CHAPTER XXXII.

‘FOR LOVE AND NOT FOR HATE THOU MUST BE DED.’

When Daphne and Gerald were gone, and the fair woodland scene was empty, a third figure came slowly out of the fir-grove, a substantial form clad in a rusty black-silk gown, short petticoats, side-laced cashmere boots, and a bonnet which was only thirty years behind the prevailing fashion. This antique form belonged to Jane Mowser, who carried a little basket of an almost infantine shape, and who had been gathering wild strawberries for her afternoon refreshment. While thus engaged she had espied Daphne’s white frock gleaming athwart the dark stems of the firs, and had contrived to skirt the pathway, and keep the young lady in view. Thus she had been within earshot when Daphne and Gerald Goring met, and had heard the greater part of their conversation. ‘I’ve known it and foreseen it. I knew it would come to this from the very beginning,’ she muttered breathlessly; ‘and I’m thankful that I’m the chosen instrument for finding them out. Oh, my poor Miss Madoline, what a viper you have nourished in your loving bosom! Oh, the artfulness of that anteloping girl! pretending to reject him, and leading him on all the time, and meaning to run away with him to-morrow, and be married on the sly at Geneva, as truly as my name is Mowser. But I’ll put a stop to their goings on. I’ll let in the light upon their dark ways. Jane Mowser will prove a match for an antelope and a traitor.’

The little basket trembled in Mrs. Mowser’s agitated grasp, as she trotted briskly downhill to the hotel. ‘I’ll make their baseness known to Sir Vernon,’ said Mowser, ‘and if he has the heart of a man he’ll crush that fair-haired young viper.’

Having detested Daphne from the day of her birth, Mowser now felt a virtuous thrill, the sense of a relieved conscience, in the idea that Daphne had justified her dislike. It would have been pain and grief to her had the girl turned out well; but to have her judgment borne out, her wisdom made clear as daylight, every evil feeling of her heart fully excused by the girl’s bad conduct, this was comfort which weighed heavily in the scale against her honest sorrow for the mistress whom she honestly loved.

She had no idea that the revelation she was going to make must necessarily lead to the cancelment of Madoline’s engagement. Her notion was that if Sir Vernon were made acquainted with the treachery that had been going on in his family circle, he would turn his younger daughter out of doors, and compel Gerald Goring to keep faith with his elder daughter. She allowed nothing for those finer shades of feeling which generally lead to the breaking of matrimonial engagements. It seemed to her that if a man had got himself engaged to a girl, and wanted to cry off, he must be taken by the scruff off his neck, as it were, and made to fulfill his promise.

When seven o’clock came and the _table-d’hôte_, Daphne was shut up in her own room with a bad headache; Mr. Goring was missing; and there were only Aunt Rhoda, Madoline, and Edgar to take their accustomed places near one end of the long table. A little pencilled note from Daphne had been brought to Madoline by one of the chambermaids, just before dinner:

‘I have been for a long, long walk, and the heat has given me a dreadful headache. Please excuse my coming to dinner. I will have some tea in my room.’

‘That foolish girl has been walking too far for her strength, no doubt,’ said Mrs. Ferrers. ‘She is always in extremes. But what has become of Mr. Goring? Has he been overwalking himself too?’

‘I think not,’ answered Lina, smiling; ‘we were dawdling about together near the hotel till four o’clock, and I don’t suppose he would start for a long ramble after that.’

‘Then why is he not at dinner?’

This question was unanswerable. They could only speculate vaguely about the absent one. Nobody had seen him after he parted from Madoline at the garden gate. Perhaps he had walked to Vevey, perhaps to Montreux, miscalculating the distance, and the time it would take him to go and return. There was an uncomfortable feeling all through the slow protracted dinner, Madoline’s eyes wandering to the door every now and then, expecting to see Gerald enter; Edgar out of spirits because Daphne was absent; Mrs. Ferrers overcome by the heat, and beginning to perceive that Swiss scenery was a delight of which one might become weary.

