Chapter Thirty Four.

Chapter Thirty Four.At the End of his Life.Midway between Nyon and Rolle, the steamerMont Blancwas shearing her arrowy course through the blue waters of Lake Léman, heading for the latter place.Her decks were covered with passengers, mostly of French nationality—light-hearted, chattering, cheerful souls, talking volubly and all at once—talking the harder apparently in inverse ratio to the interest of the topic under consideration.Right in the stern of the boat, beneath the upper deck, his back against the end of the saloon, sat a solitary Englishman. He was smoking a cigar and pretending to read, but it was patent to the most casual observer that the book before him occupied very little of his attention indeed, for he was gazing out upon the sapphire surface of the lake and its green and gold setting of engirdling mountains, with an expression of settled sadness upon his extremely attractive countenance, which had no business to be seen upon the face of one so young.Suddenly there was a rush of feet, and a hat came skimming along the lower deck, a broad-brimmed straw hat—a feminine hat. Springing from his seat he caught it, just in time to save it from going overboard, and turned to hand it to its pursuer and owner.“Thanks so much,” said a sweet voice. Then the speaker stopped short in amazement and changed colour. “Why, it’s Mr Orlebar—pardon me—Sir Philip, I should have said.”“It used to be ‘Philip’ at one time, Alma,” was the reply, with the ghost of a sad smile. And then these two stood looking into each other’s eyes in silence. Neither seemed able to say a word.It was as she had implied. Sir Francis Orlebar was no more. Never recovering from the prostration into which he had been thrown by Fordham’s revelation, he had sunk into a decline and had succumbed three months later, tended by his son devotedly to the last. Then Philip, reserving enough for his modest wants, had apportioned the remainder between his stepmother and that other who had a legal claim upon him. This done, he had left Claxby Court and had started upon his travels again.She who was his wife, in the eye of the law, he had never set eyes on since that fateful night. He had tried by every means in his power to find some channel through which the mystery might be cleared up, but in vain. The only person who could have done so was dead, and her last words, her last look, her last behaviour, conclusively confirmed him in his very darkest conjectures. The bare recollection of the subject was unutterably nauseous and repulsive to him now.Old Glover had in due course served him with a writ in the threatened breach of promise action. Nothing could be more repellent than to be dragged forth into notoriety thus, yet what could he do? He was too poor to offer any compromise, even if it were not the persistently rancorous intention of that estimable British merchant to exact his pound of flesh in spite of everything, and that pound of flesh the dragging of him—Philip—into notoriety and a court of law. But at the last moment chance had befriended him. For the beauteous Edith had succumbed to the prismatic attractions of a ritualistic parson of fine presence and ample means, and this cleric had, under pain of cancelling his own engagement, laid a stern embargo on his future bride making an exhibition of herself in a public court. So, whereas it is manifestly impossible to bring an action for breach of promise failing the consent of the interesting plaintiff, old Glover was obliged to deny himself the gratification of his rancour, and to console himself characteristically with the sound commercial reflection that, after all, they had got much the better bargain of the two. For the parson was well off, and would very likely be a bishop one day, or, at any rate an archdeacon, whereas Philip Orlebar, though now a baronet, would always have been as poor as Job, and would never have done any good for himself or anybody else. In which conjecture he was probably right.“It’s an odd thing I should not have seen you all this time,” said Philip at last, realising that it was necessary to say something. “Yet you must have come on board at Geneva.”“No—at Nyon.”“AtNyon! That would account for it. I have been sitting here almost ever since we left Geneva, and, of course, I can’t see the gangway from here, or who lands, or who embarks. Have you been staying there?”“Only a few days. The people I am with were there to see some friends of theirs. But—between ourselves—it was rather slow.”“You are not with the General then?”“Oh no! Don’t I wish I was!” she added, with an eager lowering of her voice. “But there, I ought not to say that. These are a very kind sort of people, but a trifle ‘heavy.’ I am only travellingwiththem, not their guest.”Now what the deuce did Philip care about the estimability or other idiosyncrasies of the people she was travelling with? He saw only her—her as he remembered her in times past—her as he had seen her many a time since, waking and in his dreams—her as he had seen her the first time of all, here on the deck of this very ship. He detected the sympathetic softening of the great grey eyes, the saddened inflection of that voice, the first note of which had thrilled his whole being, and his heart tightened. For, after all, he was young, and, in spite of the blow which had fallen upon his life, all possibilities for him were not dead.And she? Knowing something of his history since they parted—though not the exact nature of the grim skeleton so carefully kept locked up—knowing something of his history, we say, for the world is small and tongues are long, she felt her heart go out to him as it had never done before, as she never thought possible that it could have done. The sunny laugh had gone out of his face for ever; leaving an expression, a stamp of hopelessness, which to her was infinitely pathetic. It was all that she could do to keep down the rush of tears which welled to her eyes as they looked up into his sad ones. What, we say, did he, did either of them, care about the heaviness or otherwise of the people she was travelling with? Yet of such trivialities will the lips force themselves to chatter while the heart is bursting.“Where and how is the dear old General now?” he went on. “And your aunt?”“They have gone to live at a place in the country—a few miles from Rushtonborough. That is near your home, is it not?”“Yes,” he said eagerly, and the possibilities began to stir around and quicken into life. Then his tone relapsed again. “Do you ever go down there yourself?”“I haven’t yet. They have only just gone there. And now”—hesitatingly, “I think I must go back to my people. They will be wondering what has become of me.”“Not yet—Alma.”The pleading tone melted her not very strongly formed resolution. She paused. The end of the saloon hid them effectually, though, of course, they only held this snug corner to themselves on the precarious tenure of chance.“Tell me a little more about yourself,” he went on. “Are you still living at that place you hated so—Surbiton?”“N-no,” as if the topic was distasteful. “By the way, I saw you there once.”“But—I have never been there in my life,” he answered, very mystified.“Not on land, perhaps—but by water. You were in a boat—and the one I was in as nearly as possible ran you down. I was steering—or rather, ought to have been,” she added with a little smile. “You didn’t see me, but I recognised you.”