A friend of my uncle's—a wealthy banker—now spoke:
"Did you not say that Captain Willard had a special license for this marriage?"
"To be sure! Of course he has!" replied my uncle, his countenance brightening: "I had forgotten it. Ah! I remember now laughing at what I thought his folly in procuring one, and at his words: 'In case of contingencies we can be married at any time and in any place.' He was right now, I see."
"Just so," returned the banker. "Let us hope that he will always have the same happy foresight. Well, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain: If we cannot go to the church, the church must come to us. Our sweet little bride, after looking forward to this day as the happiest of her life, must not be disappointed. The marriage can take place in this drawing-room just as well as within the walls of St. Cyprian's, unless indeed Miss Leslie attaches a peculiar sanctity to a marriage contracted within the church. Let us send to St. Cyprian's, and ask Captain Willard and the Vicar to come here.
"I suppose there is no alternative," my uncle said, "short of a definite postponement of the wedding. But I'll see Daphne. It's time we should have been starting, so she's sure to be dressed. I'll go and fetch her now."
He hurried off, and in a few moments came back with Daphne on his arm, looking in her dainty wedding dress more beautiful than I had ever seen her.
She greeted me with so radiant a smile that the spectators might have taken me for the bridegroom.
So deep was my emotion at seeing once more, and on so dramatic an occasion, the face whose image for so many months had haunted my dreams, that oblivious of all my surroundings, I could do nothing but gaze at her with an earnest and wistful (some might have called it stupid) look until her laugh—howsweet and familiar it sounded!—recalled me to myself.
"Why, Frank, have you been in Germany so long that you have forgotten your native language? Speak to him in German, papa, and ask him if he is glad to see me."
I stammered out a few words of greeting. I do not remember what. The happiness of seeing her again was too great to allow of conventional conversation and I drew back while the development of the situation was being explained to her.
She was, of course, terribly disappointed by the turn events were taking, but her courage was splendid. Although in her eyes a marriage in a drawing-room was a less sacred ceremony than one within consecrated walls, she seemed less cast down by the prospect than did her bridesmaids who were being deprived of the chance of displaying their toilettes to the fashionable congregation of St. Cyprian's, and thus, in the probable absence of reporters, they would have to forego the pleasure of reading in the society papers the description of their finery.
"Well, Daphne, what do you say?" her father asked.
"Let George be sent for," she replied. "I will do just as he wishes."
In my anxiety to see and question George I was on the point of starting for the church myself, but my uncle detained me.
"No, no," he said. "Why should you expose yourself unnecessarily to this storm? Hall can go," and I had no option but to submit, and my uncle's valet was despatched with orders to bring back both Captain Willard and a clergyman.
Meantime Daphne with fine courage went aboutamong the guests, as if nothing unusual were happening. Presently she came up to me.
"Come and talk to me," she said. "It is so long since I saw you. I am sure you must have much to tell me."
One of the bridesmaids made room for her upon an ottoman, and I drew a chair near her.
The language of love was all but trembling on my lips as I gazed at her beautiful face—that face so associated with my life from very childhood that it seemed to belong to me by a sort of prescriptive right. It was well that others were by to check my ardour; but for their presence I believe I should have been kneeling once more at her feet. I had come back from Heidelberg with the intention of treating her with a frigid and distant courtesy—I would be an heroic martyr! But one glance of her gentle eyes had melted my icy armour, and here I was almost on the point of making love to her on the very morning of her intended marriage to another!
Daphne was her old sweet self, and chatted as freely as if we two were alone, and sitting once more at breakfast in my uncle's old home.
"You are looking very pale, Frank," she said. "When did you leave the Fatherland?"
"I left Heidelberg two days ago, and crossed the Channel last night. But tell me about George." It made me jealous to see how bright her eyes became at the mention of my brother's name. "I suppose the Indian sun hasn't made much difference in his appearance? How does he look?"
"He is very, very bronzed, and much handsomer, in my opinion, and—and—but there, you'll see him this morning in his uniform, and you'll confess he looks every inch a hero."
I had seen him that morning, though not in his uniform, with a red stain on his breast, trembling at sight of me, and I was very far from confessing that he looked every inch a hero; but, of course, I did not tell Daphne this.
"Where are you going to spend your honeymoon?"
"At Sydenham. A friend has lent us a pretty little villa there."
"And from there you are going——"
"To India? Yes. In February. Papa wants George to leave the army now, but I don't think he will."
