CHAPTER XII.

_TOLD AMONG THE SNOWS._

Oh, she was fair: her nature once all spring And deadly beauty, like a maiden sword-- Startlingly beautiful. I see her now!

That was the end of anything like confidential intercourse between Maurice Grey and the young Arthur, so far as the evening passed in the chalet was concerned. They were both tired, and Maurice had once more allowed himself to take rather more strong drink than was good for him.

It was a new fault. Hitherto, in all his dark moods, through his dreary solitude, and, to him, almost as dreary times of gayety, he had always respected himself so far as to refrain from drowning his sorrows in so contemptible a way. Now, it seemed as though a crisis in his fate had come, as though he were destined to be swept away utterly in the numbing torrent of misery and loneliness.

Arthur had to assist him to bed that evening, for he was almost incapable of doing anything for himself. The young man recovered very soon from the indignant displeasure into which Maurice's cynicism had thrown him. He saw the weary man, overcome as much perhaps by emotion and fatigue as by what he had taken, sink into a deep sleep, and a dim idea of the truth dawned in upon his mind. It softened him so much that he could scarcely keep from tears as he looked on the face of his new friend, so fine in all its outlines, yet so evidently wasted by care. And this was the long-sought, the earnestly-desired--Margaret's husband, the arbiter of her destinies, the object of her changeless love.

Arthur felt a new love stirring in his heart; he treated his companion with a tender reverence.

He had some difficulty and met a few harsh words before he could rouse Maurice so far as to half lead, half drag him, into his small bedroom. When at last his efforts had been successful, when he saw him resting in the death-like immobility of sleep upon the pillow, he half trembled about the effect upon Maurice's morning mood of this little night-episode. Would he be humiliated at the remembrance of the weakness into which he had been betrayed, and shut up his heart still more from his companion?

Arthur might have spared himself the trouble of forming any conjecture on the subject. Maurice the next morning remembered very little of his strange revelations, and nothing whatever of the torpor that succeeded.

"I must have been tolerably done up last night," he said lightly when they met at the breakfast-table. "I don't really know how I got to bed. I think I must have undressed in my sleep."

"You seemed half asleep," said Arthur cautiously. "When we separated I was pretty far gone myself. I dare say this strong air has something to do with it."

"It has the effect of champagne upon one's spirits--at least, so they say. I feel anything but lively this morning. However, if you are still in the same mind, we had better try what high latitudes can do for us. Do you feel up to a good climb?"

"Thoroughly--in the very mood for exertion."

"Well, then, old fellow! set to work with a will, for if we intend to sup on anything more inviting than black bread and sausages, we must get back to the hotel this evening. That rascal Karl only half supplied us with bread and meat."

"I could sup on anything after a walk like yesterday's to give me an appetite. However, Master Karl evidently intended that we should return to-day. What a joke he is! If eyes could kill, I should certainly have been slain yesterday when I suggested that we could dispense with attendance."

Maurice smiled: "Poor old Karl! Well, I believe he is one of the few a man can trust. It is my chief reason for keeping him, for really, in some ways, he's an immense bore. That big fellow is as frightened of bogies as a baby. The dark weather we had sent him nearly out of his wits. It was chiefly in consideration for his feelings that I put up at the hotel the other day."

"Then I ought, certainly, to be very thankful to him," said Arthur warmly; "he will think I have made him a poor return. I suppose we may leave our knapsacks under the care of your old woman here?" he continued. "It's all very well to talk of their convenience and that kind of thing; I can only say that my shoulders ached considerably yesterday; they've not recovered yet."

Maurice laughed: "You are a young traveller, my dear fellow; however, I'll be merciful. Leave them here, by all means, and start this time untrammelled. But come! Are you ready? Now, if you take my advice--and I know something of the mountains--you should begin quietly. We can quicken the pace when we get into the swing and get up the wind--two very serious matters, I can assure you."

There had been sufficient thaw to make the roads practicable, at least to men with strong boots and leathern gaiters. Many of the steeper paths were nothing better than watercourses. But this was a matter of minor import to the two men. It took Arthur some time, as his friend had predicted, to get into the swing, and they plodded on for some miles in silence, Arthur turning over and over in his head that tale, so oft told in the silence of his heart, of his first love, which had come upon him like a kind of magic, awakening him to a truer comprehension of life, a fuller appreciation of beauty--the tale which he must tell, before many minutes should pass over, to another--to a man unsympathetic perhaps, and hard. Once or twice he ventured to steal a glance at Maurice. His face was inscrutable. For the moment he was really nothing more than the quiet English gentleman, patient and enduring, as becomes one of his race--manly in his way of meeting difficulties, determined when it is necessary to overcome them. In walking, more especially in climbing, there is abundant room for the display of character, and in Switzerland a young Englishman of breeding and degree may be known at once by his bearing.

