also something that restrained him for the moment from being as
explicit as he had intended. He rode on awhile without speaking,
watching the girl as the mule now and then turned the sharp angle of
the path and began a new ascent. This movement always brought her face
to face with him a moment--she on the grade above, and he below. Miss
Ruth had grown accustomed to the novel situation, and no longer held on
by the pommel of the saddle. She sat with her hands folded in her lap,
pliantly lending herself to the awkward motion of the animal. Over her
usual travelling-habit she had thrown the long waterproof which reached
to her feet. As she sat there in a half-listless attitude, she was the
very picture of the Queen of Sheba seated upon Deacon Twombly's mare.
Lynde could not help seeing it; but he was schooling himself by degrees
to this fortuitous resemblance. It was painful, but it was inevitable,
and he would get used to it in time. "Perhaps," he mused, "if I had
never had that adventure with the poor insane girl, I might not have
looked twice at Miss Denham when we met--and loved her. It was the poor
little queen who shaped my destiny, and I oughtn't to be ungrateful."
He determined to tell the story to Miss Ruth some time when a fitting
occasion offered.
It was only when the likeness flashed upon Lynde suddenly, as it had
done in the grove the previous day, that it now had the power to
startle him. At the present moment it did not even seriously annoy him.
In an idle, pensive way he noted the coincidence of the man leading the
mule. The man was Morton and the mule was Mary! Lynde smiled to himself
at the reflection that Mary would probably not accept the analogy with
very good grace if she knew about it. This carried him to Rivermouth;
then he thought of Cinderella's slipper, packed away in the old
hair-trunk in the closet, and how perfectly the slipper would fit one
of those feet which a floating fold of the waterproof that instant
revealed to him--and he was in Switzerland again.
"Miss Ruth," he said, looking up quickly and urging his mule as closely
behind hers as was practicable, "what are your plans to be when your
uncle comes?"
"When my uncle comes we shall have no plans--aunt Gertrude and I. Uncle
Denham always plans for everybody."
"I don't imagine he will plan for me," said Lynde gloomily. "I wish he
would, for I shall not know what to do with myself."
"I thought you were going to St. Petersburg."
"I have given that up."
"It's to be Northern Germany, then?"
"No, I have dropped that idea, too. Will Mr. Denham remain here any
time?"
"Probably not long."
"What is to become of me after you are gone!" exclaimed Lynde. "When I
think of Mr. Denham sweeping down on Chamouni to carry you off, I am
tempted to drive this mule straight over the brink of one of these
precipices!"
The girl leaned forward, looking at the rocky wall of the Flegere
through an opening in the pines, and made no reply.
"Miss Ruth," said Lynde, "I must speak!"
"Do not speak," she said, turning upon him with a half-imperious,
half-appealing gesture, "I forbid you;" and then, more gently, "We have
four or five days, perhaps a week, to be together; we are true, frank
friends. Let us be just that to the end."
"Those are mercifully cruel words," returned the young man, with a dull
pain at his heart. "It is a sweet way of saying a bitter thing."
"It is a way of saying that your friendship is very dear to me, Mr.
Lynde," she replied, sitting erect in the saddle, with the brightness
and the blackness deepening in her eyes. "I wonder if I can make you
understand how I prize it. My life has not been quite like that of
other girls, partly because I have lived much abroad, and partly
because I have been very delicate ever since my childhood; I had a
serious lung trouble then, which has never left me. You would not think
it, to look at me. Perhaps it is the anxiety I have given aunt Gertrude
which has made her so tenacious of my affection that I have scarcely
been permitted to form even those intimacies which girls form among
themselves. I have never known any one--any gentleman--as intimately as
I have known you. She has let me have you for my friend."
"But Miss Ruth"--
"Mr. Lynde," she said, interrupting him, "it was solely to your
friendship that my aunt confided me to-day. I should be deceiving her
if I allowed you to speak as--as you were speaking."
Lynde saw his mistake. He should have addressed himself in the first
instance to the aunt. He had been lacking in proper regard for the
convenances, forgetting that Ruth's education had been different from
that of American girls. At home, if you love a girl you tell her so;
over here, you go and tell her grandmother. Lynde dropped his head and
remained silent, resolving to secure an interview with Mrs. Denham that
night if possible. After a moment or two he raised his face. "Miss
Ruth," said he, "if I had to choose, I would rather be your friend than
any other woman's lover."