“I remember now,” he said. “And was that you? Yes, I remember perfectly. Oh, Alma—if only Ihadseen you!”It seemed to escape him in spite of himself, and it conveyed volumes. There had been just a spice of bitterness in the motive that had urged her to let him know she had seen him and with whom, but now she would have given worlds to withdraw the remark—such a turning of the knife in the wound did it seem. And now she realised plainer than words could tell, that if he had seen her on the occasion in question, it would have made all the difference in the world to her life and his.“What is this place we are coming to?” he said, as the steamer’s bell begun to ring to the accompaniment of a sensible slackening of the paddles.“Rolle. The next is Morges, and then Ouchy, where we land. We are going to stay a few days in Lausanne.”“What, at this time of year? Why you will be roasted?”“So we shall. But the Sitgreaves want to get some things there before going on to the mountains.”“Are you going on to the mountains? Where? Perhaps we may meet again?” And once more the possibilities were all astir.“Philip, I think we had better not,” she answered, with her eyes full upon his. “It would not be fair to—you.”“Oh, I can keep myself in hand all right,” he replied, with a hard laugh from which he could not altogether eliminate the suspicion of a tremor. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve learnt a thing or two since we last had the pleasure of meeting.”The steamer was under way again, skimming merrily over the sapphire surface. The chit-chat and laughter of the other passengers rose gleefully upon the air, and in the saloon the pop of corks, the clink of knives and forks. There is solitude in a crowd—stillness in noise.“Where are you going to now, Philip?” she said.“Oh, I don’t quite know! I’ve booked to Territet. Perhaps I’ll walk up and put in a few days at the old shop—perhaps I’ll go on to Saas or the Bel Alp and do some climbing. Can’t tell till I get there.”She made no answer. This was not the easy, light-hearted talk of the old times. There was a bitter, reckless ring about it that was unmistakable. The speaker literally did not care where he went or what he did. Still she did not leave him.“I wonder if it has ever occurred to you all this time Alma,” he went on in a softer tone, “that it was here—on board this very ship—we first met? Not exactly that perhaps, but first saw each other, which amounts to the same thing.”“Yes, it has.”“It has? Well, it seems a strange chance, a strange stroke of Fate, that we should meet here again—here of all places. How long ago was it? Ten years—twenty?”“No; only three.”“Well, it is like twenty to me. I tell you I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”“You must not say that—believe me you must not. Time will do wonders for you. You have a long life before you yet, and great opportunities.”But although she spoke bravely she could hardly succeed in steadying her voice. All the old feeling, all the feeling which had lain dormant within her since that stray glimpse on the river, was surging into activity. Philip Orlebar, crushed, saddened, all the elasticity burned out of his young life by the searing irons of sorrow, reigned king in her heart, as Philip Orlebar, sanguine, buoyant, light-hearted, could never have done. And the change, sad, infinitely deplorable as it was, had solidified and stamped his character, not altogether to the disadvantage of that possession. But for that one tremendous impediment, in all human probability lifelong, Alma would have needed no pressure to have returned love for love in full and abundant measure.“Great opportunities?” he echoed. “Yes, I may have had once—before you condemned me unheard. Great Heaven! you had no pity—no consideration for me then, and now it is too late.”It was cruel. The tears which she had striven so heroically to repress brimmed, overflowed. They fell, each shining drop burning into the heart of the spectator as a drop of molten lead. And upon the blue radiant lake the measured paddle-stroke of the steamer beat strong and joyous, the laughter and chat of the holiday-seekers rang out light and cheery.“Darling love—love of my life—my only love!” he uttered, in heartbroken tones, “what am I to say? Why—why were you so hasty? And now it is too late.”“Yes, I was hasty; I know it now,” she replied. “But I tried to make amends. Oh, Philip! why did you not answer—take some notice of my letter?”“Your—what?”His face had turned deathly white. Already he saw that some horriblecontretempshad served to divert from him a life’s happiness.“My letter? I wrote to you at Zermatt directly I heard of your accident. You took no notice, so I concluded you did not want to hear of me any more.”“Alma, as sure as I stand here a living man, I have never received a line of your writing in my life.”It was her turn to grow pale now.“But I did write. I directed to your hotel at Zermatt. What can it mean? You never received it?”He burst into a harsh laugh—a laugh infinitely more moving than tears.“What can it mean?” he repeated. “It means this: it is part of the whole hellish plot. That letter was intercepted by the hand that for its owner’s vile purposes lured me to my ruin. But that hand isburningnow for that act of wickedness—that one act alone—that act which ruined my life. It is burning in another world—if there be another world—for the woman, its owner, is dead.”“I begin to see,” she said, her eyes brimming with love and pity. “Yes, I can see it all now.”The bell rang again, and the paddles slackened. TheMont Blancwas sweeping up to thedébarcadèreat Morges. The next stoppage would be Ouchy, and there they must part.“Do you remember that day we were crossing over to Bouveret on this very boat?” he went on. “Do you remember our conversation as we passed Chillon Castle? You remarked then,à proposof all its mediaeval horrors, instruments of torture, and so forth—that there seemed a time when the world must have been under Satanic rule instead of under that of a good Providence. Do you remember that?”“Yes, I do.”“Well, the same thing holds good now. What have I done that those whom I have never harmed should lay themselves out to ruin my life—to render my days a hell and a curse to me? For it is a curse—a lifelong curse.”“Not that—not that, God grant. Philip, be brave; you are young yet. Better days will dawn, dear.”“But they will not bring me—you. No, something tells me it is not so—it never will be so. Nothing better will dawn for me but the grave. I told you before; I tell you again. I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”“Hush—hush,” she said, soothingly. “Your life is still your own; you are your own master. You must make an object in life for yourself. That is the only remedy.”But he shook his head.“No, no. The Satanic influence is everywhere. Was it not abroad that day on the river when one glimpse of you would have saved me? Had your parasol been held but a few inches higher I should have seen you, and the sight of you would have brought me back to you, back to myself, in time. Yet it was not to be.”Again the bell rang, again the paddles slowed down. The massive red-tiled tower of Ouchy drew nearer and nearer. TheMont Blancglided proudly up to the pier.“Alma, darling—my lost love—we may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not. Give me—one kiss.”His hands were holding hers. His sad eyes were full upon hers. And she loved him. What could she do?“Would it be right?” she said, hesitatingly.