IV.

The vacant hotel, bereft of the pleasure-seeking crowds whose presence

seemed the essential condition of its existence, looked strangely

sinister in the silent golden splendor of the clearing afternoon, with

its tiers of deserted piazzas, its band-stand mute and empty, the

observatory perched above the precipice, seemingly so precarious as to

have all the effect of teetering in the wind.

Languid now, preoccupied, Lillian ascended the long flight of steps to

the piazza and paused to look out at the great spread of the landscape,

wreathed in flying mists and of a different aspect from this increase of

elevation. She had begun to stroll aimlessly along in the possession of

the seclusion she craved, when she suddenly noted the fact that the front

door stood a trifle ajar. She paused with a repugnant sense of a lapse of

caution. Then she reflected that bolts and locks could add but little

security in a desert solitude like this, where a marauder might work his

will from September to June with no witnesses but the clouds and winds to

hinder. She had forgotten the insistent declaration of Gladys that she

had seen a light flicker from these blank windows the preceding night.

Indeed, even at the time she had accounted it but the hysteric adjunct of

their panic in the illusion of a stealthy step on the veranda of the

bungalow. She was animated only by the simplest impulse of idle curiosity

when she laid her hand on the bolt. The big door swung open at once on

well-oiled hinges, and she found herself in the spacious hotel office, on

one side of which were the clerk's desk and the office clock, looking

queerly disconsolate without the loitering groups of humanity wont to

congregate about the counter. The day glared garishly through the great

skylight on the dusty interior; the big windows held expansive sections

of mountain landscape, bronze, blue, and scarlet, like vivid paintings in

frames. A staircase of fine and stately proportions descended from the

lofty reach of the upper story, dividing into two sweeping flights from

the landing. A massive mantel-piece was on the opposite side, with an

immense fireplace, and heavy brass andirons and fender. She was a

stranger to the interior of the place, for her visit to the locality

began after the closing of the hotel, but though she looked about with a

vague sub-current of interest as she sauntered through the building, glad

of any pretext to prolong her absence from the bungalow, her mind was

really introverted.

She felt that she could never forgive herself her part in the scene of

the morning, that wild, impulsive cry that voiced at once confession and

a plea for pardon. At the sheer recollection of his rejoinder she tingled

and winced as from the touch of fire. "Don't mention it," quotha. And

they neither had aught to regret--he was sure of that, forsooth! Regret!

It was only another name for her life. There was nothing but regret,

night and day, sleeping and waking. But oh, how could she have said the

words! What was it to him? He cared naught for her now and her

cruelties--an old, old story to him, to be sure, told to the end, the

pages shut. And she must needs seem to seek to turn the leaf anew! What

else indeed could he think? Surely she had been beguiled by Gladys'

vicarious sentimentality as to the lure of his coming, even while she had

flouted the possibility.

Suddenly--a sound! It broke upon her absorption so abruptly that in an

instant every muscle was adjusted for flight, though she paused and

looked fearfully over her shoulder. Only an echo, she told her plunging

heart--an echo of her own footfalls in the resonant emptiness of the

deserted place. She had wandered down a long corridor, from which doors

opened only on one side into the big bare dining-room, the chairs all

ranged on the tops of the many round tables, standing at equidistant

intervals. An echo--doubtless that was all. She upbraided herself to have

sustained so sudden and causeless a fright. Her heart was beating like a

trip-hammer. It seemed to fill all the building with the wild iteration

of its pulsations. As she sought to reassure herself, she remembered that

in a cross-hall she had noted the telephone, the wire still intact, as

she knew, for the connection of the hotel was with that of the bungalow

on a party-line of the exchange at Shaftesville, twenty miles away. If

she should be really frightened, she could in one moment call up the

house across the ravine.

The next instant she was almost palsied with recurrent terror: the

footfall, stealthy, shuffling, weighty, sounded again. It was never the

echo of her own deft, light step! A distinct, sibilant whisper suddenly

hissed with warning throughout the place, and as she turned with the

instinct of flight she caught a glimpse in the darkling mirror across the

dining-room of a fugitive speeding figure, then another, and still

another, all frantically, noiselessly fleeing--why or whom, she could not

descry, she did not try to discriminate.