Their route was very lonely. It would have shocked an American traveller, who does not care to pass over any but well-frequented roads, where pedestrians, _chaises-a-porteur_ and heavily-laden mules are to be met with in numbers. But with the early break-up of the season these things had gone. Even the small sheds where light refreshments are temptingly displayed in the summer months were empty and deserted; the places of the men who for the small sum of fifty centimes had been wont to awaken the echoes of the everlasting hills, "knew them no more." Maurice and Arthur had the mountains to themselves. They reached about midday the point of which Maurice had spoken. He had not overpraised it. After a last little bit of climbing, so steep that it had taken all their attention to keep a footing on the slippery rock, they reached a kind of rocky plateau partly covered with snow, partly patched with the emerald green which belongs peculiarly to the Alps. Standing near a ragged pine tree, they looked up. The sky was of a deep unruffled blue, and against it, clear as crystal, shone out the dazzle of the snow-peaks; lower down, a glacier, rendered pure by the late snow-falls, swept a radiant ice-river between gray, cloud-like rocks, in whose crevices the rich soft moss had made a home; lower still, tier above tier, rose the straight stems and green crowns of the hardy pine; while far below, at an almost inconceivable depth, that which could not be seen made itself felt--a torrent had been making for its waters a way throughout the ages, and its roar and hiss rose evermore into the daylight.

Arthur gazed silently for a few minutes, then turned to his friend a pale and earnest face. "Beautiful!" he said in a low, impassioned voice. He bent his young head. "It make me think of _her_."

Maurice smiled. He was pleased with the frank expression of enjoyment, and in his answer there was an elder man's indulgence to the amiable weakness of a younger: "Come! here's a forsaken shed looks as if it had been left on purpose--faces the sunshine and sheltered from the wind. We can sit down and rest if you like, take our brandy and water, and eat the crusts we were provident enough to bring, for, by Jove! in these regions, at least, a man can't live on air; then you must tell me about this mysterious '_her_,' in whom I really begin to take an alarming interest. Why, old fellow, what's come over you? Here, take some brandy. You've been doing too much. One oughtn't to overdo this kind of thing at first."

But Arthur put away the brandy-flask with an attempt at a smile. Not fatigue, but a sudden emotion had overcome him. Margaret's fate seemed in his hands. It was trembling in the balance, and he felt, for the moment, powerless by excess of feeling.

"I will drink nothing, thank you," he said; and he sat down on a stone bench in full view of the radiant snow-peaks. They were sheltered from the bleak wind by one of the walls; the opening of the shed let in a flood of sunlight. It might have been a summer's day.

Maurice spread his overcoat on the ground and stretched himself out luxuriously, with his face toward Arthur. "After labor, rest," he said lightly; "but come, I am impatient; let the mystic lady appear."

He laughed as he spoke, but there was no answering merriment in Arthur's face. He looked away from Maurice toward the mountains. "I wish to God she might!" he said earnestly. "If her sweet face were here my poor words would be useless. It would tell its own tale of long-suffering, of angelic patience, of truth, of purity. But--" he felt, though he did not dare to look round, that the face of his companion expressed calm philosophic wonder, that his lips were curled into the faintest possible sneer--"I did not intend to rhapsodize. My tale should speak for itself plain, unvarnished facts, which I defy the falsest being that ever lived to gainsay."

He paused, and Maurice sighed. "The young man is evidently cracked on this point," was the burden of his thought. "I am in for a good half hour of ecstasies. Well, I brought it on myself. Patience is the only remedy.--Permit me," he said aloud; "this promises to be rather exciting--I must hear it through the medium of my usual sedative." He lit a cigar, and the blue wreaths of smoke curled up into the sunshine, while Arthur, his task rendered all the more difficult by his companion's nonchalance, struggled to find the truant words in which he had thought to clothe his subject. "It is not very long since I first met her," he said quietly, "but it seems a lifetime, for the meeting changed me. In the light of her history I read that life has a certain reality; in the depths of her sad eyes I saw that endurance and self-denial are beautiful and good. It must have been early in the month of May--yes, I remember, the Exhibition of the Royal Academy had not long been open--I strolled in one day to amuse myself and pass an hour or two of the afternoon. My cousin and fiancee was to have met me there. She did not appear, and I was considerably indignant, for at that time I believed that all womankind owed me a debt of gratitude, simply for being and giving them the light of my countenance. You see, women had spoiled me from my babyhood upward. But enough about myself.

