BOOK II (continued 2)

Julie did not get over the shock. Her nerves, always abnormal, snapped; she sank into a state of melancholy.

Floyd went up to her room one morning to tell her he wouldn’t be home to dinner; she was still in bed, crouching among the pillows.

“Are you waiting for Hippolyte?” There was a touch of irony in his voice.

“I’ve sent him away. I don’t want him any more.” Then she broke into sobs.

Floyd was glad to get that “shame” out of the house. Julie was beginning to mope again; she needed fresh air; he would look for a camp in the Adirondacks for the summer.

Julie brooded about her promise to Martin; the revulsion had set in as usual; she was again the mother, the conventional wife. She was afraid of his anger; she must keep away from him. All sorts of horrors took form in her diseased mind.

The clock struck twelve. The boy had gone to the Park with the nurse, a French girl, who spoke little English; they were late. She saw the child run over by a car, lying mangled under the wheels; she was in a paroxysm of fear, a distracted, neurasthenic woman.

“Mamma, see what I’ve got.”

She caught the boy in her arms, passionately kissing his eyes, his mouth, his hair, a handsome fellow, big for his age, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Mamma, Mamma!”

He took from Mademoiselle a beautiful, perfectly equipped motor boat.

Mademoiselle explained: “A big dark Monsieur ‘belhomme’ gave it to Joseph.” He said he was his Uncle Martin. He taught him to float and sink it. She couldn’t get the child away, that’s why they were so late. The boy took the boat to pieces and put it together again, with great dexterity. He was uncommonly intelligent.

“See, Mamma, this is the cabin.”

He pressed a spring which opened a little door in the bottom of the boat; within lay a neatly folded paper; the handwriting was Martin’s. Mademoiselle took the boy away, looking back furtively with her French comprehension at Madame. A few lines, begging, commanding her to come with the boy the following day.

She knew she would go; she couldn’t stay away. He would hold Joseph in his arms; she would take his kisses from the boy’s lips; her eyes gleamed. She would go; it would end as it must. She was lost! Hopelessly lost! She went to the Park every day for a week, leaving the maid at home; the boy was always there sailing his boat.

One day Martin took him up suddenly, pressed him in his arms, kissed him again and again. Julie looked on, the blood leaping into her face. They were her kisses. Then the boy put his arms around Martin, whispering, “I love you, Uncle Martin,” and fell asleep. Martin carried him to the car, motioned Julie to get in first, laid the child beside her, covered him up with the rug, then spoke in low tones of suppressed pain.

“You committed a crime against me, Julie. That boy should have been mine!”

All night and the next day, Julie had one of those terrible headaches; Floyd couldn’t bear her moans of pain....

Dr. McClaren took off his coat and goloshes, stopping on the spiral staircase to admire the beautiful colored glass windows. He found Julie crouching in a chair, her hands icy, her eyes roving restlessly.

“My dear Madame, I’m sorry to see you in this nervous state. What is it, tell me? I can’t help you unless I know! Is it your husband?”

“No, he is too good.”

“The boy, then?”

“No.”

“What is troubling you? Tell me.”

“Day and night I have a terrible fear that something dreadful is going to happen; I’ve had it often, but controlled it with a strong effort. Since the night of the fire it has come back with terrible force. I suffer tortures.”

“When you go out, do you feel as if someone were following you to do you harm?”

“Yes, yes,” she had her eyes fixed on the boat. It seemed to have a terrible fascination for her.

The doctor took the boat from the table, turning it over in his hands. He was thoughtful—puzzled.

“How perfectly they make these toys.”

“Yes, it floats and sinks like a real motor boat.” The suggestion gave the doctor an idea.

“Do you like the water?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Wouldn’t you like to take a long sea trip, to Europe, for instance?”

“I would like it very much.”

“I’ll speak to your husband about it.”

“No, no, I don’t want him.”

“You want to go without him?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward to catch her words which came in low gasps. “I want to—to slip away without anybody knowing. If you can persuade Floyd to let me go alone!—you’ll find him at his club.”

The doctor dropped off at the club that day and spoke to Floyd. He was sitting in the window gazing idly at the green square opposite; what Floyd saw there were flames mounting higher and higher; wherever he went they followed him, scorching him; the world was one great funeral pyre; the flames were drawing him in.

“Your wife is slipping back into the old condition of melancholia; we must prevent that.”

“Doctor, I do all I can.”

When he suggested a trip to Europe, Floyd gave a quick cry.

“No! no! I couldn’t!”

“I want her to go alone.” The same look of relief he had seen on Julie’s face. A pity; married so short a time. “I would like Miss Mary to go with her, but she is always so busy.”

Floyd was on his feet.

“She’ll go if I ask her; I’m sure she will.”

13

Miss Mary was at home in her little flat on the East Side of downtown. The cry of a newly born child came through the window. She smiled; her ears distinguished the sex. A girl fretted, wailed in a high-pitched, nagging tone; a boy fought, bellowed. Yes, this was a girl. Mary wondered how many men she would make miserable; that would depend on her face. What children men are! They marry a complexion, teeth, eyes. When they get at the woman, it’s too late. Some kick over the traces; most of them remain in harness from a sense of honor. The patience married people have with each other is wonderful, considering they are like dice thrown together by accident.

She thought of the Garrisons, and drew two lines on a piece of paper—one a parallel—that stood for him; he thought in straight lines. The other, broken with angles—that was she. She wondered if he understood that mysterious side of his wife. She saw his eyes, always trying to look happy, his sensitive mouth trying to say pleasant things. A knock at the door startled her; there he stood surrounded by the bare-footed little devils of the neighborhood. They had piloted him up the dark stairs. A little gold-head slipped her hand in his. He bent down and kissed her dirty face; then he distributed all his small change amongst them and shut them out.

“I’ve had a time finding you, Miss Mary. I’ve never been in this neighborhood before.”

“You should get acquainted with it; it’s more interesting than Park Avenue.”

“Poverty is terrible.”

“No, it’s wonderful; it keeps people human. But here there is no poverty; the people earn their living.”

“Such as it is.” He looked around the room. There was a cot in an alcove, a few chairs, a table, a shelf of books, and she smiling at him.

“You’re not feeling well, Mr. Garrison.”

“Oh! I’m well enough, but the springs are giving way.”

“We must brace them up.”

“Impossible, they are broken.”

“Then we’ll have to get you new springs.”

How young she was, how happy, and the bare room; here was—no ego that wants and wants—always taking, never giving—no expectations, no disappointment; Selflessness—that’s what kept her so buoyant.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, if you will.”

Then he told her of Julie’s relapse and the prescribed sea voyage.

“Dr. McClaren wants her to go without me; he thinks it will be better for her. You know her so well; what is your opinion?”

“Your wife is organically healthy, but there are pathological conditions—a radical change might do her good.”

She avoided his eyes; he was disappointed, but what else could she say?

He bent a little nearer.

“Miss Mary, if you will go with her, my mind would be at rest.”

She sat silent a moment.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot; I’ve pledged myself.”

“You are engaged?”

She laughed, clapping her hands like a child.

“To be married, you mean? Oh! no! I shall never marry.”

He laughed with her, like a boy.

“Not if you fall terribly in love?”

“Not even then!” Her eyes shone defiantly. “I’ve made a promise to myself, and I won’t be a deserter.”

“A promise to yourself?”

“Yes, don’t you, sometimes?”

“No.”

“You should, or life would become too accidental; we would be terribly tossed about.”

“That’s what’s happening to me. I am looking for some occupation, but I don’t want to get into a treadmill. The people toil at business, pleasure—they do the same thing day after day, year after year. Life is a habit, a deadening monotony.”

She drew up her knees, clasped her hands over them, bent forward. She was a quaint little thing; he had never known anyone like her. She spoke slowly, with difficulty; the words she had at her command couldn’t adequately express her thoughts.

“Life is a gift, not a habit. Every day we do the same things, but they must bring us something new in the doing. I’ve often thought, in the quiet of the sick room, what a privilege it is that I could sit there and help, when all the millions and billions of spirits are crowding the universe, and can’t get into life; I’m so glad I am put into a body—so happy, so thankful.”

“I have never thought it a privilege to live, never thought of life as a gift.”

“We depend too much on people and things to make us happy; we shouldn’t! Our happiness depends on no one but ourselves.”

He knew what she meant. Julie had colored his life for a time; now it was grey.

“I’ve never thought of it that way.”

She came nearer with a touch of eagerness.

“You will, won’t you?”

He answered simply:

“Yes, I will—”

Then she went to the table and took up one of a pile of opened letters.

“I have pledged myself to something which will take all my time, all my strength, and that isn’t very much.”

“No,” said Floyd.

“Nursing is gradually becoming a money-making trade. During the War, women seeking adventure with little knowledge were extravagantly paid. Now money is no longer easy, but prices remain high. Only people of means can afford a trained nurse; there is a great need. You don’t know how sick people are neglected for want of care. I am trying to bring together earnest women of all classes; there are so many who want to do something, and don’t know how. I have appeals from all over the country—piteous cries from women whose lives are empty; their school will be the bedside of the poor. You don’t know how quickly they learn, when their heart is in it. They pledge themselves to go wherever they are called, without regard to payment, like the nuns in the early days of Christianity. We are getting together a fund to pay their living. When they are not working they will study, we will have our own home, our own hospital. It has only been whispered, but you have no idea how easy it is to get money.” She showed him a letter signed by a well-known millionaire, who guaranteed a large sum. “There are many rich women eager to join us, who are seeking for something better, something nobler in their lives—you don’t know—you don’t know!”

No, he didn’t know!