"George is ambitious, you see," I returned, resenting in him that quality which was lacking in myself. "Medals, stars, titles, etc. Perhaps some day they'll make him a baronet—if he do but kill men enough, you know—and then you'll be Lady Willard. Ahem! I salute you Lady Willard,in futuro," I added with a low bow.
"Frank, don't be ridiculous! Mr. Vasari is watching you."
"Never mind Mr. Vasari! who's he! Let him watch. We are doing nothing wrong. Hang the fellow! How he stares! Vasari," I said, repeating the artist's patronymic—"an Italian evidently: and as an artist a dead failure, if I may judge by his own remarks."
"A dead failure?" returned Daphne, resenting the expression. "Well there's one of his pictures in the next room, and you can judge for yourself whether he's a failure or not. He isn't the equal of Doré or Alma Tadema yet, but he may be, for he has genius, and some day it will be recognised."
"Ah, let us hope it will," I replied drily, meaning, of course, the reverse. "Thou shalt have none other gods but me" is the language of every lover to hislady, and Daphne's interest in the artist moved my jealousy a little.
"I am not sure that Germany has improved you," Daphne said, looking at me critically, "but never mind that now. You haven't seen my wedding gifts. They are in the next room. Papa, I am going to show Frank my presents."
And holding her long train with one hand, Daphne rested the other on my arm, and conducted me beneath some heavy hangings to the next apartment. The gifts were arranged in tasteful order on a wide and spacious table.
"You see this picture? It is Mr. Vasari's gift—the work of his own hand. 'The Betrayal of Ariadne' he calls it. Don't you think she bears a resemblance to me?—her eyes and hair are just the colour of mine."
I was somewhat surprised to see a painting which, in my judgment, rose far above mediocrity. The composition was graceful and the colouring harmonious. This is what the canvas showed: Faint blue waves rippling over amber sands; a maiden kneeling thereby, with the teardrops falling from her eyes, her arms extended towards a distant galley on the sea; and a human figure advancing from a wood with a wreath in his hand.
My comprehension of the work was aided by its author, who had followed us from the drawing-room.
"Theseus deserts her," said he, "but amid the woodland foliage on the left you will see the beautiful Bacchus: he will kiss away her tears, and console her for the loss of her false hero. See! he bears in his hand a laurel-wreath: it is the crown of fame, whose sweet attraction will cause her first love to fade from her memory like a morning dream. The picture," he added with a curious smile, "is a sort of allegory tointimate that second love is preferable to the first."
Daphne gave an indignant little gasp at these words, and elevated her pretty eyebrows.
"I don't believe second love is better than the first; do you, Frank?"
Had Daphne absolutely forgotten the cause which had banished me so long from her presence that she could thus appeal to me? Or, remembering it, did she delight in reminding me of the power she held over me?
"The sun is still the sun at noon and at eventide," I replied; "but it is only in the early morning hours that his beams are supremely soft and lovely. So with love. Second love can never have the sweet freshness, the dewy fragrance peculiar to the first dawn of passion!"
"Was Ovid's 'Art of Love' included in your curriculum of this year?" asked Daphne with a smile. "You have come back from Heidelberg quite romantic. Where have you learnt to talk so prettily?"
"In the school of experience," I returned.
She glanced quickly at me, and I saw that she understood my meaning. Her eyes drooped, and a colour stole over her face and neck. Her confusion was too evident to escape the eye of the artist, but affecting not to notice it he turned on his heel and left us as quietly as he had come.
"After the rich display of presents here," said I to Daphne, "my gift will appear but as poor in comparison. I trust you will not estimate it solely by its monetary value."
I drew forth a jewel-case I had purchased at Heidelberg. The pressure of the spring revealed a golden bracelet set with violet amethysts.
"For me?" exclaimed Daphne, and the tone of her voice gave me a delicious thrill. "Oh, how sweet!None of my gifts will give me more pleasure. Shall I wear it this—this morning?"
There was a hesitation in the enunciation of the last words that touched me more than an avowal of love on her part could have done. I nodded, and aided her to clasp the golden circlet around her slender wrist.
"I will return your gift, Frank, though in a more simple way. You have no bouquet. Let me choose you one."
There was a vase of flowers hard by. Daphne selected some snowdrops, and, placing them on a pretty fern-leaf, attached them to my breast, bending so low in the act that my lips kissed the orange-blossoms and stephanotis that gleamed in her dark hair.
"Do you know what this fern-leaf signifies?" she said.
"No; what?" I asked.
