WHITE MOTLEY (continued 5)

Benny found this dinner one of the most uncomfortable entertainments at which he had yet assisted. It is true that he was received by a round of cheers when he entered the room, but he could not but remember that many who now applauded had derided him but a week ago.

For himself, he would have been hard put to it to say just what he did feel. That the whole world would tell the story of the flight to-morrow, he knew full well. It would have been absurd to have put aside so self-evident a fact. The nations would honour him, and his own people welcome a British victory. Looking further afield, he perceived that his social position had changed in a flash, and that he, who had called himself a beggar that morning, was now a rich man, with every prospect of adding enormously to his riches in the immediate future. Already the cable had brought offers which dazed him by their generosity. He was to fly at this meeting, to fly at that. A firm in London offered him two thousand pounds just to show his machine. Surely, this implied a permanence of fortune. And he had but begun to use those amazing brains which God had given him.

Here were things to be remembered subtly as the waiters filled his glass with champagne, and boisterous diners asked to drink wine with him. He found the speeches tedious enough, and thought Sir John a dreadful windbag. When the great moment came, and the cheque was handed over to him, it seemed such a sorry strip of paper to stand for so much, and he thrust it into his pocket carelessly, as though it were the visiting-card of an acquaintance. None the less, he was conscious of it being there during the rest of the dinner; and despite his desire not to do so, he touched it more than once with his fingers to be quite sure that he had not lost it.

His own speech amazed the company. No one expected an engineer to be also an orator, and yet his simple words had the stamp of true oratory. He spoke to the hearts of those who heard him, concealing none of his aims and ambitions, and confessing how greatly he had desired success. His honesty was inspiring. He believed that they would be glad to have this news in England. It was natural that he should think of his own country at such a moment. But he could give every credit to France, and the brains of those Frenchmen who had carried this art to such lengths. In conclusion, he hoped that his many friends at Andana would hold some memory of him in their affections.

There were rousing cheers at this—the cheers of those who had grown suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again, begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say "good-bye" to it.

It was eleven o'clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should have been an al fresco fête upon the skating rink had become but a collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted twenty people on the road to Vermala.

Benny had set out in the company of his brother Jack and the Abbé Villari, and the three pursued their way in silence toward the house. Usually, there would have been a beacon light to guide them, a lamp shining from the window of Lily Delayne's chalet; but no such lamp shone out to-night, and the gables shaped amid the snowflakes as the grey and silent towers of some deserted citadel. When they drew a little nearer they saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the whole chalet was in darkness: a fact which the abbé explained by saying that the English lady had left for Sierre earlier in the day, and that he did not believe she would return. To this Benny made no other answer than to suggest that she must have found the presence of so many strangers unwelcome, and perhaps had done well to go.

But he rested a moment at the door of the chalet for all that, and when he turned away neither of the others had the courage to mention the matter again.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NIGHT MAIL

Lily Delayne had left Andana at midday in an interlude when it was possible to get sleighs from the stable.

They had told her that she would not be able to reach the valley at all that day if she left it until the afternoon; and this fell in with her own resolution, which was to go at once while she had the courage.

So she set out when the excitement was at its height, and no one else in the village thought of anything but the mad Englishman. There were thousands grouped upon the plateau when the sleigh came for her; every commanding slope of snow was black with the people who stared into the ether as though their eyes might win a far vision if they had but the patience. She could hear the music of bands, the ebb and flow of carnival and a murmur of voices which betoken a great throng at its pleasures. When the sleigh came for her at length, André the driver, complained bitterly that he should be compelled to go down to Sierre at such a moment.

"It is a thing no man will ever see again," he said almost pathetically. "Madame should have stayed until her countryman returned."

She made no comment, and when she had settled everything with the dour maid, who was to return to Brigue, they began their drive, making their way carefully through the press, and arousing no comment where so many strangers were gathered. André, for his part, drew up more than once at the roadside to show her just where the madman had flown and by what height he would return.

"It was over there," he cried dramatically, indicating Mont Blanc with a flourish of his long whip. "I saw him myself, madame—like the eagle we see in the picture books. He was gone before a man could have counted ten. If he comes again, it will be over the Weisshorn. Just think of that—and we have lived to see it! He will come over the Weisshorn like a flash of light, and to-morrow all the world will hear of it. Well, we may not be too late after all, if we keep our eyes open. It is a pity, though, that madame must go to-day."

She made no reply. Her eyes had followed vaguely the course of the flight, and she had tried to realise the wonder of it. But her deeper thoughts forbade her to do so. Had she been honest with herself, she would have said that she was going away just because of this man's victory—fleeing from his success, because she believed that it was her duty to do so.

Here she proved once more that a woman's heart is impregnable to the assaults of reason. Luton Delayne had not a shadow of claim upon her. The world would say, "Well done!" if she carried her case to the courts and ended forever the tragedy of the years. She intended to do nothing of the kind. Behind her intention lay the traditions of centuries, the habit of mind which the ancient Faith had fostered, and the resolution of unnumbered millions of good women who had lived and suffered such a life as this. At their bidding she fled from another and from his victory. A certain resentment against the honours he had won possessed her. He would be famous before the world to-morrow!

It was warmer in the depths of the valley, and the sun shone with great power. Sierre, that odd little town where all Englishmen travelling to the Simplon gather at some time or other, was deserted to the point of wonder. Even the hall-porter at the Terminus Hotel had gone a little way up the hillside in the hope of seeing something of the flight. The officials at the railway station were gathered in the yard, staring skywards until their necks ached. When Lily obtained a hearing at last, they told her it would be almost impossible to go through to Italy to-night by any ordinary train, and that all the places in the sleeping-cars were booked. Far better, said the amiable old lady who received her at the Terminus, far better to stay until to-morrow, when the excitement would be over. Yes, she could have a bed. An English family had left unexpectedly for Caux that morning, and its rooms were vacant.

Lily decided to accept this wise advice, but prudence restrained her from sending a telegram to Luton. She spent the afternoon in wandering about the little town and listening to the wild tales of the gossips at the street corners, each of whom had some new version of the flight. The excellent telephone service in Switzerland spread the news rapidly enough, and it was soon known that the aviator had reached Mont Blanc, that he had descended safely, and gone on towards Zermatt amid scenes of almost frantic enthusiasm. Later on, there was a sudden bustle in the streets, men running hither and thither, and an exodus from the station and from every café. Someone said that the machine had been seen high over the northern slopes; but Lily herself could make nothing of it, and when she returned for a cup of afternoon tea the excitement had subsided as quickly as it arose, and all was quiet in the town again.

This was merely a lull, as events proved, and she quickly perceived the wisdom of the advice offered by the landlady. No sooner was it known that the Englishman had succeeded than the sleighs began to return to the station. One would not have believed that there were so many horses in the Rhone Valley, and this was to say nothing of the thousands of excursionists who came down on foot besieging the railway station, and filling every café to the point of riot. Lily was glad that she had abandoned all idea of a journey to Locarno until to-morrow, and she went to bed early, avoiding her loquacious countrymen in the corridor of the hotel, and trying to believe that she was little interested in their excited stories of the day. When she arose next morning, it was snowing hard, and the wind had attained some force. She did not dare to venture out, and kept her own room until after dinner, when the news reached her that there was a delay upon the line at Brigue, and it was doubtful if the evening express could reach Milan at all that night.