‘I am so vexed with myself for falling asleep and letting Daphne roam about alone,’ said Edgar, staring absently at a savoury mess of veal and vegetable to which he had mechanically helped himself.

‘I don’t see why you should blame yourself for Daphne’s want of common sense,’ answered Aunt Rhoda somewhat snappishly. ‘It was an afternoon that would have sent anybody to sleep. Even I, who am generally so wakeful, closed my eyes for a few minutes over my book.’

If Mrs. Ferrers had confessed that she had been snoring vigorously for an hour and a half, she would have been nearer the truth.

Dinner came to its formal close in the shape of an unripe dessert, and there was still no sign of Gerald. Edgar went up to the corridor and knocked at Daphne’s door to inquire if her head were better.

She answered from within in a weary voice:

‘Thanks; no! It is aching awfully. Please don’t trouble yourself about me. Go for a nice walk with Lina.’

‘Don’t you think if you were to come out and sit in the garden the cool evening air would do you good?’

‘I couldn’t lift my head from the pillow.’

‘Then you will not be well enough to go back to Montreux to-morrow morning? We had better put off the journey.’

‘On no account. I shall be quite well to-morrow. It is only a headache. Please go away and enjoy your evening.’

‘As if I could enjoy life without you. Good-night, darling. God bless you!’

‘Good-night,’ replied the tired voice, and he went away sorrowing.

What was his life worth without her? Absolutely nothing. He had chosen to make this one delight, this one love, the all-in-all of existence.

He went down into the garden with a moody dejected air and joined Lina, who was sitting in a spot where the view of the valley below and the height above was loveliest; but Lina was scarcely more cheerful than Edgar. She was beginning to feel seriously uneasy at Gerald’s absence.

‘You don’t think anything can have happened—any accident?’ she asked falteringly.

‘Do you mean that he can have tumbled off a precipice? Hardly likely. A man who has climbed Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau would scarcely come to grief hereabouts. I think the worst that has befallen him is to have lost his dinner.’

They sat in the garden till the valley and lake below were folded in darkness, and the moon was climbing high above the dark fir trees and the gray peak, and then Lina’s heart was lightened by the sound of a sympathetic tenor voice, whose every tone she knew, singing _La Donna e mobile_, in notes that floated nearer and nearer as the singer came up the grassy slope below the garden. She went to meet him.

‘My dear Gerald, I have been miserable about you.’

‘Because I didn’t appear at dinner? Forgive me, dearest. The heat gave me a racking headache, and I thought a tremendous walk was the only way to cure it. I have been down to Montreux, and seen your father, who is pining for your return. He looked quite scared when I dashed into the garden where he was reading his paper on the terrace by the lake. I was not ten minutes at Montreux altogether.’

‘Dear father! It was very good of you to go and see him.’

‘It was only a peep. I’m sorry you felt fidgety about me.’

‘I am sorry you had a headache. It seems an epidemic. Daphne was not able to appear at dinner for the same reason.’

‘Poor little Daphne!’

* * * * *

They were to start upon their return journey early next morning, so as to reach Montreux before the tropical heat of afternoon. They all breakfasted together in Madoline’s sitting-room between six and seven, Aunt Rhoda, who was a great advocate of early rising, looking much the sleepiest of the party. Daphne was pale and spiritless, but as she declared herself perfectly well nobody could say anything to her.

They started at seven o’clock. There were two carriages; a roomy landau, and a vehicle of composite shape and long service for Mowser and the luggage. Daphne at once declared her intention of walking.

‘The walk downhill through fields and orchards and vineyards’ will be lovely,’ she said.

‘Delicious,’ exclaimed Edgar; ‘but don’t you think it is rather too far for a walk?’

‘Are you too lazy to walk with me?’

‘I don’t think you need insult me by such a question.’ On which Daphne set out without another word, waving her hand lightly to Madoline as she vanished at a turn in the road.