“Right or wrong, give it me. You will never regret it.”Her lips met his, in one sweet, warm, clinging kiss. Then with a murmured, “God bless you, Philip, dear!” she had torn herself away, and was gone.There was the usual stir and bustle of landing. Then as they were wending their way from thedébarcadèrein the wake of their luggage, which an hotel porter was hauling before them on a truck, one of Alma’s friends said—“Who was the other party to thetête-à-tête, Alma? I declare your behaviour is positively scandalous, my dear girl. Do you know you were rather more than a whole hour hobnobbing with him? Come, who was he?”“An old friend of mine,” she answered, trying to do so lightly, but of course failing abjectly.“Why don’t you say adearfriend?” said another of the girls, maliciously. “Why, he was standing there on the lower deck as we landed, simply devouring the last of you with his eyes. And theywereeyes, too. Come, now, his name? You are not going to get out of that, don’t think it. Who was he?”“Sir Philip Orlebar.”“Sir Philip Orlebar?” repeated the last who had spoken and who was by way of being the wag of the party. “And you did not bring him up and introduce him. A whole, real, live baronet—and such a good-looking one, too! Oh, Alma, I should never have thought it of—Gracious goodness!”The last words were little better than a shriek. For a frightful sound had drowned the speaker’s utterance—a loud, vibrating, strident roar, and a crash as of a heavy missile tearing through planks and rafters. Turning towards it, the faces of the girls blanched with terror and their knees trembled under them, so that they could hardly stand. Those around behaved variously, but all were in a state of the wildest consternation and dismay.“Mais il éclate—le bateau-à-vapeur!” cried one of the bystanders.TheMont Blancwas still at the jetty. At first it was difficult to make out what had happened. Then dense masses of steam were seen to be issuing from the centre of the ship, and from the whole outside of the saloon spurted white, hissing jets.The upper deck was the scene of a wild and frenzied panic. A mob of terror-stricken passengers surged to the gangway, fighting, shouting, swarming over each other and everything, at imminent peril of being precipitated into the water. And over and above this chaos, this rout and tumult, there arose a succession of the most appalling screams that ever human ear was condemned to listen to, for they issued from the throats of so many human beings shut up within the death-trap below—so many human beings, for whom all escape was cut off, and who were being literally parboiled alive.This is what had happened. The steam reservoir had exploded, and the mass of iron covering it had been hurled along the lower deck, sweeping the saloon from end to end, and crashing through the stern of the vessel like the projectile from a piece of ordnance. And then an enormous volume of scalding steam had filled the apartment, and in a moment the light-hearted holiday-seekers, with which it was crowded, wrapped in that hell-blast from which there was no escape, were writhing in the throes of the most horrible, the most agonising of deaths.Alma, recovering her presence of mind, left her friends, and hurried back to the scene of the catastrophe. But the gathering crowd barred her way; it in its turn being kept back by the arm and voice of Authority. Yet she got near enough to see the outside of the wrecked saloon, the twisted girders supporting the upper deck, the jagged breach in the stern where the iron plate had gone through. She saw the panic-stricken crowd swaying and surging. She saw one scalded wretch rush to the side and leap overboard, in the frenzy of his intolerable agony. What she did not see was him whom she sought. She did not see Philip Orlebar.Not in the terrified, struggling crowd upon the upper deck did her eyes seek him; even at that moment she knew it was not thus he would be found in the hour of peril and alarm. Her anguished gaze, straining upon the spot where she had last seen him, met with no reward. He was not there. Oh, merciful Heavens! Could he have gone back to his seat in the stern of the boat, to that spot where they had stood together talking for a full hour.For that spot was now enveloped in a cloud of white steam, which was pouring out through the hole knocked in the end of the saloon by the iron cover of the cistern. Had Philip returned to his seat his back would have rested against that very part of the panelling which was blown away.It was long before the work of rescue could be begun, long before the fiery breath of that hell-blast had sufficiently abated its fury to admit of search. Still Alma stood there, and as each agonising minute of suspense went by she realised more certainly that there was no hope. She saw body after body—in life or in death—brought away from the fatal ship. She heard the heartrending groans of the sufferers, and the appalling yells of some tortured wretch imploring the boon of death as a termination to his agony. These dreadful sights and sounds which at any other time would well-nigh have killed her with horror, seemed to be something outside her life now. He whom she sought was not among them—not yet.She pressed forward. The crowd elbowed her backward. The voice of Authority warned her backward. To Authority she appealed.Now Authority, even in a blue uniform and a sword, may still possess a heart, and Authority as there embodied, was young and presumably susceptible. The white eager face was passingly beautiful—the piteous glance and appealing voice correspondingly entrancing. Authority’s heart melted. In the result the crowd elbowed her backward no more.“Mademoiselle had a friend on board? A lady? No? A gentleman—an English gentleman? Good. He should be sought for.”Accordingly Alma learned the worst without undue delay. There was an English gentleman among the injured—a tall, good-looking gentleman with a blonde moustache. “He was hurt—very badly hurt,” declared Authority, humanely mendacious, adding, “But he is not burned—oh, no—certainly he is not burned. Wait. They will disembark him in one little moment. Is he dead? Well, Mademoiselle must not give way. He is not burned—certainly—not in the least burned.”And the force of even that little crumb of well-meant comfort came home to Alma as, a few minutes later, she bent down over what had so recently contained the soul of Philip Orlebar, and regardless of the glances of three pairs of eyes or of three hundred, kissed the calm and placid face, so still and composed in death—kissed those lips hardly cold yet—the warmth of whose parting kiss in life seemed to glow upon hers—the sad, hopeless echo of whose parting words still seemed to linger in her ears. “Alma, darling. My lost love. We may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not.” Well, they had not—in life.As thedouanierhad said, Philip Orlebar was not burned, for he had met his death in the open air. He had, as Alma had first conjectured, resumed his seat in the stern of the boat—was on the point of doing so rather, when the explosion occurred, and the iron plate, bursting through the end of the saloon, had struck him on the spine and shattered it, killing him instantaneously—painlessly.“I feel as if I had come to the end of my life,” had been his words, twice used during that last sad conversation. Poor Philip! Had he uttered them in sheer bitterness of heart or under the influence of a strange unerring presentiment? Verily it may have been a little of both.