Everyone seemed sure of this—the hall-porter, who spoke English like a German, and the amiable landlady, who spoke French like an Italian. Exactly what had happened no one could say with certainty, and the stories were so contradictory that Lily put on her hat about nine o'clock and went over to the station to hear the news for herself.

It was snowing heavily and the wind bitterly cold. She found a little group of officials upon the dimly-lighted platform and two or three English people, who, like herself, had been on the point of going into Italy. One of these was no other than Harry Clavering, who recognised her immediately, and came forward with both hands outstretched. She remembered that he had been the first of the guests at Andana to offer friendship upon her arrival, and she thought it an odd coincidence that she should meet him here at such an hour.

"They told me you had returned to England," he exclaimed, "but you never said good-bye to anyone. We did not even have an opportunity to snowball you. Why, everyone who goes away from Andana is snowballed. The more snow you get down your neck, the more popular you are. I was nearly smothered to-day. Yes, they were very kind to me. But it was a real disappointment to us all that you should go without a word."

She told him that urgent private business had summoned her to Italy, and expressed her pleasure to meet him.

"The hotel is full of English people," she said, "therefore one knows nobody. Of course, you have heard the news? The express runs no further than Brigue to-night—there is some trouble on the line. We should have gone by the slow train earlier in the day, it appears; but I am always so shy of slow trains in Italy. Now they will not promise to take us until to-morrow, and perhaps not then. I have just been speaking to the station-master about it, and learned the truth so far as he is capable of telling it. Poor man, one would think the end of the world was at hand."

Harry Clavering did not seem at all upset.

"It is quite unusual," he explained, trotting by her side as she began to pace the long platform; "the express runs usually with the regularity of a clock, though some clocks, by the way, strike at all the stations. I expect there has been a heavy fall of snow and one of the galleries is giving trouble; or there may have been a slight accident. They tell me that the gale last night was very severe on the other side. Was it not lucky that your friend, Mr. Benson, won the prize when he did? He would never have done it to-day."

She did not fail to notice that he spoke of "her friend, Mr. Benson," and she wondered that he had done so. Some women would have disclaimed the association; but Lily Delayne held the little hypocrisies of life in some contempt, and rarely stooped to them. So she accepted the charge, and found herself talking of Benny's victory.

"Is he not a very remarkable man?" she said. "I guessed it the first day I saw him, though that did not appear to be the common opinion. The Englishman is so often judged by the partialities of his critics that many such mistakes are made. Surely, of all the people in Europe, we are the slowest to discover those who do us most honour. Now don't you agree with that, Mr. Clavering?"

"With every word of it, my dear lady. Our study of mankind finds us rare dunces. I think most of us would be ploughed if our degrees depended upon it. We are shrewd judges of results, but children in estimating the mind by which results are achieved. And we have ceased, alas! to be pioneers. Even Mr. Benson cannot claim to have invented the aeroplane. He is but an imitator, though a very clever one, I admit."

He perceived that she was interested, and went on to tell her all that had been said of Benny during the day. Totally destitute of the commercial mind himself, and wofully ignorant of finance, he repeated Sir Gordon Snagg's loquacious prophecies. It would be odd if Mr. Benson did not make a hundred thousand pounds in the course of the year, and that, surely, was a very big sum for such a man. Why, he would never know what to do with it. Then there would be all the fame attending—just fame, and well earned. Already a message had come from the King, and the French President had conferred the Grand Cordon upon the victor. It was said that Mr. Benson had received offers which would carry him to every quarter of the globe. He was to leave Switzerland immediately, it was understood, going straight to London, where a great reception had been prepared for him by Sir John Perinder.

Lily heard him with an occasional word of comment, but did not question him further. Presently the great express came steaming into the station; the gongs rang musically, and the English people flocked across the rails to take their places. This was the northern-bound train. But the night express for Milan followed it almost at once, and a rare confusion followed. Everyone bawled the news to everyone else who would listen. There had been an accident at Domo d'Ossola, and the line was quite blocked; they had to transfer the passengers to the southern-bound train, which was held up beyond the tunnel; it had not been a serious accident, and nobody was hurt. When the trains departed at length, the flare from their furnaces could be seen for many miles, the great funnels vomiting flame, and the wind carrying the sparks high above the valley. Then, as by magic, the little station appeared to settle down to sleep; the officials vanished; the English people returned to their hotel; the red and green lanterns stood sentinels of the night.

It was just after ten o'clock when Lily re-entered the corridor of the Terminus. She had no desire to go to bed, and when the parson begged permission to smoke his "lastly" with her, she assented very willingly. This kindly, gentle soul, the world appeared to have cast him out also, for he was without kith or kin, a lonely bachelor in this wilderness of mountains, desiring nothing so much as the good of mankind, but deprived by the subtleties of the ecclesiastical system from any performance which would have done him credit before the people. Naturally, he delighted in the society of a beautiful woman, who stood to him for a type of all that was highest and holiest in the human story. At a look from her he would have revealed the most sacred truths of his life—for so are men led to the confessional; but the opportunity passed, and he spoke again of things he believed to be commonplace.

"By the way," he said, "do you remember the strange affair at Vermala?"

She looked up astonished.

"Yes, indeed; and what of it?"

"Well, I chanced to meet one of the gendarmes this morning, a mere boy, whom they call Philip Gaillarde. He tells me that the affair is no longer a mystery. It was his brother who was killed on the Zaat—I believe by an Englishman who has been in trouble. The young man had just obtained leave from his superiors to go into Italy—I think he must have started by the morning train. He says that the assassin is near Locarno on Lake Maggiore. He has gone there to-day to arrest him."

Lily made what reply she could, but she did not speak again of it. The night had been very cold, and now that they were under shelter again she began to fear that she had taken a chill. A shivering fit was succeeded by a little faintness, which caused the parson great concern. He advised her to go to bed immediately, and she welcomed the suggestion.

Philip Gaillarde in Italy! What, then, had prevented her going that morning? An excuse of the trains. She knew that it was not so, but rather the hope that she might yet see a man who loved her, and say "farewell" to him.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DOCTOR INTERVENES

The world is as little interested in the harvest another reaps of his success as in the dinner he ate yesterday.

Benny's flight for the great prize had been a pleasant interlude at Andana, an excitement which might be permitted to postpone for a day the necessary operations of skating, ski-ing and curling. But when the flight had been accomplished, the little colony returned with what zest it could to its pleasures. These, unhappily, were pursued but sadly on the day following the great event. A cold bitter wind blew up the valley from Visp, and the snow fell incessantly during the morning and again at night, as has been told.

Benny was not sorry that things should turn out so. He dreaded a new invasion of the chalet, and had very much to do before he could leave the country. It was true, as Harry Clavering had said, that splendid offers had been made to him by his own people, but there were other offers both from France and from Switzerland, and he spent a good deal of his morning trying to plan out a campaign which should satisfy all concerned. A little later on Dr. Orange came in as though by accident, and when Brother Jack had gone upstairs to begin the packing, the doctor broached a private affair in which he presupposed a mutual interest.

"By the way," he said, "you know that Lady Delayne has left here?"

Benny, who was in the act of lighting his pipe, threw the match into the fireplace and looked at the doctor sharply.

"Gone to London, hasn't she?"

The doctor thought not.

"No," he said, "they tell me it is to Italy. Her husband is there, you know."

Benny made no attempt to evade it.

"Yes," he said, "I do know he's there. The question is, how did you find out, Doctor?"