“I feel very small, annoying you with my personal affairs when you are doing such great things.” He made his way to the door. Life was hopeless again.

“Wait.”

She was agitated, she couldn’t let him go like that; because—she loved him. She knew it now. A wave of gladness rushed through her. She had loved everybody all her life, but this love was like a wonderful magic touch—transporting her into some distant fairy world. She stood by the window; he saw the light on her face.

“I think I can manage it. I want to go to London to the headquarters of the Salvation Army, to Zurich, to confer with the Red Cross Sisters; if your wife will go with me, it will not be neglecting my duty.”

He grasped her hand. “Thanks, thanks. I’ll never forget this, never.”

He saw the blood surging up to her temples, receding, leaving her white. Her eyes were longing, pleading; they sought his. She was beautiful; his heart gave a great bound. He stood looking, looking, stammered something, then turned and went out.

The next few days he was kept busy about the cabins, rugs, passports, exchange. There was a feeling of warmth. He saw Mary standing there with that look in her face; he saw the woman for the first time. How wonderful she was! What a wife she would make! He hoped she wouldn’t marry. No man was good enough. He found himself thinking too much about her; then he went and bought something costly for Julie. He refused to stay alone in the house with that French woman. He coaxed Bridget back to take care of the boy while his wife was away. He wondered why Julie didn’t write to her friends.

“I don’t want anyone to know I am going.”

“Not even Maud Dillon?”

“They’ve moved away somewhere.”

He hadn’t seen Tom about town as usual. How people disappear when their money is gone and nobody misses them.

The car was waiting at the door. Julie, with a throb of pride, took the boy once more in her arms. The child was beautiful in his velvet suit and lace collar.

“You won’t forget me, Joseph?”

“No, Mother.”

She placed her photograph on the table beside his little bed.

“You will say good night to me? I will hear it. I will say good night to you; you will hear it.”

“Yes, Mother.” She put the worn Hebrew prayer book in his hands.

“You will read the prayer I taught you, every morning, every evening?”

“Yes, Mother.” The boy’s eyes fixed on her face grew deeper; there was a psychic connection between them. She went back to her own childhood. She saw an old man, with that book in his hand, his face lit with religious fervor.

“Julie, you will say the prayer I taught you, every morning, every evening?”

“Yes, Grandfather.” She had kept her promise.

The steamer sailed. Mary remained on deck to get a last glimpse of the solitary man standing on the wharf. Julie gave Floyd’s flowers to the steward to put on the dining table; there was a bouquet of exquisite red roses in her cabin. When they landed she wore one in her corsage.

14

The earth was thirsty; it poured down for three days, a slow soaking rain. Martin thought it would never stop. He walked along the lake in the Park regardless of his dripping hat. He was aching to see the boy again, to hear him say in his mother’s soft voice, “I love you, Uncle Martin.” What a mess he had made of his life; now he must steal what rightly belonged to him. He exulted in his power over Julie. Her illness was a fatality; it was her mother’s dead hand that had struck her daughter down to save her from him. A shiver ran through him; why was he so superstitious? He didn’t believe in anything—but sometimes a peculiar feeling took hold of him; there was another life far back, a mystery—something intangible. He walked hours in the rain—fighting invisible forces, cursing the conditions of his life; it all resolved itself back to the same determination. She had promised to go with him; she must keep her word.

Towards evening he rang the side-door bell at Hippolyte’s, hoping to get some news of her. The dark-skinned valet whisked off his coat, dried his dripping hair and neck, and preceded him into the Turkish room behind the shop. It was Hippolyte’s hour of rest before the night’s activity; he was lying on a divan, a picturesque figure, in a loose red silk robe. He waved Martin a welcome with his small white hand, the diamond, set in platinum on his finger, flashing rose color in the soft electric glow of the pervading red.

“Sapristi, Monsieur Steele. I was thinking of you.”

Martin dropped down in a deep chair, stretched out his legs. The aroma of coffee and a whiff of perfumed opium lent a sense of warmth to his chilled body.

“Of me? Are you in trouble again?”

His pipe-dream-visions changed into the cold reality of a check book; he had often helped the man out of his financial difficulties, he earned enormous sums, but the overhead expenses were fabulous.

“The money is nothing; it comes in and goes out like the tide. I am at the end, the compass changes. We must in Life watch for the Warning. We must train our ear to detect the direction of the wind.”

“You are superstitious?”

“We all are, if we knew its true meaning. Superstition is an intense sense of the Invisible.”

Martin drank the strong Turkish coffee, puffing at his chibouk. The man was a “hairdresser,” but that didn’t matter; Martin had no sense of class.

“My time in this business will soon be over. I was the only one for years when it was an ‘elite’ profession. Now it is vulgarized like everything else. There is a clever Russian woman who is taking all my customers; do you know why? The husbands are jealous.”

Martin laughed—he understood that; he would never allow this fascinating, purring Greek to maul his wife about.

“Mon ami, I know what you are thinking; you are wrong. They talk a great deal about the immorality of the American woman. It is not so—and it is a shame that it is not so. The French woman is honest; she have her husband, her lover; he has his wife, his mistress. Marriage is a success in France; they do not go about divorcing themselves. Here marriage is a failure, because every woman, young, middle age, old, talk of love!—it is only talk!—mon ami, talk! talk!—but she do nothing! nothing! Why! because she is afraid; the fear is in her blood from the old times in America, the fear of the ‘Scarlet Letter.’ Oh! she can love, Mon Dieu! and if by accident there is just a little false step, she make a scene, her relatives make a scene, the press make a scene, everybody make a scene. Oh! your Hawthorne did not know what harm he was doing to the future women of his country. The French authors knew better. La nouvelle Heloise—Camille, the heroines of de Maupassant, have set the women of France a glorious example.”

Martin smiled. The fellow was clever, insolent.

“Do you know how it will end?”

“No, my imagination doesn’t take me any farther.”

“Bah!—it is easy, she will go back to the pale face and the straight hair. You will see the little Puritan again. They have already forbid us the wine, the splendid opium, the tobacco, silk stockings, cosmetics, love—the whole nation will go to bed at nine o’clock—and their money will choke them.”

Martin laughed, but the man was very serious; he put his hand on Martin’s shoulder.

“Mon ami, you have been good to me. You know the Figaro has the soul of an artist; I am going to be good to you. I am going to tell you something you do not know; Mrs. Garrison will sail Saturday for England, without her husband.”

15

The Garrison “shanties,” near the river, were kept in as good condition as possible, but time and rats gnawed at their foundations. On one of these the passer could read, with some difficulty, the faded letters of an old sign, “Martin Steele and Son, Established 1830.”

Since Mr. Steele’s death, the business had been carried on by a Mr. Waldbridge, who knew and followed the old conservative methods of the defunct Steeles. Young Mr. Steele was expected to take his father’s place as head of the firm, but he stayed away, took what money he wanted, a ridiculously small amount for a man of his means, leaving the surplus in the business. Waldbridge had written several times asking him to come down and look over the books. Finally, he appeared. He was a mystery to Mr. Waldbridge; all the young business men of the day were eager speculators. He had expected new ideas, a business revolution; but no such things happened. He would sit about, watch closely the proceedings, but made no suggestions. His visits grew less and less frequent.

“What does he do with himself?” thought Mr. Waldbridge. “He doesn’t gamble. He’s never seen at the races or baseball games. His name has never been connected with women. What kind of a man is he?”

Martin sat opposite him in the private office, flung his soft hat on the floor, crossed his long legs; his hair was disarranged, his face a yellow pallor; his clothes hung loosely, he was very thin. His “appearance” struck Mr. Waldbridge as very un-American—he himself being an Erie Road commuter with all the proud consciousness of a one hundred per cent Nationalism.

He spoke cautiously of the hard times and unsatisfactory business conditions. They had advanced money on large stocks of merchandise; there was nothing to do but to hold on. If they forced the sale, it would mean enormous losses.

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Martin impatiently. “We couldn’t go on gorging money at that rate; we’d have to vomit it up sometime. No stomach could hold it; that’s what we’re doing now. Some people die suddenly from it; we’ll have a lingering end.”

Waldbridge laughed uneasily, really a very unpleasant young man.

“I hope we will weather it. I’ve been discounting—and—”

Martin interrupted again—discounting meant nothing to him—although he was flying some moral “kites” on his own account.

“Do whatever you like; I’m out of it.”

Waldbridge rose to his feet.

“What do you mean?”

“You can take my father’s name down.”

“If you liquidate the business now, it will mean disaster.”

“I have no interest in it. I am leaving New York.”

Then Waldbridge broke down. It was terrible, a long-established, respected firm—wreckage—pure wreckage; that word seemed to have a fatal significance in Martin’s life.

“Can I count on, say, ten thousand a year for ten years?”

Julie was luxuriously inclined, because her heart had been empty. He would take her away from cities; they would live somewhere quietly in the country.

Waldbridge smiled. “You can always have that and more if you want it.”

Then Martin did a wonderful thing, so wonderful it left Waldbridge speechless, staring at him. Was the man mad? There was a taint of insanity in the family.

Martin read his thoughts.

“I’m thirty-two years old, and I know what I am doing. I want you to turn this business into a company; every man in it, from the lowest to the highest, must have his share. You, of course, will be the head of the firm. Get a good lawyer and do it legally. You’ll have your work, every mother’s son of you, to get the old hulk out of the mud; if you do, you’re entitled to the spoils.”

“And the capital?” gasped Waldbridge.

“I told you what I want, the rest I’ll leave in business; you can’t go on without it, can you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the use of talking about it.”