Without a word or a sound--her voice had deserted her--she turned

precipitately and fled in the opposite direction through the corridor,

down a cross-hall, and burst out of a side door upon a porch that was the

nearest outlet from the building. This porch was less intended as an

exit, however, than an outlook. True, there were steps that led down at

one side to the ground, but the descent thence was so steep, so rugged

and impracticable, that obviously no scheme of utility had prompted its

construction. Jagged outcropping ledges, a chaos of scattered boulders,

now and again a precipitous verge showing a vertical section of the

denuded strata, all formed a slant so precarious and steep that with the

sharp sound of the door, closing on its spring, Bayne looked up from his

seat in the swing on the veranda across the ravine in blank amazement to

see her there essaying the descent, as if in preference to an exit by the

safe and easy method of the winding road at the front of the edifice.

Lillian, still with all the impetus of terror in her muscles, her breath

short and fluttering, her eyes distended and unseeing, plunged wildly

down the rugged, craggy declivity, painfully aware of his wonder as he

gazed from the distance, prefiguring, too, his disapproval. Perhaps this

had its unnerving influence, though swift and surefooted ordinarily, her

ankle turned amidst the gravel shifting beneath her flying steps, and she

sank suddenly to the ground, slipped down a precipitous incline, caught

herself, half crouching against a gigantic boulder.

There was no recourse for Bayne. No one else was within view. Though

between his teeth he muttered his distaste for the devoir that should

bring him to her side, and the solicitude he was constrained to show, he

leaped from the veranda and started down the ravine to her assistance, to

"make his manners," as he said sarcastically to himself. But when he had

come to the little rustic bridge and, glancing up, saw that she had not

yet risen, he began to run, and before he reached her, climbing the

ascent with athletic agility, he called out to ask if the fall had hurt

her.

"I don't know," she faltered, and when he was at her side she looked up

at him with a pale and quivering face.

"Try to stand," he urged, as he leaned down and took her arm. "Let me

lift you. There! How did it happen?"

"My ankle turned," she replied, rising with effort and standing

unsteadily, despite his support.

"Does it pain you?" he queried with polite solicitude, looking down at

the dainty low-cut gray shoe. "Bear your weight on it."

She essayed the experiment. "No," she barely whispered; "it is all

right."

He fixed upon her a look of questioning amazement, as she still held

trembling to his arm. "What is the matter, then?"

"There is somebody in the hotel."

He gave a hasty glance upward from under the stiff brim of his hat.

"Hardly likely--but I'll examine and see."

He was about to start off when she tightened her clutch on his arm.

"No, no," she pleaded. "Don't leave me! I don't know why--but I can't

stand. I can't walk."

"Did you really hear something?" he asked sceptically.

The light note of satire stung her pride. "Oh, I _saw_ them, and they saw

me," she protested. "I saw three men, and they all ran as I came into the

dining-room."

He broke into a short laugh. "Got them on the run, did you? Not very

formidable they were, you must admit. Shadows, I fancy. There is a large

mirror on the blank side of the dining-room opposite the door. Don't you

suppose it possible that you saw only your own moving reflection?"

Her pride was roused. The pulse of anger began to tint her face with a

dull crimson. "I should imagine I could distinguish my own reflection

from three men--rough-looking men with slouched hats, all running and

looking backward over their shoulders."

It had been a conscious effort to nerve herself for this protest in

defence of her poise and capacity, but at the mere recollection of the

scene she had conjured up anew she fell to trembling, looking very pale

again and as if she might faint.

"Well, it is no great matter, as the intruders were bluffed off," he said

suavely, putting the question aside. "I will send one of Briscoe's grooms

to investigate the premises. But now, suppose we go to the piazza, and

let you rest there and recover from the strain to your ankle." Once more

he glanced down at the dainty shoe with its high French heel. "I don't

wonder it turned. A proper shoe for mountaineering!" That rancor against

a frivolity of feminine fashion that holds a menace to health or safety,

so characteristic of the utilitarian masculine mind, was a touch of his

old individuality, and it made him seem to her more like himself of yore.

The resemblance did not tend to confirm her composure, and she was almost

piteous as she protested that she could not, she would not, go near the

hotel again.

"Why, you need not, then," he reassured her abruptly, waiving the

possibility of insistence, as much as to say it was no concern of his.

"I might walk to the observatory," she suggested, "and--and--I need not

detain you then."

"In view of three bandits in slouched hats, although all on the

back-track--and although I am convinced that it was but their astral

apparitions with which you were favored--I will venture to intrude my

society until I can see you to the Briscoe bungalow."