"Oh, doctors hear everything. To begin with, I recognised Luton Delayne outside the Palace Hotel just as you did. He must have come to us after the affair at Grindelwald. Directly his wife arrived here I thought her face very familiar. I remember meeting them at a dinner party in Onslow Square—it must be three or four years ago. She's a woman you could not forget. We all think that."

Benny did not say that he thought it. A shrewd judge of men, he believed that a spirit of friendship had sent the doctor to the chalet, and he was grateful to him.

"Why, yes," he enjoined. "I guess the whole place would be about unanimous if that lady were in the case. But you haven't answered my question, Doctor; you haven't told me how you knew she was going into Italy. I'm curious, for I knew nothing about it. In fact, I didn't quite expect her to go at all."

The doctor took a cigarette from his case and lighted it carefully. His eyes had a curious trick of looking first to the right of him and then to the left, as though seeking inspiration from the carpet, and he twisted his shadow of a moustache quite fiercely while he pondered a reply.

"Well," he said, "I think that our objects are quite the same. Suppose I say that it was the gendarme here, the man they call Philip Gaillarde; would you be astonished at that?"

"I should be astonished at nothing in Luton Delayne's case. When did you get the news?"

"Oh, in the café this morning. There is a girl there named Susette; the young man is interested, it appears, and she is one of my patients. I have been attending her some days for a little hysteria—nothing serious, but quite alarming to the love-sick swain. Somehow she learned that he is going away, and is in a great state about it. She thinks he is in danger."

"Of what?"

"Of never returning to Andana—which is to say that she knows—"

He looked at his friend shrewdly, and seemed to be waiting for the fuller confession to come from him. Benny debated it an instant, his teeth gnawing the stem of his pipe. Then he spoke.

"You mean to say that Philip Gaillarde has gone into Italy to arrest Sir Luton?"

"That is exactly how I would put it."

"And that he knows the whole story?"

"I don't think there's any doubt about it. He has been told that Luton Delayne was the man, and he has obtained permission to go to Locarno and to help the police there. It is his own idea—though the local police should be very well able to help themselves. The question for us is one of social jurisprudence. Is it good for the other English, for the people who come here every year, to have this scandal to their discredit? I would go further, and ask, is it at any time wise to push such a case against such a family as the Delaynes? Speaking for myself, I don't think it is. Luton Delayne is a modern type; I suppose in New York they would understand him very well; but here we are educated slowly. The Swiss police are a little more ignorant than ourselves. I have had a chat with Ardlot, the French secretary at the hotel, and he tells me that they will be merciless if they succeed in arresting the man. We know what that means; perhaps we are interested enough to ask how others might take it."

Benny pulled heavily at his pipe. When he removed it from his lips it was to say:

"Wouldn't the singular number be better, Doctor? Shouldn't we say 'one other'?"

"If you like it so, by all means. But, let me tell you, I am talking quite in the dark; I don't know where Gaillarde speaks the truth; I am quite unaware if Delayne is in Italy, or no. That's why I came to you—"

"Then you believe that I know?"

"I am sure you do."

For a spell the two men sat looking at each other in silence. Benny neither denied nor affirmed the charge. His eyes searched the flickering fire as though for an inspiration. The problem was clear enough; he wondered if the doctor knew how much it meant to him.

"I guess you're a bit of a thought reader, Doctor," he exclaimed of a sudden, taking up the conversation exactly as it was left. "I do know where Luton Delayne is, and that's a fact. Let me be as plain with you. What you came here to do was to warn me. You wish me to know that the police are inquiring after him. Don't you think it's a little late for that? Gaillarde will be half-way to Brigue by this time. He'll be in Milan before we've done our second breakfast. What's the good of all this then, knowing what we do? Isn't it a bit foolish?"

Orange hardly understood him.

"My dear fellow," he protested, "I was not thinking anything of the kind. Will not the telegraph serve our purpose just as well?"

Benny shook his head.

"Look all round it, and then decide," he said quietly. "This lad has heard that Delayne is in Italy. Does he know where he is? If he does not, we may be right enough. If he does, a telegram may be the thing, or it may not. I'll have to calculate the chances. Before I can do that I must see this girl, Susette. Would she be still at the café, do you think? Should I find her there if I went down this afternoon? If so, I'll see her and let you know. There's time enough anyway; we can't run after the morning train to Milan, and I don't suppose either of us is going to try. What I would say before all is that I like the friendship which sent you here, Doctor. I shan't forget that, nor will Lady Delayne, when she hears about it. Did you say, by the way, that she has gone across the frontier? Don't I remember something about that?"

"It is quite true, or will be true. She was at Sierre last night waiting for an opportunity. I should not wonder if she went this morning by the same train as Gaillarde. Ardlot told me how it was; he saw her at the Terminus, and heard what she was doing."

"Then she certainly will have gone through this morning. I am very much obliged to you. Whatever is done, shall be done after a talk with you. It would be about half-past two or three, I suppose?"

They assented, and parted upon it, the doctor returning to the Palace, Benny calling Brother Jack and the abbé down to lunch. When the repast was finished he made some excuse, and taking his rough sweater and snow helmet, he set off for the village of Andana and the café where the girl, Susette, was to be found. It was a little after two o'clock, and the plateau quite deserted. He remembered that the guests at the Palace would hardly have finished their coffee, and hurried on with an anxiety very foreign to his nature.

Where did his duty lie, and to whom? It was true that the gendarme, Philip, had spoken of this visit to Italy on the eve of the flight; but it had been a tentative proposal, and depended upon the permission of his superiors. Then, as now, Benny perceived that if the lad did not know the whereabouts of the shanty, there would be no risk whatever, and Philip might be less dangerous at Milan than at Andana. If, on the other hand, the story of the shanty were known, then that was the end of it. Why, Sir Luton might be arrested that very night. And if he were, Lily Delayne must be a free woman before many weeks had passed. Benny shuddered a little when he remembered this, and walked on the faster. The victor's laurel suited him but ill, and many a poor wretch by the wayside might have pitied him.

She would be a free woman! He repeated the words often, dwelling upon them with an interest which frightened him. Not for the first time did he understand how little victory meant to him, and how bitter were the fruits of success. He must lead a lonely life, whatever the honour of it. He saw himself slaving in study or workshop, a man without a definite goal, one whose interest had no corner-stone. And it were idle to say that there was a woman who could change all this and breathe anew upon a dead inspiration. His ideas were old and built upon an ancient faith. Fate had set a barrier between Lily and himself, and none but Almighty God could remove it.

She would be a free woman! Yes, surely, that could be brought about easily enough. He had but to forbear, to return to his house as he had come, or simpler, just to whisper a word or two to the Chief of Police at Sierre, and there would be no difficulty about the matter. When he thought of this he laughed aloud because he had dared to think of it. In the same mood the best of men have asked themselves what would happen if they committed murder or robbed a bank or began to starve their children.

It was less easy to deal with the subtle question of what could or could not be done. How if it were impossible to stop this mad youth, who would avenge his brother? It might be so; the chances were that Philip was already on the way to Locarno, and would do his work before any could interfere. Benny thought of this, and hurried on to the café. The girl, Susette, would help him—he was quite confident about it.

Here luck favoured him, for old Maître Rousset, the proprietor of the café, declared that his daughter had just gone down to the post-office, and would be back inside five minutes. He was delighted to welcome Monsieur Benson, the great Englishman, to his house; and he began to ask him a thousand questions about his art and achievement. Like many others, he had devised a flying machine twenty years ago, and he called for a glass of vermouth while he unfolded its wings, so to speak, and drew, with the stem of a brier pipe, a plan upon the table before him. When Susette came in, it needed all Benny's ingenuity to get a word with her; but he managed it at last by sending her father upon an errand to the telephone, and promising him that he should see the machine if he came up to the chalet later on.