"As I was wandering about, discontented and cross, a picture took my fancy. I sat down on the seat that faced it to examine it in detail. There was only one other on the same bench (for it was tolerably late and the rooms were thinning), a lady, but I paid little attention to her, as her dress was shabby and she wore a close bonnet and thick crape veil. It had been my habit to ogle only the well-dressed ladies--others offended my fastidious taste; but when this stranger fell back suddenly in a deep faint I did my duty as a gentleman (there was no one else in the room at the moment)--I rose hastily to offer her assistance.

"Then for the first time I saw her face, as the bonnet and veil had fallen back. Such a face! I wish I could describe it---its purity of outline, its exquisite marble-like coloring, its deep sadness. She had a quantity of golden hair: as I tried to raise her it fell down in a perfect shower over my arm. I was paralyzed--a sudden fever possessed me. I could have carried off the mysterious lady there and then, and hidden her away from every eye. But do what I would I could not restore her to consciousness, and I began to tremble. I had a kind of objection to calling in the assistance of any passing stranger. At the critical moment, however, like the good genius in a fairy-tale, my kind little cousin appeared, and in a very few moments took the matter out of my hands altogether. She was as enthusiastic as I had been, and far more successful. In a few moments we had the pleasure of seeing our fair lady restored, and of taking her back to her home, which turned out to be only a miserable lodging in the gloomiest part of London.

"If I had been in love with her in her fainting condition, I tell you honestly that when I saw her eyes open, when I heard her voice--above all, when I read that deep sadness in her face--I was ten times more in love than before. But such was the influence of her gentle womanly dignity I dared express nothing either by word or sign. She thanked us with all the cordiality of a lady, but utterly and absolutely denied herself to us for the future, and I could not think of disobeying. In accepting our services she was like a queen dispensing her favors. All I could hope was that kindly chance would favor me. For the next few days I could think of nothing else: her face followed me like a dream of beauty that haunts the soul. My one hope was in the picture-galleries. As you may believe, I attended them daily, and some days later I saw her again in the same place. This time she did not see me. I watched her, myself unseen. Unhappily, a false counsellor was at hand. He had traced the direction of my glance before I knew he was near. I took his odious advice; I was weak enough to believe him. In disobedience to her express commands I visited her at the address to which we had taken her."

Maurice's cigar had died down; he was listening with apparent interest. "And you received a rebuff for your pains," he said lightly.

Arthur flushed: "A rebuff! say rather a rebuke; and such a gentle, womanly one that it cut me to the very soul. I felt that, _coute que coute_, I must know more of her; but I could not do it in _that_ way, you know. I was puzzled and baffled, doubtful how to act. Then came in the gentle self-denial, the noble trustfulness of another woman to my assistance. My cousin Adele read my sadness, and was not long in putting her finger on the cause. She helped me; she made herself Margaret's friend--"

Arthur stopped suddenly. He had let out the name, which he had intended to bring in at the end of his tale--a grand finale.

His sudden and evidently conscious pause gave the error significance. In a moment Arthur saw what he had done. A tremor passed through Maurice's frame. He turned round sharply and fixed the young man with his stern eyes. "Why do you stop?" he said. "Go on, if your tale be worth the telling."

And Arthur continued falteringly: "We were able to give her some assistance--that is, my cousin did. In her lonely and unprotected condition she had been tortured by the persecutions of the man who, as I afterward found out, had wrought the wrong from the effects of which she had been suffering during those long years. To live out her solitary life in peace, she had hidden herself in an out-of-the-way seaside village. Her visit to London had been made for the purpose of gaining some employment, her income proving insufficient for the education of her only child, a daughter, whom she had brought up in strict seclusion."

Maurice's face was turned from Arthur, but as, almost insensibly to himself, the young man's voice grew stern and deep, he saw that his companion winced and cowered. It was almost as though he had received some unlooked-for blow.

