italics:

_The predestined fate of the child is the house in which

it was born: his spirit is made up above all else of

impressions there received. The look of our mother’s eyes

is a part of our soul, entering through our oxen eyes into our inmost

parts._

Mrs. Frasne quietly closed the book; and her lover, who had not heard

her come in, started at the movement. Between them passed a look full

of those things which lovers hardly dare to speak or even think.

“What day of the month is it?” she asked indifferently.

Reassured, he replied:

“The twenty-fifth of October.”

Then all at once she made him anxious once more:

“A year ago, do you remember, we met each other at the Calvary of

Lemenc. It was there we made up our minds to flee together. Only a

year, and already my love is no longer enough for you.”

“Edith!”

“No, it’s no longer enough for you.”

And with a sad smile she added simply:

“See, how you work.”

“Edith, must we not think of the future?”

“No, not yet. What do we need?”

He took umbrage at her question:

“My resources are used up. The money we’re spending now is yours. I

can’t forget that.”

“But all is the same between us. Am I not your wife?”

He wrinkled his eyebrows with a purposed look.

“I want your dot to remain intact. I’ve asked one of my friends,

who is a political writer in Paris, to find me a place with the

newspapers. Can’t I send them some review from the foreign journals? I

learned English at college, and later German for my doctor’s thesis.

And I speak Italian already. This side work and a place in a lawyer’s

office will give us enough to live on.”

She listened to him with an enigmatic smile, while she stroked his face

with that gesture of adoration so familiar to him.

“To-morrow we’ll talk about the future. To-morrow, not to-day,” she

said.

“Why should we wait a day? On the contrary, we ought to decide at once

on the date of our departure.”

“Our departure?”

“Yes, for Paris.”

She could not conceal her discontent.

“Always Paris. You talk about it all the time. You are obsessed by it.”

“It’s in Paris that I must earn my daily bread,” he replied, in a

melancholy voice.

Supply and fawningly she slid into his arms, and sought the red of his

lips beneath his moustache, murmuring close to him:

“I asked you for one year of your life. To live one year with neither

past nor future, to breathe in our tenderness every day, to have you

forget all the rest of the world for me. Don’t you remember?”

“Have I not done all this for you, and much more, too?”

“There’s one day due me. To-morrow is our anniversary.”

“To-morrow, Edith,” he repeated, with some emotion.

All trembling with her memories she stood erect again.

“Don’t spoil this day that’s left us. Since it’s the last, let’s have

it the most beautiful of our year that has run away drop by drop. Don’t

let us talk of the future before to-morrow. Will you promise me?”

He smiled at so much ecstasy.

“I’ll do as you wish.”

“Then I’ll go and dress. It won’t take long. And we’ll go out together.

We’ll have lunch on the island.”

She disappeared, and during her absence he tried to begin again at his

work on the translation. But for the second time he began the phrase

from Lamartine:

“_The predestined fate of the child is the home in which it was

born_----” And again he paused.

Edith was right. The present did not suffice him any more, had never

sufficed him. By tacit consent they had both of them brushed aside

the future, but into the past, of which they dared not speak, their

minds looked when their mouths were mute. Silence, for him, became a

supplication. Beyond those nearer mountains there, at this hour, what

were _they_ doing, those dear ones from whom he had no news?

Edith reappeared on the threshold, soliciting his approval.

“Don’t you think I look nice this morning?”

She wore a summer dress of white serge, which, without fitting too

closely, outlined her flexible form, and a hat surmounted by white

wings, which gave her whole person a finishing touch of light and

slender grace. This year had rejuvenated her. Her eyes of fire could

not have flashed more brilliantly than before, but her cheeks were

rounder and less pale. Her thin body had taken on an appearance of

weight, and through her whole person was diffused an indefinable and

pervasive air of love.

He admired her, but did not put in words the compliment for which she

waited.

They went down to the port of Orta by a steeply inclined path,

paved with round stones, so little used that grass was growing in

the crevices. In the square, before the bank where the boats were

moored, they came upon a young girl in a red bonnet, whom they had

already encountered several times in their walks and who must have

lived somewhere near. The little foreigner stared at them, especially

Maurice, without timidity.

“She is pretty,” remarked Maurice, after they had passed.

His companion made a little grimace of sadness, which for a moment

brought back all her age.

“Don’t look at her,” she said. “I am jealous.”

“Jealous? And can’t I be, too?” he asked, teasing her for her severity.

“Of whom, good heavens!”

“Why, of that black and moustachioed Italian at the hotel. He forgets

his mistress during meals and makes bold eyes at you.”

She burst into laughter.

“Lorenzo!”

“You know his name?”

“He told me. He made me a declaration, rolling up the whites of his

eyes. It was too funny!”

He forced himself to laugh in his turn. But when they were installed

in their boat, and two or three strokes of the oars had carried them

from the shore, he was conscious of the same feeling of uneasiness.

This present that they were managing with so much art, from which they

set aside all memories and consequences, so that they might extract its

essence in all its force, here was the least little incident tainting

it. What barriers must be built for love to give it shelter from

the world even for a year! This love, for which they had sacrificed

everything, was pressed upon from every side by life and by the

impulses of their own hearts, even as the shores of the little island

that lay before them were laved by the waters of the lake.

She was the first to feel the consciousness of their

misery. She leant from the thwart and drew nearer to him.

But instead of divining what she meant, he began and told

her the legend of St. Jules, for whom they neither of them cared a rap.

“This island in olden times,” he recited, “was infested with snakes.

When St. Jules wanted to go to Orta the fishermen all refused to lend

him their boats, whereupon he spread his mantle on the water for a boat

and used his staff for an oar.”

She was vexed, and murmured sardonically:

“How much you know!”

“I’ve just been reading about this miracle.”

“I detest your book.”

He guessed her reason for detesting it. In this last day of their first

year of love, that was to sum up all its sweetness, everything hurt

them, everything turned sad for them, even the most innocent words.

They got out at the foot of a staircase that led up from the beach,

and fastened their boat to an iron ring fixed in the gravel for that

purpose. They went into the old Roman basilica, which contained

some Byzantine frescoes, recently discovered under a thick coat of

rough-cast, a chair of black marble, a sarcophagus and some frescoes

by Ferrari and Luino. Because they had seen these at other times

together, they visited them now without pleasure. Lovers must always

have new sights, so much do they shrink from blunted sensations, for

fear instinctively of wearying each other. Maurice and Edith preferred

to explore this morning a narrow passageway that was quite new to them.

The whole summit of this precipitous little island is covered with

the buildings of a seminary that looks as if it were a fortress. The

little road turned presently and led them abruptly up to a closed door.

Their progress was blocked, and they found themselves face to face in

the most utter isolation, shut in by two high walls and on an island.

There could not have been a completer effect of isolation for them, of

having no one besides themselves in the whole world. Surely this is the

professed desire of lovers. One year ago they would have welcomed for

all their lives an isolation like this. To-day, without a word, they

turned and fled back to the beach.

An old man was fishing with his line in the midday sun. Under a willow

tree near the strand two barefooted children were playing ducks and

drakes. Along the shore country houses appeared among the trees, whose

leaves autumn was slowly garnishing with colour, and Orta, a mass of

white, was reflected in the motionless lake. The spectacle of this calm

and normal life in the midday stillness helped to restore their spirits.

They ate their lunch on the steps of the stairway that led up to the

basilica. Afterwards they floated here and there over the water for a

part of the afternoon, seeking some place unknown to them in which they

might revivify sensation. Finally they went back to the port, and once

on shore again, still sought some new use to make of time.

“Shall we go back to the hotel?” he asked, as they stood in the little

square.

But she protested against the idea of shutting themselves up in the

house.

“Oh, no! The sun is still high above the mountain. Let’s go back by the

long way, and not hurry.”

The road, after crossing through the town, which was quite destitute

of sidewalks, ran along the shore of the lake, rising little by little

from its level, and following the contours of the Sacred Mount, whose

trees and chapels dominated the peninsula, past the iron gates or walls

of villas, with ornamental palms and orange trees at their entrances.

In front of one of these villas, a quite modest and shabby one, which

they could see at the end of a short avenue through the open portals,

Edith caught the smell of roses.

“Wait,” she said to her lover. “They are so sweet, and they must be the

last.”

“Let’s go in,” he said. “I’ll beg some for you.”

They went in together, and discovered in the inner garden a strange

assemblage of statues--small truncated columns, little stuccoed

towers with their coating half peeled off, unfinished porches, all

the devastation of a miniature art city, but regular and organised

as with a decorative motive. In the midst of this symmetrical group

of stones, all symbolising with factitious grace the injuries of

time, a little marble Cupid stood on his pedestal, with roses all

around him, bending his bow with a smile upon his lips.

The young woman saw only Love among the roses.

“He is charming, and the day caresses him.”

“Isn’t it bizarre?” observed Maurice. “We must be in the grounds of

some collector of monuments. They’ve no objection to such things in

Italy.”

An elderly man with a white blouse put on over his clothes, and a

sculptor’s chisel in his hand, came forward to meet them, and greeted

them quite solemnly, with a mixture of obsequiousness and nobility.

He entered into conversation with Maurice in Italian, while Edith,

with his permission, gathered some flowers. She rejoined the two men

presently with a sheaf of them in her hands.

“Here is my bouquet. I’ll give you each a rose,” she said.

The despoiled proprietor stumbled through some half intelligible form

of thanks and greeting. Maurice introduced him:

“Mr. Antonio Siccardi, a maker of artificial ruins. It’s a fine

occupation.”

Edith raised inquiring eyes to her lover.

“I’ll explain,” he added for her benefit.