"Oblivion!" she whispered; and then, like a beautiful fairy, she glided from the room. I understood her.
"Oblivion!" I muttered. "Well, yes; fern-leaf may signify that, but you have forgotten that the snowdrop is the emblem of hope."
From Belgrave Square the walk to and from St. Cyprian's ordinarily takes about fifteen minutes. Allowing, say, another ten on account of the snowy weather, and it will be seen that the valet should have returned with George after the lapse of twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes passed, however, thirty, thirty-five, and yet George and the valet failed to put in an appearance—a circumstance that caused the guests to look at each other in wonder.
"What can detain them?" muttered my uncle. "If George is at the church, why does he not come here? and if he has not yet arrived, why doesn't Hall hurry back and tell us so, instead of keeping us in this suspense? Confound the fellow!" he added; "I could have gone and come twice over in the time that he has taken."
He walked to the window and looked out. The snow was still falling. So thick and heavy were the whirling flakes that the air was quite darkened by them. Still the bridegroom came not. The conversation languished, the guests yawned, and Daphne's face assumed an anxious look.
"It doesn't matter about going to the church to-day," she said in a trembling voice, in answer to a question from a friend, "if I only have George here safe andwell. I do wish he would come!" she said, her lip quivering. "Something must have happened to him."
"No, no, little woman, you mustn't get that idea into your head," her father said hastily. "His friends in that case would have——"
At last!
There was a ringing of the door-bell, a rush of feet to the hall, and twenty voices exclaimed:
"Here they are!"
The plural pronoun, however, was not justified by the event, for, on opening the door, only one person was visible, and that was my uncle's valet.
"Why, what! How's this? Where's the Captain?" exclaimed my uncle. "Speak low," he added, pointing to the drawing-room, as a sign he did not wish Daphne to hear.
"Captain Willard is not at the church, sir," whispered the man.
"Not—at—the—church?" repeated my uncle, pausing with astonishment between each word.
"No, sir. At least he hadn't arrived by the time I left. I have been waiting for him, and that's what has made me so long."
"What time did you leave the church?"
"Quarter past ten."
"And he was to have been there at half past nine!" cried my uncle.
"The Vicar wishes to know what you are going to do," said the valet. "Is he or his curate to come and perform the ceremony here?"
"That's a question that cannot be settled without George," replied my uncle. "Of course he's only being delayed through the snow. It's extremely awkward. Whatarewe to do?"
He paused a moment to reflect, and then said:
"Go to the church again. If the Captain is not there tell the verger to send him on here as soon as he arrives; and ask the Vicar or his assistant to step over here. Then hasten at once to theMétropole, andsee whether—whether any accident has happened to my nephew. Hurry!"
We returned to the drawing-room and explained matters to Daphne, my uncle striving to put the best complexion he could upon the case.
"It's only the stress of weather that's delaying him," he remarked. "George very likely spent last night with a friend—a brother officer, probably—who lives in the suburbs. The cab ordered to convey him this morning is unable to proceed, and so he's obliged to tramp on foot through twenty-five inches of snow. No wonder he's late, then. There's nothing to be alarmed at, little woman."
I leave the reader to imagine my state of excitement. Could it be that George was actually deserting Daphne? Was Fate after all reserving her for me?—a thought that caused my blood to course like a swift fire through vein and artery. I turned my flushed face to the bride. Poor Daphne! She sat there, silent and pale, with her hand clasping that of an aged lady-friend who was trying to assure her that there was nothing to be alarmed at. My selfish heart was touched by the sad picture. Had the time come for me to give an account of my meeting with George at Dover? Not yet. I resolved to await the return of the valet first.
Dark, and ever darker grew the gloom outside. It was impossible to keep up a pretence of conversation. Silence fell over us all, and soon nothing was to be heard but the sound of the embers glowing and crackling in the grate, and the painful ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. The waxen tapers in thechandeliers twinkled gaily to their reflections in the mirrors, as if they enjoyed the victory they were gaining over the daylight without. And still the bridegroom came not.
Presently there was another furious ring of the bell at the hall door, and again there was a rush of feet and a score of voices exclaiming "Here they are!"
"Who is it?" said Daphne, trembling like a leaf.
"I think," replied I, "that I can hear them saying a name that sounds very like Chunda."
"Chunda? That's George's native servant. Ask him to come here, Frank."
The visitor, having shaken the snow from his garments, was conducted—almost pushed—into the drawing-room, and turned out to be a dusky Hindoo in English garb. He was followed by my uncle's valet, who had met him on the way.