"Oh, there's no intrusion," she rejoined petulantly. "You must know I

couldn't mean that!"

"I never know what you mean, I am sure!" he said with that tense note of

satire. Then he paused with a vague wonder at himself thus to trench on

the emotional phases between them that must be buried forever.

Remembering her own allusion that morning, her cry of regret and appeal,

he was apprehensive of some renewal of the topic that he had thus

invited, and he began to move hastily down the slope, supporting her with

care, but with a certain urgency too. He was obviously eager to terminate

the conversational opportunity, and when it was requisite to pause to

rest he improved the respite by beckoning to one of the stablemen passing

near, bound toward a pasture in the rear of the hotel with a halter in

his hand, and ordering him to investigate the building to discover any

signs of intrusion.

The man hearkened in patent surprise, then asked if he might defer the

commission till he had harnessed Fairy-foot, Mr. Briscoe having ordered

out the dog-cart and his favorite mare.

"Plenty of time, plenty of time! We can't hope to overtake them, with the

start they have already. Just see if there are any signs of intrusion

into the place and report. And now, Mrs. Royston, shall we move on?"

The observatory was a structure strong but singularly light and airy of

effect, poised on the brink of the mountain, above a slant so steep as to

be precipitous indeed, terminating in a sheer vertical descent, after

affording such foothold as the supporting timbers required. A great

landscape it overlooked of wooded range and valley in autumnal tints and

burnished sunset glow, but this made only scant impression on the minds

of both, looking out with preoccupied, unseeing eyes. The balustrade

around the four sides formed the back of a bench, and on this seat

Lillian sank down, still feeble and fluttering, painfully agitated,

acutely aware that, as she had no obvious physical hurt, the nervous

shock she had sustained might scarcely suffice to account for her

persistent claim on his aid and attention. Certainly he was warranted in

thinking anything, all he would, since her wild, impulsive appeal in the

early morning. How had it chanced, that cry from her heart! It was a

triumph in some sort for him, unsought, complete, yet so pitiable, so

mean, that he did not even care for it. His face was not triumphant;

rather, listless, anxious, careworn. He was gazing down toward the

bungalow where Briscoe stood at the head of the flight of the veranda

steps, drawing on his driving gloves, while Fairy-foot, the fine mare,

now resplendent in the least restrictions of harness that might control

her bounding spirits and splendid strength, stood between the shafts of

the dog-cart on the drive, a groom at her head, holding the bit.

Mrs. Briscoe had approached, and they discerned from her husband's

gestures that he was inviting her to accompany him. They could not hear

the words at this distance, but presently Briscoe, the most transparently

candid of men, suddenly whirled and glanced up toward the observatory

across the ravine, showing plainly that the two had become the subject of

conversation.

Lillian was all unstrung, her powers of self-control annulled. She broke

out with as unreasoning a sense of injury as a sensitive child might have

felt. "They are talking about us!" she wailed.

"They are not the first!" Bayne could not restrain his curt, bitter

laugh, the unconscious humor of the suggestion was so patent, albeit the

edge cut deep.

"And how do you suppose that fact makes _me_ feel?" she asked, looking up

at him, her eyes full of tears, her heart swelling, her face scarlet.

Bayne would have given much to avoid this moment. But now that the

discussion was upon him, he said to himself that he would not traffic

with the insincerities, he would not be recreant to his own identity. He

would not fawn, and bow, and play the smug squire of dames, full of

specious flatteries, and kiss the hand that smote him.

"And how do you suppose that _I_ should think you could feel at all?" he

retorted sternly.

It was so unlike him, the rebuke--he had so ardently worshipped her, even

her faults, which were like shining endowments in his estimation--that

for the first time she felt the full poignancy of his alienation. He was

no longer hers, loving, regretting, always yearning after her, the

unattainable! Had he not said only to-day that neither of them had aught

to regret? Was this what he had really felt through the long years of

their separation? Was it she who had forfeited him, rather than he who

had lost her? She sat quite still, almost stunned by the realization, a

vague sense of bereavement upon her. A woman's faith in the constancy of

a lover is a robust endowment! It withstands change and time and many a

coercive intimation.

"I suppose," she said at length, quite humbly, "it is natural that you

should say that to me."

"You asked for it," he replied tersely.

Then they were both silent for a space, looking down at the group on the

veranda of the bungalow.