"That is settled, then," she returned, with heightened color. "We will
not refer to this again;" and she brushed away a butterfly that was
fluttering about her conceitedly in its new golden corselet.
Meanwhile the guide marched on stolidly with Ruth's reins thrown
loosely over the crook of his elbow. In his summer courses up and down
the mountain, the man, with his four languages, had probably assisted
dumbly at much fugitive love-making and many a conjugal
passage-at-arms. He took slight note of the conversation between the
two young folks; he was clearly more interested in a strip of black
cloud that had come within the half hour and hung itself over the
Aiguille du Dru.
The foot-path and the bridle-road from Chamouni unite at the Caillet, a
spring of fresh water halfway up the mountain. There the riders
dismounted and rested five or six minutes at a rude hut perched like a
brown bird under the cliff.
"I've the fancy to go on foot the rest of the distance," Lynde
remarked, as he assisted Ruth into the saddle again.
"Then I'll let you lead the mule, if you will," said Ruth. "I'm not the
least afraid."
"That is an excellent idea! Why did you not think of it sooner? I shall
expect a buonamano, like a real guide, you know."
"I will give it you in advance," she said gayly, reaching forward and
pretending to hold a coin between her thumb and finger.
Lynde caught her hand and retained it an instant, but did not dare to
press it. He was in mortal fear of a thing which he could have crushed
like a flower in his palm.
The young man drew the reins over his arm and moved forward, glancing
behind him at intervals to assure himself that his charge was all
right. As they approached the summit of the mountain the path took
abrupter turns, and was crossed in numberless places by the channels of
winter avalanches, which had mown down great pines as if they had been
blades of grass. Here and there a dry water-course stretched like a
wrinkle along the scarred face of the hill.
"Look at that, Miss Ruth!" cried Lynde, checking the mule and pointing
to a slope far below them.
Nature, who loves to do a gentle thing even in her most savage moods,
had taken one of those empty water-courses and filled it from end to
end with forget-me-nots. As the wind ruffled the millions of petals,
this bed of flowers, only a few inches wide but nearly a quarter of a
mile in length, looked like a flashing stream of heavenly blue water
rushing down the mountain side.
By and by the faint kling-kling of a cowbell sounding far up the height
told the travellers that they were nearing the plateau. Occasionally
they descried a herdsman's chalet, pitched at an angle against the wind
on the edge of an arete, or clinging like a wasp's-nest to some jutting
cornice of rock. After making four or five short turns, the party
passed through a clump of scraggy, wind-swept pines, and suddenly found
themselves at the top of Montanvert.
A few paces brought them to the Pavilion, a small inn kept by the guide
Couttet. Here the mules were turned over to the hostler, and Miss Ruth
and Lynde took a quarter of an hour's rest, examining the collection of
crystals and moss-agates and horn-carvings which M. Couttet has for
show in the apartment that serves him as salon, cafe, and museum. Then
the two set out for the rocks overlooking the glacier.
The cliff rises precipitously two hundred and fifty feet above the
frozen sea, whose windings can be followed, for a distance of five
miles, to the walls of the Grandes and Petites Jorasses. Surveyed from
this height, the Mer de Glace presents the appearance of an immense
ploughed field covered by a fall of snow that has become dingy. The
peculiar corrugation of the surface is scarcely discernible, and one
sees nothing of the wonderful crevasses, those narrow and often
fathomless partings of the ice, to look into which is like looking into
a split sapphire. The first view from the cliff is disappointing, but
presently the marvel of it all assails and possesses one.
"I should like to go down on the ice," said Ruth, after regarding the
scene for several minutes in silence.
"We must defer that to another day," said Lynde. "The descent of the
moraine from this point is very arduous, and is seldom attempted by
ladies. Besides, if we do anything we ought to cross the glacier and go
home by the way of the Mauvais Pas. We will do that yet. Let us sit
upon this boulder and talk."
"What shall we talk about? I don't feel like talking."
"I'll talk to you. I don't know of what... I will tell you a story."
"A story, Mr. Lynde? I like stories as if I were only six years old.
But I don't like those stories which begin with 'Once there was a
little girl,' who always turns out to be the little girl that is
listening."
"Mine is not of that kind," replied Lynde, with a smile, steadying Miss
Ruth by the hand as she seated herself on the boulder; "and yet it
touches on you indirectly. It all happened long ago."
"It concerns me, and happened long ago? I am interested already. Begin!"