"Chunda," said Daphne, addressing the Hindoo, "where is Captain Willard?"
"I do not know, Miss Daphne," returned he, in a tone in which surprise and perplexity were blended. "Is he not here? He has been absent from the hotel all night."
"Absent from the hotel all night?"
"Yes, Miss Daphne. He left theMétropoleabout seven o'clock last night, saying he was going to spend the evening in Belgrave Square, and would be back about eleven. He never came back."
"Then he must be at Sydenham," said Daphne.
"So I thought," continued the Hindoo; "and as he had told me that he had some orders which he particularly wished me to attend to before the wedding took place, I set off for Sydenham, and waked up the housekeeper. But the Captain wasn't there, she said. I walked back to London—cold work it was, too,through the snow. But the Captain was not at the hotel when I got there; and had not been in while I was there, the hall-porter said. I found his bed untouched. I waited some time, and then, thinking there must be something wrong, I came here."
The artist now stepped forward into the circle which had been gradually forming around the Hindoo.
"I am afraid," he said, "that I must make a statement now that I would have made before but for the fear of agitating Miss Leslie; it is this: Last night, about twelve o'clock, happening to be at Charing Cross Station, I saw Captain Willard take the express for Dover. Before I could get near enough to speak with him the train was off. I was surprised to see him taking such a journey only a few hours before his intended wedding. 'But perhaps,' I thought, 'he has some urgent business to do at Dover connected with the marriage, and will return by an early train.'"
"It is true," I said in a voice too low to reach Daphne's ear. "As I was landing from the packet-boat this morning I saw George on the pier at Dover, but not to speak to. He avoided me—fled from me, in fact."
My wondering uncle gazed at Angelo and myself, as if not quite comprehending the import of our words.
"Do you mean to say that George has deserted her?" he gasped. "I will not believe it."
Once more the hall-bell rang, causing an additional wave of excitement to pass over the company. Alas! it was not George who rang, but that bearer of joy and sorrow, the postman, with a letter directed to "Miss D. Leslie."
"It is George's handwriting," said Daphne. "Read it for me, papa."
My uncle took the letter, and turned it over assuspiciously as Cardinal de Medici may have done with an epistle from Pope Borgia in the old Italian days when clerical dignitaries enlivened the monotony of their ecclesiastical duties by taking off their enemies with poison concealed in a glove, a flower, or a letter. At length, breaking the seal amid a deep silence, he proceeded to unfold the letter, and as he mastered its contents his face darkened.
"What does George say?" asked Daphne, with her hand pressed to her beating heart.
"He says," replied her father, not wishing to let the whole truth burst on her at once, "that he regrets having to defer his wedding for a few days, but as soon as——"
"That's not it! You are deceiving me, papa! Give me the letter. I will have it—it is mine!"
With difficulty she rose to her feet, trembling all over, and before my uncle could prevent her she had snatched the letter from him, and, oblivious of the company, read out each word aloud:
"Dearest Daphne—Break not your heart over what is as sad to me as you. That has occurred which compels me to leave you forever. What the terrible circumstance is that forces me to this step I dare not say. It has occurred only within the past hour. I can never hope to look upon your face again. We must part forever. By the time you receive this I shall be crossing the Channel. Do not seek for me: you will never find me. In some secluded part of Europe I shall live out my days a lonely recluse. Try to believe that this is all for the best, and forget that there ever lived such a one as"George Willard."
"Dearest Daphne—Break not your heart over what is as sad to me as you. That has occurred which compels me to leave you forever. What the terrible circumstance is that forces me to this step I dare not say. It has occurred only within the past hour. I can never hope to look upon your face again. We must part forever. By the time you receive this I shall be crossing the Channel. Do not seek for me: you will never find me. In some secluded part of Europe I shall live out my days a lonely recluse. Try to believe that this is all for the best, and forget that there ever lived such a one as
"George Willard."
Daphne would have fallen to the floor if some one had not caught her in his arms. She lay cradledwithin the artist's embrace, her fair face resting on his breast, and his arms wound round her slender figure. Brief as was this embrace, it was nevertheless of sufficient duration to make me hate him—for a time, at least.
Tenderly he laid the figure of my cousin on an ottoman. The ladies of the assembly crowded round, and applied such remedies as were at hand to restore her from her swoon. Angelo stood by the couch with folded arms, gazing at the prostrate form with a wistful look.