Gerald Goring handed the two ladies to their seats in the landau, and took his place facing them. He had a listless worn-out look, as if his pedestrianism last night had exhausted him.

‘You are not looking well, Gerald,’ Lina said anxiously, disturbed at seeing his haggard countenance in the clear morning light.

‘My dearest, who could possibly look well in such a languid atmosphere as this? We are in a vaporous basin, shut in by a circle of hills. Down at Montreux it is like being at the bottom of a gigantic forcing-pit; here, though we fancy ourselves ever so high, we are only on the side of the incline. The wall still rises above us. At this season we ought to be at Davos or Pontresina.’

‘Those are the only places people go to nowadays,’ said Mrs. Ferrers discontentedly. ‘I shall be almost ashamed to tell my friends where I have been. All the people one meets in society go to the Engadine.’

‘I don’t think that idea need spoil our enjoyment of this lovely scenery,’ said Madoline. ‘Look at Daphne and Mr. Turchill, what a way they are below us!’

She pointed with her sunshade to a glancing white figure among the chestnut groves below. Edgar and Daphne had descended by those steep straight paths which made so little of the distance, while the horses were travelling quietly along the gentle windings of the road. It was a lovely drive to Montreux, the town and its adjacent villages looking like a child’s toys set out upon a green table; the castle of Chillon distinctly seen at every turn of the road; the hillsides shaded by Spanish chestnuts, big and old; verdant slopes mounting up and up towards a blue heaven. They passed the little post and telegraph office at Glion, a wooden hut, baked through and through with the sun, like an oven; the hotel where the children were at play in the garden, and a few early-rising adults strolled about rather listlessly, waiting for breakfast; and then down by the ever-winding road, past many a trickling waterfall; sometimes a mere cleft in the rock, sometimes a stony recess in a low wall, fringed with ferns, where the water drops perpetually into the basin below, and so by wooded slopes descending steeply to the sapphire lake, past the parish church, picturesquely situated on the hillside, and by many a public pump with a double spout, and tanks where the women were washing linen or vegetables under an open roof. Some kind of industry was going on at all these public fountains; or at least there was a group of children dabbling in the water.

They were at Montreux before ten o’clock; Sir Vernon delighted to have his elder daughter back again, and even inquiring civilly about Daphne, who had not yet arrived, despite the tremendous spurt she and Edgar had begun with.

‘That is just like Daphne,’ said her father, when he was told how she had insisted on walking all the way. ‘She is always beginning something tremendous and never finishing it. I daresay we shall have Turchill down here presently in search of a carriage to bring her the second half of the way.’

‘Yesterday she gave herself a headache by roaming about the hills,’ said Aunt Rhoda; ‘she has not a particle of discretion.’

‘Do you expect her to be full of wisdom at eighteen, Auntie?’ asked Madoline deprecatingly.

‘I can only say, my dear, that at eighteen I was not a fool,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers sourly; and Lina did not argue the question further, knowing but too well how her aunt was affected towards Daphne.

The pedestrians made their appearance five minutes later, none the worse for their long walk through fields and vineyards, and across cottage-gardens and orchards, a walk full of interest and diversity. Daphne, flushed with exercise, looked ever so much better than she had looked at breakfast, where she had been without appetite even for her beloved rolls and honey.

‘I have a little business to arrange in Geneva,’ said Gerald, while they were all sitting about the airy drawing-room in a purposeless way, before settling down into their old quarters and old habits. ‘I think I shall take the train, as the quicker way, and then I can be back to dinner.’

Madoline looked surprised.

‘Have you anything very important to do in Geneva?’ she asked; ‘you never said anything about it before.’

‘No; it is a necessity which has arisen quite lately. I’ll tell you all about it—afterwards. Good-bye till dinner-time. You must be tired after your morning drive, and you won’t feel inclined for much excursionising to-day.’

‘I’m afraid we’ve seen everything there is to be seen within a manageable distance,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, rather dolefully.