He held out his hand; Waldbridge grasped it, trying to stammer out his gratitude, but Martin was gone. He dashed out of the place, threw himself into a taxi.

“Uptown.”

The New York chauffeur is accustomed to indefinite addresses. He looked back at the man with his hat pulled over his eyes, crouching in a corner. “A bloke who had lost his wad.” Then he wondered if it was a defaulter or a gunman—some of them looked like perfect gentlemen. He drove uptown, entered the Park. There he stopped. He was hungry; that guy in the corner could sleep all day.

“Where to?”

Martin, pitched forward by the sudden jolt, glared at him.

“The Waldorf.”

He sprang up the stairs three at a time, too nervous to wait for the elevator, looked around the room, which was in disorder; his man couldn’t keep it tidy. Martin flung everything about.

He would take nothing with him but a dress suit case. He caught sight in the corner of an old box covered with deerskin, tied together with a thick rope; he had taken it from the garret after his grandfather’s death, but had never opened it. He untwisted the knots, one after the other. It was a hard job. It hurt his fingers. He took out a pair of mountain boots, goat’s leather, with large nails in the soles. Martin looked down at his feet; they would fit him. He pulled out an old woollen shirt, a pair of corduroy trousers, a felt hat with a green feather, a bright colored vest, and red handkerchiefs. There was a small chamois bag with strange coins, Swiss money—Martin examined them curiously; a pack of old letters, a photograph of a young boy and girl, a cow, and a high mountain at the back. That mountain fascinated him; he looked at it long, intensely. The raw boy and girl in Swiss dress were his grandparents. Martin thought of his mother. On the back of the card there was something printed which he made out with difficulty: “Val Sinestra.” He had never heard the name. He put everything back in the trunk and roped it; the idea came suddenly: he would take it with him, to Switzerland.

16

After Julie left, Floyd spent his evenings at the club; there were many strange to him. The membership had increased; it was still a mark of class to be seen lounging at the club-window in the afternoon.

He missed Martin. He was different from the others. When he raved against the world, he said things in bad taste, but often the bitter truth. With a sudden impulse, he wrote a few lines, asking him to lunch at the club the following day. He’d be furious when he heard Julie had sailed. He’d say, “You might have given me a chance to send her a few flowers.” Floyd smiled; yes, he liked Martin; more than that, he loved him; he was interwoven with the memories of his childhood, his youth. He wished that episode had not happened when Julie was ill, but she was unconscious of it. She had never in all that time mentioned his name. It was all in his own evil mind. He mentally asked pardon of Martin. The next morning at breakfast he had a feeling of agreeable expectancy.

The boy was crying upstairs. Bridget couldn’t quiet him.

“What’s the matter up there?”

The child fretted for his mother. He had caught a cold, and had been kept in the house for some days. He was standing with his boat in his hands, sobbing piteously. Floyd pacified him by running the water into the bath which was sunken in the center of a tiled room. The boy handed his father the boat.

Floyd turned it over in his hand.

“A costly toy. Mamma is good to you.”

“Mamma didn’t give it to me.”

“Yes she did—Mamma gives you everything.”

“She didn’t,” insisted the boy. “My Uncle Martin bought it for me.”

“Your Uncle Martin?”

“Yes. He came every day to the Park, and then he put a note in the cabin, telling Mamma to come, and she came.”

“Where is the cabin?”

“You can’t find it, nobody but me.”

The boy in great glee pressed the spring.

“There’s no letter there!”

“Oh! no! I gave it to Mamma; she read it and tore it up.”

Floyd pushed the boy away. He was making a spy of his innocent child. Why didn’t Julie tell him?

“Did Mamma meet Uncle Martin in the Park every day?”

“No, not every day; she’d stay away sometimes because Uncle Martin scolded her and she’d cry. He loved me and petted me and said he was going to steal me away.”

“But you wouldn’t leave me, would you, Joseph?”

The boy meditated, and then told the truth.

“Perhaps I would, Papa, if Mamma came along; but I don’t think she’d come because Uncle Martin scolded her too much. I was mad at him and said ‘Uncle Martin, you’ll have to beg Mother’s pardon; I always do when I’m bad.’ Then Uncle Martin laughed and gave me such a long kiss and said, ‘There, take that to Mamma and it will be all right.’”

Floyd sat motionless with the boy in his arms. The little fellow’s eyes drooped, he slid down, pillowed his head on the big fur animal; those glassy eyes brought Floyd back to Mrs. Gonzola—why did she always watch Julie? He had never asked any questions about the unexpected call on the telephone. He had been deliriously happy; there was no room in his thoughts for the past.

He bent over the child, noting the beautiful powerful body; neither he nor Julie had great physical strength. The boy would be a giant. Why did Mrs. Gonzola press such a quick marriage? Why did she keep him away so much during their short engagement? Why did she want Julie to get “used” to the idea? As a child Julie liked Martin better; they’d disappear and he’d wander about looking for them, then go home disappointed. In his mad desire to get her, he had really done Martin an injustice; he should have waited. He didn’t do the square thing, because—he knew Martin would have won out! He bent lower over the boy—trying to find some clue in that innocent face! The blood rushed to his head—he must have it out with Martin—he couldn’t go on with evil suspicions of his wife, his friend. Martin was no liar! He always told the brutal truth, even if it were against himself.

The night brought sanity, consolation. Julie was foolish, but not criminal. Her religion wouldn’t let her do anything wrong. She went to Confession the day before her marriage; then he wondered—what did she really believe? She was by creed a Catholic, but she taught her boy his prayers in Hebrew.

He went early to the club and waited for Martin, who was late as usual. He looked at his watch, and idly took up the morning paper.

His eye caught a headline. “The Aquitania sailing with a distinguished crowd on board.”

What! the ship already back and sailing again? It was the usual summer rush; he knew most of the names. One riveted his gaze. He read it once, twice, three times; the paper dropped from his hand. He saw that name wherever he looked. Martin Steele had sailed on the Aquitania.

It was ten days before the next steamer crowded with pleasure-seekers sailed for England. At the last moment Floyd came on board, too late to have his name in the passenger list. The only cabin left was on the lowest deck inside. He went down, locked the door, unpacked his valise. Most of its space was taken up by a silver-mounted leather box—one would say an elegant toilette case. He opened it, took out a brace of shining pistols, examined each one carefully, and put it back in the box. He had no definite plan, but when a man catches a thief in his house he shoots him....

17

Martin arrived in London and put up at the Savoy; he noticed the crowds of fine young fellows and beautifully dressed women.

“Is there anything unusual going on tonight?”

“Yes,” said the polite young clerk, “a dinner and dance, in honor of Mrs. Garrison, an American lady.”

Julie had been received by the Ambassador in London with great cordiality, on account of his old friendship for Jimmie Garrison. Mary wrote to Mr. Garrison:

You have all reason to be well satisfied with your wife. We have done the right thing. She is enjoying herself. She looks like a young girl; the element which disturbed her has disappeared. I find her so much more normal.

The letter never reached Floyd.

Martin stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Julie, who was surrounded by eager applicants, waiting their turn to dance with the “silver-haired beauty.” He took in the soft white neck, the dimpled arms, the small classic head, and that something in the curve of her mouth and yielding smile—a triumphant sensuality. She swept past him. He could have touched her; he stood motionless.

Mary was up early the next morning. She stood looking at Julie, in a deep sleep, her hair falling loose, enveloping her in a veil of unreality; then she shut the door softly and went into the salon. Waiting for her simple breakfast, she watched the passing busses and pedestrians in the street below. All large cities are the same, but different, like people; each individuality giving another form to the Image or material symbol. London has a distinct personality; nobility of character is unmistakably stamped upon it.

The door opened; she turned and saw Martin. There was a momentary fear; then she was her quiet self again. Martin apologized for startling her. They measured each other; he saw an enemy.

“Why are you so antagonistic to me?”

“I’m never antagonistic without reason?”

“What reason have I given you?”

She looked keenly at him. He was well groomed—a clean-shaven, intense face, fascinating for some women; he repelled Mary. He has courage to show his mouth, she thought.

“I have been sent here by Mrs. Garrison’s doctor; she has had a serious illness, you know that.”

“Yes.”

“She may at any time fall back into the same condition. I don’t want her to know you are here.”

“Why?”

There was a gleam of humor in his eyes; it angered her. Why should she play policy with him?

“Because your presence may excite her. You are Mr. Garrison’s friend. I hope you will take my advice and not try to see her until she has finished her cure.”

“What cure?”

“She has been sent to a place in Switzerland called Val Sinestra, to drink arsenic water; you see I am keeping nothing from you.”

“Very kind, I could easily find out. Val Sinestra?” The name was familiar.

She stood with her hand on the door-knob waiting for him to go.

“Val Sinestra. I will write her.”

“I have orders to withhold any communications which may excite her.”

“Orders from her husband?”

“No, from her doctor.”

Her eyes shot fire at him....

He went back to his room, took out of his bag the bundle of old letters. Yes, that was the name, “Val Sinestra”; it was Destiny.

There were two sides to Martin: a fiercely brutal realism, and a mysticism, instinctively concealed. As a boy, he would lie night after night, his eyes wide open; visions came and faded. It was always the same struggle with an unseen horror. He would awaken from a restless sleep, his face damp with tears. Those days he was very silent; his stepmother called them his sullen fits. As he grew older the visions vanished, but he had hours of deep abstraction, when reality slipped away from him.

He sat in his room, the banal colored post-card of the two young peasants in his hand. There was a sudden consciousness of Liberation; the other self flew out and away through walls, over seas, over mountain peaks, soaring, soaring. He sat there for hours motionless.