"Beautiful! What a model for an artist!" he murmured.
He must have had a strange taste in the selection of his subjects if he could have found pleasure in painting Daphne as she was just then. Her face had parted with its bright, fresh beauty, and had assumed the sharp and careworn look of age. Her bridal dress seemed almost to have lost its sheen: the white flowers in her hair to have become emblems of death.
Presently the artist raised his eyes with a light as of triumph in them; they met mine, and for a few seconds we stood looking at each other; and then I learned that some one besides myself had been wishing that George would never return. At length Daphne opened her eyes and spoke:
"It can't be true, it can't be true! George would never treat me like this. Oh, what shall I do?" and at last she broke down in a passion of tears, terrible to witness, and we men, conscious of our impotence in face of such overwhelming grief, stole from the room and left her to the women.
Much as the guests would have liked to relieve my uncle of the embarrassment of their presence in these unforeseen circumstances of sorrow, they wereprevented from doing so by the storm, which, having raged for many hours, rendered locomotion out of doors extremely difficult. My uncle made no excuses for his withdrawal from the company, and as soon as I could do so, I too followed him to his library, where I found him sitting with Angelo Vasari.
"I suppose," the latter was saying, "that Captain Willard is not very well known in Paris or London?"
A curious question this! What could it possibly matter to the artist whether George was or was not well known in Paris or London? Yet here he was putting the question with a similar show of eagerness as when asking me to study the twelve facial sketches.
"I doubt," replied my uncle, "whether there are six people in Europe who know him—know him intimately, that is. As a young man he graduated at Upsala——"
"In Sweden, you know," I interjected, for the enlightenment of the artist, who seemed to resent this attempt of mine to teach him geography.
"And then," continued my uncle, "after a brief interval in England he sailed for India, where he has been ever since till the last two months."
"And it was during that brief interval in England, I suppose," said Angelo, "that he became engaged to Miss Leslie?"
"Just so."
"And Captain Willard did not return to England, you say, till the preparations for his marriage brought him over?"
"You have it. Daphne and I took a voyage to India last winter, and spent several weeks with George at Poonah; and a very happy time we had of it, too.None could ever have guessed that their engagement would come to such an ending as this."
"Ah!"
My uncle's replies seemed to have given great satisfaction to the artist.
"You are quite a prophet," I said to the latter. "Your wedding gift, the picture, seems like a prediction of what happened to-day. Were you prepared for the event?"
"To a certain extent—yes," replied Angelo.
"Had you any reason for your belief other than George's strange appearance at Charing Cross last night?"
"Well, a day or two after I was introduced to Captain Willard, I congratulated him on his approaching marriage. His face changed at once from gay to grave. 'Don't allude to it,' he said; 'it may, perhaps, never take place.' I thought this strange language from one who had come all the way from India to be married, and asked him to explain himself, but he was silent. Since then, on one or two occasions when I have alluded to the wedding he would become melancholy in an instant; and I began to surmise that all was not right."
"Your surmises were only too well founded," I said.
And I began to tell the story of my night adventure. For a long time we sat discussing the affair, and devising all kinds of theories to account for George's flight.
"I can't understand it at all," said my perplexed uncle. "There was nothing strange or unusual in his manner last night when he left us. He talked in the most natural way of the wedding—said he would be at the church by 9:30 prompt. And yet he must have written that letter soon after he parted from us, forhe left here about ten o'clock, and it is dated, you see, just an hour later."
"And he must have posted it before midnight, too," said Angelo, "or it would not have arrived here by the morning post. Strange things must have happened in those two hours to change the current of his life."
Shortly afterwards he rose, saying with a smile, "Art is long, and time is fleeting."
"Il Divino cannot leave his easel, you see," remarked my uncle, after the departure of the artist, "not even for one day."
"Il Divino? Who's he?" I returned stupidly.
"Angelo, to be sure."
"Is that hisnom—de—de—brush?" I couldn't think of the French word, so I used the English one instead.
"It's a nickname his enemies have given him by antiphrasis, because he's so unlike Raphael."
"Can't leave his easel," I said, repeating my uncle's words. "Do you mean to say he is going to work on a gloomy day like this? Why, he won't be able to see, let alone paint."
"Nulla dies sine lineâ, you know. He lives in his studio, and can hardly be persuaded to leave it. It's a marvel he remained here so long this morning. He's dying to make a name."
"Do you think he will?"
"Can't say, I'm sure. It will not be for want of toil and study if he doesn't. He is occupied now on a great work which he fondly hopes will reverse the previous judgment of art-critics respecting his abilities."