Daphne was sitting near the door. She had dropped into a low deep chair, and sat with her straw hat in her lap, full of wild flowers which she had gathered on her way down. Gerald stooped as he passed her, and took one of the half-withered blossoms—things so fragile in their delicate beauty that they faded as soon as plucked—and put it in his breast. The act was so carelessly done that no one seeing it would have perceived any significance in it, or could have guessed that the hand which took the flower trembled with suppressed feeling, and that the heart against which it lay beat loud with passion.

‘I am going to make all arrangements for our marriage,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Good-bye,’ she answered, looking straight up at him.

He was gone. Her gaze followed him slowly to the door, and lingered there; then she rose and gathered up her flowers.

‘I think I’ll go to my room and lie down,’ she said to Madoline. ‘Please don’t let Edgar come worrying about me. Tell him to amuse himself without my company for once in a way.’

‘My dearest, I don’t think he has any idea of amusing himself without you in Switzerland. How tired you look, my poor pet! Go and lie down and get a nice refreshing sleep after your walk. You shall not be disturbed till I come myself to bring you some tea. That will be better for you than coming down to luncheon.’

‘I don’t feel much inclined for sleep, though I confess to being tired. I should like you to come and sit with me for a little, Lina, soon after luncheon, if you don’t mind.’

‘Mind! My darling, as if I were not always glad to be with you.’

Daphne went slowly up to her room, very slowly, with automatic steps, as one who walks in his sleep. The dark gray eyes looked straight into space, fixed and heavy with despair.

‘He is mad, and I am mad,’ she said to herself. ‘How can it end—except——’

Her room was bright and pretty, gaily furnished in that bright foreign style which studies scenic effect rather than solid comfort; French windows opening upon a balcony, shaded with a striped awning. The windows looked on to the lake, across the bright blue water to the opposite shore, with its grand and solitary hills, its villages few and far apart. Daphne stood for a long while looking dreamily at the expanse of bright water, and the bold and rugged shore beyond; at Chillon in its rocky corner; at the deep dark gorge whence the yellow Rhone comes rushing in, staining Lake Loman’s azure floor. How lovely it all was—how lovely, and yet of how little account in the sum of man’s destiny! All Nature’s loveliness was powerless to mend one broken heart.

‘What was it that he read on my hand that day at Fontainebleau?’ she asked herself. ‘Was it this? was it this?’

A steamer went by laden with people, a band playing a waltz tune. The world seemed full of thoughtless souls, for whom life meant only idle empty pleasures. Daphne turned away from that sunlit scene sick at heart, wishing that she were lying quietly in one of those green dells through which they had passed to-day, a leafy hollow hidden in the hillside, and that life were ebbing away without an effort.

‘Seneca was a wise and learned man,’ she thought; ‘but with all his wisdom he found it difficult to die. Cleopatra’s death sounds easier—a basket of fruit and a little gliding snake a bright pretty creature that a child might have played with, and been stung to death unawares.’

She threw herself on the bed, not tired from her walk, which seemed as nothing to the lithe active limbs, but weary of life and its perplexities. Oh, how he loved her, and how she loved him! And what a glorious godlike thing life would be in his company! Glorious, but it must not be; godlike, but honour barred the way.

‘Oh God! let me never forget what she has been to me,’ she prayed, with clasped hands, with all her soul in that prayer—‘sister, mother, all the world of love, and protection, and comfort—teach me to be true to her; teach me to be loyal.’

For two long hours she lay, broad awake, in a blank tearless despair; and then the door was gently opened, and Madoline came softly into the room and seated herself by the bed. Daphne was lying with her face to the wall. She did not turn immediately, but stretched out her hand to her sister without a word.

‘Dearest, your hand is burning hot; you must be in a fever,’ said Madoline.

‘No; there is nothing the matter with me.’

‘I’m afraid there is. I’m afraid that walk was too fatiguing. I have ordered some tea for you.’ The maid brought it in as she spoke; not Mowser; Mowser had kept herself aloof with an air of settled gloom, ever since her return to Montreux. ‘I hope you have had a nice long sleep.’