"May I have the honor and pleasure of your company, madam?" Briscoe had

asked his wife with fantastic formality.

"You may _not_!" she rejoined with a gay laugh.

"And why not?"

"I declare, Ned, you live so much up here in the wilderness, with your

bears and deer and catamounts and mountaineers, that you are likely to

forget all the _bienséance_ you ever knew. Don't you perceive that my

duties as chaperon to those lovers should lie nearest my heart?"

Then it was that he turned and cast that comprehending glance at the two

in the distant observatory. Knowing how far from Bayne's mind was the

emotion, the intention, she ascribed to him, that she would fain foster,

his face grew rueful and overcast. He shook his head with disconsolate

rebuke. "Oh, you woman, you!"

But the reproach did not strike home. Mrs. Briscoe was quite satisfied to

be a woman, and was avowedly seeking to add to the normal subtleties of

this state the special craft of a matchmaker.

Briscoe desired to avoid being drawn into any confession of his knowledge

of Bayne's attitude of mind, and, aware of his own lack of diplomacy,

sheered off precipitately from the subject. He turned, beaming anew, to

the little boy who was looking on, cherubically roseate, at the sleek

mare and the smart groom at her bit.

"Then, Archibald Royston, Esquire, may I hope that _you_ will favor

me?"

Archibald Royston, Esquire, suddenly apprehending in the midst of his

absorption the nature of the invitation, gave two elastic bounces

straight up and down expressive of supreme ecstasy; then, his arms

outstretched, he began to run wildly up and down the veranda, looking in

at the doors and windows as he passed, seeking his mother and her

permission.

"Oh!" cried Lillian, springing to her feet as she watched the dumb-show

at the distance. "They want Archie to go to drive. Oh, how can I make

them hear me? I am sure Ned will not take him without permission."

She waved her hand, but the distance was obviously too great for the

signal to be understood, and Briscoe's attitude was doubtful and

perplexed. There was no time to be lost, for it was growing late, and a

postponement, as far as Archie was concerned, seemed inevitable.

"Oh, the poor little fellow will be so disappointed! The mare will be off

before I can make them understand."

"Wait," said Bayne authoritatively. He sprang upon the bench, and in this

commanding position placed both hands megaphone-like to his lips, and as

Archie came running along the veranda again, having descried his mother

in the distance, and with outstretched arms bleating forth his eager,

unheard appeal, Bayne shouted, his voice clear as a trumpet, "Yes, you

_may go_!"

Not until he was once more on the floor of the observatory did he realize

the form of the permission, and what relish its assumption of authority

must give the matchmaking Mrs. Briscoe. Apparently, it did not impress

Lillian as they stood together and she smilingly watched the group at the

bungalow, when Archie was swung to a seat in the dog-cart beside his

host. It seemed for a moment that they were off, but Mrs. Briscoe, with

womanly precaution, bethought herself to throw a wrap into the vehicle.

Throughout the day the close curtaining mists had resisted all stir of

air, and the temperature had been almost sultry. Since the lifting of the

vapors, the currents of the atmosphere were flowing freely once more, and

the crystal clarity that succeeded was pervaded by an increasing

chilliness. Before nightfall it would be quite cold, and doubtless the

smart little red coat, gay with its Persian embroideries, would be

brought into requisition.

For many a month afterward, whenever Lillian closed her eyes, she saw

that little red coat. Shutting out the light, the world, brought neither

rest nor darkness; instead, the long flaring vistas of gold and russet

foliage and gray crags and flaming sunset remained indelible, and amidst

it all one vivid point of scarlet hue as the little red coat was tossed

through the air like a red leaf flying in the wind.

Now, as all unprescient she watched the group, she thought again they

were gone. But no! Fairy-foot was a handful, even for so capital a whip

as Briscoe. He obviously considered that the boy would be more secure

stowed on the floor of the vehicle, half under the soft rug, and braced

by the firm foot planted on either side against the dash-board.

"How considerate!" the watching mother thought with a glow of gratitude,

noting the caution.

Suddenly the groom leaped aside; the splendid mare sprang forward; there

was a whirl of wheels, a whorl of rays as the gleaming spokes caught the

sunshine, and they were gone indeed!

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Royston, her eyes bright and soft with tenderness, "what

a delight for Archie! He fairly adores to go with Ned. He owes it to you

this time. You always took little things so much to heart."

