CHAPTER VI.

_HADST THOU THE SECOND SIGHT?_

Digging thine heart and throwing Away its childhood's gold, That so its woman-depth might hold His spirit's overflowing? (For surging souls no worlds can bound Their channel in the heart have found.)

Arthur would not allow his guide to do all the work. He wanted to know this strange child--Margaret's child; he wanted to try and understand what was this power, savoring to his mind of dark magic, that her mother's enemy had gained over her. After they had walked in total silence for about half an hour he insisted on a change.

Laura wished to walk, but upon Arthur pointing out to her that her small feet would be swamped in the snow, she submitted again. She was very grateful to this new ally for his prompt carrying out of her wishes, and with that strange woman-insight which belonged so peculiarly to this child she read in the face of her new guide that in submitting to his wishes she could best show her gratitude.

In Arthur's manner to her there was something of the reverent devotion that had been one means of drawing her heart so completely to the friend she was seeking in the desolate Alpine solitudes. The German had insulted Laura by treating her like a little child, for her late experiences had drawn her on, not from the sweet simplicity of childhood--for in this had consisted her power over the wild heart of L'Estrange--but from many of its feelings; Laura had become sensitive beyond her years, and this under the circumstances was scarcely wonderful. She had shared, and probably understood, her mother's sorrows; she had lived for her sake a life too intense for one of her tender years; she had taken a part in struggles of whose existence she ought to have known nothing; she had thought and dreamed and reasoned till the woman-nature that lies hidden in the heart of every girl-child had become unhealthily developed. Her childhood, in this sense, had passed by; Laura would never return to the gay carelessness of early youth.

Gravely she allowed Arthur to gather her up into his arms, and as, in their momentary stoppage, the light of the guide's lantern shone upon her pale fair face and deep earnest eyes, the young man wondered. He wondered at her unchildlike beauty--he wondered at his own instinctive reverence.

"Are you quite comfortable, Laura?" he inquired as he drew her cloak over her tiny feet.

"Quite, thank you," replied the child; "and you are very kind. Mon pere will thank you; but oh, I wonder shall we find him soon?"

"Do you know that we are going to find some one else, Laura?" asked Arthur, rather shocked to find her head so full of her false father that she had no thoughts to spare for her true one.

"Yes, I know," she answered gravely; "and sometimes I'm sorry that I can't love my own papa so much as mon pere; but, you see, I've never seen him: at least, mamma says I have; I don't remember at all." She paused a moment, then added in a grieved, puzzled tone, "Oh, _please_ tell me--for I want so much to know--_ought_ I to love my own papa as well as mamma and mon pere?" The question had evidently been tormenting her.

"You _ought_ to put such ideas out of your little head," said Arthur lightly.

"But I _can't_," replied the child in a grieved tone; and Arthur, quite perplexed, tried a new set of tactics:

"What makes you love this person so much whom you call mon pere?"

"What _makes_ me?" Unconsciously Arthur had started another bewildering question. She raised her head and knit her small brows: "It's not because he's good to me, for other people have been good to me, and I didn't love them. You know loving and liking are different. Mamma told me I ought to love my papa, but you see there isn't any _ought_ in love, and I must love mon pere best. Oh, I wonder why!"

This was certainly a strange child. Arthur had not laid his hand upon the magic; her answer only made it appear the more mysterious. He put another leading question: "Is he very good to you, Laura?"

"Mon pere, do you mean? Oh, he is so good! I want him to come back with me to mamma, but when I talk about it he looks at me in that sad way, like people do when they are going to say good-bye. Do you _think_ I shall be able to get him to say he will come? Oh"--the child's face brightened, a happy thought seemed to have struck her--"will _you_ ask him to come? Perhaps he will do it for you." She went on rapidly, for the child-nature was beginning to assert itself: "He left a great big dog in the village--big enough to carry me on its back, mon pere says. And just fancy! it's to be all mine. I wonder how long we shall be getting back to mamma, and _won't_ she be pleased?" For at the thought of the great dog, the sea, the village and mamma the painful questioning had passed away from Laura's mind. She was the child again--her mother's darling--the tender little one whom Margaret loved.