When they were on the road again, after having taken leave of their

host of the moment, Edith made game of this very unusual and unheard-of

occupation, and repeated in a jesting tone:

“A manufacturer of artificial ruins?”

“Exactly,” said Maurice, “for decorating parks. In the

shrubbery, or near a garden bench, you put a broken

column, or an unfinished archway or some clever rock work: it’s quite

effective. I knew a good man in the Latin Quarter who made cobwebs for

old wine bottles, and people bought them that very evening for their

grand dinners.”

“And could he make much money at such work?”

“A good deal.”

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

“He told me, as a matter of fact, that all the newly rich, and there

are a great many of them, people who have made money at finance or

trade, were mad about his art. Their houses are brand new, and they

themselves have just risen from the soil, but they must have ruins for

beauty.”

“Fancy! But Cupid? What is Love doing in the midst of those dreadful

ruins? Roses would be enough for him.”

“I asked the good man that question, too.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“‘He delights in ruins,’ he assured me, with a mysterious smile, a Mona

Lisa smile that merchants can put on at will, I’ve noticed.”

“Yes, it’s funny,” she concluded. “The Italians put marble groups in

city clothes in their cemeteries, making them look like dressmakers’

parlors, and they select the emblems of death to decorate their

gardens....”

Slowly they climbed the Sacred Mountain, which rose

about a hundred yards above the town. When they reached

the summit they found evening there, and a new secret sweetness in

the great woods of firs, larches, chestnuts and parasol pines, in the

midst of which, here and there under the declining sun, were scattered

the twenty sanctuaries of St. Francis. These little chapels, built

between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, are all of different

styles of architecture, round or square, with or without peristyles,

Gothic or Romanesque, Byzantine effects prevailing. Each of them

encloses, instead of an altar, some scene from the saint’s life, done

in life-size terracotta images, a motionless Oberammergau. A naïve and

candid art had presided over the installation of this pilgrim’s goal.

The stigmata of the saint are the ends of the wires that raise his

hands to the gold rays in the ceiling that denote God’s presence there.

Since they had come to Orta Edith and Maurice had never let many

days go by without visiting the Sacred Mountain. You could reach it

from the Belvedere Hotel in a few steps. Among all the chapels they

had elected the fifteenth, which, according to tradition, had been

designed by Michelangelo, as their special favourite. It was circular

in form, with a cupola, and had a peristyle supported by slender little

granite columns. It reminded them of the Calvary of Lemenc, where

their flight had been decided on. Along its gallery, which rose a few

steps from the ground, the graceful vaulted arches framed successively

the various perspectives of the woods: sometimes a view of other

chapels among the foliage, sometimes the outlines of a well-curb, and

sometimes, between the branches, a panel of sky, a corner of the lake,

or the island of St. Jiulio, with its campanile at its front, looking

like some big ironclad run aground in the tiny water.

They made their way instinctively toward their special chapel, and

climbed its steps. The pine trunks near them stood out against the

reddening background of the sky, and here and there one of the other

sanctuaries gleamed among the trees like a friendly dwelling.

She held her roses in one hand and rested the other on the shoulder of

her lover.

“It was a beautiful evening, like this,” she sighed.

“When?”

“A year ago. You are not sorry?”

He turned away his eyes.

“No.”

“You aren’t going to be sorry for anything?”

As she pressed him for an answer he replied, almost sternly:

“No, never.”

She leant nearer to him to reach his lips, and in his eyes she caught

a distant look that frightened her. The something that had been

separating them all day, all this last day of their year of tenderness,

showed there now with more distinctness than ever. She said at last

something that prudence should have counselled her to leave unsaid:

“Maurice, where is Chambéry?”

“Down there.”

His reply came so quickly, and with a gesture so certain, that she was

all upset by it. He took his bearings often, then, from that quarter

of the sky. Even in his love he had forgotten nothing. Tears started

in the young woman’s eyes. He did not ask her the reason of them, but

tried to console her with caresses.

“Edith, I love you so.”

She made a little face to show that she was not deceived.

“More than everything?”

“More than everything.”

“Enough to die for me?”

“Yes.”

“Not more than that?”

“It would not be possible.”

With insatiable ardour she cried out:

“But I don’t want to die, I want to live. Shall you love me as much

to-morrow?”

“Why not to-morrow?”

“Because I’m afraid. Don’t you see that we can’t go on like this?”

“Oh, you see it, too, then. No, we can’t any more. The future, the

past, the world, we can’t suppress them. Each day you have been putting

off the final reckoning.”

“Keep still, Maurice--keep still.”

She put her hand against his mouth to stop him, and for a second time

she begged him:

“To-morrow, to-morrow, I promise you. I’ll do as you wish to-morrow.

You shall decide our fate. But not this evening. This last evening is

mine.”

And she put her lips to his, where her hand had been.

The day was waning swiftly. Among the trees the red streak that edged

the mountain grew softer, and the waters of the lake took on a uniform

tint of grey, barely streaked and lightened here and there by the last

reflections from the setting sun.

It was he who first moved down the steps of the peristyle. He walked,

unheeding what he did, in the direction that he had just pointed out

to her with his hand. When he turned back again he saw his companion

motionless there between two columns. So she had waited for him that

other time before the Calvary of Lemenc. Her white figure stood out

against the greyer wall.

“How beautiful she is,” he reflected, defeated a second time.

She was smelling of her flowers, watching the evening light, and he

recalled their queer visit of the afternoon: “Love and his roses.”

He called to her:

“Edith, aren’t you coming? It’s getting chilly, and you have no wrap.”

As she came over toward him he gazed still toward that point in the

horizon that marked his native land for him, and thought:

“The ruin is down there.”

Had not the artist in Orta assured them, with his engaging

smile, that Love took delight in ruins?

II

THE ANNIVERSARY

EVEN on the day of their “anniversary” Maurice tried to persuade his

companion to decide on their departure. After lunch he led her into the

avenue that bounded the Sacred Mountain and widened at intervals into

little terraces, with stone balustrades placed so as to give good views

over the lake.

The sunlight filled it everywhere, but at the end of October the sun

was grateful and not a thing to shun.

Whether from sadness or absent-mindedness, she did not appear disposed

to talk. He was the first to speak, breaking the silence that now

separated them, instead of bringing them closer to each other.

“This day had to come, Edith. We have been happy here. But we must go.

They are waiting for me in Paris. It will be the beginning of a new

life.”

He hoped for an answer, some encouragement, and began again with some

embarrassment:

“We’ll set up housekeeping for our love. We’ll have a

home. I’ll take steps to legalise our situation, and get

a divorce for you. You haven’t wanted me to do anything

about it hitherto. We’ve broken all our bonds without a backward

glance.”

Edith eluded this question of getting domiciled. She had only a

confused idea of not leaving Italy, and seemed without a hint of any

plan besides.

“How good it is at this hour of day,” she murmured. “Last evening I

felt cold.”

He followed her lead patiently.

“Cold? The air is so soft it seems almost summer still.”

“And yet it’s autumn. Look.”

At their feet stretched the high irregular shores of the lake. Opposite

them rose the clearly drawn forms of the mountains. Here and there a

shrine, a village, or a tower fixed the salient points of the landscape

for them. Trees and shrubs in a few days had changed their colours:

only the group of pines kept their green intact in the pale gold sea.

They were leaning on the balustrade. As in Savoy, the menacing beauty

of things made Edith feel an almost painful ecstasy. With nostrils

dilated and nerves taut, vibrating in all her being, she breathed in

the autumn’s mortal grace. And he, gazing on that face across which

some passion always stirred, that seemed to burn with some inner

devouring flame behind the windows of her soul, that face which

probably he had never yet seen in utter calm, could not tear his eyes

away. Certain delicate lines, the coursing of the blood beneath her

healthy skin, the smell of her dark hair, blotted out the beauty of the

world for him, or rather gathered all beauty in that little space. He could

not help noticing the effect upon her of the year that had slipped

by. Her youth recovered, liberty, pleasure, the cities and works of

art which they had seen together, had helped her and brightened her.

Her heart had been seething with confused desires when they had set

out, and her year had purified and completed her at the same time.

Never until now had he appreciated so distinctly the work his love had

wrought in her. He felt an anguished joy in reflecting that he might

lose her.

She was conscious of Maurice’s persistent gaze, and smiled at him,

pointing toward the horizon with a comprehensive gesture that seemed to

gather it all in at once.

“It’s lovelier even than in those first days.”

He could not help translating his recent thoughts for her.

“You, too, are more beautiful, Edith.”

The unlooked-for compliment took her by surprise.

“Really?”

“Yes, I mean it. Do you see those trees? They are more graceful, as if

they had thrown off some useless weight. You can see farther through

their branches. In the same way I can see deeper into your eyes.”

“As deep as my heart?”

“Into your heart.”

She smiled, thinking how much a young man has yet to

learn of a woman’s heart. And doubting her power no longer,

she judged the moment favourable to begin, herself, the explanations

that had been so long postponed. Her idea was to cast aside all

falsehood, and bind her lover to herself irrevocably by making him

accept a complicity that he could not disavow at so late a day. Such

an acceptance of a share of guilt with her would be the greatest proof

of tenderness that he could give her. She would have given it to him,

herself, without hesitating, were the case reversed. But with men, one

could never tell till the very end, so strange is their idea of honour.

Herself she had not had a single doubt as to her right to take away the

amount of the settlement Mr. Frasne had made her of his own accord.

What sort of gift was it that the giver could keep hold of? She thrust

aside even her scruples as to the manner in which she had gone about

the business. What did the way of it signify to her? Women only half

understand any questions of self-interest that bother them.