"What is this great work?"
"'The Fall of Cæsar' I think he calls it, or 'TheTriumph of Cæsar,' or—or something of the sort. I know it's a classical subject."
And after this we relapsed into silence.
I shall never forget the melancholy and gloom of that day as we sat, my uncle and I, in the darkening room, each occupied with his own thoughts. The non-return of my brother did not afford me the happiness I had expected, for it was counterbalanced by Daphne's exquisite grief, which was a source of real pain to me. Having wished so earnestly that the marriage might not come off, I felt as if I were in some way responsible for my brother's non-appearance.
Next day I took an early train for Dover, with the intention of calling at the strange house, and of questioning its silver-haired occupant, who, I was now inclined to believe, knew more of the mystery than he had cared to reveal. Not till I had reached the Kentish sea-town was it suddenly forced upon me that in my haste and excitement I had forgotten to note the name of the street in which the strange house was situated; nor did I even know which way to turn on leaving the station.
The cranial development known to phrenologists as the bump of locality is not my strong point. For several hours I walked the streets of the town, knocking at the door now of this house and now of that, vainly believing that at last I had discovered what I sought. I lived at the hotel a week, and spent a considerable portion of each day in the streets, and on the pier and cliffs, thinking I might meet the old man taking his walks abroad; but all my endeavors to discover him were attended with failure. The silver-haired old man, the mysterious house, the veiled lady, my brother George—all were gone, and seemed now to have hadno more reality than the shadows of a dream. Once they were, now they are not.
I will not weary the reader with an account of the investigations carried on for many weeks by my uncle and myself. It will be sufficient to say that our endeavors to discover the cause of George's flight and to trace his whereabouts were fruitless.
"Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Daphne's morning, however, was a long time in coming and my uncle proposed to hasten its advent by foreign travel.
"A Continental tour will do her good," he remarked to me. "We will visit France, Spain, Italy. The glitter of foreign cities will perhaps help to remove her grief. You must come with us, Frank; we shall need you. A young fellow like you will be able to enliven and interest her more than any lady companion could do—certainly more than her old father, who is often prosy and dull, I fear. Being her cousin, you can talk to her with a freedom and an ease that in any other young man would be familiarity. And for heaven's sake try to make her forget her grief. Her sad face and thin wasted figure cut me to the heart. You do not mind giving up Heidelberg for a time?"
It would require no great sacrifice on the part of any young man to leave the cloisters of a university in order to escort a beautiful girl through Europe, so I gladly assented to my uncle's proposition, resolving, for my own sake, to try to make Daphne forget her grief. She yielded a willing acquiescence to the project of a Continental tour. Poor girl! She was in so dull and passive a state of mind that if we had proposed a voyage of discovery to the North Pole shewould have offered no objection. So, late in March, we left England, and by the end of the summer had signed our names in half the hotel books of Europe.
Night was just fading from the Alpine heights that girdle the quaint old town of Rivoli in the canton of Ticino. Two men, issuing from the entrance of a châlet perched like an eagle's nest on the jutting crag of a mountain far above the valley, paused to admire the grandeur of the scene. These persons were my uncle and myself, and we had risen at this early hour in order to witness that most beautiful of sights in Switzerland, sunrise. From the terrace of the châlet we watched the dim Alpine panorama gradually emerge from the shadowy reign of night. Silent and majestic from out the dark "sea of pines" the mountains arose to view, their icy peaks glittering with rosy-tinted hues in the soft, beautiful light that was now suffusing the sky.
"By Jove, what a glorious sight!" I exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Yes, for a poet or painter," replied my uncle, who, amid the loveliest scenery of Switzerland, sighed for the shady side of Pall Mall.
"That's a pretty little town down there," I continued, gazing at the spires of Rivoli. It lay at our feet in the valley beneath, so far down that it seemed like a toy city. "How the mountains seem to isolate it from the rest of the world! Rivoli? Rivoli?" I muttered. "I have never heard of the place before,"unconsciously telling a falsehood. "I suppose it's quite out of the track of the ordinary tourist?"
"Quite. We shall not see many specimens of that genus in the everlasting suit of grey tweed."
"What's that rough stone building to the right of us?" I said. "There! just by the cascade. A hermit's grotto?"
"Looks like it. A rather damp quarter for his saint-ship, eh? I suppose in this secluded part of Europe many hermits must have lived out their lonely days, and——"
He paused, stopped by the curious look on my face. "What is the matter, Frank?"