Midway between Nyon and Rolle, the steamerMont Blancwas shearing her arrowy course through the blue waters of Lake Léman, heading for the latter place.

Her decks were covered with passengers, mostly of French nationality—light-hearted, chattering, cheerful souls, talking volubly and all at once—talking the harder apparently in inverse ratio to the interest of the topic under consideration.

Right in the stern of the boat, beneath the upper deck, his back against the end of the saloon, sat a solitary Englishman. He was smoking a cigar and pretending to read, but it was patent to the most casual observer that the book before him occupied very little of his attention indeed, for he was gazing out upon the sapphire surface of the lake and its green and gold setting of engirdling mountains, with an expression of settled sadness upon his extremely attractive countenance, which had no business to be seen upon the face of one so young.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet, and a hat came skimming along the lower deck, a broad-brimmed straw hat—a feminine hat. Springing from his seat he caught it, just in time to save it from going overboard, and turned to hand it to its pursuer and owner.

“Thanks so much,” said a sweet voice. Then the speaker stopped short in amazement and changed colour. “Why, it’s Mr Orlebar—pardon me—Sir Philip, I should have said.”

“It used to be ‘Philip’ at one time, Alma,” was the reply, with the ghost of a sad smile. And then these two stood looking into each other’s eyes in silence. Neither seemed able to say a word.

It was as she had implied. Sir Francis Orlebar was no more. Never recovering from the prostration into which he had been thrown by Fordham’s revelation, he had sunk into a decline and had succumbed three months later, tended by his son devotedly to the last. Then Philip, reserving enough for his modest wants, had apportioned the remainder between his stepmother and that other who had a legal claim upon him. This done, he had left Claxby Court and had started upon his travels again.

She who was his wife, in the eye of the law, he had never set eyes on since that fateful night. He had tried by every means in his power to find some channel through which the mystery might be cleared up, but in vain. The only person who could have done so was dead, and her last words, her last look, her last behaviour, conclusively confirmed him in his very darkest conjectures. The bare recollection of the subject was unutterably nauseous and repulsive to him now.

Old Glover had in due course served him with a writ in the threatened breach of promise action. Nothing could be more repellent than to be dragged forth into notoriety thus, yet what could he do? He was too poor to offer any compromise, even if it were not the persistently rancorous intention of that estimable British merchant to exact his pound of flesh in spite of everything, and that pound of flesh the dragging of him—Philip—into notoriety and a court of law. But at the last moment chance had befriended him. For the beauteous Edith had succumbed to the prismatic attractions of a ritualistic parson of fine presence and ample means, and this cleric had, under pain of cancelling his own engagement, laid a stern embargo on his future bride making an exhibition of herself in a public court. So, whereas it is manifestly impossible to bring an action for breach of promise failing the consent of the interesting plaintiff, old Glover was obliged to deny himself the gratification of his rancour, and to console himself characteristically with the sound commercial reflection that, after all, they had got much the better bargain of the two. For the parson was well off, and would very likely be a bishop one day, or, at any rate an archdeacon, whereas Philip Orlebar, though now a baronet, would always have been as poor as Job, and would never have done any good for himself or anybody else. In which conjecture he was probably right.

“It’s an odd thing I should not have seen you all this time,” said Philip at last, realising that it was necessary to say something. “Yet you must have come on board at Geneva.”

“No—at Nyon.”

“AtNyon! That would account for it. I have been sitting here almost ever since we left Geneva, and, of course, I can’t see the gangway from here, or who lands, or who embarks. Have you been staying there?”

“Only a few days. The people I am with were there to see some friends of theirs. But—between ourselves—it was rather slow.”

“You are not with the General then?”

“Oh no! Don’t I wish I was!” she added, with an eager lowering of her voice. “But there, I ought not to say that. These are a very kind sort of people, but a trifle ‘heavy.’ I am only travellingwiththem, not their guest.”

Now what the deuce did Philip care about the estimability or other idiosyncrasies of the people she was travelling with? He saw only her—her as he remembered her in times past—her as he had seen her many a time since, waking and in his dreams—her as he had seen her the first time of all, here on the deck of this very ship. He detected the sympathetic softening of the great grey eyes, the saddened inflection of that voice, the first note of which had thrilled his whole being, and his heart tightened. For, after all, he was young, and, in spite of the blow which had fallen upon his life, all possibilities for him were not dead.

And she? Knowing something of his history since they parted—though not the exact nature of the grim skeleton so carefully kept locked up—knowing something of his history, we say, for the world is small and tongues are long, she felt her heart go out to him as it had never done before, as she never thought possible that it could have done. The sunny laugh had gone out of his face for ever; leaving an expression, a stamp of hopelessness, which to her was infinitely pathetic. It was all that she could do to keep down the rush of tears which welled to her eyes as they looked up into his sad ones. What, we say, did he, did either of them, care about the heaviness or otherwise of the people she was travelling with? Yet of such trivialities will the lips force themselves to chatter while the heart is bursting.

“Where and how is the dear old General now?” he went on. “And your aunt?”

“They have gone to live at a place in the country—a few miles from Rushtonborough. That is near your home, is it not?”

“Yes,” he said eagerly, and the possibilities began to stir around and quicken into life. Then his tone relapsed again. “Do you ever go down there yourself?”

“I haven’t yet. They have only just gone there. And now”—hesitatingly, “I think I must go back to my people. They will be wondering what has become of me.”

“Not yet—Alma.”

The pleading tone melted her not very strongly formed resolution. She paused. The end of the saloon hid them effectually, though, of course, they only held this snug corner to themselves on the precarious tenure of chance.

“Tell me a little more about yourself,” he went on. “Are you still living at that place you hated so—Surbiton?”

“N-no,” as if the topic was distasteful. “By the way, I saw you there once.”

“But—I have never been there in my life,” he answered, very mystified.

“Not on land, perhaps—but by water. You were in a boat—and the one I was in as nearly as possible ran you down. I was steering—or rather, ought to have been,” she added with a little smile. “You didn’t see me, but I recognised you.”

“I remember now,” he said. “And was that you? Yes, I remember perfectly. Oh, Alma—if only Ihadseen you!”

It seemed to escape him in spite of himself, and it conveyed volumes. There had been just a spice of bitterness in the motive that had urged her to let him know she had seen him and with whom, but now she would have given worlds to withdraw the remark—such a turning of the knife in the wound did it seem. And now she realised plainer than words could tell, that if he had seen her on the occasion in question, it would have made all the difference in the world to her life and his.

