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CHAPTER XXVIII.

IT was a dark autumn evening-chill, gloomy, depressing. The breath of coming winter seemed to weigh on the air; a fierce wind blew over the hills and drove the rain in sheets before it.

Coming home through the cold wet fields, with the blackness of the shadows closing round him, André Brizeaux thought lovingly of his comfortable home and bright fire, and the sweet, warm welcome of Maï's loving arms and kiss.

Physically, he suffered less in his daily labours and the monotonous round of unwelcome tasks than he had expected; more especially when bodily fatigue weighed on his frame, and so dulled the whispers of ambition, the tempting of discontent. To-night he was eager to be home. He had been out since sunrise, and the chill and cold struck to his bones as he hurried on through the autumn dusk.

Maï was waiting for him, as he had imagined; but her welcome was hurried, her eyes looked anxious and affrighted.

"A messenger has come for you from the château," she said eagerly. "Mademoiselle wishes you to go there at once. There is some bad news, they say."

"Bad news!--of whom?" he cried, almost in terror. | | 299 The thought of Adrienne flashed across his mind. Had anything happened to her?

"I cannot tell you more," said Maï, still clinging to him. "They would not say what--only that you must go. You are to ask for Mademoiselle."

He put her hands aside, and took up his hat in a sort of dazed way. Maï followed him to the door.

"Will you not take some food first?" she said.

He shook his head. His brain felt confused--he could find no words. The dread that had fallen upon his heart rested there like a dull dead weight. He only felt he must know if she was safe--was well.

How he reached the château he never knew. Mechanically his feet found their way, and fear winged his steps to swiftest speed.

"Mademoiselle desires me," he said to the servants who gave him admittance. "Tell her I am here."

They showed him into a little room dimly lit, and furnished like a library. Here Céline de Valtour came to him. He started when he saw her. Her cheeks and lips were blanched, her eyes looked wild and anxious.

"You have come--oh, how glad I am!" she said breathlessly, seizing the young man's hands in unconquerable agitation. "I did not know what to do, to whom to send. Read this!"

She thrust a paper into his hand, but though he gazed at it he could not at first see its words or take in its meaning. At last, gropingly, dimly, the sense of it came home to him.

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These were the words he read:--

"The Count of Valtours has met with an accident in making the ascent of the Matterhorn. He lies at Zermatt Hotel in great danger. Can some friend come at once?"

André Brizeaux looked up at Mdlle. de Valtour's agitated face, and an intense relief came into his own. The dread of the last half hour left him. His heart seemed to leap and throb gratefully. She was safe after all.

"I dare not tell his wife," cried Céline de Valtour distractedly. "Since that telegram came I have been in agony. If Adrienne knew he was ill--dying perhaps--she would go frantic--nothing would keep her from his side. As for myself, I cannot leave her--I dare not; and who can I ask to go? I know none of my brother's friends, save Mons. Lamboi, and he had a quarrel with him. André, can you guess why I sent for you? Is it too much to ask of you to travel to Switzerland to see how he is--to send me word from time to time; to let him see one face from the old home beside him, as he lies ill and desolate in a strange place, tended only by strange hands!"

André stood there quite silent. She little knew what a hard thing she had asked of him. He could count by hours the time since he had paced his chamber with clenched hands, and murderous thoughts in his heart of this very man whom he was asked to help. What was Armand de Valtour to him, he thought bitterly? He had cheated him with false | | 301 promises, left him to starve or die in Paris, while his lips had been breathing dishonourable temptings in Maï's pure ears, and he had degraded and deceived his own wife.

"I have no right to ask this of you," continued Mdlle. de Valtour, noting his hesitation with pained surprise. "But I thought, having known us all from your boyhood, and being attached to the countess and--"

He made an abrupt gesture; a flush rose to his brow.

"I will go," he said simply.

He would rather she had asked him to end his own life. But Adrienne's name, and the thought of Adrienne's happiness, were more potent than any argument she could have used.

Céline de Valtour, looking at his changed face, saw how haggard and careworn it was, and how all its bright youth and grace seemed to have fled for ever. A throb of pity stirred her kind heart. Involuntarily she stretched out her hand to him.

"Thank you, André," she said gently. "You have, indeed, rendered us a service we can never forget."

Then she proceeded to give him instructions for his journey. He was to set out that night within an hour. Of Maï neither of them seemed to think. A paramount interest condemned her to forgetfulness for a time. Mdlle. de Valtour had refreshments brought to the young man, and herself made all the prepara- | | 302 tions for his journey, supplying him with warm rugs, and overcoat, and books to read during the long hours of railway travelling he would have. The route was clearly laid down; her simple directions explained all else. The carriage bore him to the station, and the midnight express found him speeding along in it to the side of the man whom he hated as a foe and despised as a coward.