It had been explained to her that this money belonged to her, and

this explanation sufficed her. Even if she had robbed her husband she

would have felt no remorse, because she hated him. But in good faith

she did not believe she had despoiled him. She had only taken what

was strictly due her, and had only to have opened her hands to take

more. _She_ had given him her youth and beauty. She had paid

with her life, and tears. Could she be paid back for her nine years of

repugnances overcome, her nine years of accumulated distaste?

Nevertheless, at the moment of revealing all to Maurice, she hesitated.

With her most coaxing voice she began:

“Happiness improves one’s looks, then? Since my childhood this has been

my first year of happiness. Oh, if you knew my past!”

“I have often asked you, Edith. Tell me about it now. Let me have the

story. Neither you nor I must keep any more secrets from each other.”

It was her own version that she told, somewhat adapted, like all

autobiographies: a childhood happy and petted, an environment of

prosperity and luxury; then the ruin of her father, overtaken by his

passion for gambling, a ruin that brought out the worst in him and

led rapidly to idleness, then drunkenness and fatal illness: next

her retirement to the country with her forlorn and feeble mother,

and already the revolt within herself at her monotonous existence,

the fever of desire and envy that consumed her girl’s heart. She had

inherited her father’s imprudence and generosity, but was reduced to

giving music lessons to the children of the surrounding villas and

waiting impatiently for the lover that should set her free. Maurice

interrupted her recital to murmur:

“It was misery.”

She believed that he pitied her, and she smiled on him,

thanking him for his compassion. She was absorbed in her

recollections, and did not see the strict attention that he was

concentrating on her every word.

“Almost,” she replied.

“And already you were pretty?”

“I don’t think so. I was so thin. A grapevine.”

But she understood herself very well, for she added in a tone of

mischief:

“Good for kindling fires.”

Then began the pursuit of her by Mr. Frasne. With his pop-eyes and his

set ways, which she could feel underneath his insipid airs, her only

sentiment toward him was one of repulsion. She was revolted by it all.

He was the first of all her suitors to ask for her hand. He possessed a

comfortable fortune, an honourable position in Paris; he could, if he

liked, acquire a lawyer’s practice at Grenoble or in some neighbouring

village. It was the marriage of convenience in all its horrors. She

detested poverty; her mother, who was not accustomed to it, objected

to it still more. Old people want to live, and mere love does not move

them. All her relations got round the girl.

“And so I sold myself,” she concluded.

He had not interrupted her once. With heart beating, he followed her

throughout, like one who skirts the edge of an abyss. When she ended

her story with this climax he hurled the words at her which came in an

instant to his lips, brutally:

“And your dot?”

“Wait, you’ll see.”

Only a few pedestrians were taking the air in the avenue. Some children

were playing in the woods, quite far from them. They were almost alone,

but even by the presence of these discreet witnesses she lost her

best argument in this crisis that she had so adroitly postponed until

to-day--the argument of her kisses. She had understood, she could not

fail to have understood, what was agitating her lover: so often had it

lain upon her own mind, too. It had for so long a time tormented both

of them; and at the expense of much effort, by many lies and refusals

to talk about the past--which counts for so little when one is in

love--she had succeeded in keeping it until now at a safe distance from

their happiness. At the back of her head, however, was the idea that by

this very thing she would chain him to her forever.

She was bravely straining her intelligence, like a bow, to drive her

arguments far forward; she wanted her explanation to be sincere and

loyal as well as decisive; and all the time he was repeating in a

strangled voice:

“Your dot? You had no dot?”

He showed a tone of command that he got from his father, and gave his

orders sharply:

“Speak. You must tell me now.”

She was surprised, dismayed, staring at him almost in terror. This big

young man of twenty-five, so sweet, so adorable, whom she had felt so

sure of, lo, how abruptly he became the master. Then she had not yet

explored all the corners of this heart that she had thought was hers.

Instinctively, to shield their love, she shifted her tactics, and

yielded up the least possible portion of the truth.

“My dot, Maurice? It truly belongs to me, my dot.”

“Where did it come from? It was not settled on you, then, by your

relatives? Oh, I can guess how it was. It was he, wasn’t it, who

settled it on you in your marriage contract? Answer me.”

She tried to hold out against him.

“Yes, it was he who gave it to me. And afterwards? It’s mine now.”

He was more upset than she was, but contained his anger on account of

the passersby, going on with his questioning of her, nevertheless.

“No, unfortunately, it isn’t yours. I am familiar with these contracts.

It was a settlement made in case of your surviving your husband. That’s

what it was. I’m sure of it. Try to remember now, and be careful.”

She stiffened with all her being at these menacing words from these

two dear lips, these set red lips. It was not a question any more now

for her of making an accomplice of her lover, of getting this supreme

gauge of love from him, only of saving that love. Her only weapons were

the caresses in her voice, and she knew he would yield to them; and,

besides, was it not the truth, what she was telling him?

“Maurice, don’t treat me like this. You deceive yourself. My dot

belongs to me. It was mine from the beginning. A friend of my father’s

insisted upon it. Do you want proof of it? As long as my mother lived

I used the income from it for her. I could dispose of it as I saw fit.

You see, you are mistaken. Don’t treat me like this.”

In his mental disarray the former law student of the Frasne offices was

summoning up all his ideas of law, trying to reason the thing out.

“It’s always been a gift. A gift from him. And a settlement is

revocable in case of divorce.”

“Not mine, I swear to you,” she assured him, hazarding everything on

the throw.

“Try to think, Edith. It is so serious. My very life is at stake.”

“Your life?”

“Yes. Or my honour. It’s the same thing. Was it you who took charge of

this sum, who handled the revenues?”

“Yes, I.”

She was on the alert now, and guessed swiftly what way she must make

her answers, plunging into falsehood greedily.

The settlement of one hundred thousand francs to which Mr. Frasne

had consented upon her marriage was her own property in fact, but

under the administration and control of her husband. It was not to

continue in the event of an action for divorce against her. In any case,

she had not the free use of it, she could not arrange, by herself

alone, for withdrawing any of it. But what did these quibbles amount to?

Nevertheless, Maurice went on, implacable as a trial judge.

“Where was this money deposited?”

“In the Universal Bank, in funds that I negotiated myself with it. I’ve

told you all this already. Let me be, Maurice.”

“Deposited in your name?”

“In my name.”

“Was it there you drew it out before we left Chambéry?”

“Yes, there.”

“You were able to withdraw it from the branch at Chambéry on your

endorsement alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then you were married under the arrangement of a separate maintenance

account?”

“That was it.”

Several times he had questioned her on this subject, since she had

told him, a little while after their flight, of having realised

upon her personal fortune, which she represented as having

been an inheritance from her family. This fiction of a deposit

account, conceived at that time to avoid rousing the young man’s

susceptibilities, she was maintaining now energetically the very

day on which she had thought to give it up completely.

Her replies, made clearly and rapidly, and conforming to her previous

explanations, were plausible, taken as a whole. It was not improbable

that some counsellor of the Dannemarie family should have interposed

before the signing of the marriage contract, to turn Frasne’s passion

to account and exact an absolute and definite settlement on her; it

would safeguard the young woman’s future and make her circumstances

more dignified and independent. Why did Maurice doubt these statements?

Did they not sufficiently destroy his happiness? It was already too

much that he had yielded to a sort of entombment, from which he

awakened now in anger; too much that by an unworthy compromise he had

delayed his return to work until this end of their year of love. But he

had not suspected the tainted origin of this fortune of Edith’s, though

he deluded himself into thinking that he would restore it completely

some day by his own earnings. And, lo, here was the truth now shedding

the veil that hid it, crushing his pride and shattering all his

self-esteem. This fortune, even if it belonged of right to Edith, came

really from the man whose home he had ruined. That he should have

turned the least particle of it to his own account was an infamous

proceeding that he could not tolerate at any price.

With a sinking sensation, he made a mental calculation of the amount of

his indebtedness to her.

“Your money is deposited in the International Bank of Milan,

Edith. Do you know how much of it has been used?”

“You have had charge of it.”

“Eight thousand francs, more or less.”

“We have not spent much,” she protested gently. As a matter of fact,

this sum, added to what he had had himself, came to a very moderate

figure for the expenses of a whole year spent in travel. But at

Orta, where they had stayed for six months, living was very cheap,

diversions were infrequent and not costly. Edith, after a brief fling

of extravagance, had shown herself always easy to please, quite simple

and content with few expenditures, finding her love enough.

When and how could he get hold of eight thousand francs? As long as he

was unable to reimburse her he should feel crushed, and dishonoured,

his life a burden to him. Because he deeply resented his humiliation,

Maurice loaded his companion with reproach.

“Very well, then. I am your debtor. I will pay you back, though. After

that we’ll see.”

“What a discussion for two lovers,” sighed Edith, at her wits’ end,

discouraged, beaten: “on the day of our anniversary!”

She hid her face, and Maurice, more miserable than herself, came up to

her and tried to pull away her clenched hands.

“Listen, Edith, I don’t accuse you, not you yourself.

We have been living together as if we were married. I have

had no thought but for our happiness. I was wrong. I am still quite

young.”

She yielded her hands up to him, not afraid to show him her poor

swollen eyes.

“Shouldn’t I have accepted everything from you and been grateful for

it?”

“And I from you, yes, but from him? Oh, he’s well avenged. If I have

destroyed his home he has crushed my honour.”

“Have I been thinking of him, do you suppose?” But he continued gravely

and with sad insistence: “We were living so heedlessly. It’s all

finished now.”

There was such despair in his voice that she flung herself impulsively

into his arms, and cried, “Hush!”