"Do you know that your last remark is singularly like an expression in George's letter of last Christmas?" and I repeated the passage, for every word of that epistle was engraved on my mind.
"Hum! so it is. A singular coincidence of language. 'Some secluded part of Europe,'" he added, quoting George's words. "It would be difficult to find a more secluded spot than Rivoli."
It was now August, and the object for which our tour had been undertaken—the removal of Daphne's grief—seemed to be accomplished. We had visited France, Spain and Italy. In the early days of our tour nothing could move her from the dull lethargy which had been her normal state since that ill-starred Christmas morning; but gradually, as week after week glided by, she began to take an interest, faint and languid enough at first, in the historic places through which we were passing, till at length she seemed to have become her old bright self once more. The colour had returned to her cheek and the smile to her lip. Whether this happier condition arose from a determination to forget her trouble and adapt herself to changed circumstances,or whether it was due to the secret hope that George might yet return to her with his name cleared from the dark shadow resting on it, I could not decide; she never alluded to him, and on our part, my uncle and myself made it a point not to mention his name in her presence. She treated me with the same sweet familiar freedom as of old, so that I found it difficult to believe that for three years I had been exiled from her at Heidelberg.
During our tour I had never betrayed by word or by act the state of my feelings toward Daphne. Satisfied with the pleasure of daily companionship with her, I was quite content to bide my time patiently, and wait for some clear indication that George had passed—not from her memory, for that could never happen, but from her affections, before venturing to express for the second time the love I had never ceased to bear.
We had arrived at Rivoli only the preceding evening, and were staying at a châlet belonging to a Swiss gentleman who had let it to us for a month. He had left behind one member of his household to supplement our own servants—an agreeable, talkative old woman, who had received us with an effusive hospitality.
A light step now sounded on the terrace and Daphne's sweet voice greeted us.
"I shall not say good-morning, for you don't deserve it. Why didn't you call me earlier, papa, that I too might have seen the sun rise?"
Her father kissed her hands as though she were some princess.
"Because I knew you would be tired after the jolting of that horrible diligence yesterday," he said; "and so I let you rest. But you have no hat, and the mornings here are chilly."
I ran indoors, and returned with a heavy wrap which I drew round her head and neck.
"Well, Daphne," my uncle said, waving his hand towards the châlet, "what do you think of our home for the next month?"
"It is lovely," she said, moving backward from the house to survey it better. "Just the place to dream away a summer holiday in."
It was indeed as picturesque a structure as could be found on a day's march through Switzerland. It was composed of fir-wood painted red, and the pretty low gallery which ran completely round it, together with the projecting roof, was adorned with the richest carvings.
"I see," remarked my uncle, "that the piety of the architect has decorated the facade with Scriptural texts—a common custom about here, I have observed. All in Latin—from the Vulgate, I suppose. Now, Daphne, show us your scholarship by translating them. What does the word over the entrance mean?"
"Over the entrance?" said Daphne, turning her eyes upon the carved porch. "'Reveniet;' that means 'He shall return.'"
Only one Latin word, and yet it had the power to make me tremble! During our Continental tour I had been continually haunted by the idea that in the next city or castle, or cathedral or palace, or ruin or theatre visited by us we should come face to face with George—an issue fraught with peril to my love enterprise. Though I was unable to assign any definite reason for it, this opinion had gained strength since our arrival at Rivoli.
He shall return!
Yes; there in letters of gold, that gleamed like fire in the rays of the morning sun, was the startlinganswer to the one question forever haunting my mind. A white cloud floating upwards from the valley at this juncture cast a cold shadow over us, and gave me an eerie sensation, as if George himself in ghostly form were passing by.
"He shall return!" repeated my uncle, in a vein of pleasantry that jarred on Daphne's feelings. "And who is it that shall return?"
"O papa! how can you? You know it refers to the millennium. I declare you and Frank are quite like two pagans! I don't believe you have entered a church for the purpose of worship since we first set foot on the Continent."
"Frank and I never go to church in Catholic countries. It's our way of showing our Protestantism."
Daphne turned from her irreverent parent, and became absorbed in the contemplation of the scenery.
"What peak is that to the left, Frank?"
"That," I replied, "is the Silver Horn of the Jungfrau."
And I proceeded to deliver a topographical lecture, interwoven with graceful legends and poetic quotations, specially prepared for this occasion on the previous night, in order that I might shine in Daphne's eyes as a hero of knowledge. A sudden exclamation from her, however, put a period to my eloquence.
