CHAPTER IV.

When Dalrymple awoke again, dawn was breaking coldly and slowly among the mountains of the lake district.

When he put his head out of the window of his carriage, the fresh chilly air of the hills carried his memory back with a rush to his old Scotch days, and to the time of his courtship.

“Oh, my little pet,” he murmured, turning to the photograph in his hand, “it seems but yesterday since you and I plighted our troth to each other on just such a hillside as this one here. I remember the smell of the heather that day, and how I could hardly find you a place to sit down on in the soft velvety sward, because you said you never liked to crush the bonny blue-bells--and they were all around us; and the lark, I recollect, rose from our feet and soared aloft, and we said it was singing us a wedding march.

“And that big intrusive bumble-bee too, that would fly around our heads--we could not bear to hurt it, we were so happy ourselves, and I have never even killed a wasp since for the memory of the time. Ah! and I remember too, Jeannie, the touch of your dear little hand so plump and firm, and the look in your bonny blue eyes when I told you I loved you and asked you to marry me; you looked so beautiful and shy.

“I was the happiest man on earth till that day, and there never has anything come between us, until now.”

As he ended there was a sharp tone of anger in his last words, and rising quickly and with much energy he opened the window and threw from it with all his force the poor little piece of monogrammed cambric, which had been lying on the seat before him.

As this little incident culminated the train was slowing down to enter the small station where travellers to the Lakes break their journey, and a barefooted youngster who had run out to meet the train caught the feather-like handkerchief as it fluttered and eddied from the advancing train.

A lady sitting at the adjoining window which was open, heard the violent banging of the sash ahead and saw the handkerchief thrown forcibly out.

“Call to that boy instantly, madame, to give you that handkerchief.”

The speaker was Miss Beattison, and as she made way for her companion at the window the natural pallor of her face became almost ghastly as she placed her hand to her side.

“Oh! _oh!_ OH!” she moaned, “at last he has broken my heart. Now indeed I know how much he hates and loathes me by his throwing my poor little handkerchief out of the window as if it was infected by the plague. Oh how he must despise me!” Here gentle nature came to the relief of the sad-eyed, heavy-hearted sleepless one, and she burst into a flood of passionate tears.

“Has the boy got the handkerchief?” she inquired through her sobs.

“Yes, mademoiselle, here he comes with it, running alongside the train.”

“Oh, take it from him quickly, dear,” the sobbing maiden faltered, “or I think I shall die of shame and mortification.”

“Boy, bring that handkerchief here, it belongs to me,” shouted a commanding voice from the carriage ahead--and at the sound of it the tears in Miss Beattison’s eyes stood still--a frozen cataract.

“The lady wants it, sir; she says it is hers,” protested the boy.

“Oh, madame, slay that boy,” said Miss Beattison in a fierce little whisper.

“The lady is mistaken, bring that handkerchief here at once.”

“But it is a lady’s handkerchief, sir,” urged the boy.

“Bring it here at once, you little devil, or I’ll break your neck.”

Coarse words these, and oh how impolite to the other claimants, and yet sweeter far to the straining ears of the offended one than the softest music!

But the boy was “dour” in the face of ugly words or threats, and he held out the handkerchief to the lady at the window.

“No, no, give it to the gentleman,” said madame, and after a moment’s hesitation the boy threw the handkerchief into the carriage where Dalrymple was standing.

Dalrymple endeavored to reward the boy by throwing him a shilling, but the threat was not forgotten and the boy who came of a fighting stock threw the coin back into the carriage.

Dalrymple saw with surprise a coin of large dimensions fall into the boy’s hands from the other window, and he lighted a matutinal cigar to try and cipher out the peculiar kind of lunatics there were imprisoned in that adjoining compartment.

As for the eventful handkerchief, as if he were ashamed of having had it brought back he let it lie where it fell.