"And great ones, too, to my sorrow," he said.

Her face changed. She was trembling once more on the brink of tears. She

looked up at him with earnest appeal. "I wish, Julian, that we could

forget the past."

"I do not," he returned, stern and grave, gazing far away over the

landscape.

"No," she cried in a sudden transport of painful emotion; "you hold it

against me like a grudge--a grudge that you despise too much to wreak

vengeance for its sake. The past will always live in your memory--you

hold it like a sword to my throat. You know that I shall always feel the

torture of its edge, but in your magnanimity"--with sarcastic

emphasis--"you forbear to thrust in the murderous blade."

"Good God, Lillian!" exclaimed Bayne, losing his balance altogether at

the accusation. "How have I arrogated magnanimity, or anything else? I

assume nothing! I have sought to efface myself while here, as far as

might be. For the sake of all concerned--you, the Briscoes, _les

convenances_, myself--I could not run away at the sight of you, like a

whipped hound! But I perceive my error. I will get out of this forthwith.

Heaven knows it has been anything but a pleasure!"

"Don't let me stand between you and your friends," she sobbed, weeping

now in the reaction of sentiment. "Don't let me drive you away."

"Why not?" He sought relief from the pressure of the circumstances by

affecting a lighter tone. "By your own account, you have stampeded three

men this afternoon. I shall be the fourth! The fugitives are counting up

like Falstaff's 'rogues in buckram.' Are you ready to go now? We are

leaving Mrs. Briscoe alone."

He did not offer to assist her to rise. Somehow, he could resist aught,

all, save the touch of that little hand. It brought back to him as

nothing else the girl he had loved, and who had loved him. Oh, he was

sure of it once! This woman was a changeling in some mystic sort--the

same in aspect, yet how alien to his ideal of yore!

She did not seem to mark the lapse of courtesy. She sat still, with her

broad gray hat tilted back on her head, a soft and harmonious contrast

with her golden hair and roseate face. Her ungloved hands were clasped in

her lap, her eyes were melancholy, meditative, fixed on the distant

mountains. "I wish we might reach some mutual calm thought of the past,

like the tranquil unimpassioned brightness of the close of this troubled,

threatening day. We don't care now for the clouds that overcast the

morning. To attain some quiet sentiment of forgiveness----"

"_I_ ask no pardon," he said curtly.

"Oh!"--she gazed up at him with all her soul in her eyes--"_you_ have no

need!"

Had she been warned in a dream, she could have compassed no surer method

of reducing his pride than this self-abnegating generosity. But suddenly

an alien sound impinged on the quietude. The sharp note of a rifle

shattered the silence, the fragmentary echoes clamoring back from the

rocks like a volley of musketry.

"How startling that was!" she exclaimed, turning to look in the opposite

direction over the placid valley commanded by the observatory, with the

purple mountains encircling the horizon. "How this clear air carries the

sound!"

"That was not distant," Bayne observed. "Damp air is a better conductor

of sound than a clear atmosphere."

"It was like blasting," she submitted.

"It was a rifle-shot," he discriminated. "A still-hunter, probably. The

deer come down from the coverts toward evening to drink. Some rock may

have fallen along the river-bank, dislodged by the concussion."

A sense of melancholy was in the air, gathering with the gathering

darkness. The light was fading out of the west, and the early autumnal

dusk was at hand. Lillian was sensible of an accession of lassitude, a

realization of defeat in a cause which she felt now it was futile to have

essayed. Why should he forgive? How was reparation possible? She could

not call back the Past--she could not assuage griefs that time had worn

out long ago, searing over the wounds. She was quite silent as she rose

and together they took their way down toward the bungalow. While she

flagged now and again, she walked without assistance, though he kept

close and ready at her side.

Gladys watched their progress expectantly, but her face fell as they drew

near and she could discern their listless expression and manner. She did

not await their arrival, but turned, disappointed, within. It was already

time to dress for dinner, the ladies habitually observing this formality,

although Briscoe often went in knickerbockers till midnight. Lillian

paused on the veranda and gazed down the road, winding away into the

dusky red flare of the fading west, for the drive must needs be short in

this season of early nightfall. There was no sign of approach along its

smooth and shadowy curves, and at the end of the long vista, where the

jagged verges of crags serrated the serene green sky a star shone, white

and splendid, amidst the vanishing vermilion suffusions of the

sunset-tide.