“What is this place we are coming to?” he said, as the steamer’s bell begun to ring to the accompaniment of a sensible slackening of the paddles.

“Rolle. The next is Morges, and then Ouchy, where we land. We are going to stay a few days in Lausanne.”

“What, at this time of year? Why you will be roasted?”

“So we shall. But the Sitgreaves want to get some things there before going on to the mountains.”

“Are you going on to the mountains? Where? Perhaps we may meet again?” And once more the possibilities were all astir.

“Philip, I think we had better not,” she answered, with her eyes full upon his. “It would not be fair to—you.”

“Oh, I can keep myself in hand all right,” he replied, with a hard laugh from which he could not altogether eliminate the suspicion of a tremor. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve learnt a thing or two since we last had the pleasure of meeting.”

The steamer was under way again, skimming merrily over the sapphire surface. The chit-chat and laughter of the other passengers rose gleefully upon the air, and in the saloon the pop of corks, the clink of knives and forks. There is solitude in a crowd—stillness in noise.

“Where are you going to now, Philip?” she said.

“Oh, I don’t quite know! I’ve booked to Territet. Perhaps I’ll walk up and put in a few days at the old shop—perhaps I’ll go on to Saas or the Bel Alp and do some climbing. Can’t tell till I get there.”

She made no answer. This was not the easy, light-hearted talk of the old times. There was a bitter, reckless ring about it that was unmistakable. The speaker literally did not care where he went or what he did. Still she did not leave him.

“I wonder if it has ever occurred to you all this time Alma,” he went on in a softer tone, “that it was here—on board this very ship—we first met? Not exactly that perhaps, but first saw each other, which amounts to the same thing.”

“Yes, it has.”

“It has? Well, it seems a strange chance, a strange stroke of Fate, that we should meet here again—here of all places. How long ago was it? Ten years—twenty?”

“No; only three.”

“Well, it is like twenty to me. I tell you I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”

“You must not say that—believe me you must not. Time will do wonders for you. You have a long life before you yet, and great opportunities.”

But although she spoke bravely she could hardly succeed in steadying her voice. All the old feeling, all the feeling which had lain dormant within her since that stray glimpse on the river, was surging into activity. Philip Orlebar, crushed, saddened, all the elasticity burned out of his young life by the searing irons of sorrow, reigned king in her heart, as Philip Orlebar, sanguine, buoyant, light-hearted, could never have done. And the change, sad, infinitely deplorable as it was, had solidified and stamped his character, not altogether to the disadvantage of that possession. But for that one tremendous impediment, in all human probability lifelong, Alma would have needed no pressure to have returned love for love in full and abundant measure.

“Great opportunities?” he echoed. “Yes, I may have had once—before you condemned me unheard. Great Heaven! you had no pity—no consideration for me then, and now it is too late.”

It was cruel. The tears which she had striven so heroically to repress brimmed, overflowed. They fell, each shining drop burning into the heart of the spectator as a drop of molten lead. And upon the blue radiant lake the measured paddle-stroke of the steamer beat strong and joyous, the laughter and chat of the holiday-seekers rang out light and cheery.

“Darling love—love of my life—my only love!” he uttered, in heartbroken tones, “what am I to say? Why—why were you so hasty? And now it is too late.”

“Yes, I was hasty; I know it now,” she replied. “But I tried to make amends. Oh, Philip! why did you not answer—take some notice of my letter?”

“Your—what?”

His face had turned deathly white. Already he saw that some horriblecontretempshad served to divert from him a life’s happiness.

“My letter? I wrote to you at Zermatt directly I heard of your accident. You took no notice, so I concluded you did not want to hear of me any more.”

“Alma, as sure as I stand here a living man, I have never received a line of your writing in my life.”

It was her turn to grow pale now.

“But I did write. I directed to your hotel at Zermatt. What can it mean? You never received it?”

He burst into a harsh laugh—a laugh infinitely more moving than tears.

“What can it mean?” he repeated. “It means this: it is part of the whole hellish plot. That letter was intercepted by the hand that for its owner’s vile purposes lured me to my ruin. But that hand isburningnow for that act of wickedness—that one act alone—that act which ruined my life. It is burning in another world—if there be another world—for the woman, its owner, is dead.”

“I begin to see,” she said, her eyes brimming with love and pity. “Yes, I can see it all now.”

The bell rang again, and the paddles slackened. TheMont Blancwas sweeping up to thedébarcadèreat Morges. The next stoppage would be Ouchy, and there they must part.

“Do you remember that day we were crossing over to Bouveret on this very boat?” he went on. “Do you remember our conversation as we passed Chillon Castle? You remarked then,à proposof all its mediaeval horrors, instruments of torture, and so forth—that there seemed a time when the world must have been under Satanic rule instead of under that of a good Providence. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, the same thing holds good now. What have I done that those whom I have never harmed should lay themselves out to ruin my life—to render my days a hell and a curse to me? For it is a curse—a lifelong curse.”

“Not that—not that, God grant. Philip, be brave; you are young yet. Better days will dawn, dear.”

“But they will not bring me—you. No, something tells me it is not so—it never will be so. Nothing better will dawn for me but the grave. I told you before; I tell you again. I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”

“Hush—hush,” she said, soothingly. “Your life is still your own; you are your own master. You must make an object in life for yourself. That is the only remedy.”

But he shook his head.

“No, no. The Satanic influence is everywhere. Was it not abroad that day on the river when one glimpse of you would have saved me? Had your parasol been held but a few inches higher I should have seen you, and the sight of you would have brought me back to you, back to myself, in time. Yet it was not to be.”

Again the bell rang, again the paddles slowed down. The massive red-tiled tower of Ouchy drew nearer and nearer. TheMont Blancglided proudly up to the pier.

“Alma, darling—my lost love—we may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not. Give me—one kiss.”

His hands were holding hers. His sad eyes were full upon hers. And she loved him. What could she do?

“Would it be right?” she said, hesitatingly.

“Right or wrong, give it me. You will never regret it.”

Her lips met his, in one sweet, warm, clinging kiss. Then with a murmured, “God bless you, Philip, dear!” she had torn herself away, and was gone.