Like one in a dream André Brizeaux watched the changing landscapes, heard the unfamiliar voices, changed from train to train, from diligence to diligence, saw tumbling torrents and vast forests and mighty mountains, and endured all the discomforts of long delays and bad management. At last Zermatt was reached, that heart and home of mountain climbers, that resting-place of records dread and daring. Towering far above all its surrounding neighbours, as if in majestic disdain of their own stupendous altitudes, he saw the Matterhorn rear its black and sterile crown.

Far above the line of eternal snow, august in its isolation, awful in its gloom, the monarch of mountains met the young Provençal's amazed and awe-filled eyes.

He had never dreamt of or imagined anything like it.

He watched it with breathless awe, with speechless lips. The glory of the sunset was flashing over its snow-covered companions. Piled up against the deep, exquisite blue of the sky was a confusion of | | 303 shapes and forms. Everywhere was the intense white of eternal snows, or the glittering flash of glaciers, or the pale green waters and silvery foam of cascades leaping from height to height or rushing down deep declivities, in scorn of all impediments of Nature or of man.

There was nothing puny or trivial. All other scenes and places seemed dwarfed into insignificance by the grandeur and mystery of scenes where brooded the isolation and the silence of an unending solitude--the awe and majesty of Creation's mightiest achievements.

André inquired his way to the Hotel Monte Rosa, and walked swiftly along through the queer little straggling street and among the odd little chalets that looked like Swiss toys set here and there.

With some difficulty he made it understood at the hotel who it was he wished to see. The manager came at last, and shook his head gravely as he spoke of the Count. The accident had been terrible. Armand de Valtour and a party of tourists had gone up one of the most difficult ascents of the great mountain. The party had gradually dropped off and given up--all except the Count, who, with one guide, had persisted in extending his exploration. The guide was some distance ahead when he heard a cry, and looking back saw his companion slipping backward down the deep declivity they had been ascending. The Count clutched at the sides of the rocks, | | 304 but could not stop himself, and was whirled down in a series of bounds over ice and snow till he reached a sort of gully on the verge of a precipice. Here he managed to stay his progress, and bleeding and exhausted he lay there for hours until the guide had procured assistance, and, by means of ropes and ladders, he was rescued from his perilous situation. His head was severely cut; he was bruised all over and his right knee was dislocated.

How he had escaped with life seemed a miracle.

Fortunately, medical attendance had been at hand in the hotel, but the doctor entertained very grave fears respecting his safety. Fever had set in now, and for days he had been delirious. The landlord, of course, made profuse assurances of the devotion and attention monsieur had received, and concluded his narrative by a warm welcome to the friend of monsieur, who, doubtless, would take some of the responsibility off their hands.

All this André listened to with grave coldness. When he was led to the Count's room he found him quite unconscious. His head was bandaged with linen cloths; his face looked ghastly. From time to time his lips moved, and incoherent sentences would drop from his tongue. A momentary feeling of compassion stirred André's heart at the melancholy sight. To lie here, friendless, uncared for, alone--he who had been the spoiled darling of fashion, the idol of so many women's hearts. Was not his fate strange, even though well deserved?

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Everything about the room, and even the sick man's position in the bed, had that comfortless, neglectful look which tells of hireling hands and careless attention. André did his best to arrange the pillows more comfortably, and place the light out of the sight of those wild and wandering eyes. Then he sat himself down to wait for the evening visit of the doctor--a physician of celebrity, who was staying in the hotel, and who, the landlord informed him, came always twice a day to see his patient.

It seemed an odd thing to the young Provençal to be sitting there by the side of the only man he had ever hated as an enemy. To know that in this hour of danger and helplessness he was the only one of all those whom Armand de Valtour had known and loved, and befriended and deceived, who was near at hand and ready to be of service. Only a few days before he had felt he could kill this man with scarce a pang of remorse.

Now he saw him lying weak and helpless as a child, more utterly at his mercy than his wildest dreams could have supposed.

He sat there silent and absorbed. The events of the last two days had been so rapid and confused that he seemed to have had no time for clear thought. With a sudden pang he remembered Maï, and how she would be distressing herself at his absence. He ought to write to her at once. Doubtless Mdlle. de Valtour had told her of his journey and its cause, but she would be anxious till she heard. He went over to | | 306 the table by the window, where paper and pens lay ready. He wrote two letters--one to his wife, one to Céline de Valtour. In the latter he gave full details of the accident, and described the Count's serious condition. He had hardly finished it when the doctor was announced.

He looked critically at André, asked a few questions, felt the pulse of his patient, and pronounced the fever to be abating.

"Do you stay beside him to-night?" he asked the young Provençal.

"Yes, certainly. I suppose he needs watching."

"The violent paroxysms of the fever are over--he will be weak and exhausted. Doubtless, he will sleep to-night. He has been unable to do that hitherto. You know him, I suppose?"

André coloured. "I am the tenant of one of his farms," he said.