Susette was a brunette, with the figure of a woman and the face of a child. Her skin was very white, her cheeks inordinately red, when she returned from her errand down the village street. It was plain that she had been running in her eagerness to return. Someone had told her that the hero of the day was at the café, and knowing him to be the friend of her lover, Philip, she ran all the way from the post-office that she might not miss him. A few kindly words upon Benny's part put her quite at her ease. Oh, yes, she knew that Monsieur Philip had gone into Italy; he would be back in three or four days at the most, for that was his promise.

"He has gone to Locarno, Monsieur. I am quite sure of it. He went by the first train this morning, and should reach his destination to-night. I have just posted a letter to him, which he will receive to-morrow. It is lonely to be so far away from us all. I do not think he has any friends in Italy."

"Then you do not know why he has gone there, Susette?"

Susette opened her black eyes.

"Of course, I know, Monsieur; it is to arrest the Englishman who killed his brother on the Zaat!"

"Do you think he will be able to find the fellow?"

Susette peeped through the door to be sure that no one heard her, and then drew a little nearer.

"I am glad that you came, Monsieur. You are a brave gentleman, and will tell me truly. There was a servant here, a Monsieur Paul Lacroix. He gave my Philip an address upon a piece of paper—one he got from the chalet where the English lady was staying. I have never liked Paul Lacroix; I do not think he means well to Philip. That is what makes me so anxious. I think he has been serving his own purpose, and that he feared to do the work himself. So he has sent my Philip. You will tell me truly, Monsieur, if that was right or just?"

Benny had no idea how to answer her. Her news astonished him beyond any he had expected to hear. It was as though the whole of the plot had been revealed in an instant, and being revealed, her news said that all was lost.

"I will see what we can do," he rejoined, evading it in despair. "Perhaps I shall be visiting Italy myself. Your father has gone to the telephone to book a place for me to-night. We will think about what is to be done directly we hear where Monsieur Philip is. Meanwhile, don't you fret about it, Susette. Your boy is all right, and I will bring him back to you."

She began to cry at this; it is the office of friendship to provoke the tears which are hidden from the unsympathetic. When old Rousset returned, he found the Englishman pacing the room like a caged lion, while Susette dried her tears on the corner of a far from clean apron. His rebuke to her was harsh and commanding; she slunk from the room as though fearing a new humiliation.

"That girl is becoming a nuisance to me," the old man said. "I shall have to send her to England to work, as her sisters are doing. It is the loneliness of the mountains, Monsieur; even I suffer from that sometimes. You English people stay here such a little while; you do not know what it is to see those great white walls shutting out the world always. Well, well, Susette will be better in England; and I, perhaps, may go to Paris and remember that I have been young."

He laughed, and looked at the paper in his hand. The trains to Italy—had he not been sent to inquire about them? Well, there were no trains. There had been an accident beyond Brigue, and it was doubtful when the line would be cleared.

"I am quite sure about it, Monsieur, for the chief answered me himself. You cannot go to-night; it is out of the question."

Benny stood for an instant rocking upon his heels. His cheeks had flushed suddenly, and his fists were clenched almost convulsively.

"When did this accident happen?"

"At midday, I think."

"Do you know if the morning train got through to Milan?"

"I am able to say so; it was mentioned by the superintendent, and the last train to reach Italy, I believe."

"Ah, then, that is all, Maître Rousset. Thank you very much. I shall see you later on."

He waited for no reply, but hurried from the café like one possessed. So swiftly did he walk, that he had almost passed the door of the Palace Hotel before he remembered his promise to the doctor and the necessity of keeping it. The hour was favourable to that, for the players were out on the mountains again, and the doctor entertained a little company in the drawing-room, where he played one of Chopin's nocturnes with an exquisite touch and a feeling for the music of it quite beyond ordinary. Nor would Benny interrupt him. The haunting melody lingered as a memory of children's voices; the pathos of life stood expressed in it; the hope, and fear, and dread which afflicted his mind at this very moment. Such chords were struck by the Master of human destiny when the souls of men were offered upon the altars of life. Benny trembled while he heard them, and, trembling, he saw the woman's face as in a vision.

Dr. Orange came out presently and heard his news with interest. The story of the mishap at Brigue had not entered into his calculations. It seemed to say that nothing could be done to further their ends, unless they sent a telegram to the shanty in the hope that it would be in time. On the other hand, there was a possibility that Susette might not have been correctly informed, and that the gendarme, Philip, had but a vague idea of Delayne's whereabouts. If this were the case, it would be madness to employ the telegraph, open as it was to the scrutiny of the police. In the end the doctor agreed that it would be wiser to wait; and then he asked if it would not be possible to drive across the pass?

"You might be at Locarno to-morrow night," he suggested, and bethought him in the same breath that the trains would be running through the tunnel from the point where the accident had happened. This suggested another course. Why not take the train to Brigue, and learn just what had happened? To which Benny responded in his quiet way that it was neck or nothing. Either Philip knew, or he did not know. If he knew, Sir Luton would be in a prison before nightfall, and England would have the story to-morrow!

"Unless a man can buy a magic carpet," he remarked with a shrug, "there's nothing further to be said. I'd drive across the pass willingly if I thought it would do any good. You know that it won't. Doctor, and that's the end of it."

"Then there is no other way?"

"None at all, unless I run out my machine, and get there over the mountains."

"You could do it, Benson; I think you would do it if your own wife or sister were concerned. Have you thought about it? I see the wind has dropped. It would not take you very long, would it now? Well, I must leave it to you. It's for you to decide, and you know what can be done so much better than I do. If I see Lady Delayne, I shall not forget to tell her how much trouble you took. She is the kind of woman who remembers."

Benny said he thought that she was, but they had no other chance to speak of it, for the Rider girls came galloping into the conservatory at that moment and carried off the doctor triumphantly. It was about three o'clock then, and already growing dark. Benny perceived that the wind had fallen, and that a dead calm had come down. There would be an interval merely of hours, he thought, before it began to blow again. He must make up his mind immediately. The weather would have nothing to do with argument.

He must go and warn Luton Delayne, and must warn him for Lily's sake. If he did not go, she might be a free woman before the summer came, and it might lie no longer against his conscience that he loved her. Permitting his thoughts to run on, he would say that by such a woman's love would his future be assured. He saw himself working for her, devoting all his genius to her service and raising himself above the class into which he had been born. The world knew his name already; but that was merely the beginning of things. He had worshipped the very ground this woman trod, and she must be the guiding star of his life to the end. What then carried him to Locarno—what paradox of duty or service? He could not answer the question, but the vision remained and haunted him.

To cross the Simplon Valley and descend to Italy. It was a child's task for a man who had circled the great Pennine chain. True, the storm might come down again, and if it did come down, the unfortunate who was caught aloft in it would lose his life! Well, and what had life in store on this side? Again, the voice said, she will be a free woman.

He stood at the chalet which had been her home, and looked across toward Brigue and the mountains. They jutted out in bold relief, showing their whitened domes clearly in the still air, and catching waning rays of the sinking sun. Beyond them lay Italy and the lake. Perchance—but of that he had no sure knowledge—Lily was already with her husband; she would witness his shame and be, in a sense, a partner of it. He remembered her as he had seen her at the door of the chalet—a woman without a friend. Had she not called herself that? He turned away at the remembrance, and went on toward his own house.