Her whole scheme of life had crumbled under them here on this little

terrace; she must get him away from it.

“Maurice, come to our woods with me,” she pleaded. “Come and sit in the

shade behind our chapel. We shall be alone there, and less unhappy.”

He made up his mind abruptly that he would listen to her.

“Yes, let’s get away from here,” he said.

The rays of the sun coming through the pines marked bands of

clear light on the leaf-strewn ground. On the shadowy path they

lay like golden puddles that must be stepped across. Edith led

him round the chapel, and searched out a mossy corner a little

to one side, making her lover be seated there. She took his face

in her hands and covered it with kisses, and he seemed to yield to her

caresses a moment, then suddenly thrust her off.

“No, leave me, Edith. Please don’t. When your lips press mine I’ve no

more force of will. I am just nothing any more, only a beating heart.”

“I love you,” she moaned.

“That’s just it. I love you.”

He stood up, and half wildly pointed out the lake to her, where it lay

glowing through the trees. Already Edith was trembling, and divined the

temptation that was upon him.

“But I love you more than ever before,” she coaxed. “You may command me

and I’ll obey. I’ll listen.”

“Will you come with me?”

“Where will you take me to, Maurice?”

“Down there,” he said, pointing to the lake.

“Hush!” she cried, and recoiled instinctively.

But as on the Calvary of Lemenc the year before, when she had urged him

to come away, he in his turn felt a kind of ecstasy in conquering her

will.

“Yes, come. Our year of love is dead already. Come, Edith. Already our

love is dead. No one will look for us. The water isn’t cold. We’ll let

ourselves slip over the edge of a boat. I have no more honour left.

Will you come, Edith?”

She took him in both her arms and cried out in a frightened voice:

“No, no, no! Because I love you. When you love you don’t

want to die. You lie, you steal, you kill, but you don’t

want to die. Lovers who kill themselves don’t love their love.”

He broke loose from her grasp roughly, heedless whether he wounded her

or not.

“Let me go,” he cried. “Don’t touch me again. Don’t hold me back.”

He fled away from her, and she, almost as agile, started in pursuit of

him. Some children playing nearby stopped their games to watch the race.

When he was safely out of reach he turned his course and hurried away

in the direction of the Tower of Buccione. It was a place he had

discovered once in his walks with Edith, behind the ruins of an old

fortress castle, a high square tower surrounded by panelled walls now

in ruins and overrun by climbing plants. It stood at the far end of the

Lake of Orta, on a hill covered with chestnut trees, and commanding a

wide view from south to north. You could see as far as Novare, that

shining city at the other end of the plain, and Monte Rosa, whose

distant summit and glaciers scintillating in the sun looked round on

all the other mountain levels. From no part roundabout was there a

wider view than from this deserted place. Often when his companion’s

fatigue left him with empty hours to fill Maurice would come here to

gaze toward home and sense his exile to the full.

He stayed there now a long time, letting his wounds rankle. Why should

he now in this hour be feeling only misery from his love, that passion

that should have been the crown of all his youth? Was there, then,

something besides love, something so considerable that even if it could

not destroy love it was strong enough to reduce it to a second place in

life and spoil its pleasures? Love was not all of life. It could not

even isolate itself, or detach itself from the rest of life. Of itself

it was only a disorganised and destructive force. On the other side of

those mountains that marked the horizon there his love had certainly

wrought disaster. Maurice was sure of that now.

Could he honestly say that only circumstances were to blame? No,

his past, when he summoned it back frankly, condemned only him. The

evidence showed that he himself had been guilty of lightness and

feebleness, culpable in having consented to go away with Edith at

all, when he could easily have foreseen that their resources would

not hold out; himself to blame for having accepted without proofs

the explanations which Edith made him, when it should have been easy

for him to see her inconsistencies; responsible for having yielded

to the influence of her caresses in the present without binding that

present to either past or future; responsible for having yielded to

her when she insisted upon a year of forgetfulness from him, a year of

happiness, a year of indolence and cowardice.

And it came to him distinctly that if it was a question of his honour,

there could be no salvation unless it reached him through his family.

Without his family, he knew that he was lost. He could not, perhaps

for a long time, make good that money of Edith’s which he had used and was

not willing to have lived on; but with his family, if he asked their

help, he might be saved. How could they refuse to save him? Were they

not all one with him in his shame? But if they were one with him in

shame, he had also duties toward them, and had neglected them.

Fortunate in his birth, he had contracted obligations that he had

turned his back on; a compact, and he had broken it. If our families

owe us help in evil fortune or in peril, by what right do we forget

them and pursue our egotistical bents, sowing our own happiness and

reaping consequences that do them harm?

Pride kept him from appealing to his father. His mother had been his

confidante: he would ask her for the sum he needed for his liberation.

That was the pressing thing. Above all things, he must win back his own

self-esteem.

Having come to this decision, he returned promptly to the hotel and

wrote a letter to Mrs. Roquevillard. He had just finished it and put

it in the postbox when Edith came in. He saw her at the end of the

garden walk, almost with a feeling of astonishment at beholding her so

soon again, so far away from her had his thoughts translated him in a

few hours. For a year she had filled all his days, each beating of his

heart. Was she so soon dispossessed of her kingdom?

When she saw him she stopped, as if stunned, then

ran and threw herself into his arms.

“It’s you--it’s you----” she cried.

“Dear sweetheart----” he murmured, very gently.

“You’re here! I’m so glad----”

She pointed toward the lake with a frightened gesture, to explain to

him where she had been.

“I’ve been down there. I went along the beach. Let’s sit down, shan’t

we? I can scarcely stand. I was so afraid.”

She could not turn her eyes away from him, and again the old

enchantment at the sight of her came over him. The autumn landscape was

all around them, tender and voluptuous. Love stood victorious amid the

ruins.

Desperately they tasted of their happiness, both knowing that it had

been condemned to death.

Thenceforth they talked no more about the past. He was waiting

for an answer to his letter, and she dared not question him, only

redoubling her charms to keep him pleased. She modified and adapted

her fascination. She was no longer provoking and perpetually agitated.

The fear of losing her lover made her humble and submissive, kept her

quite frail and tender. She sought out the things that he liked to

talk about, the books he preferred to read. She divined what music

he would have her play to him on the piano. And he, on his part, was

more than ever good to her. It was only that both had some feeling

of embarrassment in this renewal of peace and affection between them. It

was a joyless concord, lacking confidence, and unconvincing.

The second of November was a particularly cruel day for them. Maurice

wanted to give himself up more freely to the memories of his family

on this day of the Dead, that should have made them more vivid for

him, and would have preferred to take his walk alone. Edith, however,

begged to go with him, and he consented, though with no pleasure in the

prospect. She went off to get ready, and he was to wait for her at the

Sacred Mountain.

“Where shall we go to-day?” she asked, when she joined him there.

“To the cemetery. Everybody goes there to-day.”

Before you come to the cemetery at Orta you have to cross an untilled

field which once formed part of it, but has been gradually disused. The

graves enclosed in it were now unrecognisable and anonymous. Nothing

marked them any more--neither name nor cross, not even a mound of

earth. In memory of All Saints’ Day some unknown hand had scattered

clusters of chrysanthemums here and there on the field, and the waste

place was transformed into a kind of temporary garden.

Edith and Maurice stopped a moment in this enclosure. It was

bordered by a row of chestnut trees, whose leaves fluttered in the

supporting softness of the air. A breath of wind was enough to strip

them. With the coming evening a bit of fresh north wind arose, and

the golden leaves fell indeed, spinning round and round and piling

themselves up at last in the gutter along the main alley-way of the

cemetery. One of them in its flight alighted on Edith’s hat. It was

a desolate symbol to poise above that warmly tinted face, with its

eyes of fire, that fleshly shape so animate with life in its most

immobile moments, and it stirred the last depths of emotion in Maurice,

overwrought as he was this day.

He said nothing still, and she pointed out the chrysanthemums to him.

“The pretty flowers,” she said.

And to both of them came the reflection that the flowers were strewn

above the dead. By an instinctive recoil upon themselves they

glanced at the line of trees which half concealed them, and, moving

nearer each to the other, embraced among the graves.

III

THE RUINS

THE morning after this walk Maurice was called to the office of the

hotel.

“It’s for a registered letter. The postman wants you.”

He recognised the yellow envelopes that his father used, and rapidly

stripped off the seals, while the manager, catching sight of the amount

of the remittance, observed him with an admiring air. The letter inside

contained a French bill of one hundred francs and a cheque on the

International Bank of Milan for eight thousand, signed by his sister

Margaret.

“Now,” he said to himself, “I am my own master.”

After his recent humiliation his first thought now was pride. In his

reassurance, however, he noticed the black border on the letter and

his heart beat fast again. There had been some sorrow, then, a great

sorrow, during his absence. In one’s extreme youth, and even later

on in life sometimes, one does not take in the possibility of losing

those one loves: one goes away from them with no sorrow, feeling sure

of seeing them again when one comes back. Only with our first grief is

the future’s credit injured. Maurice, separated from his own people,

deprived of news, preserved by the heedlessness of his age and the

egotism of his love, had not been conscious of the inquietude that

wrung his heart brutally when memory intervened. Often, more and more

often, he found himself calling up the memory of his family, picturing

the empty place that he had left among them. Edith’s presence was not

always enough to chase away these phantoms. But he had never had any

presentiments of death. And yet for several days of late, ever since

the season and his happiness had begun to wane together, the vision

of his mother’s pale face had risen before him; he had felt her last

caress on his cheek, the caress of that cool hand, the touch of which

he could feel again now after a whole year.