That evening the hotel clerk handed Miss Mary a note. It contained one line scrawled on half a sheet of paper.

“Am leaving for Paris.”

She was very glad, she wondered how far it had gone between those two. The responsibility was heavy.

18

At thirty-two Martin put his foot for the first time upon the soil of his ancestors. He roamed through Zurich; mounted its narrow cobble-stoned alley-ways, stood before an overhanging house reading the inscription. “This house is three hundred years old.” The lives of Zwingli, Pestalozzi became familiar. He read ravenously the history of the town. He stood on the border of its blue lake, encircled with snow mountains, “A Turquoise on a white bosom.” Something stirred in him, an inward convulsion, like the sudden eruption of an extinct crater; he broke into choking tearless sobs. Martin, unknown to himself, had the Swiss temperament—a people without the gift of self-expression, a deeply religious peasant race, silent before the mystic beauty of their mountains. Patriotism, that misunderstood word, with its medieval clashing of swords, its uniforms, its medals, has no relation to the Swiss adoration of the soil. He worships his valleys, his lakes, his waterfalls; they are living to him; he has a rage for the mountains; he leaves his country to seek wealth, but he rarely stays in the stranger’s land; nostalgia drives him home; he must get back to the heights or die. Martin understood later why his grandfather went mad, why his father was wordless, why his mother died young.

He tried his Swiss on the portier of the Bauer au lac Hotel, a man of all-round information, a veritable encyclopædia of Switzerland, who could answer in the many languages of the cosmopolitan crowd, on its way to and from the mountains. Martin spoke a few words to him in his grandfather’s “lingo,” then said, “What am I speaking, anyhow?”

“Your dialect is Romontsch or Romance. Your people came from the Grisons.”

Then he explained how in the Middle Ages the Barons and Bishops had oppressed the people, and how they formed Leagues and fought for their freedom. The Grisons took their name from the “Gray League,” a heroic band of peasants.

Martin left Zurich by the early train the next morning; he sat the entire day gazing out of the window unconscious of the other passengers. A great moving picture shot before him—green valleys, velvet hills, beautiful grazing animals, brooks changing into waterfalls, cataracts dashing down dark ravines, mountains growing higher, higher. At Tarasp he stayed over night to connect with the stage-coach at daybreak, and spent the evening sitting outside with the guides, who told him of the Val Sinestra, where the bandits used to live in caves, deep down in the ravines, and smuggled wine over the border. Then they spoke in lowered tones of the danger of mountain climbing—of death—of miracles they had seen above in the mist, with their own eyes.

With the rising of the sun, seated beside the coach driver, Martin pierced the mountain passes; they stopped at a quaint hamlet.

“We turn here,” said the old man. Then he wished “Godspeed,” cracked his whip, and went on. The coach pitched from side to side, on a perilously narrow road, but the horses were sure-footed, and the driver, past seventy, had gone the same way for fifty years.

Martin drew deep breaths of the fragrant air; he looked about him. The houses were a mixture of old Swiss and Italian architecture—the protruding windows and little balconies were covered with bright flowers; in the distance he caught sight of a picturesque church and cemetery. He entered an inn with a swinging sign; a rooster flapping its wings. The spotless floors sprinkled with sand, the small counter with shelves of bottles, the peasant girl in the costume of the Canton—it was all so familiar. She brought him a glass of wine and a pretzel, smiling at his jargon. He remarked on the absence of men.

“They are ‘up there’ with the cows for the summer.” She pointed to the green hills, gradually becoming steeper. “In those little huts on the top they make the cheese which they send all over the world. In the winter the sun doesn’t come up very high; it is like a blue twilight here. The storms howl, the snow falls for weeks. When the peasant closes his eyes, the avalanche haunts him; if he awakens in the morning he is grateful to God.” The girl went on chattering in her soft “Romance.” “The doctor goes down to Croire in the winter, but our pastor stays with us. We have service here when the snow is too deep to walk to the chapel.” Then she put down the glass she was polishing, and went joyously to the door to meet a tall man, a gigantic peasant, with masses of thick gray hair falling to his shoulder. He was long past seventy, but showed no signs of age. His voice rang out stentorian, clear. He was warm, wiping the perspiration from his face with a large red handkerchief. He looked at Martin with keen penetrating eyes. Then said, “Good morning.”

“Oh, you speak English.”

“Yes, we have many English visitors. Our children are taught it in the schools.” He looked again, seemingly puzzled.

“What is your name?”

“Martin Steele. My people come from over here.”

“Steele.” He shook his head. “I know none of that name.”

Martin took from his pocket the bundle of old letters. One glance at them and the pastor’s arms were around him.

“I wrote those letters to your grandfather. I am his brother. You are not an American, you are a Swiss. Your name is not Steele, it is Staehli—Martin Staehli. The eldest of our family, for generations back, was always Martin.”

Martin felt a throb of joy; the blood of this fine old man with the head of a Roman ran in his veins. He had known only Aunt Priscilla, whom he wanted to burn.

“Come, I am going to take you home with me.”

Martin looked back at the Swiss “Madel.” In her red skirt and velvet bodice—an image of national womanhood.

They walked together down the hill, through the fields, past the little chapel and cemetery where they stopped. On the headstones he read again and again the name, “Martin Staehli.” He would bring his grandfather, his parents and lay them where they belonged, and he would lie there beside them.

The pastor looked up at the great mountain, already casting a shadow over the valley; even in summer the day was short. The night came early and lingered.

“We are not all here. My son was the best guide in the Canton. He was lost in a snow-drift up there.”

At the châlet with its black beams, centuries old, still strong, unyielding, he put his hand over Martin’s head and blessed his entrance into the home of his fathers.

Martin stood in the long hall, vaguely conscious of atmosphere. A cuckoo sprang out of an old clock, chanting the hour; a spinning wheel with threaded flax; new linen piled up; a living thing, that wheel, it clothed the people. Carved chests, plaques of fruit, birds cut out by the natives, when the country was Italian—everything in the room bearing witness,—a living story-teller of the lives and times of the vanished family. For the first time he felt the antique. He was swayed by a kind of psychic storm, like a rush of wind through the pass of a mountain.

The pastor at the door called, “Angela, Angela.”

A clear voice answered; she came down the path—a girl of sixteen, with bits of hay in her flaxen hair, a child-like look of wonder in her blue eyes, and something more—of mystery. Martin thought of Joan of Arc in the orchard.

On seeing Martin, she gave a quick impulsive cry. The pastor put his arm around her.

“What frightens you, Angela? It is my brother, Martin’s son from America.”

Angela extended her hand, but her warm radiance had vanished. “Come out in the sun, it is cold here.”

She brought mugs of thick yellow milk, brown bread, delicious chipped beef, then went again into the field and sat sorting out leaves from a basket. The pastor followed Martin’s gaze which lingered on the girl; she appealed to his artistic sense.

“Angela is a wonder child; she is not of our family. I found her one moonlit winter night in a snow-drift—a white angel. Since she came the village has prospered; the people are happy.”

Martin smiled: probably the child of some unfortunate village girl. The pastor read his thoughts. “She belongs to no one; she is a miracle-child. You don’t believe in miracles?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

A simple question, difficult to answer. He couldn’t express the longing, which from childhood had made him restless, unhappy—a longing for some other space, some other element. He couldn’t explain his agitation, his unbearable joy, when he saw those scenes of which his grandfather had babbled in incoherent broken bits. He answered conventionally.

“I wanted to see the place where my grandfather was born.”

The pastor grew very serious. “It was not a case of idle curiosity you were drawn here; Angela knew you were coming. I used to tell her stories of your grandfather, Martin Staehli. He was queer; had a streak in him of evil. He got into a brawl with a guide and killed him; he had to leave the country.”

“I never knew that,” said Martin.

“That’s why he changed his name. I wrote to him often, but he seldom answered. Poor Martin, he got very rich.”

Martin laughed bitterly. That almost uncontrollable instinct to destroy was his inheritance.

“Angela said the third generation would return home. She has the gift of prophecy and of healing. She cures the people of their ills. The cattle run to her for her herbs; there is a magic in them. She brews them with Prayer, with Love.”

Martin shook off a peculiar feeling; it was all superstitious nonsense, an insult to a man’s intelligence. He rose to go.

“You will stay here with us?”

“I’m sorry, but I must meet some friends. Where is the Val Sinestra Hotel?”

“A little distance from here, on the other side of the hill beyond the hay-field.”

Martin looked up at the straight stony walls of the big mountain.

“I’m going to climb that mountain,” he said.

The pastor smiled. “Perhaps, when you have had long practice; a man must train himself to climb.”

The pastor watched him as he went with quick uneven steps, stumbling here and there; he had no equilibrium. He’d never climb that mountain.

Angela was also watching Martin. The pastor put his hand on her shoulder; she started.

“He terrifies me; I am afraid of him.” She threw herself sobbing into the old man’s arms.

19

The pale women were coming up from the Springs, where they drank the arsenic water with a prayer for red corpuscles, strength, beauty. The Spring of Youth was in a cleft in the mountain—a dark mysterious fountain of gushing water unlit by the sun.

Martin paced his room in the hotel. She was there, arrived two weeks before; the cure was nearly over. The madness came back now; he had been free of it for a few hours. It was like the relapse of a fever, violent—vicious—raging. He had waited too long for her with stupid patience, and more stupid scruples. He heard Julie’s voice downstairs; he went to the window. She was standing on the terrace talking to Miss Mary, who was leaving. She kissed Julie, jumped into the hotel omnibus, and drove off. Julie stood a moment waving her hand, then turned and entered the house. He heard her voice outside in the corridor speaking to the maid. The next door opened; her room adjoined his.