The mechanics were waiting to pack the aeroplane and send it through to Paris. Benny went in among them and began to speak of delay.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LIGHTS OF MAGADINO

The cold was less as he began to descend amid the gentle mountains of the Ticino, and he knew that the night was won.

Behind him, far away where the white caps marked the encircling mountains of the Simplon, the storm must be raging furiously, he thought. More than once a gust of the wind, tearing through a breach of the southern spurs, had flung him headlong, as a leaf is whirled by the winter blast. There had been a time when all sensation left him, when hands and feet were stiff and powerless; when the very skin of his face was as dried parchment. He made light of that, for the kindlier country lay before him, and if he gained it, this were not too high a price to pay.

His landmarks were few. He had set off from Sierre while the twilight remained and had crossed the pass above Brigue at a great height and remote from danger of the peaks. He turned thence a little to the southward, and saw the smiling country for an instant as the sun sank finally, and the night crept about him. For an hour afterwards there had been the black darkness, the biting cold, the anger of the winds. Then a spell of silence intervened. He seemed to be lost in the shadows, gone from the world, drifted to the eternal darkness. But he held on resolutely, praying for the light.

When the light came at last, no panorama of a splendid imagination could have surpassed the wonder of it. It was as though an unseen hand cleft a wall before him and showed him a magic city. Countless stars glowed beneath a panoply of mountains. To the right, to the left, look where he would, the lamps shone a welcome—here in clusters to speak of a town; there apart to tell of a high road. And Benny knew that they were lights about Lake Maggiore, and that the battle was won.

Such good fortune as this had been in his mind from the outset, and he reckoned upon the chance. Let him espy the lights of the lake from a sufficient altitude, and his own skill would do the rest. The shanty lay almost opposite to Magadino, and if a man could not name Magadino when the lake lay illuminated far beneath him, then was he no fit pilot for an airship.

Benny placed the town at once, working up from the southward, past the islands of the Borromeos to Locarno and the mountains. He thought that he could have dropped a stone upon the very shanty—and laughed at himself for the boast.

There was a great acetylene lamp at the prow of his ship, and it burned brightly enough as he began to sweep down toward the lake. Long afterwards the simple folk were to tell how a star had fallen from the north and shone gloriously above the Virgin's Church at Ascona. Others would have it that a fireball, monstrous beyond any of the fables, had come down and settled a while upon the slope of the mountain opposite Magadino. The whole country round about was golden with the flame of it, they said, while the sounds attending it were unlike anything earthly. But one old fellow, and he a fisherman of Losone, actually saw the machine descend; he believed that the veritable dragon, which the saint slew, had come to life again, and he ran headlong.

Benny landed about a third of a mile from the chalet. He chose a gentle slope of the hill, and came down without much damage—but he could not help the reflection that the flight might cost him a good deal of money before he had done with it, and that it would be no light undertaking to get the machine across the pass again. This, however, was the thought of an instant, and when he had seen to his engine, turned off the petrol, and done what he could to make things ship-shape, he went on to the shanty without further delay, and was at its garden gate in less than twenty minutes from the time of his descent.

It was a pretty little house, gabled and covered in summer with the great flowers of the begonia. Possessing a good frontage to the lake, there was also a boathouse and landing-stage—the former having a smoking-room built right out over the water. On the other side there ran the high road to Losone on the one hand, and to Ronco on the other. In summer this road was alive with the motor cars of the Americans doing Europe in five-and-twenty minutes; but a night of winter found it deserted enough, and not a soul was to be discerned, either in the little village above the shanty or upon the highway itself. Benny had hoped to meet some friend or neighbour among the villagers who would have helped him to guard the airship; but finding none, he determined to telephone to Ascone directly it was safe to do so—and with that in his head he opened the garden gate and went in.

The consummation of a perilous emprise is often commonplace to the point of banality, and this is especially the case when the quest of man or woman is the objective. Benny had crossed the Simplon that he might reach the lake before another—and having reached it, might warn a madman of his danger. To do that, he had imperilled his own life as many times as there had been minutes in his journey; he had run the risk of being frozen alive or dashed to instant death in the chasms of the pass. And now that it was done he went up to the door of the house like any ordinary traveller, stood an instant while his eyes searched the unlighted windows, then rang the bell upon the right-hand side of the porch, and waited quietly. All the excitement of the quest appeared to have subsided at this time. He thought nothing of his victory; he did not even remember that it had been a victory!

The bell was unanswered, not a little to his surprise. He had looked at his watch before he left the ship, and had discovered that it was just a quarter-past seven. By all rights, Sir Luton should have been then at his dinner, and it occurred to him that the old woman who kept the shanty might be so busy in her kitchen that she did not hear him. Against this was the black fact of the unlighted windows, and the silence. Benny could hear the splash of the waves as they ebbed and flowed upon the shore of the lake, but no other sound save that of the distant bells of Losone. It began to force itself upon his mind that this silence was prophetic, and, with a shiver of apprehension different from any he had yet experienced, he rang a second time, and listened to the jangling reverberations and their diminuendos. Again the summons was unanswered. It was plain that there was no one in the house, and that his errand had been in vain.

He would not admit this at the beginning, or even contemplate a house of shadows. Knowing Luton Delayne, he thought it very likely that he had gone to one of the neighbouring towns for his dinner; while the old woman, taking advantage of his absence, would have run down to the village to her home there. Going round to the back of the house, which looked upon the lake, he found it shut and barred, and no evidence of occupation whatever—but the bars were no obstacle to such a wit as his, and forcing the kitchen window, he climbed in and began to search the place. A fleck of fire reddened in the grate; there were dirty plates upon a bare table, with a candle and a box of matches. Benny lit the candle, and passed on into the hall. The shanty had been occupied that day, so much was evident.

It was here that a strange hallucination took possession of him, and one he had some little difficulty to stifle. Suddenly, and without warning, he thought that he heard Luton Delayne's voice from one of the inner rooms; but when he entered it there was no sign of occupation whatever, no evidence that it had been used for many months. This should have set his mind at rest, but no such result followed upon the discovery. For the second time he heard the voice calling him from another quarter of the house; and, refusing to believe that he could be mistaken a second time, he crossed the narrow hall, and entered the room he had used as his study. Here at last were those visible evidences of occupation he had sought vainly elsewhere. The remains of such a meal as a man would have ordered were still upon the table. A fire burned in the grate, and a flask of red wine stood upon a side table. Whoever had occupied this room had left it during the day, and, what was more, he had written a letter shortly before he left.

Benny set down the candle upon the side table, and knelt to warm himself before the fire, upon which he heaped fresh logs. The window showed him the broad expanse of the lake with the mountains upon the far side of it, and the star cluster of Magadino at their feet. A man of indomitable courage, he was astonished to discover how greatly the hallucination of the voice had shaken him, and how real it had seemed when it called him. He had never realised the remoteness of the shanty before, nor its isolation from the towns by the lakeside. Presently a fit of shivering seized him, and he started up fearing that he was about to be ill, and determined that his will should master the situation. He heaped up the logs until the fire roared in the chimney, and then searching the kitchen for candles made such an illumination as that little room had never witnessed before. The light cheered him—he drank what was left of the wine in the flask, and ate of the bread and butter upon the table.