Arthur's throat contracted strangely as he listened. It was such a contrast. The night, the darkness, the desolation around them, the horror that might only too possibly be before them, and the child's innocent dreams, her unconsciousness of evil, her calm certainty of hope. The idea made him press forward almost fiercely for a few moments, but his stolid guide called him back to reason. The torch-bearer would not hasten; he went forward with quiet, plodding step, and to distance him would have been in the highest degree dangerous.

Laura's question remained unanswered, for Arthur had not L'Estrange's strength of muscle or iron nerve, and he was passing through a mental experience intense enough to draw away some of his physical force. His arms began to ache and his knees to tremble. He was obliged to give up Laura to the guide, and to stop one moment to gather up his strength for a new effort.

Laura was concerned. "I knew I was too heavy," she said.

But the young man answered with a smile, and again they plodded on in silence. Their task was not an easy one. In some places the ice had gathered in a thin frost-work over the snow, so that where they thought to find sure footing they sank to their knees in the soft, white mass; in others, the path intersecting a meadow was almost undiscoverable by reason of the white unity that did away with all known landmarks. But happily, their guide was a good one and the path was well trodden. He knew it thoroughly; then, before midnight had chimed from the village-clock the mists had partially risen, the wind had fallen, and the glamour of moonlight shone cold over the snow. By its light Arthur saw a thin wreath of blue smoke rising from beyond the pine wood they were nearing. He pointed it out to Laura, his heart almost standing still with the conflict of fear and hope that possessed him.

The child smiled up into his face. "Mon pere is there," she said.

"Your _father_ is there," was the answer sternly spoken, and the little one was checked. She said no more, but watched till the dark pines, looking weird and gaunt in the moonshine, rose high above their heads, shutting out that first glimpse of Maurice Grey's dwelling.

"I will go first," said Arthur; "I know the way."

He began to think he had been wrong in bringing the tender child. He feared the effect upon her mind of some terrible discovery, she was so utterly unprepared for the horror that had been in his mind during the latter part of that weary journey.

The chalet was on the outskirts of the wood, just where an Alpine meadow opened out. As Arthur drew near he looked up earnestly. No light shone from the little window. He trembled, but there was no time for delay; he knocked long and desperately, as one might do who had come on an errand of life and death.

Marie in her night-cap appeared at the window. Her face had a scared look; she shook her head and refused to let him in.

Arthur had forgotten, in his impatience to press on, that if those he sought should not be within, the old woman, obtuse at the best of times, might fail to recognize and refuse to admit him.

He was obliged to wait until his guide, a person well known to Marie, could come up with Laura. His decided summons brought out the old woman again; she obeyed her countryman, and opened the door after very little further delay.

They entered, and Arthur found that his fears had been only too well grounded. The chalet was empty. It was clear, further, from the excited signs made by the old woman as she told her story to the guide, that there had been some kind of quarrel, and that the enemies had gone out together.

Arthur wrung his hands. For the first time his heart failed him. Had Maurice been found only for this--either that his own life should fall a prey to his enemy, or that the stain of blood-guiltiness should rest for ever on his head?--for their departure, their long absence, the scared looks of the old woman, all pointed to one suspicion; the two men had left the solitary dwelling with no friendly motive actuating them. It was more than probable that a fierce conflict had taken place--that the meeting in the snows had been fatal to one, perhaps to both of them. And then--what then? He scarcely dared to think.

The old woman had lit Maurice's lamp in the interval. Its light shone upon the face of his child. She was gazing with lips parted, and eyes in which a certain instinct of some unknown horror was gleaming, into Arthur's face. She went up to him and touched his arm with her small hand. "Why does the old woman look at me like that?" she whispered, lifting up a pale, scared face. "And what have they done with mon pere? He's not here." And she looked round inquiringly.

"I am afraid they have lost themselves in the snow," replied Arthur as calmly as he could. "Laura, we must leave you here and go out again to look for them."

"_Them?_" repeated she in a low tone. "Then my own papa is with him. But what's the matter? why do you all look so frightened? Is mon pere dead? Oh, please, please, let me go to him!"

"Laura, you must be sensible. We cannot take you, my poor child! Stay here with Marie! Listen, dear! We may go into dangerous places; we may be lost."