The blow which struck him found him unprepared. Why was the letter in

Margaret’s handwriting? For whom could she be in deep mourning, unless

it were--? He dared not answer this question to himself: it was already

answered. He took his hat and went out, holding the letter in his hand.

How could he have read it there in the hotel office? He could not read

it on the terrace, nor in the avenue, nor in the woods. Edith would

come upon him in a few moments and surprise him, and this sorrow was

for him alone. He would not share it with anybody. To share it would be

to make it less, when he wanted to extract its essence to the full.

Outside the hotel he read the first lines, and fled down the path

like some creature wounded and pursued. As long as he was in the

neighbourhood of houses he kept on his way. He wanted a solitude in

which to weep without being seen, and his feet turned again in the

direction of the Buccione tower.

He did not stop once till he had reached the summit of the hill. At the

foot of the tower, all out of breath, he threw himself down on a patch

of grass which grew between the fallen walls. He had been running, as

if one could run away from fate. As he regained his breath, fear seized

hold on him and tortured him still further. The letter, several pages

long, which he had held crumpled in his hand all the time, he did not

dare to read at once in its entirety. He had to make a great effort to

go on with the reading of it, to interrupt himself more than once. It

brought him news of more sorrows even than he had foreseen.

CHAMBÉRY, _November 2d_.

MY DEAR MAURICE:

_Your letter to mother was delivered to me. I opened it. I had been

waiting for it a long time. I thought surely it would come, or you

yourself. Mother told me it would. You could not have forgotten us for

good._

_I can see from reading it that you’ve heard nothing further about

us since you left, and I can explain your persistent silence better.

As for you, you know now that mother is no longer with us. To have

to tell you about it brings back all my suffering again, and yet I don’t

want not to suffer, for it brings me nearer to her. Weep with me, my

poor brother, shed many tears for all the times you have not wept. But

don’t give up and despair of things, for she did not wish it._

_She left us the fourth of last April, nearly seven months ago. All

winter her strength had been growing less, slowly and gently. She did

not suffer; at least, she did not complain. And she never ceased from

prayer. One evening, without anything to give further warning of such

a sudden end, she passed on, praying. Father and I were with her.

She looked at us, tried to smile, and murmured a name which we both

caught, and which was yours. And then her head fell backward. That was

all._

_A few days earlier she had talked to me about you, as if she were

explaining her last wishes to me. I realised it later. She spoke as

usual, so simply. She said to me: “Maurice will come back. He is more

unfortunate than guilty. He doesn’t know yet, and he’ll hear of it. He

will need all his courage. You must promise me, when he comes back,

to receive him, to reconcile him with his father, with his family, to

defend him, indeed never to abandon him whatever happens.” There was

no need of promising, but I promised. And so, when your letter came, I

did not hesitate to open it. I am taking mother’s place, very badly,

but with all my heart._

_And you ought to know this: that mamma did not believe

you guilty. Neither did I. And father did not, I am sure

of it. Yet he told us that weakness was a form of being guilty; and

that a young man, whose family had taken care of him through all his

early years and up to manhood, is not free to do anything that brings

havoc on all his race. Now he doesn’t talk about you, ever. I suspect

that he thinks about you often, and that it gives him great pain.

Be considerate of him, Maurice, as well as of our mother, who is at

rest. He has changed, very much. He had so much youth in his gait, his

expression, his voice, and he grew old in a few days. He works without

any rest. He forgets his misfortunes in his work. But I promised not

to reproach you with anything. Nevertheless, you ought surely to be

told what has become of us all, not having had any news of us for more

than a year. He is so well thought of that not one of his clients has

withdrawn his confidence from him._

_Hubert, who ought to have stayed two years in France, secured leave

to go back again to the colonies. He sailed last May for a post in the

Soudan. He commands some quite advanced post, Sikasso, in the interior

of the country. It is rather an exposed place, which was what he

wanted._

_Felicie is still in the hospital at Hanoi. She is very anxious

about you. Not long ago she wrote to us about the death of two

Belgian missionaries who were massacred on the frontiers of China.

Instead of grieving over them, she rejoiced for them in their

martyrdom, and regretted that she could not give her life for

some one whom she called “the prodigal son”--some one whom you will

recognise. She has inherited our mother’s ardent piety. May God keep

her for us down there at the other end of the world._

_The Marcellaz have left us. Though Germaine begged him not to,

Charles sold his practice here, and acquired another at Lyons. It was

very hard for us to have them go. Yet father maintains that Charles

was right about it. He had an opportunity to settle nearer to his

family, who are at Villa Franca, you see; he had to take advantage of

it. They have spent their vacations with us at La Vigie. Peter and

Adrienne got good red cheeks there. Little Julian, my favourite, is

still rather pale, and as the air of Savoy agrees with him better than

the Lyons fogs, Germaine has left him with us for the winter. He gives

a bit of life to our big house, which is quite sad._

_And that is all my news. In other times it was our mother who took

charge of the news from the absent ones, and sent it on from one to

another. You see I am trying to take her place. What I have still

to tell you, Maurice, is the most difficult thing of all. However,

I’ll tell it to you without recriminations. It seems to me it will be

better so. First of all, I must tell you I am devoted to you just the

same, then let you judge of our misery, which is yours, too._

_You cannot surely be aware of what happened immediately after

your departure: otherwise you would not have kept still so long and

brought such sorrow on us. Mr. Frasne entered against you, yes, you,

Maurice, a complaint of abuse of confidence. That’s what it is called:

I’ve heard it talked about so much. He accused you of having stolen

one hundred thousand francs from his safe. He brought a civil suit

to bring about your extradition, and since you did not appear you

were adjudged guilty by default. I’m explaining it to you with the

words I have heard used. The council did not want to condemn you.

But the clerks in the office, especially Mr. Philippeaux, testified

against you at the hearing. They declared that you were aware the safe

contained all that money, and that you stayed the last of all of them

in the office, and had the keys, and that you knew the combination

that would open it. And so the verdict was against you, though with

extenuating circumstances, and they sentenced you to a year in prison.

It seems that is the minimum. They took account of the influences you

had come under. But they sentenced you, you understand. That was last

month. Mamma was no longer here. When father told the news to me his

face was so white that I was afraid for him. He controlled himself, as

always. I should have preferred to see him weep. But he isn’t one of

the kind that weep. He suffers inside, and that’s worse._

_The judgment was posted on our door, published in the papers.

It seems that is the law. All the old Roquevillards that have done

so many services for their country could not shield us from this

flaunting of our name._

_There are also the one hundred thousand francs which you must

restore to Mr. Frasne. Father is of a mind to sell La Vigie to pay

them back. He says the length of your absence proves, unfortunately,

that you must have used the money, which, from the point of view of

honour, is the same as theft. Charles, on the other hand, argues that

to pay the money is to admit that you are guilty, and that no such

admission ought to be made at such a price. But he has not the family

honour in his charge, and I for my part am with father. At all events,

the court has decreed a sequestration to divide our mother’s fortune

and obtain your part. From my own, since I am of age, father gave me

the sum I am sending you, when I asked him for it. He appeared very

much surprised. I don’t know if he suspects. I offered to show him

your letter, but he refused to read it, with these words, which I copy

down for you:_

“_No, he is dead to me, unless he comes back to prove his

innocence._”

_I have added one hundred francs for your return journey. You must

come back. Consider the wrong that you have done to us. In the name

of our mother, whose last desire it was, her last command, for the

sake of father, whom you have wounded to the heart, such a noble

and tender heart, in the name of Felicie and Hubert, who deserve it

from you, of Germaine and your little sister, in the name of all our

race, who for so many years have never given examples of anything

but honesty, and who conjure you now not to upset in one day what

so many successive generations have built up, come back, Maurice._

_I’m waiting for you. I shall be here to help you. I am confident

that if you come back all can yet be set right. For you are not

guilty. It’s impossible that you should be. From your letter I can see

quite well it was not you. If there is danger for you in coming back,

come just the same. It is right that you should take your turn at

suffering, and you will not be cowardly enough, I know, to shun it._

_That’s all. I should like so much to feel that I have convinced

you. However, if_ SHE _prove stronger than we are, if in

spite of our sacrifices and suffering you can’t come back now, I shall

wait for you still. I should wait for you all my life. My life is

only for you and father now. You know that I shall never abandon you.

Did I not promise mamma? You were her last thought. And if my letter

brings despair to you, remember that it has commended courage to you.

Remember these words of father’s, too: “So long as one is not dead

there’s nothing lost._”

_Good-bye, Maurice, I send my love to you._

_Your sister_,

MARGARET.

The sorrow and shame which had seized hold of Maurice when his mistress

had made her semi-revelations to him about her dot were as nothing

in comparison with the flood of pain that Margaret’s letter now let

loose upon him. How could he resist the appeal it made to him: had he

not listened to the call of death, merely for an infamous suspicion?

At his feet the lake still invited him, offered forgetfulness to him,

silence and peace, yet now he did not even see it. The call of his race

resounded in his breast, and behold, instead of being feeble, he was

gathering all his strength and setting his face against the disaster

that had overwhelmed him. The idea of death comes naturally to lovers

the moment they conceive a doubt as to the eternity of their love.

Now, it was not a question any longer of his happiness. That was an

individual matter of which he believed himself to hold control. Losing

that, he should think himself justified in not living on any longer,

if he judged that best. All his family was concerned with him in this

trial. No longer did he belong to himself alone. Whether he wished

it or no, he must yield to a dependency, and the isolation that he

had created round himself was nothing but chimerical and vain. And as

he lost his lover’s eternal illusion of love’s solitude, of love’s

unrelatedness to all the rest of the world, he drew comfort as from a

reservoir of energy out of that depth of family ties and bonds that

imposed themselves on him with such authority and power.

