The Silent Barrier

She knew that an amiable grin was on the man’s face; but it was so dark in the cabane that she could see little beyond the figures of the guide and his companion. She went to the door, and stood for a minute on the narrow platform of rough stones that provided the only level space in a witches’ cauldron of moss covered boulders and rough ice. Beneath her feet was an ultramarine mist, around her were masses of black rock; but overhead was a glorious pink canopy, fringed by far flung circles of translucent blue and tenderest green. And this heaven’s own shield was ever widening. Eastward its arc was broken by an irregular dark mass, whose pinnacles glittered like burnished gold. That was the Aguagliouls Rock, which rises so magnificently in the midst of a vast ice field, like some great portal to the wonderland of the Bernina. She had seen it the night before, after leaving the small restaurant that nestles at the foot of the Roseg Glacier. Then its scarred sides, brightened by the crimson and violet rays of the setting sun, looked friendly and inviting. Though its base was a good mile distant across the snow-smoothed surface of the ice, she could discern every crevice and ledge and steep couloir. Now, all these distinguishing features were merged in the sea-blue mist. The great wall itself seemed to be one vast, unscalable precipice, capped by a series of shining spires.

And for the first time in three sorrowful days, while her eyes dwelt on that castle above the clouds, the mysterious grandeur of nature healed her vexed spirit, and the peace that passeth all understanding fell upon her. The miserable intrigues and jealousies of the past weeks were so insignificant, so far away, up here among the mountains. Had she only consulted her own happiness, she mused, she would not have ordered events differently. There was no real reason why she should have flown from the hotel like a timid deer roused by hounds from a thicket. Instead of doubling and twisting from St. Moritz to Samaden, and back by carriage to a remote hotel in the Roseg Valley, she might have remained and defied her persecutors. But now the fume and fret were ended, and she tried to persuade herself she was glad. She felt that she could never again endure the sight of Bower’s face. The memory of his passionate embrace, of his blazing eyes, of the thick sensual lips that forced their loathsome kisses upon her, was bitter enough without the need of reviving it each time they met. She was sorry it was impossible to bid farewell to Mrs. de la Vere. Any hint of her intent would have drawn from that well-disposed cynic a flood of remonstrance hard to stem; though nothing short of force would have kept Helen at Maloja once she was sure of Spencer’s double dealing.

Of course, she might write to Mrs. de la Vere when she was in calmer mood. It would be easier then to pick and choose the words that would convey in full measure her detestation of the American. For she hated him – yes, hatred alone was satisfying. She despised her own heart because it whispered a protest. Yet she feared him too. It was from him that she fled. She admitted this to her honest mind while she watched the spreading radiance of the new day. She feared the candor of his steady eyes more than the wiles and hypocrisies of Bower and her false friend, Millicent. By a half miraculous insight into the history of recent events, she saw that Bower had followed her to Switzerland with evil intent.

But the discovery embittered her the more against Spencer, who had lured her there deliberately, than against Bower who knew of it, nor scrupled to use the knowledge as best it marched with his designs. It was nothing to her, she told herself, that Spencer no less than Bower had renounced his earlier purpose, and was ready to marry her. She still quivered with anger at the thought that she had fallen so blindly into the toils. Even though she accepted Mackenzie’s astounding commission, she might have guessed that there was some ignoble element underlying it. She felt now that it was possible to be prepared, – to scrutinize occurrences more closely, to hold herself aloof from compromising incidents. The excursion to the Forno, the manifest interest she displayed in both men, the concealment of her whereabouts from friends in London, her stiff lipped indifference to the opinion of other residents in the hotel, – these things, trivial individually, united into a strong self indictment.

As for Spencer, though she meant, above all things, to avoid meeting him, and hoped that he was now well on his way to the wide world beyond Maloja, she would never forgive him – no, never!