He had pipe and tobacco, and these had ever been his good friends in every kind of emergency. A long smoke by the fireside cleared his brain of the cobwebs, and gave him a clearer vision. And first he said that Luton had left the house, and it was doubtful if he would return. Had it been otherwise, had he gone across to dine at one of the neighbouring towns, assuredly the beldame would have returned to her kitchen by this time and made her preparations for the night. So it was clear that Delayne had left the shanty, and that he, Benny, had come too late. Whether this were a good thing or a bad he had as yet no means of knowing. The darker suggestion that the man had been arrested by the police, and that the old woman had fled the shanty in consequence, was not to be put aside. That seemed a very likely thing to have happened; but if it had happened, he would hear of it soon enough, and so would every newspaper in Switzerland.

This latter thought grew with the minutes and awakened every instinct to the danger. He wondered that it had not occurred to him directly he found the shanty deserted, and was going on to say that it was the absolutely obvious thing, when a sound arose which chilled him to the very marrow. A moment later he laughed aloud, and picked up one of the candles. Of course, the telephone still ran to the shanty. There is hardly a decent house in Switzerland which does not possess it.

A telephone bell ringing clearly in the silence of the house! Well, it was a thing to give a man a start—and his nerves were not what they should be! Not until he had the receiver in his hand, and began to reply to the unknown at the other end of the wire, did he bethink him that here was companionship of a sort after all. This telephone would summon help from Ascona, if he needed it. He took heart at the thought, and cried "Halloa" in his old tone. This was the Benny of yesterday—the man who had done what no man had ever done before.

"Halloa—halloa!—this is the Villa Favorita—who do you say you are?—I don't hear you!—Halloa—halloa!—the Abbé Villari?—Good God! Abbé—how did you know that I was here?—What, you didn't know?—then that's the rummest go of all—You wanted Sir Luton Delayne—Well, I'm d——d!"

He dropped the instrument and laughed aloud. His talk had been half in French, half in English, and he remembered that the abbé understood both tongues perfectly. But it was no time to apologise. The news was too astounding; he would not lose a word of it.

"You heard all about it from Susette—yes, I suppose she would tell a priest—And you warned the man this morning?—I wish you'd told me, Abbé—it would have saved me a matter of five thousand pounds. Of course, it was done for the best—all that's granted.—Did you say you were at Brigue?—going up to the Hospice?—Yes, I remember, now—well, he's away all right—the bird has flown.—Oh, I don't know where—I hope it's south—you'll understand that—You haven't seen Lady Delayne?—Ah! you never did like that charming lady, did you, Reverence?—Speak up a little, I don't quite catch that.—The boy, Philip, has gone over the pass, did you say?—He might have been here, for all I know—I shall try to find out in the morning—Let me know if you hear anything of Lady Delayne—It was a big thing for you to do, and a very kind thing under the circumstances.—She won't forget it, nor will I.—Good night, sir—and don't forget to ring up in the morning."

He stood a little while when the abbé had ceased to speak, holding the instrument in his hand, and realising anew the weird stillness of the house. It was as though he remained incredulous, and could not grasp the meaning of the few words which had come across the mountains upon the frail wire—words which revealed in a twinkling the acumen of the little abbé and the reality of his friendship. Benny could have sworn that the priest did not know one word of the story, had hardly heard Sir Luton's name, and would as soon have thought of connecting it with the episode upon the Zaat as with his own flight across Mont Blanc. And now the abbé had undeceived him in an instant, and spoken of his own shrewdness and perception beyond possibility of question.

Of course, the girl, Susette, would have told him. Benny recollected that she was a Catholic, and his odd notions about the ancient faith included the belief that nothing is kept secret, not even the most trivial things of a common day. So he argued that Susette would have "confessed," and the gendarme, Philip, have done the same, putting the abbé in possession of all the facts, and dictating this friendly intervention. The priest had been the man to warn Sir Luton. Possibly he had done so directly Philip Gaillarde left Andana. And if it were so, then the baronet was safe, and this journey had been vain indeed.

He had come to this conclusion anew when he heard someone open the front door of the shanty, and presently recognised the hacking cough of the beldame who should have been keeping it. Her feminine outburst when she discovered him, the muttered oath and then the trembling recognition were brushed aside while he asked her of his guest and heard her garrulous answer. Ah, that Englishman!—what she had suffered at his hands! And now he had gone—he went at eleven o'clock. This very morning, Bajazet, the postboy from the inn, had driven him; he would know all about it. For her part, Mother of God, she was glad that the house was quit of him. Such a man to serve—such anger, such words! She hoped that he would never return; but now that the master was come again she could be content. Which being said, she began with the method of a Swiss to set the house in order, and to justify her existence. It blazed with lights from garret to kitchen before half an hour had passed; fires roared in the grates; pots were steaming upon the hob. And while she worked she repeated her story that the Englishman had driven away at eleven o'clock, and that Bajazet could say where he had gone.

Benny let her have her say, and then went to the telephone to ring up the inn as she advised him. Being answered immediately, he asked for help to get his airship into shelter, and begged them to send up Cordivet, the gendarme, and as many young fellows of the place as they could summon. As to Bajazet, he must come to the villa immediately, if he could; and there would be ten francs for him if he hurried. Which being done, and the woman instructed to have supper ready within the hour, he went out to the lakeside and there waited for the postboy.

The night had fallen clear and the heavy clouds were now breaking to show a monstrous moon, shining full and round upon the sleeping water. By here and there the siren of a steamer could be heard, and the voices of young people who sang as they rowed; while from the village inn, some third of a mile up the road, the music of fiddles and a harp floated down upon the still air. Such a contrast to the rigour and cold of the heights was hardly to be imagined, and it seemed to Benny to stand for such a haven of rest as a man might win when he had crossed the pass and emerged victorious.

For himself, he knew that he was at the crisis of his life, and faced it with all the resolution he could command. To-night, or if not to-night, to-morrow, would tell him plainly enough whither his road lay, and to what house of fortune it would lead. Luton Delayne's possible flight had been in his calculations vaguely when he set out for Andana. He knew that his desire for this man's safety was honest, and that he would have contrived it whatever the sacrifice had cost him. Henceforth these people must lead their own lives. He perceived that it would be better that he should not see Lily again, and that she had been wise to leave Andana without a word to him. If the very fact led also to another conclusion, he strove to turn from it at such a moment. The vanity of his secret hopes was not to be disguised. Sometimes he had been ready to say that this sense of inglorious defeat, this merciless rebuke which fortune administered to him was well deserved. What had he, born to so humble a station, to do with such a friendship or its privileges? When he answered that his attainments had given him every right, he flushed secretly, as though someone overheard him. Success found him a shy lover, though he had wooed her daringly enough.

This passed at the lakeside, but the interlude of waiting galled him, and he found himself impelled resistlessly to act—he knew now how. When the coachman, Bajazet, appeared, he was greeted as an old friend: taken apart and made much of, and wine commanded for him. It seemed good to be talking to a man who had played a part, however humble, in the drama of the day. Benny led him to the little study and poured out a tumbler of red wine with his own hands, while he asked him twenty questions and hardly waited for an answer.

"So milord went away at eleven o'clock, Bajazet?"

"He did, Monsieur—it was just before the hour."

"He was very anxious to go?"

Bajazet raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"All the time, all the time, he gave me no rest! I know your countrymen, but not many such as he, thanks be to God! He is at Domo d'Ossola this night. May he remain there many years!"

Benny looked at him as though he had been lying.