The Sun-God sinking slowly behind the mountain scattered an orgy of color. Julie stepped out on her balcony. There was a low railing between them. He jumped over.

“Julie!”

She started with sudden fear, fled into the room. He followed, tried to say something, stood speechless looking at her. She was wonderful. The force of the rich blood surging under the white skin swept him like a cyclone. There was a new intensity of life in her, quick flashes of passion in her eyes. She gave a low cry, threw her arms out trembling with uncontrollable joy.

“You! You!” She kissed him again and again. How she kissed him! then drew him outside.

“Come! come! The sun is setting; it was too wonderful, I couldn’t bear it alone.” His eyes held hers.

“I saw Miss Mary driving away.”

“Yes, she has gone to Tarasp to visit an old patient; she will be away until tomorrow afternoon.”

A shadow fell; it was twilight.

“You must go now.”

He tried to hold her; she slipped out of his arms, shutting the long windows after her. He went back to his room. Those fleeting moments made him eager, desperate. The night was coming on; they were alone together at the end of the world.

Miss Mary sitting in the train was troubled. She opened a telegram and read it again, “Meet me at Tarasp. Say nothing to my wife. Floyd Garrison.”

20

The little parlor of the hotel was filled with guests, assembled there, as was the custom, waiting for the dining-room doors to be opened. Martin, standing in the hall, a living symbol of electric force, created a sensation. He drew nearer and took in the crowd of pale women, young, nervous, with mysterious ills they could not, or would not, explain to their doctor, who, for the lack of a suitable name, called the sickness “anæmia.” He looked them over with an experienced man’s compelling eyes. Some were very good-looking, would have been beautiful under favorable conditions, but they were pale, with white lips and drawn features, like plants in a dark cellar pining for the sun. He became amusedly conscious of being the only man; he finally espied in the garden a rheumatic old fellow, like the decayed trunk of a tree. He felt a battery of admiring glances leveled at him. He smiled, went to the foot of the staircase, waited for Julie.

They went in to dinner together. The table in a deep window at the far end of the room was decorated tonight with an abundance of flowers. Martin played with his food; he was too excited to eat, but he was in wonderful spirits. Julie had never seen him like that; she had a feeling of triumphant elation. He was handsome; the other women were envying her.

He laughingly remarked about the Eden with one Adam and many temptresses.

“They are all so white, as if frozen in ice; the Sun-God should come and melt them.” He squeezed her hand under the table. “I am sorry for the ‘good’ women. They sacrifice themselves for an illusion—chastity.”

She answered quickly. “The woman doesn’t think so. It is her religion. It may mean nothing to you, but for her it is a spiritual compensation.”

“Oh, that’s Catholic,” laughed Martin. She shivered, drew her cape around her.

Then he said, “Look how beautiful! The twilight is wonderful up here, light mixing with darkness like two souls. How the valley stretches out. Do you hear the rushing of waters? They are saying, ‘Give me your body, I will heal you.’ Look! The mountain has a halo of red; it catches at my throat and chokes me....”

He was poetic, inspired. He raised his glass. “The wine goes through my veins like warm blood. If I were a doctor, I’d prescribe it for the ladies.”

“Oh, oh,” laughed Julie, “forbidden fruit!”

“And you?” There was a laughing question in his eyes.

“I’m cured.” She drained the glass.

After dinner they walked up and down the terrace in front of the hotel, like old friends who had not met for some time and had much to say to each other. Gradually, the buzzing inside subsided, the pale creatures evaporated, lights were put out; one glimmered in each corridor.

He drew Julie into a small summer house covered with vines, at the end of the garden. The head waitress brought in wine. He thanked her—the Swiss know the hotel business. He slipped his arm under Julie’s cape. She resisted, but he held her close. She could hear his heart beating violently. Then it seemed as if it stood quite still, but it commenced soon to hammer again against hers.

“I must go in,” she whispered. “They close the house early.” She put her arms around his neck, raised her face to his.

“How dark it is.”

“Yes. It’s always so before the moon comes up.” Then she slipped away. He caught her back.

“Will you give me a signal?” It was a moment of suspense.

“Yes.”

He looked up at her room; there was a candle burning in the window.

“When you put out that light, I’ll come.”

He reluctantly let her go. She went up the stairs; he saw her at her window. There was a white spirit also watching—the moon, that “Orbèd Maiden,” chaste as the sleeping women within. Only those two were living; with them it was Flood-Tide.

The light in Julie’s window went out. It was dark now, the moon ashamed had turned away her face. He started to go; his feet were lead; his body weighed them down. What ailed him? He shook himself like an angry beast.

“Martin, don’t go.”

The voice was low, but very clear; did it come from without or within? He didn’t know.

“Martin, don’t commit this crime; don’t rob your friend. If you love the woman, do not destroy her; it is one throb more, one desire fulfilled—and then—the Price....”

At daybreak, the gardener, crawling about, found the stranger in the summer house, his head on the table, buried in his arms. He looked at the empty bottles. The wine of the Canton was strong; he shook the sleeping man, once, twice. Martin started up; where was he?...

The hotel was empty. The guests were at the Springs. A bath of mineral effervescent water refreshed him, but that strange feeling came again like a dream which returns in fitful flashes, fragments of color impossible to blend. He paced the room; his eyes fell upon the deerskin trunk he had brought with him. He opened it, took out the corduroy trousers, boots, shirt—examined them critically. His valet had pronounced them “only fit for the ash can,” but that didn’t influence Martin. He had them cleaned, folded, and put back into the box. He drew on the soft leather boots; they fitted him. The woollen shirt was light and warm. Looking at himself in the glass, he saw a man of the mountains—real, living. If a man buys a costume like that, it is only a masquerade; this was his inheritance.

The omnibus came back from the Springs; he went down and helped Julie out, seeking in her face the reproach he deserved. She smiled at him; how sweet of her! The fact was, when Julie reached her room the usual revulsion of feeling set in. She undressed quickly, dropping her clothing in a heap on the floor, blew out the candle. There was a dark form below—waiting—she stood breathless, her hand on the knob of the door. Then—she turned the key, crept to the window, pushed the bolt. She was securely locked in—she slipped into bed.

This morning she looked very girlish in a sport suit; the short skirt grazing the tops of very high tan leather boots. A soft hat, pulled down over one eye, gave her rosy face a touch of diablerie. She was all animation, joking about his Alpine costume, casting roguish glances at him; but he felt the undercurrent of emotion. He adored her.

“We are going out for a day in the woods.”

“You don’t ask, will I go.”

“No—but you will, won’t you?”

There was pathos in his voice, longing; she couldn’t resist him.

“Yes, but I must rest after the bath and dress lightly. The morning here is cold; at noon it gets very warm.”

He bent down and whispered, “Wear white like a bride.”

During the interval of waiting, Martin studied a map of the Canton, tracing lines from one Dorf to another, short walking tours through the woods; there were plenty of little inns where they could rest. He paced the terrace impatiently.

She came, all in white. A filmy scarf wound around her head, “à la turque,” accentuated the Oriental in her. She laughingly drew the long floating streamers across her face; her eyes shot fire through their soft transparency.

A little wagon drove up; the peasant boy cracked his whip and they started off. The road was smooth, sunlit. They stopped at the Springs, where Julie made him drink the unsavory water “to clear his complexion.” They were in high spirits, laughing at simple things, like two children. When they reached the chasm, the road became steep, narrow, with dark overhanging trees. Martin drew Julie close to him; a mysterious something hovered about them, intangible in its beauty, penetrating, wonderful.

The driveway ended there. The descent into the ravine must be finished on foot. The lad took a basket from the wagon and set it on the ground; then he cracked his whip and drove off.

21

At the Savoy, Floyd heard many flattering things about his beautiful wife. He was silent, kept turning over the pages of the hotel register, finally found the name he was looking for—“Martin Steele, New York.” Then he wired Miss Mary and left at once for Switzerland, made quick connections, arriving at Tarasp toward evening. The stage-coach from Val Sinestra was expected. He paced up and down before the hotel, his thoughts stinging like a swarm of bees.

He had married well, he was a happy man—in the world’s vocabulary.

Happy? A man who marries Beauty lives on a powder mine. The something which compels adoration makes a woman unfit for matrimony. A man can’t always be on his knees; that’s very well at night—but he becomes a ridiculous figure in the daylight.

The coach shambled up the road. Mary was the only passenger; she nodded and smiled at him. He helped her out.

“Were you surprised to get my telegram?”

“Yes.”

“You understood?”

Mary waited. She wasn’t sure how much he knew.

He spoke again excitedly.

“Why did Dr. McClaren send my wife to Europe without me?”

“Mrs. Garrison wanted it; there was no peace for her with that man so near.”

He was watching her keenly. Did he think she was in collusion with his wife against him? Her face burned; she looked straight at him.

“Mr. Garrison, it was an experiment and very successful. She is cured.”

He was ashamed. She and the doctor knew his dishonor, and then—the world. His voice was hot—angry.

“He followed her to London; they were together at the Savoy.”

“No!”

“He was there.”

Then she told him of her encounter with Martin, and how he went away without seeing Julie.

He had done them a terrible injustice? He was piteously grateful, held her hands, made a foolish attempt to kiss them. She grew very pale, and said, “Oh! Mr. Garrison!” He dropped them, very much embarrassed, looked at his watch. It was already ten o’clock; the evening had passed quickly, in spite of his misery.

“You are tired. I have been inconsiderate.”