“I am sorry to hurry you, sigñora, but there is a bit of really bad snow on the Sella Pass,” urged Pietro apologetically at her shoulder, and she reëntered the hut at once, sitting down to that which she deemed to be her last meal on the Swiss side of the Upper Engadine.

It was in a hotel at St. Moritz that she had settled her route with the aid of a map and a guidebook. When, on that day of great happenings, she quitted the Kursaal-Maloja, she stipulated that the utmost secrecy should be observed as to her departure. Her boxes and portmanteau were brought from her room by the little used exit she had discovered soon after her arrival. A closed carriage met her there in the dusk, and she drove straight to St. Moritz station. Leaving her baggage in the parcels office, she sought a quiet hotel for the night, registering her room under her mother’s maiden name of Trenholme. She meant to return to England by the earliest train in the morning; but her new-born terror of encountering Spencer set in motion a scheme for evading pursuit either by him or Bower.

By going up the Roseg Valley, and carrying the barest necessaries for a few days’ travel, she could cross the Bernina range into Italy, reach the rail at Sondrio, and go round by Como to Lucerne and thence to Basle, whither the excellent Swiss system of delivering passengers’ luggage would convey her bulky packages long before she was ready to claim them.

With a sense of equity that was creditable, she made up her mind to expend every farthing of the money received from “The Firefly.” She had kept her contract faithfully: Mackenzie, therefore, or Spencer, must abide by it to the last letter. The third article of the series was already written and in the post. The fourth she wrote quietly in her room at the St. Moritz hotel, nor did she stir out during the next day until it was dark, when she walked a few yards up the main street to buy a rucksack and an alpenstock.

Early next morning, close wrapped and veiled, she took a carriage to the Restaurant du Glacier. Here she met an unforeseen check. The local guides were absent in the Bernina, and the hotel proprietor – good, careful man! – would not hear of intrusting the pretty English girl to inexperienced villagers, but persuaded her to await the coming of a party from Italy, whose rooms were bespoke. Their guides, in all probability, would be returning over the Sella Pass, and would charge far less for the journey.

He was right. On the afternoon of the following day, three tired Englishmen arrived at the restaurant, and their hardy Italian pilots were only too glad to find a voyageur ready to start at once for the Mortel hut, whence a nine hours’ climb would take them back to the Val Malenco, provided they crossed the dangerous névé on the upper part of the glacier soon after daybreak.

Pietro, the leader, was a cheery soul. Like others of his type in the Bernina region, he spoke a good deal of German, and his fund of pleasant anecdote and reminiscence kept Helen from brooding on her own troubles during the long evening in the hut.

And now, while she was finishing her meal in the dim light of dawn, and the second guide was packing their few belongings, Pietro regaled her with a legend of the Monte del Diavolo, which overlooks Sondrio and the lovely valley of the Adda.

“Once upon a time, sigñora, they used to grow fine grapes there,” he said, “and the wine was always sent to Rome for the special use of the Pope and his cardinals. That made the people proud, and the devil took possession of them, which greatly grieved a pious hermit who dwelt in a cell in the little Val Malgina, by the side of a torrent that flows into the Adda. So one day he asked the good Lord to permit the devil to visit him; but when Satan appeared the saint laughed at him. ‘You!’ he cried. ‘Who sent for you? You are not the Prince of the Infernal Regions?’ – ‘Am I not?’ said the stranger, with a truly fiendish grin. ‘Just try my powers, and see what will happen!’ – ‘Very well,’ said the saint, ‘produce me twenty barrels of better wine than can be grown in Sondrio.’ So old Barbariccia stamped his hoof, and lo! there were the twenty barrels, while the mere scent of them nearly made the saint break a vow that he would never again taste fermented wine. But he held fast, and said, ‘Now, drink the lot.’ – ‘Oh, nonsense!’ roared the devil. ‘Pooh!’ said the hermit, ‘you’re not much of a devil if you can’t do in a moment what the College of Cardinals can do in a week.’ That annoyed Satan, and he put away barrel after barrel, until the saint began to feel very uneasy. But the last barrel finished him, and down he went like a log, whereupon the holy man put him into one of his own tubs and sent him to Rome to be dealt with properly. There was a tremendous row, it is said, when the cask was opened. In the confusion, Satan escaped; but in revenge for the trick that had been played on him, he put a blight on the vines of the Adda, and from that day to this never a liter of decent wine came out of Sondrio.”