There was the usual stir and bustle of landing. Then as they were wending their way from thedébarcadèrein the wake of their luggage, which an hotel porter was hauling before them on a truck, one of Alma’s friends said—

“Who was the other party to thetête-à-tête, Alma? I declare your behaviour is positively scandalous, my dear girl. Do you know you were rather more than a whole hour hobnobbing with him? Come, who was he?”

“An old friend of mine,” she answered, trying to do so lightly, but of course failing abjectly.

“Why don’t you say adearfriend?” said another of the girls, maliciously. “Why, he was standing there on the lower deck as we landed, simply devouring the last of you with his eyes. And theywereeyes, too. Come, now, his name? You are not going to get out of that, don’t think it. Who was he?”

“Sir Philip Orlebar.”

“Sir Philip Orlebar?” repeated the last who had spoken and who was by way of being the wag of the party. “And you did not bring him up and introduce him. A whole, real, live baronet—and such a good-looking one, too! Oh, Alma, I should never have thought it of—Gracious goodness!”

The last words were little better than a shriek. For a frightful sound had drowned the speaker’s utterance—a loud, vibrating, strident roar, and a crash as of a heavy missile tearing through planks and rafters. Turning towards it, the faces of the girls blanched with terror and their knees trembled under them, so that they could hardly stand. Those around behaved variously, but all were in a state of the wildest consternation and dismay.

“Mais il éclate—le bateau-à-vapeur!” cried one of the bystanders.

TheMont Blancwas still at the jetty. At first it was difficult to make out what had happened. Then dense masses of steam were seen to be issuing from the centre of the ship, and from the whole outside of the saloon spurted white, hissing jets.

The upper deck was the scene of a wild and frenzied panic. A mob of terror-stricken passengers surged to the gangway, fighting, shouting, swarming over each other and everything, at imminent peril of being precipitated into the water. And over and above this chaos, this rout and tumult, there arose a succession of the most appalling screams that ever human ear was condemned to listen to, for they issued from the throats of so many human beings shut up within the death-trap below—so many human beings, for whom all escape was cut off, and who were being literally parboiled alive.

This is what had happened. The steam reservoir had exploded, and the mass of iron covering it had been hurled along the lower deck, sweeping the saloon from end to end, and crashing through the stern of the vessel like the projectile from a piece of ordnance. And then an enormous volume of scalding steam had filled the apartment, and in a moment the light-hearted holiday-seekers, with which it was crowded, wrapped in that hell-blast from which there was no escape, were writhing in the throes of the most horrible, the most agonising of deaths.

Alma, recovering her presence of mind, left her friends, and hurried back to the scene of the catastrophe. But the gathering crowd barred her way; it in its turn being kept back by the arm and voice of Authority. Yet she got near enough to see the outside of the wrecked saloon, the twisted girders supporting the upper deck, the jagged breach in the stern where the iron plate had gone through. She saw the panic-stricken crowd swaying and surging. She saw one scalded wretch rush to the side and leap overboard, in the frenzy of his intolerable agony. What she did not see was him whom she sought. She did not see Philip Orlebar.

Not in the terrified, struggling crowd upon the upper deck did her eyes seek him; even at that moment she knew it was not thus he would be found in the hour of peril and alarm. Her anguished gaze, straining upon the spot where she had last seen him, met with no reward. He was not there. Oh, merciful Heavens! Could he have gone back to his seat in the stern of the boat, to that spot where they had stood together talking for a full hour.

For that spot was now enveloped in a cloud of white steam, which was pouring out through the hole knocked in the end of the saloon by the iron cover of the cistern. Had Philip returned to his seat his back would have rested against that very part of the panelling which was blown away.

It was long before the work of rescue could be begun, long before the fiery breath of that hell-blast had sufficiently abated its fury to admit of search. Still Alma stood there, and as each agonising minute of suspense went by she realised more certainly that there was no hope. She saw body after body—in life or in death—brought away from the fatal ship. She heard the heartrending groans of the sufferers, and the appalling yells of some tortured wretch imploring the boon of death as a termination to his agony. These dreadful sights and sounds which at any other time would well-nigh have killed her with horror, seemed to be something outside her life now. He whom she sought was not among them—not yet.

She pressed forward. The crowd elbowed her backward. The voice of Authority warned her backward. To Authority she appealed.

Now Authority, even in a blue uniform and a sword, may still possess a heart, and Authority as there embodied, was young and presumably susceptible. The white eager face was passingly beautiful—the piteous glance and appealing voice correspondingly entrancing. Authority’s heart melted. In the result the crowd elbowed her backward no more.

“Mademoiselle had a friend on board? A lady? No? A gentleman—an English gentleman? Good. He should be sought for.”

Accordingly Alma learned the worst without undue delay. There was an English gentleman among the injured—a tall, good-looking gentleman with a blonde moustache. “He was hurt—very badly hurt,” declared Authority, humanely mendacious, adding, “But he is not burned—oh, no—certainly he is not burned. Wait. They will disembark him in one little moment. Is he dead? Well, Mademoiselle must not give way. He is not burned—certainly—not in the least burned.”

And the force of even that little crumb of well-meant comfort came home to Alma as, a few minutes later, she bent down over what had so recently contained the soul of Philip Orlebar, and regardless of the glances of three pairs of eyes or of three hundred, kissed the calm and placid face, so still and composed in death—kissed those lips hardly cold yet—the warmth of whose parting kiss in life seemed to glow upon hers—the sad, hopeless echo of whose parting words still seemed to linger in her ears. “Alma, darling. My lost love. We may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not.” Well, they had not—in life.

As thedouanierhad said, Philip Orlebar was not burned, for he had met his death in the open air. He had, as Alma had first conjectured, resumed his seat in the stern of the boat—was on the point of doing so rather, when the explosion occurred, and the iron plate, bursting through the end of the saloon, had struck him on the spine and shattered it, killing him instantaneously—painlessly.

“I feel as if I had come to the end of my life,” had been his words, twice used during that last sad conversation. Poor Philip! Had he uttered them in sheer bitterness of heart or under the influence of a strange unerring presentiment? Verily it may have been a little of both.