“Oh no, but if you don’t mind, I’ll go to my room now.”

He stood at the foot of the stairs looking after her; she smiled back at him. She was glad she had been able to bring him a hopeful message.

They started off the next morning, in a comfortable open carriage. Mary told him funny stories about the “blood-poor” women and their arsenic intoxication, showed him pretty twists in the splendid road built by the Romans. They stopped at a little inn for a bite of cheese and a glass of beer. He planned a trip to Lugano and over the lake to Italy; he was in good spirits; the sense of relief acted like a strong stimulant.

Mary was very loyal to Julie.

“Mr. Garrison, I can assure you everything is all right. I have written to Rome at Mrs. Garrison’s request. After her cure she has plans to go with you to visit Father Cabello.”

Floyd was very penitent.

“I am glad to know that. Father Cabello has a strong influence over my wife. She has been too worldly; I hope he will bring her back to religion.”

On arriving at the hotel, Mary went at once to Julie’s room; it was in great disorder—everything scattered about, as if she had dressed very hurriedly. Floyd downstairs was questioning the woman manager.

“Madame had gone with Monsieur Steele; they had taken luncheon with them. Did Madame expect Monsieur Garrison?”

“No. I wanted to surprise her. Do you know where they went?”

“Yes. The boy who drove them is here.”

“I would like to find them, if possible.”

The woman went to order the wagon.

Mary was pale, agitated.

“Mr. Garrison, when I left your wife, Mr. Steele was not here.”

He didn’t answer; he frightened her.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find her and bring her back.”

“A storm is brewing,” said the woman. “They come up quickly and are terrible while they last.”

The wagon drove up; he jumped in. Mary stood watching him till he was out of sight. The clouds gathered; the wind slunk into its den.

Floyd pushed back his hat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead; it was stifling.

22

The lovers stood together on a grassy plateau, the sun poured bright beams of light; below was a dense mist.

“How wonderful,” said Martin. “Nature has kept a sunny spot for us; we’ll stay here awhile.” He drew his “lodin” cape around him, stretched himself out on the grass, looking up at the golden clouds surrounding the sun, looking below at the rapidly rising veil of gray; it was glorious.

Julie took bread, fowl, wine out of the basket; they ate with their fingers and drank the wine out of the bottle. The sun glimmered red through the dark clouds. They were silent; then he spoke, quietly at first, becoming gradually very much excited.

“Why did you throw me over so heartlessly, after you promised me to prepare your mother? I knew it was useless; I had made all my arrangements—I had a cabin engaged on a French steamer—”

Julie tried to justify herself, then began to cry hysterically; she had never broken faith with him. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through all her life. The pressure of those two terrible religions: her grandfather dragging her one way, her mother threatening her with eternal punishment.

He tried to soothe her.

“Don’t cry, Julie, I’ll make it up to you. You will be happy for the first time in your life.”

“But Floyd—he’s been so good—you always came between us, pushing him away.”

She slipped out of his arms. It was Floyd now coming between them, it wasn’t so easy to push him away. They had been friends so long. Floyd was the innocent victim. Martin’s eyes roved restlessly—and that gray mist—rising!—rising!

She waited for him to speak; then she went to him like a child, piteous, pathetic.

“Martin, don’t be angry with me—I love you—but the winter here is cold; the snow is like a winding sheet—I couldn’t bear it!”

She was wavering again; it brought him back, fiery, impatient—

“We will go to Lugano, Italy, Spain; you will get your divorce, I will marry you.”

“No! No!—there is no divorce in the Church—I am afraid of Father Cabello.”

Those fear thoughts—how they tore at her!

He took her in his arms, kissed her until the color came back to her face, the warmth to her body. She was his absolutely; he could make her do what he wanted—but—he mustn’t leave her.

Then she gave a sudden cry. It was like an animal in pain.

“What now? What now?”

“My boy! You won’t let them take him away, you must promise me that.”

“Julie, look at me.”

She raised her heavy lids and met his searching glance; their souls questioned mutely, answered mutely. He drew her closer.

“You shall have your boy. I promise you. Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes—”

She was tired, beaten to exhaustion by the force of rushing psychic waves, breaking against her weak will. Her head throbbed; she tore off her scarf; her hair dropped in a thick coil, down her back, like a writhing white snake; he wound it around his neck.

“This was my punishment.”

“No! No! Our love was not a crime. You fought too hard against it. Nature put her hand on your head and turned your hair white; it was her revenge.”

Julie listened, fascinated; he was irresistible like that, his voice vibrating. Every nerve in her body responded. He stroked her forehead softly, the pain ceased. How happy she was! how happy.

“You are a woman of the Orient; you are starving for love; it is your life—you cannot fight it; it is too strong for you—for me, come! come!”...

These children of passion went down into the mist.

He carried her along in his strong embrace, lifting her over the stones, her feet scarcely touching the ground; there was a wonderful sense of lightness, as if she had thrown off a heavy load. The fog was cold; it dampened her face, her hair. They reached the bottom of the ravine; the clouds around them moved, disclosing a little wooden house, which had been hidden in the mist. Now it stood out clearly—a bit of beautiful old architecture. Julie shrank away.

“It is a chapel; see, over the door, the cross. Take me home! take me home!”

He laughed mockingly.

“Nonsense, you must get over your religious superstition. The chapel will shelter us from the storm. Come, let us go in.”

“No! No!—not there!”

She fled, he followed her; the mist dropped like a curtain between them, growing thicker, thicker.

“Julie, where are you?”

He heard her voice close to him.

“Here.”

He took her in his arms, wrapped his cape about her; she clung to him. He was deliriously happy; he held her in a frenzy of possession.

“Julie, my love! my love!”

The mist rose slowly, the red rays of the setting sun penetrated into the ravine, they were enveloped in flames. He could see her face now distinctly as she lay in his arms.

The mist vanished like magic, and—there—there!—he saw—no! no!—it couldn’t be!

Floyd’s voice rang out through the pass, struck the mountainside, and came back.

“Julie!!”

Martin held her with a fierce joy. He would stand now in the open for what he was. Julie was crying pitifully. He was very tender. He soothed her like a child.

“Hush! Hush! It is better; there will be no more lies.”

Floyd’s first impulse was to drag her from Martin’s arms, but he stood motionless listening to her sobs. Then she tore herself away, with an appealing cry. “Floyd! Forgive me! Forgive me!”

That set both the men on fire. Martin gave an angry growl.

Again Floyd’s voice rang out.

“Julie, you are my wife. You must come with me!”

A moment’s silence, the trees motionless, the clouds sullen, waiting; then the voice of Nature, so long suppressed, broke out in Julie.

“No! No! I belong to Martin! I will not leave him! I cannot!”

Martin stood a little above her, he put out his hand to draw her up, she smiled at him. God! her joy!

Floyd raised his pistol, fired; Martin’s arm fell to his side. Now burning with a murderous rage, he sprang forward at closer range.

“This time through the heart!”

With a cry of horror, Julie wrested the pistol from his hand. It fell some distance away, went off, reverberating through the valley, arousing the people. The pastor heard it in the little chapel, where he had gone at the approach of the storm. He came holding up his lantern, seeking the cause. A fierce gust of wind blew through the ravine, whirling, in a dervish-like dance of fiendish fury.

Then the demon in Martin went out to meet the tearing forces of nature.

“Fool! Fool! You cannot hold her! She was never yours! never! She is mine by Nature’s unalterable law!”

Floyd’s agonized tones rose above the wind.

“Julie! Julie! I want to save you from a terrible fate! look at him! Can’t you see! He is mad! mad!”

That word struck Martin a fatal blow. He put his hand to his head; there was a look in his eyes like a stricken beast pleading for mercy. Floyd never forgot it.

“No! No!—not that—”

He turned and fled, stumbling over rocks, through bushes, a terrible horror pursuing him, stretching out its giant claws to entangle him Mad! Yes, he was mad! It was his inheritance! The storm raged, crashes of thunder, flashes of lightning; an enormous tree sprang into the air, its great quivering limbs cleft in twain. The pines wailed, muttered, waved their long arms; he staggered on, fighting the elements without, within. He was conscious of climbing; his strength grew; fear made him superhuman. He heard a voice behind him calling. Mad! Mad! He went on crashing through obstacles, going up! up—there was no measurement of time, of distance. He stood on the first peak of the great mountain. It rose before him, a straight wall of stone; a deep chasm yawned between. He threw out his arms with agonizing longing.

“Up there! Up to the top!”

There was no trace of mist. The air was cold, the sky studded with brilliant planets; their light searched his soul. He saw clearly the jungle within him, the tearing beasts of passion, the wreckage, the futility, the dark future! He raised his head to that glory once more; then with a cry of despair he went over the precipice.

23

The pastor followed Martin to the foot of the mountain. He could go no further; the ground was slippery, dangerous. He retraced his steps with a heavy heart. He was filled with righteous anger. One of his name had dishonored a woman; he must make restitution. He found Julie in a frenzy of fear, calling again and again, “Martin! Martin!” She stood like a white spirit, erect in the storm. The lightning rent the clouds; then the floods came down.

They carried her to the shelter of the chapel. The little building, centuries old, was originally a storehouse for contraband, a refuge for bandits who hid themselves from the gendarmes, among the wine barrels, in the caves beneath. When the Church took it, they brought a beautiful altar from Italy, and artists who painted religious figures on the walls. The wine caves were partitioned into cells, where pious monks prayed and rubbed their rheumatic limbs. Finally, this holy place, a victim of skeptical times, was used as a theatre, where allegorical plays dealing with the political and religious history of the country were performed.