Next door an unusual occurrence had already taken place. Rising to her feet and swaying to and fro in the excess of her emotion, and with her beautiful eyes swimming in happy tears, Gwendoline Beattison threw herself on the hard bosom (but not hard heart) of her old companion and friend, and murmured as she flung her arms around her neck, “Oh, it was all a mistake. He did not intend to throw away my handkerchief. Did you notice how furious he was, the darling, when he thought some one was going to take it, eh?” At which, by way of reply, the truthful companion groaned with much and genuine distress.

“I shall find out all about this mystery of the next compartment once I get to Carlisle station,” muttered Richard Dalrymple to himself. “We stop there fifteen minutes for breakfast, and it will be strange if I can’t find out what particular kind of asylum I have next door then.”

Saying this he relit his cigar and gave his eyes to the dreamy study of the Northern landscape, while his mind projected itself ahead to the meeting so soon to take place between himself and his sweetheart, from whom he had been parted for three long years.

But “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee,” especially when it is a woman’s wit which is the disturbing influence.

At the last station before entering Carlisle, Miss Beattison called the guard to her, and begged that he would find an empty carriage in the rear of the train (their carriage was now in front) for herself and companion, into which they could change the moment the gentleman in the adjoining compartment should leave it for his breakfast.

“But suppose he does not leave it?” gloomily queried the guard; “men who smoke so much in the early morning can easily wait for their breakfast until they get home.”

“Well, in that case,” responded the lady, “we will try some other plan, but this will do until we know it can’t be carried out; and at Carlisle we will keep our curtains closed until you give us warning to change, in case he should feel inclined to satisfy his curiosity about us.”

“By the way, guard,” resumed the lady, after a momentary pause, and with a little tremor in the voice, “did you happen to notice what he did with the handkerchief?”

“Yes, madam, it is lying on the seat in front of him and he is studying a photograph.”

“That is all, guard, thank you,” returned the lady in a fainter tone, as she leaned her head back on the cushioned partition.

“You look faint, mademoiselle,” said her companion, hastening to her side with an anxious look in her eyes--“will mademoiselle try a little sal-volatile?”

“Thank you, no,” replied her mistress; “I think it is only that I am a little faint after my long night’s travel.”

She sat in silence for a few minutes while the companion watched the pallid face, and the white lids and long dark lashes which hid the beautiful eyes.

There was a saddened droop in the beautiful mouth with its gracefully curved lips, as if Cupid’s bow had been bent just a little awry. And where, oh where, was that imperious look which was wont to be enthroned on that boldly rounded chin? The change was Love the humiliator’s work.

The silken scarf thrown over the shapely head had fallen aside and now showed the beautiful hair in all the graceful abandon consequent upon a night’s comfortless travel.

The dusky tresses with the wave of a wind-swept banderol in them grew low and luxurious over the broad white forehead, and curled upwards in wealthy profusion over the graceful head.

The beautiful and strongly marked eyebrows, the densely fringed lids and all the component parts of superlative beauty were there.

Men talk of alabaster loveliness, of faces pale and perfect as flawless marble, but these similes fell far short of Miss Beattison’s complexion, which was the despair of the rest of the sex. In her case these would have been dead illustrations of a living glorious beauty to which neither nature nor art could furnish an analogy or an expression.

Her beautiful eyes, now closed in heart-breaking reflections, like her other perfections defied descriptions and beggared eulogy!

Even Byron, grand-master in the art of portraying woman’s ravishing beauty, recorded his failure to describe the beauty of lovely eyes, and his words might well be appropriated for Miss Beattison:

“Her eye’s dark charm ’twere vain to tell But gaze on that of the Gazelle, It will assist thy fancy well.”

Suddenly the dark eyes opened widely, and the taper fingers clenched in a paroxysm of emotion.

“Oh, why should I waste myself upon a man who does not care for me?” she cried out bitterly. “What have I done that Heaven should grant me power to love only one man when it makes that man despise me, and prefer an ignorant Scotch country girl, whose love as compared with mine is as the shallow sea-shell to the bottomless ocean.”