"At Domo d'Ossola? But you are not speaking wisely, Bajazet; you make some mistake? A man who goes to Domo d'Ossola is returning to Switzerland. It is impossible to believe it—of my friend! Think again, and tell me truly."

The fellow shook his head, and drank a little more wine.

"I know what I am saying. Milord wished to go by the railway, but the trains were not running. Very well, then, he will cross the pass. Why should he not do so, Monsieur? There are many who wish to see it; why should not your countryman be among the number? I tell you, I left him at the posthouse. He was engaging horses for the journey; perhaps he is at the Hospice to-night. Should you wish to know that the telephone will inform you. What I have said is of my own knowledge, Monsieur; the rest is with God!"

He laughed, and reached out his hand to the flask. Upon the road without the light of many lanterns was to be seen, and, anon, the voice of Cordivet, the gendarme, to be heard. A little company of men and boys had come up from the inn to do the Englishman's bidding, and Cordivet marshalled them as though they had been an army. Soon these were grouped about the airship; their eyes staring at the glistening steel of its tubes; their tongues loosed in wonder. Had they been English the buffoons among them would have worked a mischief; but the love of things mechanical waxes strong among the Swiss even in the villages to-day, and these youths understood very well what was asked of them. Willing lads were sent hither and thither for tarpaulins to cover the machinery; strong arms helped to wheel the ship down toward the garden by the lake. These good folk had heard of the great Flight, and they stood awed before the master who held the key to the secrets. Every word they spoke was a tribute to his achievement—every gesture honoured him.

Benny saw the machine safely anchored, and then went in to eat the supper prepared before him. His mind was already made up, and he had determined that the worthy Bajazet should drive him immediately to Domo d'Ossola, and afterwards, if need be, to the summit of the Simplon. For had not the fellow said that Luton Delayne would cross the pass, and if that mad purpose were filled, who would save the man from the penalties of his folly?

Benny had the vague idea that he might yet be in time—he knew not how! But he promised Bajazet a hundred francs if his work were well done, and they went at a gallop, blindly in the silence of the night toward the mighty high road which must speak eternally of Napoleon and his genius.

CHAPTER XXVI

AT THE HOSPICE

It was three in the morning when Bajazet turned into the yard of the Hôtel de Ville at Domo d'Ossola and ordered a sleepy ostler to prepare horses for Brigue.

In summer the place would have been wide awake enough even at such an hour, for the summer would have found it alive with motorists about to cross the pass according to the regulations which forbid them to travel at the height of the day. But being the month of February, the town was as silent as the grave when the carriage drove in, and even the ostler could be discovered with difficulty. When twenty questions had recalled his understanding, he remembered that an Englishman had set out for Brigue yesterday, but had no idea who he was. His description, however, answered to that of Luton Delayne, and Benny quickly came to the conclusion that the baronet had persisted in his madness, and had returned to Switzerland upon an impulse no one else might pretend to understand.

And yet, was it so difficult to be understood? Luton Delayne knew the best and the worst that life had in store for him. Of all his fortune, good or ill, fortune of character and of possessions, there remained to him but the supreme desire to seek out the woman who had been his wife, and to throw himself upon her pity. Desperately, and with almost a child's trust, he had come to believe that she would save him. The unanswered letter, the hours of loneliness by the lakeside, the alternations of hope and despair, so drove him at the last, that, flinging all reason to the winds, he determined to go to her and hear the worst. And he had set off immediately when the abbé sent him a warning message. What mattered it, if he could win a hearing from her? The good that was in him claimed audience now. He believed that she would judge him lightly if all were known; and, determined that it should be known, he drove to Iselle and the pass.

Perhaps Benny guessed something of this when he commanded horses for the journey to Brigue, and announced his determination to depart immediately. He understood men in many moods, and could almost sympathise with this broken man who thus flung down the gauntlet to the world and did not stop to consider that it might be picked up—not by a chivalrous enemy, but by the police. For himself, his task was plain, and events had not changed the trend of it. He would save Luton Delayne from a public exposure if he could, and would save him for the woman's sake. What happened afterwards must be as destiny decided. It would be enough for him that he had done his duty to one who claimed his friendship, and for whom he would measure no sacrifice.

There was a considerable delay before the carriage could leave the hotel, and he was glad of the hot coffee which the maids prepared for him. Early as it was, the great road to the pass now became alive with peasants coming down into Italy or returning to the Valley of the Rhone. These seldom travel by the train, and for them the Hospice upon the summit of the pass is kept open during the winter months. Benny watched them as they tramped stolidly through the darkness, their eyes set upon a visionary city, and their faces pinched with the cold. When he spoke to one of them at the door of the inn yard, an old man whose sister was ill at Baveno, the veteran told him that there had been a dreadful storm on the heights last night, and that a bruit of accidents was abroad. He also spoke of the railway, and of the mishap above Brigue; but that, he said, had now been put right, and the trains were running as usual. When he left, with a five-franc piece for his gratuity, he confessed that it was seldom an Englishman was met upon the pass nowadays—bad luck to all this craze for railway travelling which robbed so many of their dues.

Benny was pleased at the news about the trains, for it fitted in very well with the idea which had come to him at the shanty, and had not been abandoned during the journey. He perceived that all now depended upon what the gendarme Philip had done—whether the lad had attempted to reach Italy by the pass, or had waited for the line to Milan to be reopened. In the former case, nothing could save Luton Delayne from arrest—or worse. In the latter, it might very well be that the baronet would reach Sierre, and, having met his wife, would be persuaded to take the express to Paris. Should that be done, his escape was almost assured, for the heat of the hue and cry had subsided by this time, and but for Philip Gaillarde might have been forgotten altogether. The gendarme, truly, was the key to the whole situation, and Benny was almost tempted to ring up the abbé at the Hospice and ask if he had news of him. This, however, would have been a concession to mere curiosity, and, set upon his purpose of overtaking the baronet if he could, he entered his carriage about four o'clock and departed immediately for Brigue.

Many know the Simplon Pass by name, but to few of this generation is it more than a name. Sometimes, in the history lesson, the boy learns that the great road was built at Napoleon's command immediately after the battle of Marengo, and that it took no fewer than six years to construct. By here and there in an old painting there are pictures of the Ponto Alto, or, more commonly, of the Gallery of Gondo, with its wondrous black-mouthed tunnel and arched bridge, and mighty ramparts uplifted, as it were, to the very heavens. But these things are but traditions to the flitting tourist, who climbs mountains in a railway carriage and would have his waterfalls illuminated.

Benny knew nothing of the pass, but insensibly the wonders of it grew upon him as the day dawned and the fertile valleys of Italy began to give place to the grandeur and desolation of the heights. What mind had conceived these things—what hand had planned them? An engineer by every instinct of his being, he tried to understand the spirit in which this great work was conceived and the labour which had accomplished it. And from that he passed to the sheer fascination of it all; of these frail bridges spanning the very jaws of hell; of the galleries wrought in the face of the iron rock; of the vast aqueducts bringing black torrents, and the mighty roofs which defied the thundering avalanche. By one man's genius this had come to be; the gates had been opened, the goal attained. And with that man he crossed the pass in spirit, and lifted his eyes to the stars, and dwelt in the infinite.