When Julie became conscious of the dimly lit altar, with its faded velvet and gold lace, its figure of the Virgin in painted wood, she stood transfixed; she saw herself on the day of her confirmation, her mother putting around her neck a gold chain and cross, she heard her own voice repeating the Confession of Faith, the organ pealing the Hymn of Praise, the lights, the Presence! With a cry of anguish she fell on her knees.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, have pity!”

Then a deep, tender voice filled the chapel—the voice of Father Cabello.

24

Father Cabello was a mystic. Brought up within the walls of a monastery, dedicated to Heaven from his birth, he saw the will of God in every event of his kaleidoscopic existence. He had travelled much, studied much, with the one ever-dominating ambition, which slowly but inevitably came to its fulfillment. The Gonzola family, with money and influence, had in those two generations been a great Catholic influence in America. Father Cabello was the power behind it. He had sustained Mrs. Gonzola, that devout, pious woman, in her awful struggles with Joseph Abravanel. He loved Julie, held himself responsible for her soul. He would save her, as he had saved her mother.

He had been ill in Rome, stricken down with fever, caught in the unsanitary quarters, trying to improve the deplorable condition of the people; he went down under a hopeless task. Many a night, seated at his luxurious table, with its rich appointments, its costly wines, a terrible thought would come again and again: Was the poverty of its children a curse laid upon the Holy City, for the generations of intolerance—its auto-da-fé, its crusades? He tried to drive those haunting spirits away; he was not the Judge, only an insignificant part of an indestructible Institution, a symbol, the moulded image of an Iron Will. Delirium consumed him. He was for weeks near death; then came very slowly back to life. Lying on his flowered terrace, the great panorama of Rome before him, he thought of Julie. She had written to him often after he left America, but her letters grew less frequent. Before his sickness he had received a short note from Mary, telling of Julie’s second collapse and her trip to Switzerland: the arsenic waters at the Val Sinestra had helped her wonderfully; the cure would end July twenty-second. There was apparently nothing to cause uneasiness in the letter.

Father Cabello was ostensibly of Jesuit origin, but he possessed a much older secret inheritance from the time when his ancestors were noble Spanish-Maranos, deeply versed in deception and the Talmud. He scented the trail of disaster. Why had not Julie written to him herself? Why had she travelled to Europe without her husband, her child? Why? Why?

The doctors advised him to go on a visit to America, where the climate would drive the malaria out of his system. He refused; his strength was not equal to so long a journey. Then they advised Disentis in Switzerland—one of the few strong-holds left to the Church. He was haunted with the thought of Julie. He would go to the Val Sinestra and see for himself.

Disentis—its crumbling piles of stone, monasteries of the seventh century, its stillness, its health-giving air, the wonderful healing waters, gushing from the earth into natural rock basins, hollowed out by Nature’s hand, the frugal fare, the rising at the first glimpse of dawn, the pervading sweetness of the bells, prayer, which had a new sanctity, as if nearer the Divine Fount—there he gained new spiritual inspiration, new physical strength—there during the summer months the Benedictine Friars welcome their brothers from all corners of the world. Father Cabello clasped hands with monks of many orders. The Trappists appealed strongly to his affection—bare-footed, humble, rich in knowledge; he never tired listening to their many colored experiences. He was eagerly questioned about America, “the land of unbounded possibilities.” He had a store of humorous stories, which were greeted with low chuckles and spasmodic movements of the diaphragm.

Walking with the Father Superior one day, in the surrounding woods, that benign forest which protects the children of God from the avalanche, Father Cabello asked about Val Sinestra and how he could get there.

“Easily from here; my carriage is at your disposal—a drive at leisure through the mountains, a most beautiful and interesting trip. Near the Val Sinestra, there is an ancient bit of architecture, a deserted chapel; it is now the property of a poor community headed by a great man, Pastor Staehli; the Church should buy it back.”

“I will see to it,” said Father Cabello.

The next day he started out; there was no trace of anger in the blue sky, but the driver pointed to a small watery cloud low on the horizon.

“We are going to have a storm; would it not be better to wait until it is over?” said the Superior.

Father Cabello hesitated, then he answered:

“I want to be at Val Sinestra before the twenty-second. I am being pushed by a strong impulse, which has some mysterious significance—a call for help from one I love.”

“Then go, in God’s name.”

That drive through the mountains was a sacrament. Father Cabello bowed before a great God, clothed in a sacerdotal vestment of Nature.

“There is the chapel,” said the driver. It was distinctly visible in the valley below.

Suddenly a shot rang out.

“What was that?”

The driver shook his head. It seemed to the excited imagination of the priest like a discharge signalling a great battle; then the fury of the Invisible broke, the man whipped up his horses, and dashed down the incline toward the chapel....

It is wonderful in the mountains after such an outbreak of electric force; the Prince of Light marches majestically in the Heavens showering gifts of prismatic gold; a Master Chemist, he will create again from the storm wreckage; the stricken trees will sink into the bosom of the earth and moulder there, generating in Nature’s crucible new germs of Life, and the little dark pine-children will be born.

25

Floyd paced restlessly outside the chapel, listening to Julie’s sobs and the voice of the priest, tender, persuasive, stern, threatening. Once before he had pleaded with Joseph Abravanel; now a second time he is pleading with his wife! His wife? No! No! Lies! Lies! She was never his; she belonged to Martin by the unalterable law of Nature. They would go on saying that. He would always see them with their arms around each other. He had been cheated! cheated!

A sharp bolt of light pierced the dark valley, shone on the battered cross above the chapel, glanced off, lit up the silver trimmings of the pistol on the ground. He picked it up. The voices in the chapel rose and fell.

“You must go back to your husband.”

“I will not. I belong to Martin; I will never leave him. I cannot.” Her voice was sharp with agony. Floyd shuddered; why should she be tortured like that? Why? If he were dead they could live. He was dead, burnt to cinders. The tongues of flame in his father’s workshop had crept into his body, consumed it; there was nothing left but the shell—easy enough to put an end to that clay image!—“Shoot its head off!”

The pastor wrested the pistol from the hand of the distraught man, led him through a trail to the châlet, and left him with Angela. He was quiet now; he lay back in a chair with closed eyes. She sat and watched him, passing her cool hand over his hot forehead; the lamp shed a soft glow over the pale face, the well-shaped head, the regular features. A splendid human species, those Americans—a youthful race, a type ennobled by climate, good food, and labor that develops character. She thought of the cretins of her own beautiful land, of the degenerating races of Europe. This man was like Dresden china, fine, very fine; but there were deep lines that made the face look old; the chisel of Life had cut deeply into him. She bent over him.

“Come with me.”

He looked blankly into her soft radiant eyes. Who was she?

She took him up the narrow stairs into a small room with bare white walls, a little cot, a bunch of Alpine roses on a table by the window.

“Will you try to sleep?”

“No! No!”

She led him to the balcony, a nest under the overhanging roof.

“Sit here; you will sleep.”

She put him in a reclining chair and left him.

The moon shone on his flushed face; the valley was filled with soft shadows; the mountain raised a luminous head. The air penetrated his agonized body. An hour passed; a white figure stood beside him.

“Come in! The night air in the mountains is too strong for strangers.”

He saw her through a mist, his eyes dim with overpowering sleep. He fell on the cot—she covered him with a warm blanket....

The pastor called the guides together; they came with their ropes and axes. He spoke tersely; they were used to action, not words.

“A man had gone up the mountain in the storm.”

Then he gave a low whistle. There was a panting, a breaking through the bushes. A dog threw himself upon the pastor, who bent over him, stroking his thick coat with a magnetic touch. He gave him Martin’s mantle, the dog tore at it, dropped it. The pastor whispered, “Find him.” With a low whine the animal plunged into the thicket, the guides followed, their strong throats propelling sounds that echoed to the unscaled heights.

26

The hotel was in an uproar. The pale women, excited by the storm, could not be kept in their rooms; they crowded the corridors, uttering plaintive cries. The quick flashes of lightning revealed little groups huddled together; one poor thing quite lost her control. She betrayed her terror in a strangely interesting manner: rushed to the long door opening onto the balcony, baring her white bosom to the storm. She was wonderful as she stood there, her face rapturous, like a woman lifting herself to the embrace of her lover.

The storm passed. The pale women fluttered in the sun, holding up their bloodless hands to its warmth, chattering, laughing over their “thrilling” experience.

Mary was terribly worried about her friends. The carriage had not come back. The proprietress thought the party had been driven through the short cut to the pastor’s châlet.

“But the shot!” said Mary. The woman looked grave. It was not hunting time.

When the carriage drove up with Julie and Father Cabello, Mary knew something terrible had happened. She grew very pale, but she had been trained to ask no questions. Julie was quiet, with wide-open horror-filled eyes. Father Cabello took Mary’s hand and spoke gravely.

“There has been an accident. Mr. Steele has been lost in the storm; they are looking for him.” She caught her breath.

“Mr. Garrison?”

The priest pierced her with his understanding eyes.

“Mr. Garrison is safe; he and his wife will leave here by the early train tomorrow. Will you see to everything?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

Then his voice hardened.

“No matter what happens, they must go; nothing can prevent that.”

Julie let herself be undressed and fell into a lethargy. Mary tried several times to awaken her; she would open her eyes and fall again into that trance which was not sleep.

The pastor came over to the hotel to see Father Cabello. They talked long into the night, of Floyd, Julie, of the fight against Martin. The pastor repeated again:

“He is one of ours; he has done wrong. He must make restitution.”

Father Cabello was troubled. Julie had shown unexpected strength. He must find a way to bring her back to the Church, to submission.