"It was in the summer of 1872. I was a clerk in a bank then, at
Rivermouth, and the directors had given me a vacation. I hired a crazy
old horse and started on a journey through New Hampshire. I didn't have
any destination; I merely purposed to ride on and on until I got tired,
and then ride home again. The weather was beautiful, and for the first
three or four days I never enjoyed myself better in my life. The
flowers were growing, the birds were singing--the robins in the
sunshine and the whippoorwills at dusk--and the hours were not long
enough for me. At night I slept in a tumble-down barn, or anywhere,
like a born tramp. I had a mountain brook for a wash-basin and the west
wind for a towel. Sometimes I invited myself to a meal at a farm-house
when there wasn't a tavern handy; and when there wasn't any farm-house,
and I was very hungry, I lay down under a tree and read in a book of
poems."
"Oh, that was just delightful!" said Ruth, knitting the fingers of both
hands over one knee and listening to him with a child-like abandon
which Lynde found bewitching.
"On the fourth day--there are some persons crossing on the ice," said
Lynde, interrupting himself.
"Never mind the persons on the ice!"
"On the fourth day I came to a wild locality among the Ragged
Mountains, where there was not a human being nor a house to be seen. I
had got up before breakfast was ready that morning, and I was quite
anxious to see the smoke curling up from some kitchen chimney. Here, as
I mounted a hill-side, the saddle-girth broke, and I jumped off to fix
it. Somehow, I don't know precisely how, the horse gave a plunge,
jerked the reins out of my hands, and started on a dead run for
Rivermouth."
"That wasn't very pleasant," suggested Ruth.
"Not a bit. I couldn't catch the animal, and I had the sense not to
try. I climbed to the brow of the hill and was not sorry to see a snug
village lying in the valley."
"What village was that?"
"I don't know to this day--with any certainty. I didn't find out then,
and afterwards I didn't care to learn. Well, I shouldered my traps and
started for the place to procure another horse, not being used to going
under the saddle myself. I had a hard time before I got through; but
that I shall not tell you about. On my way to the village I met a young
girl. This young girl is the interesting part of the business."
"She always is, you know."
"She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen--up to that time.
She was dressed all in white, and looked like an angel. I expected she
would spread wing and vanish before I could admire her half enough; but
she did not. The moment she saw me she walked straight to the spot
where I stood, and looked me squarely in the face."
"Wasn't that rather rude--for an angel?"
"You wouldn't have thought so. She did it like a young goddess with the
supreme prerogative to flash herself that way on mortals by the
roadside."
"Oh, she was a young goddess as well as an angel."
"After she had looked me in the eye a second," continued Lynde, not
heeding the criticism, "she said--what do you suppose she said?"
"How can I imagine?"
"You could not, in a thousand years. Instead of saying, 'Good-morning,
sir,' and dropping me a courtesy, she made herself very tall and said,
with quite a grand air, 'I am the Queen of Sheba!' Just fancy it. Then
she turned on her heel and ran up the road."
"Oh, that was very rude. Is this a true story, Mr. Lynde?"
"That is the sad part of it, Miss Ruth. This poor child had lost her
reason, as I learned subsequently. She had wandered out of an asylum in
the neighborhood. After a while some men came and took her back
again--on my horse, which they had captured in the road."
"The poor, poor girl! I am sorry for her to the heart. Your story began
like a real romance; is that all of it! It is sad enough."
"That is all. Of course I never saw her afterwards."
"But you remembered her, and pitied her?"
"For a long time, Miss Ruth."
"I like you for that. But what has this to do with me? You said"--
"The story touched on you indirectly?"
"Yes."
"Well, so it does; I will tell you how. This poor girl was beautiful
enough in your own fashion to be your sister, and when I first saw
you"--
"Monsieur," said the guide, respectfully lifting a forefinger to his
hat as he approached, "I think it looks like rain."
The man had spoken in English. Ruth went crimson to the temples, and
Lynde's face assumed a comical expression of dismay.
"Looks like rain," he repeated mechanically. "I thought you told me you
did not understand English."
"Monsieur is mistaken. It is Jean Macquart that does not spik English."
"Very well," said Lynde; "if it is going to rain we had better be
moving. It would not be pleasant to get blockaded up here by a
storm--or rather it would! Are the animals ready?"
"They are waiting at the foot of the path, monsieur."
Lynde lost no time getting Ruth into the saddle, and the party began
their descent, the guide again in charge of the girl's mule. On the
downward journey they unavoidably faced the precipices, and the road
appeared to them much steeper than when they ascended.