His cruellest suffering came from not being able to

mourn for his mother freely and alone. He envied those

mothers’ sons who could gather round a grave and surrender to

their grief, with nothing to throw their thoughts back upon themselves.

Had he not had some part in her unlooked-for end? He recalled the fact

that the doctor had not given the sick woman up when he had left, that

he had hoped for benefit from a regimen of quiet and rest. But how

could her frail life have resisted such a storm?

And this storm that he had let loose behind him had indeed ravaged and

destroyed his home. It was the dispersion--the Marcellaz gone, Hubert

exiled, to seek a little honour for his tarnished name; the threat

of ruin with the selling of the old estate. Only Margaret and his

father, an old man already, were left at home. But why was Margaret not

married? Could her fiancé have been so cowardly as to blame her for

her brother’s fault? She said nothing of it at all in her letter. She

forgot herself in her chronicle of their trials. “My life now is for

you and father,” she said simply, without any other allusion to her

sacrifice. No one of them had been spared, except the culprit, culling

life’s sweetness under these cloudless skies.

For if he had not deserved all the ignominious accusations which Mr.

Frasne hurled at him, he was guilty none the less toward his family

for having believed he had the right to give them up. He accused his

mistress for her imprudence in thus dishonouring him, for whose love he

had been degraded. But was it really her love that had degraded him? He

attributed all his sensibilities to love, as the harmonies in those

legendary lyres that hung in trees were due the wind--love which he had

so coveted in his at once studious and ecstatic youth, and which had

passed across his heart as the warm winds across the lyres’ strings

that waited for them. And he blamed it for enthusiasms and weaknesses

that had their source in him alone. In his distracted retrospect across

his life he summoned up the memory of Edith’s eyes, her mouth, her

every movement. Yes, his heart had been hung up to catch this song of

her grace, the caresses of her voice, the flame of her eyes. He would

leave the woman, but he would not disown his love.

And, besides, what had he to reproach Edith with? What did she suspect,

though it was through her fault, of this lamentable drama in which a

whole race rolled in the dust? Nothing, surely. She had taken this

money as she had stolen hearts, without meaning any ill, and believing

she was within her rights. If he warned her of his danger, she would

be astonished, and without hesitation, no doubt, she would return to

Chambéry to proclaim her lover’s innocence to his judges. He did not

want to profit by such generosity. He thought it better that she should

always remain in ignorance, that she should run no risk for herself.

He would leave this evening--no, not this evening, to-morrow morning,

without saying anything to her, after having made good the amount of her

wrongfully taken dowry, so that she should not want for anything.

But what was to become of her, thus abandoned? Had he not also some

duty toward her, whose whole life was love? He tried to imagine her

future. He saw her cruelly torn, cursing him and weeping for him by

turns, calling for him in the sacred wood, among the chapels, in all

the places that had been the witness of their tenderness. He shared

truly in her agony. However, there was so much of life’s resource in

her, such a frenzy of living, that she would hold out against her fate

in the end and find herself. Had he not seen her rise against him,

trembling and revolting against him, when he had spoken to her of

dying? Yes, she would find herself again, she would resist fate and

live. And he felt his heart yearn at the thought of her being loved

again, the thought that perhaps some day this devouring flame which

consumed her should burn again for some one else.

“No, not that,” he sighed; “I don’t wish that.”

It was the last struggle.

From the first moment he had acknowledged his defeat. His mother’s

death, his family’s supreme appeal to him, the infamous sentence that

had been dealt him, did not permit him to discuss it with her. It only

remained for him to set right the details of his departure, to lessen

as much as possible the sorrow it would bring to her. He could not

consent to live with her any longer, and though he was separated from

her only by this frail decision, he suffered and almost cried out in

pain....

She was waiting for him on the steps of the hotel. The moment she saw

him she came running to meet him.

“At last,” she murmured, her words coming like a soft moan, but not

with any scolding.

He tried to smile.

“Good-day, Edith.”

Tenderly and attentively she scanned her lover’s face, and noticed the

traces of tears there.

“I’m always afraid now,” she said, “when you are away.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid that you may not come back.”

“My dear----”

“Oh, I know,” she said gravely. “One day you’ll not come back. Tell me

that day hasn’t come yet.”

“Hush, Edith. I shall always love you.”

“Always? No matter what happens?”

“No matter what happens.”

She took his hand, and with an adoring gesture raised it to her lips,

then asked timidly:

“You had news from France this morning. They told me.”

“Yes.”

“Good news?”

He had the courage to nod his head. He kept his sorrow for

himself alone; they were already separated.

“I never expect any news, myself. You are my whole heart and life.”

And as she went ahead of him along the terrace, where their little

table had been set for them out of the wind, he asked himself:

“Shall I have the strength to go away?”

IV

THE RETURN

EDITH sat up on the edge of the bed and propped her chin in her hand

while she watched Maurice finish his dressing. He had set the lamp

on the floor, with a shade that threw the light downward, so that it

should not bother her.

“Why do you get up so early?” she asked him in a sleepy voice, her eyes

half opened.

“I can’t sleep any more. It’s almost morning.”

He blew out the lamp. A meagre light began presently to filter through

the blinds.

“It’s night, Maurice.”

“Don’t you see a little daylight?”

“That isn’t day. There’s a moon.”

“Rest a little while yet, Edith. You’ve time enough.”

“Yes. I’m so tired, so deliciously tired.”

She let herself fall back on the pillow, and closed her eyelids.

Even in sleep there was still an air of passion about her. He

came up to the bed and bent over her in the fitful light that

came in through the window, looking long at her face.

“This little flame of love that lighted up my life,” he thought, “is

put out for me now. I shall no longer see it burning, I can’t see the

blood flowing through her cheeks, nor the gleam of her teeth through

her parted lips, hardly the curve of her mouth, the line of her nose,

the dark mass of her hair with all its perfume. And her body is lost to

me----”

He was growing tender over her, dangerously so. The temptation came to

him to stay. He bent over and brushed her forehead, of which he could

feel the sweet warmth with his lips. She smiled vaguely, keeping her

eyes closed. He left her there and went out.

In the corridor of the hotel he met only a waiter, who yawned as he

polished the floors, and paid no attention to Maurice’s appearance. A

hand-bag was all the baggage he carried, an overcoat and a cane.

The shortest road to the railway station at Orta leads across the

Sacred Mountain. The moonlight, which was growing pale before

the threats of day, penetrated in fear and mystery through the

half-leafless woods. Between the tall trunks of the pines and larches

its beams fell upon the dead leaves that strewed the ground, and rested

on the façades of the little chapels. When Maurice reached a point

opposite the fifteenth chapel he raised his head and stopped. The

slender columns stood out quite white, one or another of them throwing

its reflection in a black shadow against the wall.

He mounted the steps and turned to take in the familiar

landscape with a last glance. The well-curbs and the clear

outlines of some of the sanctuaries rose round him like apparitions.

He could see opposite him the dark mountains, and portions of the lake

on either side the hill. Even at this distance he could no longer see

the Belvedere Hotel, which was hidden by the hillside, though it was

just this that he was looking for. These stones he trod on, these trees

and chapels, all these vague outlines which the sun would presently

restore in their full values, he would bear away with him in his

memory. So long as he should have the power to remember them he should

see them all in his mind’s eye, not for their own particular grace,

but subordinated as scenes and accessories for one principal figure.

Even at a distance, this chief figure, this unique flower of his youth,

still exerted its fascination over him. Instead of fleeing from it,

fleeing without a backward look, he stood motionless in this place

that Edith had so loved, where she had longed to be with her roses in

her hands, the evening of their anniversary, that last day of their

happiness.

In their room there she was sleeping still, deliciously tired. In an

hour, in two hours, perhaps sooner, when she rose to come and join him,

she would find his cruel letter on the dressing-table, telling her in

tender words that the moment for their separation had come. She would

not understand it quite at once. The papers enclosed in the envelope

would tell her more. They were the hotel bill, paid and receipted,

some banknotes, and a receipt for the money deposited in her name

with the International Bank of Milan, the sum completed by Margaret

Roquevillard’s cheque which Maurice had endorsed to her. By these she

would see what it was that had come between them and broken her sway.

The family which she had vanquished was recapturing her lover. She

would give a great cry of sorrow then. However far away he might be

from her, he should hear her cry resounding in his ears....

In the woods the moonlight was losing itself in the light of morning.

The hour was passing. He leant against one of the columns, and could

not make up his mind to go.

“Where did I get the courage,” he asked himself, “to break her heart

and mine? She is there, quite near me yet. If I go back again she’ll

never know. Her waking will be sweet and easy. But no, I shall

never see her again. There are ties that love cannot obliterate.