"In London," continued Arthur, "the ruffian came upon her traces. Mrs. Grey feared and hated him--the very sight of him was odious to her. It was only to save her name--her husband's name, as I afterward learnt--from public notice that she refrained at this time from calling in the strong arm of the law.

"To baffle him and preserve her privacy she took refuge in flight; my cousin helped her, and from that day dated their warm friendship. She returned then to her own home--the little village by the seaside. Adele knew her address. I was not taken into their confidence; I was suffered to be useful, but I knew nothing, and yet even in that usefulness I reckoned myself happy.

"After this weeks passed by of which I can scarcely give an account--weeks during which my life might have been summed up in one short sentence--I was in love. I felt it was hopeless. My cousin, who knew more of Mrs. Grey's history than I did, let me feel this whenever--and it was very often--she was the topic of conversation between us. She herself had not given me the faintest encouragement, yet I hoped against hope. I thought, I studied, I planned, I put off my idleness. My dream was to gain fame and distinction by my own efforts. It was all for her. Ah!"--once more the young man was warming to his subject--"words fail when I try to express what her influence was. I became a different man; the memory of her goodness and beauty, of her life of self-denial, changed me utterly. But at last the craving to see her face again, to know more certainly that my hope was vain, became almost too great to be borne. You see, I was young, and had not been accustomed to this kind of thing. It preyed upon my health and spirits. Besides all this, certain disagreeable and--as I must always maintain--utterly unfounded rumors with regard to Mrs. Grey were flying about."

Again Maurice winced and shrank, but this time Arthur did not pause.

He went on rapidly: "These things maddened me: if she had been an angel from heaven I could not have believed more steadfastly in her truth. I longed to make myself her champion, to gain from herself the right to protect her. Then once more my cousin helped me. She gave me the address I wanted, she sent me to find our friend, she told me to offer her my services.

"As you may imagine, it was not necessary to urge the matter. I found my way to the seaside village. I entered the little cottage where her quiet, lonely life had been lived out, and there I learned the secret of her sadness. It had wrought upon her fearfully since we parted in London. When first I saw her she was sitting in her garden; I was at the window of her drawing-room. I thought that death was written on her face, it was so worn and wasted, so utterly forlorn, but beautiful still. Another trouble had come to overwhelm her: her little child, a girl, in whom all the affection of her heart was centred, had been stolen from her in some mysterious way."

In his earnestness Arthur's voice grew husky: "I forgot my own desires; all I had come to say passed away from my mind; only I threw myself heart and soul at her feet, imploring her to use me for her service, and"--the boy's voice sank--"she trusted me; she told me something of her history; she let me know that she had _one_ craving, one longing desire."

He paused. Maurice had risen to a sitting position; his face was buried in his hands, his great frame was convulsed. "It was--?" he asked, fixing his eyes suddenly on his companion's face. "Speak, and at once."

Arthur rose and stood before him. "Maurice Grey," he said, "your wife is pure as an angel, white as the snow up there. Her one thought through these long years has been of you. The name she teaches her child to lisp is yours. She loves you only; her heart is single. All she asks is this--to speak to you face to face, to see you again before she dies. This is the quest that brought me here, for I have hunted for you through the length and breadth of Europe--sought you as a man seeks his enemy. It was to tell you this, to bring you a message from your wife."

He bowed his head: "God knows it has been done in singleness of heart. All I wish or seek is her restoration to happiness. I have not said half I intended. I greatly fear I am a poor pleader, but, Maurice Grey, I call upon you to listen to me. Return to England, see your wife, judge for yourself; you will find then that you have both been the victims of some terrible mistake."

He ceased, but Maurice did not answer, and once more his face was averted.

Arthur's heart sank. "It has been all in vain," he said to himself. "Oh, how shall I tell Margaret?"

Mechanically the two rose, and Maurice preceded Arthur, without a single word passing between them, until they stood where two roads met. There Maurice stopped and turned to his companion. "You must pardon me," he said, "if I say very little just now; I must be alone." He put his hand to his head. "I must think. The hotel is over there; you cannot possibly miss the road. I must return to the chalet." He seemed to be passing through some severe mental struggle, for he paused, then added, "In the mean time, for your kind intention to her and to me I thank you."

He turned away, and in a few moments was lost to Arthur's following gaze in the intricacies of the mountain-paths. Sadly, yet with a certain rising of hope in his spirit, the young man went on to the hotel.