CHAPTER VII.

_FOR THE SECOND TIME SAVED FROM HIMSELF._

Oh, unsay What thou hast said of man; nor deem me wrong. Mind cannot mind despise--it is itself. Mind must love mind.

The two men and the child pressed on. They had left the path behind them, they were winding between huge boulders, the debris from some devastating avalanche; like a mighty wall the mountains rose above them, hedging them in on the one side, while on the other was the continuation of the pine wood.

The guide had given up the lantern to Arthur; he could not manage both it and the child, and the young man, a few yards in advance, was seeking on hands and knees for further traces of footsteps in the snow.

The groans had not been repeated, and from this Arthur augured badly. It might be that the dying had passed into the dead. The young man's heart was sad. He had reckoned so entirely on the success of his enterprise, he had been so full of hope, and now it seemed as if the whole--all his hopes, all his efforts--was to be swamped in this sudden horror. For even if Maurice had escaped unhurt, even if the life of his enemy had fallen by his hand in his first horror at the discovery of that enemy's dark treachery, what would the result be on his own mind, on those of others?--to Margaret, who above all things had entreated that this man should be unharmed; to Laura, who loved him with all the strength of her young soul; to Maurice himself, who would feel when the deed was done that it was wrongly done, for this man had thrown himself, alone and helpless, into his hands, carrying as a peace-offering the act of expiation for his past wrongs, the confession of Margaret's spotless innocence. Arthur had gathered from Laura's words, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that this, and only this, had been the intention of L'Estrange in seeking an interview with Mr. Grey.

If he could only have foreseen all this, he said to himself mournfully, it might have been so different.

The voice of the child awoke him from his sad musing. It was very low, but in the stillness of that snowy night the slightest sound wrote its impress on the air. The earth itself seemed to be listening. "We're very near them now," she said; "I am sure we are. There, there! listen! The trees are shaking."

Almost instinctively the two men obeyed her imperative gestures. They rounded a great shoulder of rock. It led them on to a kind of plateau, studded here and there with stunted, snow-laden pines, ending abruptly in a depth of darkness, for what lay beyond the ravine that bounded it was hidden by the snow-vapors.

At first they saw nothing, but a certain feeling warned them to pause and look round attentively.

"Put me down," cried the child, and as if in answer to her call the branches of the pine that overhung the precipice crackled and stirred.

This excited Laura. She broke loose from the guide, and once more outstripping her companions rushed forward over the snow. A moment more, and her cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, drew Arthur to the spot. It was on the very brink of the ravine, under an overhanging pine tree, whose black shadow on the moonlit snow had prevented them from discovering what lay beneath it.

L'Estrange was outstretched there, silent, motionless, to all appearance dead. Laura was on her knees beside her friend, calling out to him piteously to open his eyes and speak to her. In her excitement the little one had not seen at first that there was another there--that the head of her friend was on the knees of a man who sat upright on the cold snow, his back resting against the stem of a pine tree. That man was her father--Maurice Grey.

Just before they came up he had fallen into that most dangerous of all states, a sleep among the snows--a dull, numb insensibility induced by the constrained posture, the long watching, the extreme cold. His child's wail aroused him. He opened his eyes, but his first thought was that he was dreaming, for as Arthur's lantern was turned slowly on the little group he saw in the golden hair from which the scarlet hood had fallen back, in the fair, delicately-chiselled face, in the dark, mournful eyes, so like his own, the little one he had deserted--Margaret's child. How had she come there? Gradually, as the film passed from his senses, he began to remember the events of the night, and the latter part of L'Estrange's strange confession flashed over his mind. While horror withheld Arthur from speaking, while the guide, whose movements were slower than his, was coming up to their assistance, a glimmering of the truth dawned upon Maurice's mind. _His_ child had come out to seek this man, his enemy--_his_ child was pouring out on her mother's betrayer the treasures of her young heart's affection. It smote him with a sudden pang.

But no answer came from the stricken man to the child's impassioned cries, and suddenly she raised her eyes. They met those of her father. She looked at him for a moment in silence, and involuntarily Maurice trembled. He was thinking of what might have been if the hand of God had not forestalled his.

In his first burst of anger against this man, the destroyer of his peace, the slanderer of her who was dearer to him than life, it had seemed no crime to avenge himself once and for ever of his enemy. But with the silence of that solemn night other thoughts had come. In the unlooked-for ending of their strife that evening God had rebuked him. "Vengeance is mine!" seemed to be crying in his ears. What was he, that he should arrogate to himself the functions that belong to the Divine? And say what one will, under any circumstances it is an awful thing--a thing that can never be forgotten or put away--to destroy human life.