Chapter Thirty Five.A Day Too Late.Not less radiantly did the sun shine upon the blue lake, in whose pellucid surface lay mirrored the great feathery slopes of the Savoy Alps; not less joyously did the cheerful sights and sounds of everyday life run their course after the terrible catastrophe of which that fairest of earth’s scenes had been the theatre. Pleasure boats skimmed the placid waters; quarry barges, their white triangular sails hanging listless in the still air, were unlading their cargoes of stones brought thither from the Savoy shore; even a steamer swept up to the jetty, and, having discharged and received its human freight, went plashing on its way. The world still went on; but to Alma Wyatt, wandering there alone by the landing-place in the glad sunshine, the golden side of life was clouded over for evermore.Nearly a month had gone by since poor Philip’s remains had been carried back to the home of his fathers for burial. His successor, the new baronet, a distant cousin whom he had known but slightly, had hurried to the scene of the disaster, and much moved by his young kinsman’s most lamentable fate had spared no trouble and expense to ensure that every honour and care should surround the last lugubrious arrangements. But the awful strain of that horrible experience had told upon Alma, and for three weeks she was so ill and prostrate that she was forbidden to leave her room.When, eventually, she was able to appear again, she would not leave the place. With a persistency which her friends more or less strongly condemned as morbid—impressing upon her the thankfulness she ought to feel that the explosion had not taken place a few minutes earlier, while she herself was standing on the fatal spot—she would make her daily pilgrimage to the scene of the disaster, for to her it was holy ground. To her had been spoken the very last words he ever breathed, and they had been words of love. Her lips had received the last kiss it had been in his power to bestow. “You will never regret it,” he had said. And did she? Not for worlds would she barter that sweet sad recollection. She loved him now—loved him with all her heart and soul and being. And it was too late. Too late! She might go to him, but never more could he return to her.There in the noontide sunshine she stood, and, whatever way her eyes might turn, the whole scene around her brought back his memory. She could see the little white village of St. Gingolph sleeping beneath the great mountains on the opposite shore; and it brought back that day, when tossing on the furious billows of that sudden tempest, they had reckoned their hours as numbered—and there were times when in the bitterness of her soul she could find it in her heart to wish they had died together then. Again, there rose the green serrated ridges of the Chaîne des Verreaux, beneath whose shadow she had received his first declaration of love. She could see the distantarêteof the Cape-au-Moîne heaved up against the blue sky, could mark the exact spot where they had cowered for shelter when exposed to the wild fury of the blast, up there on those dangerous heights, now so green and smiling in the sunlight, and she could see him in the sweet golden evening of that eventful day, so appealing, so winning in his brave young beauty, as he poured out his love at her feet. Then she hardly knew her own heart. Now she knew it. But—too late.“How do you do, Miss Wyatt?”She started violently. That familiar voice even, fitted with the picture she had been drawing. Turning she encountered the dark, piercing eyes of Fordham.He had raised his hat, but he did not offer his hand. He stood there contemplating her with grave, saturnine expression as of old.“Wretched business this,” he said, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the spot where the catastrophe had taken place. “Poor fellow, poor fellow! Well, I suppose even I can hardly be held so much as indirectly responsible for it.”“I hardly know whether I am speaking to his friend or his enemy,” said Alma, who, while instinctively distrusting this strange being, yet was conscious of being in some degree held spell-bound, even as the historic wedding-guest, together with an unaccountable anxiety to hear what he had to say.“Both, I suppose,” answered Fordham, impassively. “Formerly that is to say. Now only the first. You have heard of such a thing as a vendetta, I suppose, Miss Wyatt?”“Of course.”“Well, I come of the race among which that institution is pre-eminently supposed to flourish. Philip’s father injured me, and I foredoomed the son from his cradle to be the means of avenging that injury upon the father. And when the time came—he did so.”“And you are such a monster as to come here and gloat over it!” said Alma, recoiling from him in a perfect horror of repulsion. But the other was unmoved. A wintry ghost of a smile drooped the corners of his mouth. He looked at her for a moment and went on.“By no means. I saved his life more than once—and twice after that Igavehim his life.”“Gave him his life?”“Yes. Are you aware that he challenged me, and I met him?”“I had heard of it.”“Well, we exchanged shots twice; rather, I let him have two shots at me, while I—blazed away at the heavens. He could have had a dozen if he wished, but the seconds did not. I am a dead shot, and I was not going to fire at him. Now, am I such a monster?”“Go on.”“Well, his bullet hit me, and I shall never walk straight again. It hit me—exactly where I wounded his father when Philip himself was hardly out of his cradle. But I bore him not the slightest grudge for that—nor do I. My vendetta was accomplished. It had to be done, and it was done. Yet several times I wavered. The chances were even that I would spare him, for I had grown fond of the boy. And, Miss Wyatt, yours is the hand that turned the scale against him.”“Mine? Whatdoyou mean?”“Yours. I mean just that. You were in such a hurry to send him to the right-about, to condemn him unheard, that you threw him back into my power again. My power against him could not have stood against yours—but you threw yours away. Afterwards it was too late.”Oh the anguish of her heart as she listened! This man was reiterating word for word what Philip himself had said. Why had she been in such a hurry to condemn him unheard? Well, her whole life now was destined to be an expiation of that one act of hard and merciless pride. Fordham, who had been watching her keenly, with a feeling, half grim, half sorrowful at his heart, continued:“That marriage of his was brought about solely by me. You may or may not have guessed that, yourself apart, there was every reason why that particular alliance could have been nothing but absolutely disastrous to him. Well, into the particulars I need not go—especially for your enlightenment. Suffice it to say that the measure was brought about for the purposes of my lifelong feud, of which it was the crowning act. And now his wife is dead.”Every vestige of colour forsook Alma’s cheeks. What infinite possibilities might not the future have opened out?“Dead?” she echoed. “How? When?”“Yes—dead. She died suddenly—the day beforepoor Philip’s own end. But it was a day too late. Had it occurred a day earlier he would have heard of it, and would not have been in theMont Blancblow-up.”“Was she—was she—fond of him?” gasped Alma.“Passionately, I am told; and that was a factor in the carrying out of my vendetta.” And then, backing against the iron railing of the jetty to rest his lame leg, Fordham continued deliberately, “So you see, if he had landed here at Ouchy, when you did, instead of deciding to go on further, Philip would now be a free man as well as a living one. But that is the way of the world—our blessings, when they come to us, invariably do so a day too late.”Fordham was right.

