"For heaven's sake, wake up--tell me you're not hurt!" a familiar voice
was saying in my ear, or I was dreaming it. And because it was such a
good dream I was afraid to break it by waking to some horror, so I kept
my eyes shut, hoping and hoping for it to come again.
In an instant, it did come. "Child--little girl--wake up! Can't you
speak to me?"
His hand, holding mine, was warm and extraordinarily comforting.
Suddenly I felt so happy and so perfectly safe that I was paid for
everything. My head was on somebody's arm, and I knew very well now who
the somebody was. He was real, and not a dream. I sighed cozily and
opened my eyes. His face was quite close to mine.
"Thank God!" he said. "Are you all right?"
"Now you're here," I answered. "I thought they were coming to kill me."
"Who?" he asked, quite fiercely.
"An old gipsy woman and her sons."
"Those people!" he exclaimed. "Why, it was they who told me you were in
this place. If it hadn't been for them I shouldn't have found you so
soon--though I _would_ have found you. The wretches! What made you
think--"
"The old woman was in the room above," I said, "waiting for her sons;
and she begged me to look down here for a rosary she dropped. She must
have known the bottom steps were gone. She _wanted_ me to fall; and
though I called, she didn't answer, because she'd probably hobbled off
to find her sons and bring them back to rob me. I haven't hurt myself
much, but when I found I couldn't climb up I was so frightened! I
thought no one would ever come--except those horrible gipsies. And when
I heard a sound above I was sure they were here. I felt sick and
strange, and I suppose I must have fainted."
"I heard you call, just as I got into the upper room. Then, though I
answered, everything was still. Jove! I had some bad minutes! But you're
sure you're all right now?"
"Sure," I answered, sitting up. "Did I call you 'Jack'? If I did, it was
only because one can't shriek 'Mister,' and anyway you told me to."
"Now I _know_ you're all right, or you wouldn't bother about
conventionalities. I wish I had some brandy for you--"
"I wouldn't take it if you had."
"That sounds like you. That's encouraging! Are you strong enough to let
me get you up into the light and air?"
"Quite!" I replied briskly, letting him help me to my feet. "But how are
we to get up?"
"I'll show you. It will be easy."
"Let's look first for the wicked old creature's rosary. If it isn't
here, it's certain she's a fraud."
"I should think it's certain without looking. I'd like to put the old
serpent in prison."
"I wouldn't care to trouble, now I'm safe. And anyway, how could we
prove she meant her sons to rob me, since they hadn't begun the act, and
so couldn't be caught in it?"
"She didn't know you had a man to look after you. When the guide and I
came this way, searching, we met a gipsy woman with two awful brutes,
and asked if they'd seen a young lady in a gray coat. They were all
three on their way here, as you thought; but when they saw us close to
this house, of course, they dared not carry out their plan, and the old
woman made the best of a bad business. No doubt they're as far off by
this time as they could get. It might be difficult to prove anything,
but I'd like to try."
"_I_ wouldn't," I said. "But let's look for that rosary. Have you any
matches?"
"Plenty." He took out a match-case, and held a wax vesta for me to peer
about in the neighbourhood of the broken stairway.
"Here's something glittering!" I exclaimed, just as I had been about to
give up the search in vain. "She said there was a silver crucifix."
I slipped my fingers into a crack where the rock had been split in
breaking off the lower steps. A small, bright thing was there, almost
buried in débris, but I could not get my fingers in deep enough to
dislodge it. Impatiently I pulled out a hat-pin, and worked until I had
unearthed--not the rosary, but a silver coin.
"Somebody else has been down here, dropping money," I said, handing the
piece up for Mr. Dane to examine.
"Then it was a long time ago," he replied, "for the coin has the head of
Louis XIII. on it."
"Oh, then she was right!" I cried. "I _can_ find lost treasure. I'm
going to look for more. I believe that piece must have fallen out of a
hole I've found here, which goes back ever so far into the rock. I can
get my arm in nearly to the elbow."
"_Who_ was 'right'?" my brother wanted to know.
"The gipsy. She told my fortune. That was why I didn't refuse to look
for her rosary."