Maurice Grey was neither weak nor sentimental, but that night as he hung over his enemy, tending as a brother might have done the man he had intended to destroy, he shuddered at the remembrance of what might have happened in the fever of his just indignation. And now, when the child--his child--looked up at him, her eyes large with fear for his enemy, asking him mutely for an account of this strangeness, Maurice was thankful that his answer might be no revelation of a tragedy that would have chilled her warm young blood and filled her with loathing of him--her father.

"Who has hurt mon pere?" asked Laura.

"Little one," replied Maurice gravely, "he is ill; he will be better soon."

By this time Arthur was close beside them. He stumbled over something hard, stooped, and found a pistol at his feet.

"Don't touch it!" cried Maurice hastily; "it is loaded."

"Loaded!" repeated the young man slowly; "then--"

"Foolish boy!" replied Maurice with meaning. "I tell you this man was taken ill near my door. In the impossibility of getting assistance to move him, I have been watching him ever since his first seizure; but, for Goodness' sake, don't stand looking at us, or we shall die of cold out here! Get your burly friend to help you, and between you perhaps you may be able to carry this man as far as the chalet. As for myself, I am so cramped and numb that it will be all I can do to creep."

Maurice spoke cheerfully. It was as if a great load had suddenly been lifted from his soul.

Margaret pure, his hands free from blood-guiltiness, his little daughter within his grasp! It was like the opening of heaven to a spirit long tormented in the purifying fires.

Laura looked up triumphantly as she heard her father's words. "Didn't I say so?" she cried; "mon pere was ill, and my own papa was taking care of him?" She stooped over L'Estrange: "Mon pere, pauvre, cher pere!" Then to Arthur and the guide: "Oh, please, lift him very gently. We must put him beside the fire. It will make mon pere better."

She made an effort to raise his head on her small arm. And at her touch L'Estrange opened his eyes. "Ma fillette!" he whispered. Laura was satisfied.

"I have done him good already," she said, looking round at Arthur; "I said I could."

It was only when she had seen her friend raised, the burly Swiss supporting his head and shoulders, Arthur his feet, that she had eyes or words for Maurice. He rose with difficulty, the little one standing beside him and offering her small hand by way of assistance.

"Have you nothing to say to me, Laura?" he asked rather sadly as he walked, painfully at first, after Arthur and the guide, the little one trotting joyfully through the snow by his side.

She looked up at him: "You _are_ my own papa?"

"Yes, Laura."

"And you are coming back home with us?"

"Yes."

"And you really want to see mamma again?"

"Yes."

"Then"--the child gave a deep sigh--"I am very glad."

That was the end of the first conversation between Laura and her father. They were obliged to look carefully to their footing, for two or three times the child had fallen upon the frozen snow. She did not seem to care much, but her father did; when at last the congealed blood began to flow through his veins, and his wonted vigor to return, Maurice Grey stooped and in his turn gathered her up into his arms.

Laura had found her true place at last. After her wanderings, her strange adventures, her fears and her dreams, she was able to lay her head on her father's breast. He was a stranger to the child. As yet her love for her false father was much stronger than any feeling for the true; but the consciousness perhaps of this, that he _was_ her father, that her task was ended, her childish work accomplished, made a deep rest steal over her. With her arms round Maurice's neck and her head upon his shoulder the child fell fast asleep after her fatigues. It was childhood's sleep, dreamless and unbroken.

So Maurice brought her in to his house, solitary now no longer. He would not give her up into Marie's care, but taking the blankets from his bed, he arranged them with his pillows in a corner near the stove, and laid the little one down. There was a soft look in his face as he stooped over her. Where was all his cynicism? It had gone. He was thinking of Laura's mother, and reckoning how long the time might be before he could himself give back her child to her arms.

And in the mean time the cold dawn was beginning to creep over the snow. Maurice turned to his companions and held a council of war. They examined L'Estrange carefully, and found that one of his arms and part of his side were perfectly dead and helpless. He seemed to be partially paralyzed.

The question was, What should they do with him? In the solitude of Maurice's little chalet it would be impossible for him to obtain the necessary treatment, yet to move a man in his condition so far as the hotel would be a serious matter, and required more hands than they could muster.

They had improvised a kind of bed on the floor of the small sitting-room; they were standing round him, Maurice and Arthur talking earnestly, the guide only waiting for a sign to do anything that might be desired of him, when suddenly, to their astonishment, the man they had thought utterly insensible looked up and tried to raise himself. He fell back helpless. Then he opened his lips and tried to speak. Maurice stooped over him to catch the words, for his voice was thick and changed. "La fillette!" he murmured; "I saw her." Then, as Maurice pointed out the child fast asleep among the pillows: "It is well," he said quietly, and his head fell back again. He was thinking.