But the child did not seem to hear him. There had come a strange, sudden look into her face, as though she could see more than others saw. She held up her hand. "Hush!" she said in a tone that made Arthur shiver, it was so unchildlike in its earnestness; and even as she spoke that dawning consciousness of a certain mysterious horror paled her cheek and made her dark eyes large and deep. "Mon pere is calling me," she said. "They are hurting him. Come, come!"

She rushed to the door, and opening it stood for a moment on the threshold, mute, in the attitude of deep attention, her hands plunged forward into the darkness, as though she were appealing to some unseen power, her golden hair thrown back from her uncovered head, her face peering out into the night.

Within, no one stirred. It almost seemed as if they were waiting for the development of a mysterious power in this strange child. And as they stood, silent, motionless, watchful, there came to their ears a sound. It was distinct from the moaning of the wind among the trees, distinct from the rush of the torrents, distinct from the rattle of the leafless pine-branches. The sound was a groan. It spoke as plainly as words of human anguish.

For a moment none of them stirred, and yet the sound had fallen on the ears of all, but this certainty of an unseen, nameless horror acted on them like a spell. It was only when the child started forward into the night that Arthur was aroused from the momentary inaction to a sense of the necessity for immediate exertion.

He rushed after Laura, caught hold of her, and for the second time gathered her up into his arms. "My child," he said hoarsely, "you _must_ come back. God only knows what we may find out there! Be calm. We shall do our best to bring them to you." The child looked up at him; she never struggled when she knew all struggling would be useless, and there was wonder as well as a certain awe in her gaze.

"What do you mean?" she asked; "none of you understand. Mon pere is ill, and papa is taking care of him; and it's cold out there in the snow, but he won't leave him. He wants us to help him."

"_Us!_" Involuntarily Arthur smiled as he held the tiny figure in his grasp.

"We can find them without you, Laura," he said. The guide had joined them with the lantern. "Go in, like a good child."

In her turn Laura smiled. "Which way will you go to find them?" she asked. "Listen to me: I know all about it. Just now, when I wanted to listen and you _would_ talk, God showed it to me in a dream. Mon pere is ill. He wants me--I'll take you to find him."

Marie stood at the door holding out her arms; the guide motioned peremptorily that the child should return to the chalet. Arthur stood irresolute. He felt half inclined to trust to the little one's instincts, and in the delay, while the precious moments that might mean life or death to one of the two men in the snow were passing, _that_ sound came to their ears again--a heavy groan, drawn, it would seem, from a heart's agony.

It was more than Laura could bear, for she, and she alone of that little company, knew the sound; she had heard it before.

In his excitement Arthur's hold on her hand relaxed. With a sudden cry she wrenched herself free, and before the two men could seize her again her white dress and scarlet cloak made a blot on the moonlit snow far on in advance. What could they do but follow in her track? and when they had come up with her, when she had allowed herself once more to be caught, the light from the open door of the chalet gleamed far away in the distance. The wilful little maiden was perched once more on the shoulder of the stolid Swiss guide. She arrogated to herself the right of directing her companions, and it was well. Once, at least, from her tower of observation she scented danger and warned them away from the brink of a ravine. But the men had a surer guide than the dreams of a child. In a part of the meadow that was sheltered from the wind Arthur had found the traces of footsteps in the snow.

Strange to say, the discovery was made in the very direction which Laura had taken when she started on her wild flight. Had her loving instincts guided her, or was there really something supernatural in her knowledge?

Arthur asked himself this question repeatedly as he followed his guide in silence. He never found an answer. The events of that night were always wrapped in a partial mystery.

Was it so very unnatural? Who that has looked into the far-seeing eyes of some children, who that has carefully noted their strange ways, will be able to answer unhesitatingly that it was? They are nearer to heaven, nearer to the invisible, than those who have weathered a hundred storms, who have lost their faith in humanity, who have travelled for long years along the dusty highways of the world, tarnishing much of their soul's beauty, and forgetting too often the grandeur of their high destiny.

What wonder that the little ones sometimes see farther than we? for the invisible chord which binds their soul to heaven is, at their tender age, free for the passage to and fro of the angels, and it may be that they whisper to the children of the things that no eye can see. And the child is ready for these beautiful intuitions. It does not question--it believes.