"I should have thought a child would have known better," he remarked,
scornfully; and his tone hurt my sensitiveness the more because his
voice had been so anxious and his words so kind when I was fainting. He
had called me "child" and "little girl." I remembered well, and the
words had been saying themselves over in my mind ever since. I rather
thought that they betrayed a secret--that perhaps he had been getting to
care for me a little. That idea pleased me, because he had been abrupt
sometimes, and I hadn't known what to make of him. Every girl owes it to
herself to understand a man thoroughly--at least, as much of his
character and feelings as may concern her. Besides, it is not soothing
to one's vanity to try--well, yes, I may as well confess that!--to _try_
and please a man, yet to know you've failed after days of association so
constant and intimate that hours are equal to the same number of months
in an ordinary acquaintance. Now, after thinking I'd made the discovery
that he really had found me attractive, it was a shock to be spoken to
in this way.
"Oh, you _are_ cross!" I exclaimed, still poking about in the hole under
the stairway.
"I'm not cross," he said, "but if I were, you'd deserve it, because you
know you've been foolish. And if you don't know, you ought to, so that
you may be wiser next time. The idea of a sensible young woman chumming
up in a lonely cave, with a dirty old gipsy certain to be a thief, if
not worse, letting her tell fortunes, and then falling into a trap like
this. I wouldn't have believed it of you!"
"I think you're perfectly horrid," said I. "I wish you had let the guide
find me. He would have done it just as well, and been much more polite."
"Doubtless he would have been more polite, but he isn't as young, and
might have had trouble in getting you out. There! that's my last match,
and you mustn't waste any more time looking for treasure which you won't
find."
"Which I _have_ found!" I announced. "I've got something more--away at
the back of the hole. Not that you deserve to see it!"
However, I held up my hand in its torn, bloodstained glove, with two
silver pieces displayed on the palm.
"A child's hidey-hole, I suppose," he said without showing as much
interest as the occasion warranted. "Otherwise there would be something
more valuable. A young servant of the Grimaldis, perhaps; these coins
are all of the same period--of no great value as antiques, I'm afraid."
"They're of value to me," I retorted. "They'll bring me luck." I would
of course have given him one, if he hadn't been so disagreeable; but now
I felt that he shouldn't have anything of mine if he were starving.
"You are very superstitious, among other childlike qualities," he
replied, laughing. So _that_ was what he thought of me, and _that_ was
why he had called me "child"! It was all spoiled now, from the
beginning; and the guide might as well have found me, as I had said,
without _quite_ meaning it at the time.
"If you don't like lucky things, you can throw away my St. Christopher,"
I said, coldly. "You must have thought it very silly."
"I thought it extremely kind of you to give it, and I've no intention of
throwing it away, or parting with it," said he. "Now, are you ready?"
"Yes," I snapped.
In an instant he had me by the waist between two hands which felt strong
as steel buckles, and swung me up like a feather on to the first step of
the broken stairs. Then, in another second, he was at my side,
supporting me to the top without a word, except a muttered "Don't be
childish!" when I would have pushed away his arm.
Strange to say, I forgot Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel until we saw the
guide, to whom long ago Mr. Dane had called up a reassuring _"Tout va
bien!_" Then, suddenly, the awful truth sprang into my mind. All this
time they had been waiting for me! What would they say? What would they
do?
In my horror, I even forgot my righteous anger with the chauffeur. "Oh!"
I gasped. "_The Turnours!_"
Then Mr. Dane spoke kindly again. "Don't worry," he said. "It's all
right. They've gone on."
"In the car?" I cried.
"No. Sir Samuel can't drive the car. And as Lady Turnour thought she had
a chill, rather than wait for me to find you they took a carriage which
was here, and drove down to St. Remy. They'll go on by rail to Avignon,
and--"
"There must have been a dreadful row!" I groaned.
"Not at all. You're not to worry. Lady Turnour behaved like a cad, as
usual, but what can you expect? Sir Samuel did the best he could. He
would have liked to wait, but if he'd insisted she would have had
hysterics."
"How came there to be a carriage here?" I asked the guide.
"The gentleman paid three young men who had driven up in it a good sum
to get it for himself," he explained, "and they are walking down. They
are of Germany."
"Was it a long time?" I went on. "Oh, it _must_ have been. It's nearly
dark now, except for the moonlight."
"It is perhaps an hour altogether since mademoiselle separated herself
from the others," the guide admitted. "But they have been gone for more
than half that time. They did not delay long, after the little dispute
with monsieur about the car."
"Oh, there was a dispute!" I caught him up, wheeling upon the chauffeur.
"You _must_ tell me."