“Oh, mademoiselle, give him up--let us go back, he is not worthy of you; there are a thousand handsomer, cleverer men--distinguished men too--who would kneel at your feet to-morrow--yes, mademoiselle, and put proud coronets there too; and splendid men, too, ah! if the poor companion could but choose! there are some ravishing gentlemen who visit you, and think you that I would run after a country doctor and break my heart when all the great world would come to me? Ah, _mon Dieu_, no.”

“Hush, madame,” replied the other, “you do not know what you are talking about. I know--of course I know, and the thought drives me nearly crazy with rage against myself--that I am doing an indelicate and unmaidenly thing in following up Dr. Dalrymple. Oh, I have fought against this love on my knees--yes, on my bended knees--but I cannot help myself. I love him, _I love him_, I LOVE HIM! Even when I wore short dresses he was, all unknown to him, the idol of my childhood. Yes, I used to dream about him and pray God to give me him for a dear husband when I grew up. I remember him as he used to come up the church aisle on Sundays, and as he passed our cross-pew I used to redden until I fancied all the people in the church knew about my love for him. And during the sermon I never recollected the text, or remembered what the old clergyman said, I was just thinking of Richard (that is what I called him in my mind) and longing to run my fingers through his bonny curly brown hair. And oh when his moustache began to grow, as soon as I noticed it I insisted on being put into long dresses so that I might, as it were, keep in step with him; and when I went abroad it was still the same all the years I was away; nothing ever took his boyish image out of my heart. I did not flirt and carry on like other girls, I just thought of him and waited, oh, so patiently! until my education should be completed, and I could return home practically my own mistress.

“Now, madame, do you think that love like that is going to stop because a thing seems unmaidenly, when all the happiness of my life is concerned in the result? Do you know that Dr. Dalrymple is now on his way to see his _fiancée_, and that this is the most crucial period of my whole life? Oh, if I were a man, and our positions reversed, I would carry him off!”

Madame was in despair--she held up her wrinkled hands and exclaimed again and again, “_mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_” and then her womanly heart coming to her aid, she took the beautiful head between her hands and kissed it again and again. “God is good,” she said, softly but hopefully, “maybe it will all come right yet.”

Large tears--the advance guard of grief’s thunder shower which indicates but does not relieve the pent-up passion--gathered slowly and fell from Miss Beattison’s eyes, and the white teeth tried hard to restrain the quivering lip. But the effort was in vain, the rising sob refused to be quelled, and unable any longer to restrain her emotion, Miss Beattison covered her face and sobbed out her very soul on her old companion’s sympathetic shoulder.

“Ah,” muttered the companion aside to herself, “if I were a man and had a knife I would kill you!” and she shook her clenched fist at the invisible traveller next door.

When Carlisle station was reached Dr. Dalrymple stepped quickly from his carriage, thinking to catch a glimpse of the inmates of the adjoining compartment.

The curtains, however, were closed, and no sign of life was visible.

“Asleep, I imagine,” soliloquized the Doctor, “well, I suppose I may as well have some breakfast,” saying which he sauntered in the direction of the first-class restaurant.

When he returned the window of the carriage next door was in the same condition. “Still asleep,” he murmured as he lit his cigar, and the train moved outward.

Dr. Dalrymple was in error, however, for the change of carriage had been effected while he was at breakfast and his whilom companions were now a dozen carriages to the rear.

At the next station, the first on Scotch soil, noticing the adjoining door open, Dr. Dalrymple inquired of the guard if the ladies were still inside the carriage. “No, sir, they left at Carlisle,” replied the guard, an answer literally correct and yet giving, and intended to give, the impression that the ladies had left the train at the station named.

“Well, well, I wonder who they were--something unique, I should say----”

“Yes, sir, quite so,” said the guard as he left the door, adding to himself, “I seem to have more than the average of unique people this trip.”