Happiness, I can understand it now, is not one’s right. I wound

her, yet I love her. The wrong she did me was involuntary. I don’t

remember anything but having felt life near her, of having lived it

near her each minute to the full; and yet I can’t stay near her now

any more. Do you remember our first days, Edith? You gave me some

flowers the first evening. And then you gave me your lips, as sweet

as flowers, and were glad to give them. When you said to me, ‘I will

be yours, but yours alone, when you want me,’ I could feel even

then your caresses that made you one flesh with mine. Because you are

too sensitive to love’s touch, because even now when I am going to

make you suffer, I tremble for your frailty, tremble for the future,

oh, Edith, don’t think I love you less. When I realise that for that

very thing in you I may lose you one day, Edith, I ought not to think

this of you, yet perhaps I love you all the more. What memories shall

you keep of me? Between two autumns our love has run its course. You

preferred this autumn season, when nature’s mood is high. I found its

gold again in your eyes, and its fever in your arms. I discovered

enthusiasm in it, and desire. Now it is like the chrysanthemums in the

cemetery at Orta for me. It covers Death. Yes, death, you understand. I

have not said good-bye to you, yet all is over for us. It is like death

for us. You will weep as you have been used to do. You’ll talk, you’ll

walk, you’ll be for others a living creature, a being of grace and

youth: but for me, who shall know nothing more of you, you will be as

if you had died. It might be better if you were dead indeed: you would

not curse me--curse me who love you, and who must choke our love----”

The whistle of a train caught him back brutally from this state

of desperate reflection, in which little by little his will

was losing force. Had he waited too long here? No, that must

be the express which comes down to Novare, and which gets in a

few minutes before the up train to Domodossola. The opportune

summons resolved him in his last decision. He left the chapel,

crossing the woods at a run and reaching the railway station in a few

moments. On the mountains the day was growing brighter, and the moon

had begun to efface itself in space. He bought a ticket for Corconio, a

station quite near Orta, but in a direction opposite that to which he

must travel, his idea being to hinder Edith’s search should she try to

overtake him. On the way he would pretend that he had made a mistake.

As far as Omegna the railway follows the height above the little lake.

In the railway carriage Maurice seated himself so as to ride backwards,

and leaned over the door so that his gaze might take the impress of

these places that had so belonged to him. In the rising daylight the

waters of the lake wrinkled and quivered lightly. The trees of the

peninsula showed him their tapering trunks and the play of their

branches. Here he had known happiness. The train left Omegna. In vain

he tried to see Orta Novarese still, to retain in his eyes, in his

heart, the look of this land from which he fled. The seconds which made

the distance grow fell like stones in a whirlpool--one by one he heard

them.

An hour later he arrived at Domodossola, a little Italian town

perched among the high Alps, bathed by the green and rapid

Rosa above Lago Maggiore. From here the stage between Italy

and Switzerland, by way of the Simplon Pass, made its regular

departures. With good teams of horses and well-posted relays,

it covered the sixty-four kilometres between the Vale of

Ossola and the valley of the Rhone in a dozen hours.

The journey costs about one louis, and to acquit himself fully of any

debt to Edith Maurice had almost exhausted his own resources. He had

consulted the time-tables. By way of Turin the fare was too dear. When

he should have paid the third-class rate from Orta to Domodossola, and

from Brieg to Chambéry, he should have left in his pockets, according

to his calculations, nothing but the price of three or four very modest

meals. It was truly the return of the prodigal son. He bore without

displeasure the penury which made him one with the humble workmen

with whom he shared the compartment. It distracted him from his pain

by its shabby trials. Besides, it gave him no real concern. He knew

how nice people sometimes managed their little economies to afford

their carriage and expensive houses at Brieg. At the head of the pass,

the hospice of the Simplon, like the one at the Grand St. Bernard,

gave free hospitality to the poor who crossed the mountain, and even

tourists were not ashamed to profit by it. His neighbour from Piedmont,

who knew the country, ended up by instructing him on the subject. “The

hospice is always open,” he said. “Day and night, night and day. At

night you just go in and find a room on the first floor, without saying

anything to anybody.”

Thus the difficulties of the journey were made simple. He would go

through the Simplon on foot, and sleep at the hospice.

At Domodossola, the extreme end of the line, he got out of the train,

and started out proudly by the side of the diligence, which stood in

front of the station, and, once filled with passengers, started off

at a trot, the ardour of the five horses very fresh at the beginning

of the interminable ascent. The guard took a good look at this

well-dressed young man with a satchel in his hand who was not afraid

to use his shoes. He brought his team to a stop, cracked his whip to

attract attention, and with a gallant gesture, as if he were offering a

lady some bouquet, he pointed to a vacant seat in the coupé.

“Thanks,” replied Maurice. “I’m going on foot.”

“Impossible! Impossible with a gentleman’s legs. And so far. I’m sure

the Signorina is waiting for you.”

“No one is waiting for me,” said Maurice.

“Oh, so much the worse. A good fire, a warm soup and a wife are nice

things to find when you get home.”

He gathered up his reins and shook up his horses again, the

carriage soon pulling out of sight. Maurice continued on his way

alone. Slowly he drew higher above the valley. Before he entered

the various gorges of the Alps he turned again, and gathered in

the last grace of the Italian country. It flowered above the

sinuous plain of the Tosa and on the wooded slopes; even the abrupt

declivities, which some golden thickets decorated, profited by it.

In the sunlight it was clear that this country tried to please in

spite of its mountain rigours. The peasant women coming down to mass--it

was a Sunday--wore coloured kerchiefs, which fell in a point down their

backs, with short and many-coloured skirts. The women first saluted the

passersby, with a gentle good-day, which gave the young man a tender

feeling of accord with them.

He had an impression as of going voluntarily into exile. Was not Edith

his native land? Edith! She would be waking at this hour, she would

know. And he walked more briskly, to tire himself and forget his grief.

He had divided the sixty-four kilometres of the crossing into three

stages--Isella eighteen, the Pass twenty-two, Brieg twenty-four. He

counted on lunching at Isella, reaching the Pass, an altitude of two

thousand metres, to dine and sleep at the hospice, and descend to Brieg

the next morning, in time to catch the train from Lausanne and Geneva

which made connections at the frontier for Savoy. Monday, at six in the

evening, he should be in Chambéry.

Isella, at the head of a verdant little valley, is the last Italian

village before you come to Switzerland. Here you have truly the

impression of saying a melancholy farewell to Italy. Built lengthwise

along the borders of Napoleon’s route, it is enclosed between two

natural high walls of four or five thousand feet, but one has only

to look backward and see prairies and groups of trees, like a shaft

of light across the mountains. The bells of the stage-coach, which

relays at Isella, and the proceedings of the customs officers, who

are as proud and smart as soldiers and bear the majestic title of

Financial Guards, were formerly the only excitements of the little

burg; but in August, 1898, began the work on the new iron route scooped

out across the Alps. As if by enchantment the population quadrupled.

Workmen’s cities were built, with little villas and gardens for the

engineers and overseers. Alberghi and tratorie multiplied themselves,

with announcements of the glory of the Simplon, and advertisements of a

sparkling asti.

As the day was Sunday, all this floating population was afoot. Bells

were sounding the letting out of high mass when Maurice arrived.

He passed a procession of women coming home with prayer-books in

hand, while the men devoted themselves to bowling, and from each

public-house sounds of guitars and harmonicas issued forth with the

smell of cooking. Maurice ate for a modest sum in a shabby-looking

osteria, in company with noisy comrades. Instead of profiting by the

daylight and leaving abruptly--night in November falls so fast--he

lingered improvidently, as if he preferred the vulgarest noisiness

to solitude. He could not make up his mind to cross the frontier. It

was the material symbol of his break, and he clung desperately to his

love. Even in this smoky room, whose deafening noise, by keeping him

from thinking, allayed his misery, it seemed to him he still lived in

distant communication with Edith.

A little before the gorges of Gondo, with its roaring

cascades, he came upon the stone that marked the dividing line

between the two countries. Once past it, he was conscious of a shadow

that fell across his heart, before even he could pick out the bit of

thin earth between the rocks where the path led. Raising his head, he

could see the last rosy light fading from the sky. Night, which came

upon him much sooner than he had counted on in his itinerary, prevented

him from taking the short cut by which the long climb round Algoby is

avoided. He arrived very late and tired at the village of Simplon,

where he had supper and got some rest.

When he took up his journey again complete darkness and silence

waited for him outside the inn door. He accepted them as the natural

companions of his dreary voyage. He was fulfilling a duty: outward

conditions mattered little to him. Had he not killed his happiness with

his own hands, and must not murderers expiate their sins? The moon was

on the wane, and did not show herself till eleven o’clock, as he neared

the summit of the path. In the moonlight he could see that he was alone

in a deserted and desolate amphitheatre, covered with snow that made

all objects look alike. He could not even hear the sound of his own

footfalls. His shadow kept him company fitfully, now lengthening out,

now growing thin, appearing and disappearing.

Out of breath and with weary limbs, he searched the horizon for some

sign of the hospice. Could he have passed it farther back without

noticing it? He was so tired he could not judge of distances any more.

And, after all, what was the use of so much effort? He had only to let

himself sink down by the roadside. In the snow he could sleep or die

with equal ease. It would be the end of thinking, of tramping.

“Edith!” he murmured aloud.

At the sound of his own voice he stopped, startled as if some one had

called to him. Was it not she who called him once again, the last time?

He was going to join her painlessly. Already he was no longer conscious

of his limbs. He would slip away toward her, as gently as the moon’s

rays fell upon the snow. The excess of his fatigue, the cold, the

rarity of the air, not less than his despair, gave him hallucinations.

In this stage of exhaustion from cold one who stops is lost. He could

no longer put one foot before another. He was only a broken mechanism.

“Edith!” he called again.

And he smiled. No suffering touched him. It was so simple to sit

down and wait. In front of him, toward the right, the glaciers of

Monte Leone flashed and trembled, as if some movement animated them.

It seemed to him that the whole white landscape was displacing

itself, moving back toward Italy. He felt a kind of exquisite

beatitude in his torpor. The instinct of self-preservation, or his

curious watching for the mirage, made him keep his eyes opened,

though sleepiness was heavy on them; yet he had no more desire to

stir. The silence of the mountain, accentuated by the snow and

moonlight, filled all space, rising even to the stars.

In this shifting of the landscape through which he slipped away

there was an arresting moment when his satchel fell, relinquished

mechanically by his hand. The movement that he made to pick it up broke

the spell. He knew his danger from the difficulty he had in moving his

limbs at all.