Gradually the events of the night were shaping themselves out of the mists which his long insensibility had thrown over his mind. "I remember," he said at last in a faint, low tone. He beckoned to Arthur, who wondered at the recognition which he read in the face of the stricken man. But the dying have their privileges. Arthur overcame his repugnance and stooped down to listen to his words. "Tell me--" was all he said, pointing to the bed where Laura lay asleep.

The young man understood what he wanted. In as few words as possible he told of his discovery, of Laura's anxiety, of their midnight journey, and once or twice, as his tale went on, a tear rolled down L'Estrange's face, for in spirit as in body the man was overcome.

When it was ended he called Maurice to his side, and held out the only hand over which his will had any power, whispering as he did so, "Is it peace?"

Maurice took the hand and held it in his own. "Forgive me--" he began, but the man interrupted him with something of his old imperiousness.

"Young people," he said, "lie down--rest."

It was, after all, the most sensible, suggestion. They gave him some brandy and hot water, which seemed to revive him; then, as utter weariness had taken possession of Arthur and the guide, they thought it best to obey, Maurice, who had piled fuel on the stove, declaring his intention of watching it and L'Estrange. But he too gave way before long, and the morning light streamed in upon the little chalet parlor, full of prostrate forms stretched out on the floor and wrapped in every kind of material.

Before the full morning light had aroused the weary men Laura had risen from her bed, and had knelt down by her friend to place one of the pillows her father had arranged for her under his head.

He was awake, and he opened his eyes with a smile, but the smile passed into a frown, and Laura feared she had offended him. The fact was, L'Estrange was steeling his heart and hers. He wanted to detach himself from his darling--to accustom himself to do without her--to teach her, if possible to care for him less.

But the little one put it down to pain, and tears filled her eyes "Mon pere is worse," she murmured.

She remained by his side till the full light, breaking in upon the room, had aroused the sleepers.

Then another discussion took place. It was very strange. But the night before Maurice Grey would have thought it no sin to deprive his enemy of life. Another hand than his had smitten L'Estrange, and instead of deserting him, as he might have done, leaving him to find his death among the snows, Maurice Grey had risked his own life (for the numbness which had been creeping over him when his friends came up might soon have proved fatal) to watch over his. Perhaps the reason might be found in his helplessness. On the previous evening he had stood before Maurice as an accuser and a judge, arraigning him for the folly and short-sightedness which, according to his showing, had been far more instrumental than anything else in bringing about his suffering and Margaret's. And his biting words had found their echo in Maurice's own heart, being gifted with a double sting. In the man's attitude there had been a certain power, and this it was that had inflamed his opponent, till he had longed with a fierce, sudden passion of hatred to punish him to the uttermost.

For the second time Maurice Grey had been saved from himself, and now, as the man he had hated lay helpless at his feet--the brain that had conceived and the hand that had written that cruel letter torpid, the tongue which had given forth its biting irony silent--all his feelings changed. The helplessness of the strong man recommended him to his compassion; the remembrance of the service he had rendered him, the consciousness of his penitence for the wrong he had committed, softened Maurice toward him. He saw, for the first time, in L'Estrange's strange conduct the return to itself of a soul that had wandered from his own nobility. Bowing his head, the man who had been known as a bitter cynic confessed his wrong to humanity, his distrust of God. Maurice Grey was a changed man. He felt it in the lightness of heart with which he rose that morning; for, say what we will, it cannot but be that this hatred of their kind on which some men pride themselves is a bad and heart-degrading thing. It recoils upon itself. A man cannot despise his own nature and be happy. Maurice during these wretched years had been heaping up misery to himself. But it was over, once and for ever. In Margaret's faithful devotion and forgiving love, in his enemy's return to a better mind, in his child's simplicity, in Arthur's high-hearted chivalry, Maurice saw the other side of the picture he had so long been contemplating.

In the course of his life of wandering he had been pleasing himself by drawing out and marking the weaknesses of his fellows, and he had not found his task difficult; but now in his God-given nature, the nature he had despised, he began to see there was something underlying all these superficialities For humanity had shown itself to him in its beauty--the beauty which made God Himself pronounce it good on that creation-dawn when "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Maurice Grey thanked God and took courage. The discussion between himself and Arthur (for the guide was a silent assistant) resulted in very little.

Something in the way of a litter would be necessary to take the sufferer over the hills, and at least four strong men who could relieve one another. They were only three, and it seemed perfectly impossible to construct a litter out of the materials at hand.

The best plan seemed to be for the guide to return to the hotel and bring back with him men and litter, also provisions of some kind, for Marie's black bread and sausages had been so seriously besieged by her numerous invaders that very little, even of this uninviting food, was to be found in the small kitchen upon which Arthur made a raid. There was fortunately enough coffee to supply them each with a strong cup, only it had to be taken with goat's milk that had been standing for some days in Marie's pans.