Upward and still upward—to what end, to what humour of destiny? Must all this grandeur of the road melt ultimately to a vulgar truth of life; must it give place to a man's shame and a woman's tears? He tried to think that it could not be, and yet the inevitableness of it all seemed written upon every rock which towered above him. He believed no longer that Philip Gaillarde had gone down into Italy. The lad, he thought, would be advised by others, and all that had been done at the villa would be well known to the authorities. Possibly, and this was to be reckoned with, Philip had himself gone up to the Hospice and would there meet the baronet face to face. And if he did so it might well be that a new page in this sordid tragedy would be written that very day. Benny would not dwell upon this, but he encouraged Bajazet with new promises, while that good fellow urged on his horses with wild cries and a great cracking of his whip, which echoed in the hills like a pistol shot.

They were at the Gallery of Gondo by this time, and its black mouth shaped bell-like at the break of day. The open valley here closed in until it became but a tremendous cañon; the towering heights were uplifted as the spires of a Gargantuan cathedral; the road itself seemed to disappear into the very bowels of the rock. Upon the right hand, what would have been a roaring torrent in the spring was but a runnel cut in the cliff's face; upon their left hand was the abyss whose black depths no eye could fathom. Here no living thing stirred—there was no sound but that of the water dripping; the very bridge should have been built for fabled demons of the Simplon and not for human travellers.

They passed on by the seventh refuge, and set out across the dreary tableland, beyond which lay the village of Simplon itself. They had out-distanced other travellers, and were alone upon this waste, which breaks into the hills as an oasis whose icy mirage mocks the wayfarer. Here, for the first time, they perceived the effects of last night's storm: the profound drifts; the scarred rocks—even relics of the pilgrims who had dared the journey. A little farther on, and they entered the village, and heard the warning that the road to the Hospice was unsafe. No sleighs would be allowed to pass: there had been accidents upon the road, and the snow was not yet cleared. Some hours must intervene before permission could be given, they said, but Benny heard them with scorn, for he was determined to make the Hospice, and to hear the abbé's news, cost him what it might. When he had talked a little way with one of the soldiers at the inn, it appeared that nothing would be said to those who cared to set out on foot, and this he did immediately, instructing Bajazet to follow him directly the road was open that they might continue the journey to Brigue.

To Brigue—was that his destination? Lily, he remembered, should be at Sierre; it was even possible that her husband had joined her there, and that they would leave for England by the express to-night. He himself would follow after, but not for many weeks. The triumphs which awaited him in England had ceased to interest him. He had lost, as it were, in an hour the ambitions which had sustained him through the years, and the inspiration by which they had been gratified. It would be well enough to think of his future when all this were over, and he knew the best or the worst of it. The brain refusing to contemplate any other issue, it brought him back to the starting-point: would he be in time to save Delayne, or was the gendarme, Philip, already avenged?

He pressed on over a barren road which has been likened to a waterless lake in the hollow of the mountains. The snow lay heavy and the walking was difficult. By here and there he passed wayfarers coming down from the Hospice, but telling ever the same story of hardship and distress. When, at length, he espied the monastery buildings, it was at a moment when an avalanche crashed down on the road before him, and its thunders echoed in the heights with the booming of a thousand cannon. Such appalling sounds affrighted him beyond all reason, for he knew little of Switzerland in the winter, save what Andana had taught him. Grimly and with satisfaction, he remembered how little all this terror of the hills had meant to him last night, and how little it would mean to the men of to-morrow. Give him his ship, and he would be but a speck above these imprisoning peaks—as free as an eagle, and as kingly. To go as he must go—battling with the snow and often almost conquered by it, was a humiliation his genius derided. But it was in keeping with the truth of the quest; and presently, when a second avalanche thundered down, and the snow sprayed above a gallery as foam upon a seashore, he shuddered at its reality and wondered if his courage were equal to the ordeal.

He was but a quarter of a mile from the gate of the Hospice by this time, and he perceived that those who had gone before him here deserted the pass itself and went downward a little way toward the abyss. So many feet had trodden out a path that prudence bade him take it. Striking out boldly, he found himself presently in a magic sea whose billows rose above his head but never engulfed him. At this time the monastery disappeared from his view entirely; the landmarks by which he might have guided himself to its doors vanished to give place to this monstrous and unbroken curtain of the snow. He had the sense of being lost beyond hope, of being a man adrift upon an ocean whose waters were white with an icy foam. All idea of direction was blotted out immediately in this blinding waste. He found the path and lost it ten times in as many minutes, and then fell to bitter self-reproach because he had deserted the high road. Vain lament—that desertion was his salvation!

A great dog came battling through the snow, and, anon, a monk with a cassock tucked up to his waist, and skis upon his feet. He was quite a youth, and he laughed and nodded to the stranger as one who would say: "All is well; we knew you were coming to us." At his direction Benny turned up the hillside again, and there he found the rope by which travellers pull themselves up to the gates of the Hospice. They were now but fifty yards from its door, and he could hear a bell calling the priests to terce. The monk, in his turn, pointed to the high road, and to the mountains of snow which rested upon its galleries.

"You were wise to come as you did," he said. "Many lose their lives up there; three have done so this week, Monsieur."

No answer was made, and they entered the monastery. The bell still tolled, and the brethren were crossing the court toward the chapel. The Englishman, however, was conducted immediately to the guest hall, where a great fire blazed and a table was spread. The monk had already told him that the Abbé Villari was at the Hospice, and the desire to see him brooked no control. Benny had almost forgotten where he was; the events of the night and the journey of the day were as nothing when the abbé at last entered the room and greeted him with hand uplifted and a hushed word upon his lips.

"Yes, yes, I had expected you," he said, nodding his head slowly while he spoke. "It was natural that you should not have heard. We found him lying just above the seventh shelter. He was quite dead; he had been dead for some hours."

Benny drew a step nearer, as though afraid of the sound of his voice.

"You found him—are you speaking of Luton Delayne?"

The abbé looked bewildered.

"Of whom, then? They would have kept him at Iselle, but he would not hear reason. He tried to cross on foot at the height of the storm. I had an idea that it might be so. Yes, yes, the Almighty God made this known to me, and so I came."

And then he said, turning away:

"She will be here this afternoon—I have spoken to her myself; she is now upon her way from Sierre."

There was no response. Benny stood at the window and looked down the valley as though fearing to see her carriage already upon the high road.

CHAPTER XXVII

BENNY SETS OUT FOR ENGLAND

He left the hospice at three o'clock, while it was yet light, and the journey to Brigue could be made in safety.

He had not spoken to her, but he knew that she was then in the chapel where the dead lie, and that she was aware of his presence. An instinct told him that it were better they should not meet in such a house of shadows. He had already determined to set out for England that night, and to think of Switzerland no more. In his own country he would find the place and the hour.

Of the future, his ideas were vague and indefinable. A call of ambition had returned in the interlude of reckoning, and found him resolute in response. A new world opened to his vision, a world which should recognise his genius and bid him profit by it. he would go to England this night and make himself known to those who would honour him. Thereafter strenuous days must follow, and the reaping of the harvest. He was as one whose life's task began upon a foundation of success; the stones of whose house were already hewn. In England he would come to his own. They waited for him impatiently there.

Just for an instant, as he crossed the courtyard, he saw her kneeling before the altar, her head bent in prayer and all her figure shrouded in the gloom. A dim light of tapers flickered in the little building and stood as symbols of the woe it harboured. She did not hear his step upon the stone, and he passed by unnoticed. But that was not the vision he carried with him upon his journey, nor the face the clear heaven showed him when the gate was closed and he set upon his journey.

It was growing dark then, and twilight had already come down upon the pass. The night fell still with a wonderful heaven of stars. He drove on in silence, saying no word to the man which did not bid him hasten.

THE END.

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