“But here, I’m going to die,” he said to himself sharply. “All alone

here in this waste.”

To die! Edith, toward whom he had fancied he was going back,

disappeared immediately from his thoughts, like a siren into the depths

of the sea, and in her place appeared the country of his childhood, the

hillside of La Vigie, and his family.

“They are waiting for me.”

Was it a talisman against death, this call of his earliest years, which

usurped with signs of strength the temptation to make an end of things,

the desire for annihilation? His youth helped him, and he recovered

gradually some energy, lifting his feet one after the other as if

he pulled them out of clinging soil that held them fast. He dragged

himself, rather than walked, for a few yards further. He was afraid

now, and hardened himself against the danger that he felt present at

his side, coming with him step by step in the solitude, like an enemy

watching for him to falter. He knew that there were board shelters at

intervals through the pass to protect travellers from tempests or the

cold. To find one of these was the limit of his ambition. And then

suddenly he perceived at the base of Monte Leone a feeble ray that

hardly glowed in the too clear night. Quite small and crowded against

the enormous mass of the mountain, it was the hospice at last, its door

always wide open; there was even a lamp to designate it. The moment he

saw the light he was saved. He never took his eyes from its encouraging

beacon. Soon the building took on its real proportions, high and large,

built of great blocks of freestone. At last he climbed the steps and

went in. Some dogs, from the bottom of a distant kennel, sounded his

arrival, but in the hall, where the moonlight filtered in, he came

across no one. Would they leave him in distress at their very door? He

would have lain down there on the stones in his weariness had not the

instructions of the man from Piedmont recurred to his memory:

“At night you go in and find a room on the first floor without saying

anything to anybody.”

He climbed the staircase, tried a first door, which was closed,

then a second, which opened to him. He found himself in a plain but

comfortable chamber, furnished with a bed with clean sheets and a

generous supply of blankets, a dressing-table, a commode, two or

three chairs and a carpet. At the sight of this outfit he smiled with

pleasure. They had even carried foresight as far as to place on the

commode, in such a way as to attract the traveller’s attention, a flask

of rum, a glass and a bowl of sugar. The liquor warmed his blood. At

twenty-five danger is easily forgotten.

“I’m quite at home here, like a burglar,” he said pleasantly, quite

disposed to take life at its new value. But the reflection made him

start. Like a thief, indeed. Had he not been convicted of theft? The

recollection of this shame spoiled his pleasure, and he got into bed

hastily. The thick blankets communicated a comforting warmth to him,

and his fatigue was so great that he went to sleep at once, without

stopping to think that it was the first night he had passed away from

Edith, and outside of Italy, since he had left his father’s house.

The next day he awakened too late for making the descent to Brieg. The

monks, learning of his voyage on foot, kept him for a day, and regaled

him with the best they had. He declined to take the stage-coach,

though his pride prevented him from revealing his reasons. He was

making a journey of rest, distraction, almost of forgetfulness, he

said. In his Thebaid, lost at an altitude of two thousand yards, he

exhibited the gaiety of a child, interrupted from time to time, though

rather rarely, by sudden fits of sadness. He ate like an ogre, took

walks round the approaches of the hospice to stretch his stiffened

legs, petted the long-coated, shaggy dogs in their kennels, admired

the effects of the sunlight on the glaciers and the variety of the

little snow crystals, expressed more than once his desire to stay a

longer time in the mountains, and went to bed early. No one would have

guessed that he had just left the most beloved of mistresses, and was

going back to France to give himself up as a prisoner. In the midst of

the greatest sorrows there are unexpected oases like these, to keep

our feeble nature from dwelling upon the idea of sorrow, even if there

were not that brute instinct of self-preservation to keep us up despite

ourselves.

Tuesday, at four in the morning, after having breakfasted on a little

bread and cheese, which the father whose duty it was to look out for

travellers had insisted upon his taking away from the table the evening

before, he set out from the hospice. He saved half the food, and took

it with him in case he should need it on his journey; for he was not

sure that he should have more than the price of his ticket after the

additional meal that he must take in the village of Simplon. No one

was up yet in the hospice. He left as he had come, in secret. The door

was wide open, as it had been on the night of his arrival. Outside he

stepped into complete darkness, instead of the moonlight for whose

friendly company he had hoped. He could feel snow even before he had

descended the steps.

He must make haste, for the descent would be less easy if it snowed.

In the road he turned to take a farewell look at the dark building

in the shadow. He stepped fearlessly forth now toward the future,

and with more strength. The peace of the mountain, the quiet of the

monks, had soothed his heart without his being conscious of it. He was

going forth deliberately to recapture that place in his home which

the accident of his great passion had lost for him. The stroke of luck to

which he owed his safety had at the same time restored him to himself.

He was going back to normal life as boldly and romantically as one

usually leaves it, and he savoured his sacrifice with an almost amorous

warmth of appreciation.

The snow must have been falling for several hours, for it was already

deep in the path. He went on in constant fear of losing his way along

the precipices. The path led through two or three tunnels cut out of

the rock a little beyond the summit of the pass. The obscurity of these

tunnels was so intense that he was blinded as in the depths of some

cavern. He held his cane forward in his right hand, his left arm, with

the satchel, stretched out, and went along tapping. He plunged at each

step into the puddles of water that dripped through the rocks, and

could feel the rush of the outer air at the other end long before he

got his sight again.

Such obstacles as these along the road only hardened his courage. Young

people must have tests; they seek out love more from the eager desire

of living than from voluptuous fancy. Maurice did not suffer from his

losses, though he had lost everything, and was leaving his happiness

behind him, reduced to the status of a beggar. He struggled bravely

against the cold and snow, the night and fear, but the combat kept him

warm.

Day spread round him gradually, but he profited little by it, for the

white mist of falling snow-flakes flowed round him like the sea around

an island. This route he travelled, so picturesque on clear days,

with its view of the Bernese Alps, the Aletsch glacier, the magnificent

and varied spurs of the Rhone valley, seemed to him like a road cut

through hills of cotton-wool. Sometimes a pine tree, laden with

hoar-frost, would loom up at the path’s edge, ten steps away from him,

having passed which he would search for some other landmark and go on.

Tediously and monotonously he came at last to Brieg. It was the end of

the heroic period of his journey.

The day in the railway carriage was long and uncomfortable, in spite of

the nearer and nearer approach to his native countryside. He left the

train about six in the evening at Viviers, which is the station next

to Chambéry. A foolish fear of being recognised and arrested when he

should arrive at Chambéry suggested this plan to him. He set out for

home on foot, therefore, from Viviers by the Aix road. It passed the

Calvary of Lemenc, which rose above him at one point, and he stopped

near it, thinking of his love.

“Edith,” he sighed.

It came over him how far these days had separated him from her already,

and, as he still loved her, he grieved within himself for his cruelty

to her. He moved nearer to the railing that protected the rock-hewn

road along the hillside. The lights of Chambéry shone out, and he took

his bearings.

His impulse was to go to his mother first, but he found

the graveyard closed, and could not get in. From there by

various back routes he reached his father’s house. A clock struck

eight. He was chilled and hungry: where should he go if not home? With

beating heart he pressed the bell. A new maid opened the door for him,

and instead of entering freely, he had to ask admittance formally, like

a stranger.

“Miss Roquevillard?” he asked, his voice sounding indistinctly in his

own ears.

He was left waiting in the vestibule, and felt crushed, tempted to

flee away, no matter where. What strange force had taken him by the

shoulders and thrust him forward even to his father’s door?

In a moment Margaret appeared and threw herself into his arms.

“You, Maurice! Is it really you?”

He stiffened rigidly to keep back his tears, as she added softly:

“I have been expecting you since yesterday.”

She led him to the dining-room, and he gave himself over to her care,

cast down and helpless. The table had not yet been cleared away.

“Is father well?” he asked at last, a little fearfully.

“He shut himself up in his study after dinner,” answered Margaret, “to

work, while I was undressing little Julian. I’ll go and tell him.”

“No, Margaret, please don’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then--has he changed much?” he murmured, after a heavy silence.

“Yes.”

He was hungry, but he dared not eat the things which she went and got

for him herself in the kitchen. She understood, and when she saw he did

not notice, she hurried away to her father in his study.

“Father, he’s here!” she cried.

Mr. Roquevillard, bent over a brief, raised his head. abruptly, with an

involuntary movement; but in a moment he had got possession of himself

again.

“He’s been very late about coming back.”

“Won’t you see him, father?” she begged. “He’s so unhappy.”

Mr. Roquevillard reflected a moment.

“I’ll go to see him to-morrow, in the gaol,” he answered, with an

effort, “to arrange about his defence. Not this evening.”

And as Margaret looked disappointed, he drew her to his breast.

“You attend to him,” he said. “If he’s tired, see that he gets some

rest. To-morrow’s time enough for him to go and give himself up.”

“Father, forgive him. For mamma----”

“Some day, Margaret, I hope that he’ll deserve my forgiveness.

Just now, so soon, I can’t forget the wrong he did to us in going

away. I want him to understand this and realise it fully. He must,

for the sake of our past and for his own future. But don’t cry,

Margaret. I have not ceased to love him. I’m glad he’s come back.”

Later, quite a little while later, in the silence of the night, Mr.

Roquevillard left his room, and crept with stealthy steps to Maurice’s

door. His hand shading the flame of his candle, he listened for a

moment to the light and regular breathing that he could scarcely hear.

A thin smile lit up his forceful features that had been so ravaged by

his sorrow.

“He’s here. That’s the essential thing. I’ll save

him, and with him all our race----”