“I guess if that occurred anywhere in Italy nowadays, they’d lynch the hermit,” said a voice in English outside.

Helen screamed, and the two Italians were startled. No one was expected at the hut at that hour. Its earliest visitors should come from the inner range, after a long tramp from Italy or Pontresina.

“Sorry if I scared you,” said Spencer, his tall figure suddenly darkening the doorway; “but I didn’t like to interrupt the story.”

Helen sprang to her feet. Her cheeks, blanched for a few seconds, became rosy red. “You!” she cried. “How dare you follow me here?”

In the rapidly growing light she caught a transitory gleam in the American’s eyes, though his face was as impassive as usual. And the worst of it was that it suggested humor, not resentment. Even in the tumult of wounded pride that took her heart by storm, she realized that her fiery vehemence had gone perilously near to a literal translation of the saintly scoff at old Barbariccia. And, now if ever, she must be dignified. Anger yielded to disdain. In an instant she grew cold and self collected.

“I regret that in my surprise I spoke unguardedly,” she said. “Of course, this hut is open to everyone – ”

“Judging by the look of things between here and the hotel, we shall not be worried by a crowd,” broke in Spencer. “I meant to arrive half an hour earlier; but that slope on the Alp Ota offers surprising difficulties in the dark.”

“I wished to say, when you interrupted me, that I am leaving at once, so my presence can make little difference to you,” said Helen grandly.

“That sounds more reasonable than it really is,” was the quietly flippant reply.

“It conveys my intent. I have no desire to prolong this conversation,” she cried rather more flurriedly.

“Now, there I agree with you. We have started on the wrong set of rails. It is my fault. I ought to have coughed, or fallen down the moraine, or done any old thing sooner than butt into the talk so unexpectedly. If you will allow me, I’ll begin again right now.”

He turned to the Italians, who were watching and listening in curious silence, trying to pick up an odd word that would help to explain the relations between the two.

“Will you gentlemen take an interest in the scenery for five minutes?” he asked, with a smile.

Though the valley of the Adda may have lost its wine, it will never lose its love of romance. The polite Italians raised their hats and went out. Helen, drawing a long breath, withdrew somewhat into the shadow. She felt that she would have more command over herself if the American could not see her face. The ruse did not avail her at all. Spencer crossed the floor of the hut until he looked into her eyes.

“Helen,” he said, “why did you run away from me?”

The tender reproach in his voice almost unnerved her; but she answered simply, “What else would you have me do, once I found out the circumstances under which I came to Switzerland?”

“It may be that you were not told the truth. Who was your informant?”

“Mr. Bower.”

“None other?”

“What, then? Is my pitiful story the property of the hotel?”

“It is now. I took care of that. Some of the people there had been spreading a misleading version, and it was necessary to correct it. The women, of course, I could not deal with. As the General was an old man, I picked out George de Courcy Vavasour as best fitted to digest the wrong edition. I made him eat it. It seemed to disagree with him; but he got through with an effort.”

Helen felt that she ought to decline further discussion. But she was tongue tied. Spencer was regarding her so fixedly that she began to fear lest he might notice the embarrassed perplexity that she herself was quite conscious of.

“Will you be good enough to explain exactly what you mean?” she said, forcing the question mechanically from her lips.

“That is why I am here. I assure you that subterfuge can never again exist between you and me,” said he earnestly. “You can accept my words literally. Acting for himself and others, Vavasour wrote on paper the lying insinuations made by Miss Jaques, and ate them – both words and paper. He happened to use the thin, glazed, Continental variety, so what it lost in bulk it gained in toughness. He didn’t like it, and said so; but he had to do it.”