The next morning, early, Mary was surprised to find Julie up and dressed. The hotel was closing that day. The trunks had to be locked and taken down. Julie watched her moving about.

“If I could get out of this room—it is horrible.”

A hotel room before the departure of its occupant, with its torn newspapers, remnants of food, bedclothes thrown in a heap—there is nothing more desolate, more inexpressibly forlorn.

They went down to an empty room on the ground floor, misnamed the “children’s playroom.” The pale women were unmarried or childless. Julie moved continually from one window to another; when she saw Father Cabello and Floyd coming up the walk, she shrank into a corner, a terrified hunted thing.

Father Cabello found Floyd very quiet; whatever may have been his feelings, he had them under perfect control. He answered the priest’s questions in as few words as possible, and listened without comment to his sophistical justification of Julie.

“Perhaps your wife was not all to blame.”

“Perhaps not.”

“You know Julie’s nature—she is easily influenced.”

“Yes, I know.”

“The man must have persecuted her.”

“Perhaps he did.”

“I don’t wish to blame you, but knowing what has happened and the desperate character of the man, was it right to let your wife travel alone?”

“Perhaps it was not right. But it didn’t occur to me.”

When they entered the room, Floyd stood quietly at the door. The priest went to Julie and took her hand.

“Julie, you must ask your husband to forgive you.”

The answer came again:

“I will not. I belong to Martin; I will never leave him!”

The priest’s wrath was terrible. He stormed, threatened, pleaded—she must go with her husband; there must be no scandal. She must go home to her child.

Floyd was white to the lips—Mary couldn’t bear it. She rushed out of the room....

The pastor came up the terrace; Father Cabello went out to meet him and brought him in. He spoke quietly, with deep feeling.

“The guides who were seeking Martin Steele have come down from the mountain.”

“Have they found him?”

“Yes. He is dead.”

There was a silence. It was Floyd this time who cried with a rush of repentant agony:

“Martin! I killed him! I am a murderer!”

“No! he himself was responsible. He met the fate of the rash. A man must know the precipices and how to avoid them before he tries to climb.”

Again came the cry from Floyd:

“I shot to kill! I shot to kill!”

“The guides followed his traces up the mountain; there were signs that told a human thing had passed. He must have gone over at the first plateau. They went down as far as they dared. There were broken branches; the violence of the fall tore up a young tree with its roots. Come with me, I will show you where he struck the trail. There was madness upon him, his senses wandered, the inevitable happened.”

They stood in the quiet woods and looked up at the wall of stone where Martin had said, “I will climb that mountain.”

The pastor put his arm around Floyd.

“My son, you have been through more than your share of trouble; don’t burden yourself with morbid self accusations. He was your friend; he betrayed you. He made the only reparation—death. Try to think kindly of him. Under natural conditions he would have been a brave son of the soil. He was robbed of his birthright....”

Julie shed no tears. The old fear was upon her; the Punishment had come again in the shape of Death, and he had paid. The priest worked upon this superstitious dread; it was the only way to subdue her. “God had punished her for her crime against her husband. He would punish her further; she must go home, she must go back to her religion, God had struck Martin with the whip of retribution. He would bring it down upon her shoulders if she did not repent. A great calamity would happen to her child.”

She was cowed, humble, on her knees before him begging for mercy. He confessed her, and gave her absolution.

Mr. and Mrs. Garrison left by the afternoon train; they were a pitiable sight, these two unhappy children wondering why the world was so dark, the pain so hard to bear. The priest spoke the last words.

“My children, you are going home. You will be happy again, if you do not nourish your misfortune. God has given us the magic of memory, and a still greater blessing, the gift of forgetting.”

They bowed their heads to his blessing. The train left the station, wending its way in and out of the tunnels.

“When I watch those undulations,” said the pastor to Father Cabello, “I think of a serpent crawling into the great centers of vice, carrying with him the modern Adams, the curious Eves, who will eat copiously of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.”

The priest smiled. The simile appealed to his mind trained in Biblical metaphors.

“I have no fears for our young couple; the New World moulds its people. The practical life of which they are an integral part will make their road clear to them. I have lived long in America. It is a land of proof, not belief; of practical results and a kind of idealism which is expressed in action. There is no time for dreams; inspiration feeds only on quick realization. A land of no secrets, where publicity methods are applied alike to business, science, literature, religion. That which cannot be exploited is called ‘high-brow’—but there is a saving humor in it all. America is a great country.”

The pastor answered with just a touch of good-natured satire.

“If there are no secrets, how is it that the Church has prospered there?”

The priest smiled enigmatically.

“The Church adapts itself....

“I am going back to Rome, with a mind at rest. We have held together the thread of two lives which threatened to snap, nay, three lives: there is a boy whose career must be watched closely. Other forces are at work—race impulses; they must be eradicated.”

“Is that possible?”

“Yes, but difficult. I shall bring the boy to Rome; there, all other influences will be neutralized.”

The pastor offered his hospitality for the night, which was gratefully accepted. It had been a turbulent time ending happily. The priest was in a frame of mind harmonizing with the beauty of approaching twilight. They sat outside the châlet. The pastor filled long glasses with the wine of the Canton, which expands the Soul. They sat there, looking into the Val Sinestra, until the sun scattered rubies and the moon threw down a silver veil.

They talked of the future of religion and the wave of unbelief sweeping over the world.

“When I meet a man like you,” said the priest, “I regret the loss to the Church. Protestantism was at best a frail child; it cannot survive without support. Why should it not come back? We would kill the fatted calf to celebrate the return of our Prodigal Son.”

The pastor saved the situation with a fine sense of humor.

“My friend, we are not father and son: we are brothers, prodigal children of the great original God of the Hebrews.”

The priest’s eyes gleamed.

“Then why not a family reunion? It has been my life’s dream—all sects united in the spacious bosom of the true Faith.”

The pastor nodded in silent approval. Then Luther would come into his own. At this same moment, far away in the East, the muezzin was chanting from the minarets, calling the people to prayer. “There is but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet,” and at this same time, millions of humans, prostrate before Buddha, were praying to attain the perfection of the Soul—Nirvana; and the “chosen people” once again in Jerusalem were praising the “only” God, who had led them out of exile into the land of their fathers. The priest and the pastor would soon solve their problem—they were both approaching with silent rapid steps, the solution of the Great Mystery.

The next morning Father Cabello thanked the pastor again for his good offices. He was a practical man, and in the light of day, dreams evaporate. He did not speak of buying the chapel; he wanted to go in peace.

27

Angela sat at the wheel, her quick skilful fingers spinning the yellow thread. The girl, with her unerring instinct of the unseen, felt the air weighing heavily. The atmosphere of the house was charged with sadness; unhappy spirits had passed through, leaving something of their sorrow, their passions. The anguish of Floyd still lingering in her little room kept her awake at night. The dead man was always before her—his uneven gait, the passionate face, the glittering eyes. A great longing went out from her to that rebellious soul, beating so long against bars, a prisoner in his own body....

The pastor had gone over to the hotel for Martin’s one valise and the little deerskin box. He spoke to the woman of the house; she remembered her father telling of a Staehli who went “across seas” and never came back. The crooked gardener, shuffling about, chimed in.

“Yes, I knew Martin Staehli. He had a quarrel with a guide about a woman, and shot him dead. He was hot blooded.”

“The man lost on the mountain was his grandson,” said the pastor.

“Strange things happen in a lifetime,” mumbled the gardener. “Now who would believe, to look at me, that I was once the champion wrestler of the village!”...

The next morning at sunrise the pastor knocked at Angela’s door.

“Angela, we are going ‘up there’ today.”

During the summer, when they were pasturing the cattle, she and the pastor spent many a happy time with the peasant boys and girls who had gone up in June, clinging gradually from one plateau to another until they reached the top, where they would stay until the weather drove them down.

Angela sprang joyfully out of bed and went to fetch her basket; on the way up she would look for herbs. It was wonderful how she spied the rare plants hid away under the rocks and at the bottom of brooks. They went slowly, at first, Angela timing her steps to the pastor’s, who grasped his stick, gaining strength as he climbed. Not far behind, a guide followed, carrying the belongings of the unfortunate man. In Switzerland every waterfall, river, flower, bush, and tree has its legendary Spirit. Miracle stories come down by word of mouth. The old grandmother sitting outside the châlet at night, a pipe between her toothless gums, her needle running a race with her tongue, tells the children of the wonders of the mountains:

“In the old days, when a mountaineer had been lost on the heights, the peasants would go from peak to peak calling his name. Where the echo repeated they stopped, and would throw down articles of clothing and a large cheese from the milk of the missing man’s herd, to keep his spirit from cold and starvation. They tell of a peasant who was lost. They let down his dog on a rope. The faithful animal, whining in low dog tones, eagerly scented the way. When they drew up the rope it was bitten through. The dog had found the body of his master and would not leave him. Whenever there is a thick mist the peasant is seen, his dog beside him, on the edge of the chasm, pointing with a warning finger to the precipice.”...

The merry band of dairy workers welcomed the pastor with shrill cries and clarion notes from Alpine horns. It was a modest community; each one owned his little herd. There were many huts, where the milk is set in earthen bowls, yielding cream, butter, cheese, their only wealth. The pastor drew a herdsman aside and spoke to him in low tones. A stillness fell on the merry band. The man led them across the field to a deep pool fed by mountain torrents; at a narrow end was a rough rustic bridge, which they crossed in single file, and came into a thick pine grove. Farther on, the clearing was carpeted with roses, anemones, violets. They walked carefully, not to crush them; then they climbed up a steep rock to a cow-hut on the top.