"Is it wind or rain, do you think?" asked Lynde, looking at a wicked
black cloud that with angrily curled white edges was lowering itself
over the valley.
"I think it is both, monsieur."
"How soon?"
"I cannot know. Within an hour, surely."
"Perhaps we were wrong to attempt going down," said Lynde.
"Monsieur might be kept at Couttet's one, two--three days. But, if
monsieur wishes, I will go on and tell the friends of mademoiselle that
you are detained."
"Oh, no!" cried Ruth, filled with horror at the suggestion. "We MUST
return. I shall not mind the rain, if it comes."
As she spoke, a loose handful of large drops rustled through the
pine-boughs overhead, and softly dashed themselves against the rocks.
"It has come," said Lynde.
"I have my waterproof," returned the girl. "I shall do very well. But
you"--
The sentence was cut short by a flash of lightning, followed by a heavy
peal of thunder that rolled through the valley and reverberated for one
or two minutes among the hills. The guide grasped the reins close up to
the bits, and urged the mule forward at a brisk trot. The sky cleared,
and for a moment it looked as if the storm had drifted elsewhere; but
the party had not advanced twenty paces before there was a strange
rustling sound in the air, and the rain came down. The guide whipped
off a coarse woollen coat he wore, and threw it over the girl's
shoulders, tying it by the sleeves under her chin.
"Oh, you must not do that!" she cried, "you will catch your death!"
"Mademoiselle," he replied, laughing, as he gave another knot to the
sleeves, "for thirty-eight years, man and boy, I have been rained upon
and snowed upon--and voila!"
"You're a fine fellow, my friend, if you do speak English," cried
Lynde, "and I hope some honest girl has found it out before now."
"Monsieur," returned the man, signing himself with the cross, "she and
the little one are in heaven."
The rain came down in torrents; it pattered like shot against the
rocks; it beat the air of the valley into mist. Except the path
immediately before them, and the rocky perpendicular wall now on their
right and now on their left, the travellers could distinguish nothing
through the blinding rain. Shortly the wind began to blow, whistling in
the stiff pines as it whistles among the taut cordage of a ship in a
gale. At intervals it tore along the salient zigzags and threatened to
sweep the mules off their legs. The flashes of lightning now followed
one another in rapid succession, and the thunder crashed incessantly
through the gorges. It appeared as if the great cones and cromlechs
were tumbling pell-mell from every direction into the valley.
Though the situation of the three persons on the mountain side was
disagreeable to the last extent, they were exposed to only one especial
danger--that from a land-slide or a detached boulder. At every ten
steps the guide glanced up the dripping steep, and listened. Even the
mules were not without a prescience of this peril. The sharpest
lightning did not make them wince, but at the faintest sound of a
splinter of rock or a pebble rustling down the slope, their ears
instantly went forward at an acute angle. The footing soon became
difficult on account of the gullies formed by the rain. In spite of his
anxiety concerning Ruth, Lynde could not help admiring the skill with
which the sagacious animals felt their way. Each fore hoof as it
touched the earth seemed endowed with the sense of fingers.
Lynde had dismounted after the rain set in and was walking beside the
girl's mule. Once, as an unusually heavy clap of thunder burst over
their heads, she had impulsively stretched out her hand to him; he had
taken it, and still held it, covered by a fold of the waterproof,
steadying her so. He was wet to the skin, but Ruth's double wraps had
preserved her thus far from anything beyond the dampness.
"Are you cold?" he asked. Her hand was like ice.
"Not very," she replied in a voice rendered nearly inaudible by a peal
of thunder that shook the mountain. A ball of crimson fire hung for a
second in the murky sky and then shot into the valley. The guide
glanced at Lynde, as much as to say, "That struck."
They were rapidly leaving the wind above them; its decrease was
noticeable as they neared the Caillet. The rain also had lost its first
fury, and was falling steadily. Here and there bright green patches of
the level plain showed themselves through the broken vapors. Ruth
declined to halt at the Caillet; her aunt would be distracted about
her, and it was better to take advantage of the slight lull in the
storm, and push on. So they stopped at the hut only long enough for
Lynde to procure a glass of cognac, a part of which he induced the girl
to drink. Then they resumed their uncomfortable march.
When Lynde again looked at his companion he saw that her lips were
purple, and her teeth set. She confessed this time to being very cold.