"It was nothing much," he said, still very kindly, "and it was her
ladyship's fault, of course. If you were plain and elderly she'd have
more patience; but as it is, you've seen how quick she is to scold; so,
of course, she was angry when she'd finished her grog and you didn't
turn up."
"What did she say," I asked.
He laughed. "She was quite irrelevant."
"I must know!"
"Well, she seemed to lay most of the blame on the colour of your hair
and eyelashes."
"She said--"
"What could be expected of a girl that dyed her hair yellow and her
eyelashes black?"
"_Horrid_ woman! You don't believe I do, do you?"
"I must say it hadn't occurred to me to think of it."
Then I remembered how angry I was with him, and didn't pursue that
subject, but turned again to the other. However, I made a mental note
that there was one more thing to punish him for when I got the chance.
"What else did she say?"
"She began to turn purple when Sir Samuel would have defended you, and
said she wouldn't stand your taking such liberties. That it was
monstrous, and a few other things, to be kept freezing on mountains by
one's domestics, and that she should be ill if she waited. Sir Samuel
persuaded her to give you fifteen minutes' grace, but after that she was
determined to start. Of course, she didn't know that an accident had
happened. She thought you were simply dawdling, and wanted Sir Samuel to
arrange for you to drive down with the newly arrived German tourists.
Sir Samuel and I objected to this, and later it was settled for the
Turnours to do what her ladyship planned for you, without the company of
the tourists. Lady Turnour resents _lèse-majesté_."
"It's a miracle she consented to leave the car," I said.
"She couldn't use it without a chauffeur, and naturally I refused to go
without knowing what had happened to you."
"You refused!" I stammered.
"Of course. That was where the row came in. We had a few words, and
eventually I was deputed to look you up."
"Deputed!" I echoed, desperately. "They never 'deputed' you to do it,
I'm sure."
"They jolly well couldn't help themselves. You can't make a man drive a
car if he won't. So they went off in the Germans' carriage, and the
Germans were enchanted."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, so miserable now that anger leaked out of my heart
like water through a sieve. "It's all my fault. Did they discharge you?"
"I didn't give them the chance. After a few little things her ladyship
said, I felt rather hot in the collar, and discharged myself. That is, I
gave them notice that I would go as soon as they could get another
chauffeur. It would have been bad form to leave them in the lurch,
without anyone, on tour."
The tears came to my eyes, and I was thinking so little about myself
that I let them roll down without bothering to wipe them away. "Do, do
forgive me," I implored. "But you never can, of course. All through my
foolishness you're out of an engagement. And you depended upon it, I
know, from what you said."
"There's nothing to forgive, my dear little sister," he said. "It's you
who must forgive me, if I've distressed you by telling the story in a
clumsy way. It wasn't your fault. I couldn't stand that bounderess's
cruel tongue, so I have myself to blame, if anyone. And it's sure to
turn out right in the end."
"You refused to drive their car because you would stay behind and find
me--"
"Any decent chap would do that--even a chauffeur." He spoke lightly to
comfort me. "Besides, I wanted to stop. You're the only sister I ever
had."
"You must hate me," I moaned.
"I don't. Please don't cry. I shall faint if you do."
I was obliged to laugh a little through my tears.
"Come," he said, gently. "Let me take you down. Just a word with the
guide about those gipsies, and--"
"Oh, leave the wretched gipsies alone!" I begged. "Who cares, now? If
you say anything, they may call us as witnesses at St. Remy or some town
where we don't want to stop. Let them go."
"I suppose we might as well," he said, "for we can't prove anything
worth proving. Come, then." He slipped some money into the guide's hand,
and thanked him for his courtesy and kindness. But another pang shot
through my remorseful heart. More money spent by this man for me, when
he had so little, and had lost the engagement which, though unworthy his
rank in life, was the only present means he had of earning a livelihood.
I came, obeying in forlorn silence, and could not answer when he tried
to cheer me up as we walked down to the Hotel Monte Carlo. There stood
the Aigle in charge of a youth from the inn, and there was more money
to be paid to him. I wanted to give it, but saw that if I insisted Mr.
Dane would be vexed.
He suggested putting me inside, as the air was now very cold, with the
chill that falls after sunset; but I refused. "I want to sit by you!" I
implored, and he said no more. With the glass cage behind us empty, and
the great acetylene lamps alight, the Aigle turned and flew down the
hill.