Arthur and Laura, the two most fastidious of the little party, made many a wry face over the poor fare. These two had become fast friends; indeed, the child was in a fair way to be spoilt. She reigned like a queen among these men, so strangely met together in the solitary's dwelling. The general devotion did not much impress her. Most of her thoughts were given to one, and he seemed to take very little notice of his darling. Once or twice the tears filled Laura's eyes as she noticed how he would refuse what nourishment he could take when she offered it, and then receive it from another hand. It gave the young heart, premature in its development, a bitter pang to feel that the affection of this friend might possibly cease. But of all this the child said nothing. Breakfast--if breakfast it might be called--was over, the guide was about to start for Grindelwald, Arthur was busying himself about domestic matters, trying by his rapid movements to quicken the perceptions of old Marie, who had been rendered even more stupid than usual by the strange events of the night; Maurice sat by the side of his stricken guest, with his little daughter on his knees, when over the snow outside there came the sound of voices.

Laura ran to the window. "Four men," she cried, "and a mule, and one of those chairs to carry people, and rugs, and a big bundle, and--Oh, I hope there's some white bread; but perhaps they're not going to stop here."

She appealed to Arthur, the person with whom she felt most on terms of equality: "_Do_ go out and see if they'd give us just one little bit."

Her summons drew the whole of the little party to the door, just in time to see the small cavalcade draw up, and to meet the questioning, reproachful gaze of the good Karl.

To explain his appearance on the scene, it will be necessary to relate how the ungrateful Arthur had quite forgotten his friend's servant, who according to his own showing had earned for him the favor of that tete-a-tete dinner at the hotel with the man to find whom he had traversed Europe in its length and breadth.

It was only when the good German showed his round face, in which sentiment and joy were struggling for the mastery, at the door of the chalet that Arthur remembered his intention of letting him know of his own return to the hotel and his master's whereabouts. The rapid start with Laura and the guide, following on the interval of regretful meditation in his own room, had put everything else out of his mind, and Karl, who, as was his wont, had been making himself useful and entertaining in the kitchen of the hotel, only found out when it was too late to do any good that uneasy rumors were afloat in the house about the two Englishmen, one of whom was his master.

Karl was eminently practical. He lost no time in dreaming about their probable fate. Something--perhaps an accident to his master, since the younger man had returned for assistance--was detaining them at the chalet. The chalet was ill-provided with food and necessary comforts. As soon as it could be possible to gather together a company large enough to be useful in any emergency, he would find his way to his master.

He spent the rest of the night in making every arrangement. Before dawn he and his party of three stalwart men were on foot. Hence their arrival at a comparatively early hour of the morning.

Karl's astonishment at the appearance presented by the chalet was very great, and it was blended with reproach. His master and his master's friend were on their feet, apparently uninjured; they seemed to have plenty of assistants, for the guide, Marie, Arthur, Maurice and the child made an imposing show in the small doorway; it was impossible to tell how many more might be behind them. Why, then, had he, the Englishman's faithful servant, been forgotten in this strange jubilee?

But his helpful nature reasserted itself when he found how very much his services were needed. In the course of a few minutes he was bustling about, acting as interpreter, preparing a substantial meal for Maurice's half-starved little company, presenting everybody with shawl or rug, and making himself generally useful.

Laura had her white bread and some sugar and milk. Arthur and Maurice rejoiced in the dissection of a fowl, and the guide had a fresh and unlimited supply of sausages; they were therefore soon sufficiently strengthened to think with equanimity of a new start. The poles of the _chaise-a-porteur,_ brought up in case of emergency by the provident Karl, formed, with mattresses and ropes, an excellent litter. On this they laid L'Estrange, well wrapped up in rugs and blankets.

Before the sun had risen very high in the heavens the little cavalcade was in motion--Laura mounted on the mule which her father led; L'Estrange, passive as an infant, in the litter they had prepared for him; the rest of the party on foot.

As they entered the pinewood, Maurice turned, and shading his eyes from the morning sun, took one last look at his temporary dwelling. It had been the home of his solitude, the mute witness of despair that had reached its climax in those last days when his life had seemed a burden too heavy to be borne, and he was leaving it--leaving it and the past life for ever.

His pride had been rebuked, his self-reliance had fallen. But a few months before he had thought himself sufficient to himself: _that_ madness had gone; human interests had already begun to throw their sweet influence around him; from the hermit's dwelling he was going out once more into the great world. It had done its work. The trial-time was over. He was stronger and better. His faith in God and humanity had returned. He could now look forward with hope--not, perhaps, the sanguineness of youth, which hopes simply because to despair would be impossible, but hope resting on a well-grounded confidence in himself, in humanity, in God.

Maurice Grey's after-life was not without its troubles, but through them all he never lost sight of the lessons learnt in his hermit life. Painfully gained, they were earnestly held.