She was nervously aware of a wish to laugh; but unless she gave way to hysteria that was not to be thought of. Trying to retreat still farther into the friendly shade, she backed round the inner end of the table, but found the way blocked by a rough bench. Something must be said or done to extricate herself. The dread that her voice might break was becoming an obsession.

“You speak of a false version, and that implies a true one,” she managed to say constrainedly. “How far was Mr. Bower’s statement false or true?”

“I settled that point too. Mr. Bower told you the facts. The deduction he forced on you was a lie. To my harmless notion of gratifying a girl’s longing for a holiday abroad he added the motive that inspired his own journey. I overheard your conversation with Miss Jaques in the Embankment Hotel; I saw Bower introduced to you; I saw him looking for you in Victoria Station, and knew that he represented the meeting as accidental. I felt a certain responsibility on your account; so I followed by the next train. Bower played his cards so well that I found myself in a difficult position. I was busy guessing; but was unable to prove anything, while the one story I was sure of was not in the game. And then, you see, he wanted to make you his wife, which brought about the real complication. I haven’t much use for him; but I must be fair, and Bower’s only break was when he misrepresented my action in subsidizing ‘The Firefly.’ I don’t deny he was pretty mad at the idea of losing you, and jealousy will often drive a man to do a mean thing which might otherwise be repugnant to his better nature – ”

“Jealousy!” shrilled Helen, her woman’s wit at last finding a joint in his armor. Yet never did woman err more than she in thinking that her American suitor would flinch beneath the shaft.

“That is the word,” was the quiet reply.

She flared into indignant scorn. “Pray tell me why he or any other man should feel jealous of you where I am concerned,” she said.

“I am going to tell you right away – Helen. But that is the last chapter. There is quite a long record as to the way I hit on your track in St. Moritz, and heard of you by telephone last night. Of course, that part of the story will keep – ”

“Is it necessary that I should hear any portion of it?” she interrupted, hoping to irritate him, and thus lessen the strain imposed by his studiously tranquil manner.

“Well, it ought to interest you. But it has humorous points to which I can’t do justice under present conditions. You are right, Helen – you most always are. The real question at issue is my position in the deal, which becomes quite clear when I say that you are the only woman I have ever loved or ever shall love. More than that, you are the only woman to whom I have ever spoken a word of love, and as I have set about loving the dearest and prettiest and healthiest girl I have ever seen, it is safe to figure that you will have sole claim on all the nice things I can try to say to any woman during the remainder of my life.”

He hesitated a moment. He did not appear to notice that Helen, after a rebellious gasp or two, had suddenly become very still.

“I suppose I ought to have fixed up a finer bit of word painting than that,” he continued slowly. “As a matter of fact, I don’t mind admitting that ever since eleven o’clock last night, when the proprietor of the hotel below there telephoned to me that Miss Trenholme had gone to the Mortel hut with two guides, I have been rehearsing X plus Y multiplied by Z ways of telling you just how dear you are to me. But they all vanished like smoke when I saw your sweet face. You tried to be severe with me, Helen; but your voice didn’t ring true, and you are the poorest sort of prevaricator I know. And the reason those set forms wouldn’t work at the right moment is that they were addressed to the silent air. You are near me now, my sweet. You are almost in my arms. You are in my arms, Helen, and it sounds just right to keep on telling you that I love you now and shall love you for ever. Oh, my dear, my dear, you must never, never, run away again! Search the dictionary for all the unkindest things you can say about me; but don’t run away … for I know now that when you are absent the day is night and the night is akin to death.”

Guide Pietro was somewhat a philosopher. Stamping about on the tiny stone plateau of the hut to keep at bay the cold mists from the glacier, he happened to glance through the open door. He drew away instantly.