"Who is this coming up the mountain-path? I have been watching him for a long time."
Whoever the person was, he ascended the mountain with the freedom of one to whom the path was perfectly familiar, selecting his way among the mossy boulders and grass-hidden pools without a moment's hesitation, and springing from crag to crag with the agility of a chamois-hunter.
"'Excelsior' evidently is his motto," said I. "Longfellow's young man, perhaps, 'mid snow and ice.'"
"Minus the 'banner with the strange device,'" returned my uncle. "Hanged if it isn't Il Divino! How comes he to be here?"
It was indeed the divine one, looking in the picturesque costume he was wearing more handsome and romantic than ever. A sombrero was slouched with easy negligence over his broad white brow, and a long cloak dropped gracefully from his shoulders. He had all the air of a man who, conscious of his personal charms, is determined to make the best use of them.
The look of pleasure that mantled Daphne's face had so disturbing an effect on my spirits that it was as much as I could do to treat the artist with ordinary civility.
"Angelo," cried my uncle after the first greetings were over, "I'm delighted to see you! But tell us how you came to be here, for I thought that outside of Switzerland few beside myself knew of the existence of this secluded valley."
"Rivoli the Beautiful is my native place," replied Angelo. Why had not Fate fixed his nativity at the sixth cataract of the Nile?
"I thought you were an Italian," I remarked frigidly.
"My parents were both Italians," replied the artist, "but I was born in that cottage;" and he pointed far down the valley to a tenement on which Daphne gazed with interest, while I, staring in a different direction, tried to catch a glimpse of a steel-blue lake through a veil of floating mist. "I have no parents nor any relations left. My old nurse still lives; and I make a point of visiting Rivoli each year to breathe the mountain air, and to see that the old dame does not want."
"A very pious and proper proceeding on your part," I remarked.
This was meant for sarcasm, but it did not seem to disturb the artist in the least. The look of disapproval on Daphne's face did not tend to tranquillise my mind.
"I arrived here only last night," Angelo continued, "and, hearing that a lady and two Englishmen had taken up their residence at the Châlet Varina, I guessed at once from the description who they were. I determined to call in the morning to present my compliments to Miss Leslie and her father"—he omitted me from his congratulations—"and to ask her to accept these flowers."
And with a graceful bow he presented to her a beautiful bouquet. I thought Daphne quite ridiculous in her admiration of it.
"O, how pretty!" she cried. "Thank you very much, Mr. Vasari. I am so fond of flowers. Smell how sweet they are, Frank." And she actually held the odious gift close to my nostrils for my appreciation. "Aren't they sweet?"
"Very," I said drily.
"Aren't these violets lovely, papa?" she said, appealing to her father for the appreciation she had failed to elicit from me.
"Purple," replied her republican parent, who was accustomed to spell king with a smallk, and people with a capitalp, "is my aversion, being the colour and emblem of tyrants and kings."
"How absurd you are, papa!" returned she. "What is your favorite colour, Mr. Vasari?"
"That which sparkles on the cheek of Beauty," replied the idiot, with his eyes fixed on my cousin's face. And certainly no colour could be more beautiful than Daphne's sweet blush at that moment, and my jealousyredoubled toward the person who had called it forth. "Do you understand the language of flowers, Miss Leslie?"
"Only a very little; do you, Frank?"
"Not I," I answered curtly. "I consider it an absurd study, if you wish for my opinion."
"You must permit me to teach you," said Angelo to Daphne, completely ignoring my remark.
"I shall be very glad to learn," was the reply.
I gasped for breath. The fellow was actually making love to her before my very eyes! The cool assurance with which he spoke and the graceful serenity with which he ignored my presence were quite maddening. Here was I, who had been Daphne's sole companion for five months, completely thrown into the shade by a foreigner who had been in her presence only as many minutes.
"And so Rivoli is your native place," said Daphne. "Why, of course, I have heard you say so many a time. How stupid of me to have forgotten! I remember now to have seen a sketch of it in your portfolio. How lucky, papa, that you hit on this spot! You must be familiar, Mr. Vasari, with every stream and crag and cascade about here—with every turn and wind of this valley; you must serve us now and then in the capacity of guide."
"I shall esteem it an honour to do so," he returned.
Matters were growing worse. The lamp that had so long illumined Daphne's path was now under a bushel.
"Look at those wreaths of silvery mist floating across the valley!" said she.