The doctor looked scrutinisingly at the slight, handsome figure, the delicate face with its perfect features and colouring.

"You do not look very strong," he said. "You will find it tedious work nursing, and it will be long before he can get about. Even then he will be lame for the rest of his life."

He then proceeded to give André the various instructions as to medicine and nourishment, and so left him to the first experience of his unpleasant task. The young Provençal concluded his letter to Mdlle. de Valtour with a more hopeful account of the Count's | | 307 condition, then despatched his missives to the post, and took his seat by the window to indulge his eyes and thoughts with the lovely view before him. How beautiful it all was! The full moon shone over the silvered snow of the mountains, the little quaint houses, the valley, with its tumbling torrent, and wild rock, and great pine trees. The music of the foaming waters reached his ears and made him grow restless and ill at ease, cramped here between four walls instead of breathing the freedom and beauty of the mountain air.

His heart grew heavy within him.

There is neither man nor woman to whom the loveliness of nature is without pain, save they are very young or perfectly heart-whole. The beauty and wonder of it all may thrill their souls for a brief space, but then will come the memory of one who might have stood by their side and looked on it with eyes that answered to the wonder and delight of their own; of lips that might have spoken tender words; of a heart that would understand without explanation. But where all that sweetness of perfect sympathy is wanting, and life has only memories and regrets, what can they do save turn away with tear-dimmed eyes and aching hearts, and feel that forgetfulness is after all the only boon they desire--the one blessing the world cannot give.

Strange mystery of human life that never finds content when isolated or alone, that yearns and yearns through all joys, and miseries, and disappoint- | | 308 merits, for an answer from another life, the sympathy of another heart. The woes and sins of earth are so many; the passions and follies of life so great, and who has sight keen enough to read the glories that the future veils with impenetrable mystery?

Only those whose faith is surer than any hope of happiness; who from life expect nothing, and from death--all!

How long André sat there by that window he never knew. It seemed as if in those moments all the events of his past life passed in succession before his eyes; all the innocent happy dreams of youth; the intoxication of success as it had flashed before him when the white roses from a woman's breast were thrown at his feet, and he raised his eyes and saw the beauty that had filled his heart with unrest and madness ever since.

The laurels had faded now; his own hands had cast them from him. To-night, looking at all the loveliness around him, he felt the old stifled pain throb in his breast once more. He knew that he might have done much, and now he could do nothing. His flight was checked--his wings were broken; the dullness and dreariness of commonplace were all he could look forward to. But that strange adoring worship of a woman, who had ever seemed to him as an angel, still remained in his heart; was perhaps all the sweeter to him because it alone, of all his dreams, might live, though only in the secrecy of imagining-- | | 309 the thoughts of some such hour as this. "She will never know," he thought to himself. "Never; and it can do her no harm; and to me--well, it is in my life and of it. I shall never forget."

In some simple way it looked to him like a religion, this worship; it held no throb of earthly passion, no thought of earthly desire, no hope of possible fulfilment; but all the same, apart and above all other feelings of his nature--beyond all other interests of his life--this worship reigned in the purity of its exaltation; its sufferings, its impracticability--its madness only made it all the more enduring.

Chroniclers never tell us of the long existence of happy loves. It is always those that are wild as despair, vague as fancy, hopeless as death, that live and burn, and fire the poetry and prose of human genius, that symbolise the mystery and endurance of the one human passion that is fixed as fate, and deathless as eternity.

André Brizeaux, for all that he was a peasant-born lad, and had seen but little of life as the world counts it, yet felt this truth in his heart; as, indeed, all natures that are in any way gifted, or ardent, or imaginative feel it.

With the stillness and sorcery of such a night as this, with the beauty that no dreams had ever foreshadowed before his eyes, he was a different being to the man who plodded after his oxen, or tended his | | 310 vines, or bargained at the market-stalls. But he was not one whit a happier man than he knew.

A restless movement from the bed attracted his attention at this moment. He rose quickly and crossed the room, and bent over the helpless figure lying there. Armand de Valtour's eyes, languid, lustreless, but conscious at last, looked up and met that gaze of the man he had wronged. A great wonder--almost a fear crept into their dull and weary depths.

"André--you!" the pale lips murmured. "How came you here?"

The sound of that voice, weak as it was, roused the old dislike and disgust in André Brizeaux's breast.

"You were in danger. There was no one else," he answered abruptly.

Armand groaned aloud. Bodily pain asserted itself once more now the haze of unconsciousness had left his brain more clear.

"My wife--does she know?" he asked feebly.

"No, monsieur," said the young Provençal coldly.

"It is well," Armand de Valtour muttered below his breath. "André--I am dying. I feel it. Dying--God forgive me, with all my sins heavy on my soul, with the longing for my wife's forgiveness burning in my heart! It is just--I am rightly punished--I--"

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His voice failed.

White, and still, and senseless, he fell back on the pillows, while André's cry of alarm rang through the room.