Not less radiantly did the sun shine upon the blue lake, in whose pellucid surface lay mirrored the great feathery slopes of the Savoy Alps; not less joyously did the cheerful sights and sounds of everyday life run their course after the terrible catastrophe of which that fairest of earth’s scenes had been the theatre. Pleasure boats skimmed the placid waters; quarry barges, their white triangular sails hanging listless in the still air, were unlading their cargoes of stones brought thither from the Savoy shore; even a steamer swept up to the jetty, and, having discharged and received its human freight, went plashing on its way. The world still went on; but to Alma Wyatt, wandering there alone by the landing-place in the glad sunshine, the golden side of life was clouded over for evermore.

Nearly a month had gone by since poor Philip’s remains had been carried back to the home of his fathers for burial. His successor, the new baronet, a distant cousin whom he had known but slightly, had hurried to the scene of the disaster, and much moved by his young kinsman’s most lamentable fate had spared no trouble and expense to ensure that every honour and care should surround the last lugubrious arrangements. But the awful strain of that horrible experience had told upon Alma, and for three weeks she was so ill and prostrate that she was forbidden to leave her room.

When, eventually, she was able to appear again, she would not leave the place. With a persistency which her friends more or less strongly condemned as morbid—impressing upon her the thankfulness she ought to feel that the explosion had not taken place a few minutes earlier, while she herself was standing on the fatal spot—she would make her daily pilgrimage to the scene of the disaster, for to her it was holy ground. To her had been spoken the very last words he ever breathed, and they had been words of love. Her lips had received the last kiss it had been in his power to bestow. “You will never regret it,” he had said. And did she? Not for worlds would she barter that sweet sad recollection. She loved him now—loved him with all her heart and soul and being. And it was too late. Too late! She might go to him, but never more could he return to her.

There in the noontide sunshine she stood, and, whatever way her eyes might turn, the whole scene around her brought back his memory. She could see the little white village of St. Gingolph sleeping beneath the great mountains on the opposite shore; and it brought back that day, when tossing on the furious billows of that sudden tempest, they had reckoned their hours as numbered—and there were times when in the bitterness of her soul she could find it in her heart to wish they had died together then. Again, there rose the green serrated ridges of the Chaîne des Verreaux, beneath whose shadow she had received his first declaration of love. She could see the distantarêteof the Cape-au-Moîne heaved up against the blue sky, could mark the exact spot where they had cowered for shelter when exposed to the wild fury of the blast, up there on those dangerous heights, now so green and smiling in the sunlight, and she could see him in the sweet golden evening of that eventful day, so appealing, so winning in his brave young beauty, as he poured out his love at her feet. Then she hardly knew her own heart. Now she knew it. But—too late.

“How do you do, Miss Wyatt?”

She started violently. That familiar voice even, fitted with the picture she had been drawing. Turning she encountered the dark, piercing eyes of Fordham.

He had raised his hat, but he did not offer his hand. He stood there contemplating her with grave, saturnine expression as of old.

“Wretched business this,” he said, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the spot where the catastrophe had taken place. “Poor fellow, poor fellow! Well, I suppose even I can hardly be held so much as indirectly responsible for it.”

“I hardly know whether I am speaking to his friend or his enemy,” said Alma, who, while instinctively distrusting this strange being, yet was conscious of being in some degree held spell-bound, even as the historic wedding-guest, together with an unaccountable anxiety to hear what he had to say.

“Both, I suppose,” answered Fordham, impassively. “Formerly that is to say. Now only the first. You have heard of such a thing as a vendetta, I suppose, Miss Wyatt?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I come of the race among which that institution is pre-eminently supposed to flourish. Philip’s father injured me, and I foredoomed the son from his cradle to be the means of avenging that injury upon the father. And when the time came—he did so.”

“And you are such a monster as to come here and gloat over it!” said Alma, recoiling from him in a perfect horror of repulsion. But the other was unmoved. A wintry ghost of a smile drooped the corners of his mouth. He looked at her for a moment and went on.

“By no means. I saved his life more than once—and twice after that Igavehim his life.”

“Gave him his life?”

“Yes. Are you aware that he challenged me, and I met him?”

“I had heard of it.”

“Well, we exchanged shots twice; rather, I let him have two shots at me, while I—blazed away at the heavens. He could have had a dozen if he wished, but the seconds did not. I am a dead shot, and I was not going to fire at him. Now, am I such a monster?”

“Go on.”

“Well, his bullet hit me, and I shall never walk straight again. It hit me—exactly where I wounded his father when Philip himself was hardly out of his cradle. But I bore him not the slightest grudge for that—nor do I. My vendetta was accomplished. It had to be done, and it was done. Yet several times I wavered. The chances were even that I would spare him, for I had grown fond of the boy. And, Miss Wyatt, yours is the hand that turned the scale against him.”

“Mine? Whatdoyou mean?”

“Yours. I mean just that. You were in such a hurry to send him to the right-about, to condemn him unheard, that you threw him back into my power again. My power against him could not have stood against yours—but you threw yours away. Afterwards it was too late.”

Oh the anguish of her heart as she listened! This man was reiterating word for word what Philip himself had said. Why had she been in such a hurry to condemn him unheard? Well, her whole life now was destined to be an expiation of that one act of hard and merciless pride. Fordham, who had been watching her keenly, with a feeling, half grim, half sorrowful at his heart, continued:

“That marriage of his was brought about solely by me. You may or may not have guessed that, yourself apart, there was every reason why that particular alliance could have been nothing but absolutely disastrous to him. Well, into the particulars I need not go—especially for your enlightenment. Suffice it to say that the measure was brought about for the purposes of my lifelong feud, of which it was the crowning act. And now his wife is dead.”

Every vestige of colour forsook Alma’s cheeks. What infinite possibilities might not the future have opened out?

“Dead?” she echoed. “How? When?”

“Yes—dead. She died suddenly—the day beforepoor Philip’s own end. But it was a day too late. Had it occurred a day earlier he would have heard of it, and would not have been in theMont Blancblow-up.”

“Was she—was she—fond of him?” gasped Alma.

“Passionately, I am told; and that was a factor in the carrying out of my vendetta.” And then, backing against the iron railing of the jetty to rest his lame leg, Fordham continued deliberately, “So you see, if he had landed here at Ouchy, when you did, instead of deciding to go on further, Philip would now be a free man as well as a living one. But that is the way of the world—our blessings, when they come to us, invariably do so a day too late.”

Fordham was right.

Back to Index Next