The rain had at length penetrated the thick wrappings and thoroughly
chilled her. Lynde was in despair, and began bitterly to reproach
himself for having undertaken the excursion without Mrs. Denham. Her
presence could not have warded off the storm, but it would have
rendered it possible for the party to postpone their descent until
pleasant weather. Undoubtedly it had been his duty to leave Miss Ruth
at the inn and return alone to Chamouni. He had not thought of that
when the guide made his suggestion. There was now nothing to do but to
hurry.
The last part of the descent was accomplished at a gait which offered
the cautious mules no chance to pick their steps. Lynde's animal, left
to its own devices, was following on behind, nibbling the freshened
grass. But the road was not so rough, and the stretches protected by
the trees were in good condition. In less than three quarters of an
hour from the half-way hut, the party were at the foot of the mountain,
where they found a close carriage which Mrs. Denham had thoughtfully
sent to meet them. Benumbed with the cold and cramped by riding so long
in one position, the girl was unable to stand when she was lifted from
the saddle. Lynde carried her to the carriage and wrapped her in a
heavy afghan that lay on the seat. They rode to the hotel without
exchanging a word. Lynde was in too great trouble, and Ruth was too
exhausted to speak. She leaned back with her eyes partially closed, and
did not open them until the carriage stopped. Mrs. Denham stood at the
hall door.
"Mr. Lynde! Mr. Lynde!" she said, taking the girl in her arms.
The tone of reproach in her voice cut him to the quick.
"He was in no way to blame, aunt," said Ruth, trying to bring a smile
to her blanched face; "it was I who WOULD go." She reached back her
hand unperceived by Mrs. Denham and gave it to Lynde. He raised it
gratefully to his lips, but as he relinquished it and turned away he
experienced a sudden, inexplicable pang--as if he had said farewell to
her.
X
IN THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC
By the time Lynde had changed his wet clothing, the rain had turned
into a dull drizzle, which folded itself like a curtain about the
valley. Mont Blanc, with its piled-up acres of desolation, loomed
through the mist, a shapeless, immeasurable cloud, within whose shadow
the little town was to live darkly, half blotted out, for the next four
days.
Lynde spent the afternoon between his own chamber and the reading-room
of the hotel, wandering restlessly from one to the other, and not
venturing to halt at Mrs. Denham's door to inquire after Ruth. Though
he held himself nearly guiltless in what had occurred, Mrs. Denham's
rebuking tone and gesture had been none the less intolerable. He was
impatient to learn Ruth's condition, and was growing every moment more
anxious as he reflected on her extreme delicacy and the severe exposure
she had undergone; but he could not bring himself just then to go to
Mrs. Denham for information. He concluded to wait until he met her at
dinner; but Mrs. Denham did not come down to the table d'hote.
The twilight fell earlier than usual, and the long evening set in.
Lynde smoked his cigar gloomily at an open window looking upon the
street. It was deserted and dismal. Even the shop across the way, where
they sold alpenstocks and wood-carvings and knick-knacks in polished
lapis, was empty; in pleasant weather the shop was always crowded with
curiosity-mongers. The raw wind spitefully blew the rain into Lynde's
face as he looked out. "Quel temps de loup!" sighed a polite little
French gentleman, making his unlighted cigarette an excuse for
addressing Lynde. The wretched little French gentleman was perishing
with a desire to say a thousand graceful things to somebody, but Lynde
was in no mood for epigrams. He gave his interlocutor a light, and
sheered off. In a corner of the reading-room was a tattered collection
of Tauchnitz novels; Lynde picked up one and tried to read, but the
slim types ran together and conveyed no meaning to him. It was becoming
plain that he was to have no communication with the Denhams that night
unless he assumed the initiative. He pencilled a line on the reverse of
a visiting card and sent it up to Mrs. Denham's parlor. The servant
returned with the card on his waiter. The ladies had retired. Then
Lynde took himself off to bed disconsolately.
It was nearly nine o'clock when he awoke the following morning. The
storm had not lifted; the colorless clouds were still letting down a
fine, vapory rain that blurred everything. As soon as he had
breakfasted, Lynde went to Mrs. Denham's rooms. She answered his knock
in person and invited him by a silent gesture to enter the parlor. He
saw by the drawn expression of her countenance that she had not slept.
"Ruth is ill," she said in a low voice, replying to Lynde's inquiry.
"You do not mean very ill?"
"I fear so. She has passed a dreadful night. I have had a doctor."
"Is it as serious as that? What does he say?"