‘I have not been able to sleep much,’ answered Daphne, turning her languid head upon her pillow, and then sitting up on the bed, a listless figure in a tumbled white gown, with loose hair falling over shoulders; ‘I have not been able to sleep much, but I have been resting. Don’t trouble about me, Lina dear. I am very well. What delicious tea!’ she said, as she tasted the cup which Madoline had just poured out for her. ‘How good you are! I want to talk with you—to have a long serious talk—about you and—Mr. Goring.’

‘Indeed, dear. It is not often my lively sister has any inclination for seriousness.’

‘No; but I have been thinking deeply of late about long engagements, and short engagements, and love before marriage, and love after marriage—don’t you know.’ Her eyes were hidden under their drooping lids, but her colour changed from pale to rose and from rose to pale as she spoke.

‘And what wise thoughts have you had upon the subject, dearest?’ asked Lina lightly.

‘I can hardly explain them; but I have been thinking—you know that I am not desperately in love with—poor Edgar. I have never pretended to be so; have I, dear?’

‘You have always spoken lightly of him. But it is your way to speak lightly of everything; and I hope and believe that he is much more dear to you than you say he is.’

‘He is not. I respect him, because I know how good he is; but that is all. And do you know, Lina, I have sometimes fancied that your feeling for Mr. Goring is not much stronger than mine for Edgar. You are attached to him; you have an affection for him, which has grown out of long acquaintance and habit—an almost sisterly affection; but you are not passionately in love with him. If he were to die you would be grieved, but you would not be heartbroken.’ She said this slowly, deliberately, her eyes no longer downcast, but reading her sister’s face.

‘Daphne!’ cried Madoline, ‘how dare you? How can you be so cruel? Not love him! Why, you know that I have loved him ever since I was a child, with a love which every day of my life has made stronger—a love which is so rooted in my heart that I cannot imagine what life would be like without him. I am not impulsive or demonstrative—I do not talk about those things which are most dear and most sacred in my life, simply because they are too sacred to be spoken about. If he were—to die—if I were to lose him—no, I cannot think of that. It is heartless of you to put such thoughts into my mind. My life has been all sunshine—a calm happy life. God may be keeping some great grief in store for my later days. If it were to come I should bow beneath the rod; but my heart would break all the same.’

‘And if the grief took another shape—if he were to be false to you?’ said Daphne, laying her hand, icy cold now, upon her sister’s.

‘That would be worse,’ answered Lina huskily; ‘it would kill me.’

Daphne said not a word more. Her hands were clasped, as in prayer; the dark sorrowful eyes were lifted, and the lips moved dumbly.

‘I ought not to have talked of such things, dear,’ she said, gently, after that voiceless prayer. ‘It was very foolish.’

Lina was profoundly agitated. That calm and gentle nature was capable of strongest feeling. The image of a terrible sorrow—a sorrow which, however unlikely, was not impossible—once evoked was not to be banished in a moment.

‘Yes; it was foolish, Daphne,’ she answered tremulously. ‘No good can ever come of such thoughts. We are in God’s hands. We can only be happy in this life with fear and trembling, for our joy is so easily turned into sorrow. And now, dear, if you are quite comfortable, and there is nothing more I can do for you, I must go back to Aunt Rhoda. I promised to go for a walk with her.’

‘Isn’t it too warm for walking?’

‘Not for Aunt Rhoda’s idea of an afternoon walk, which is generally to stroll down to the pier, and sit under the trees watching the people land from the steamers.’

‘Shall you be out long, do you think?’

‘That will depend upon Aunt Rhoda. She said something about wanting to go in the steamer to Vevey, if it could be done comfortably before dinner.’

‘Good-bye! Kiss me, Lina. Tell me you are not angry with me for what I said just now. I wanted to sound the depths of your love.’

‘It was cruel, dear; but I am not angry,’ answered Lina, kissing her tenderly.

Daphne put her arms round her sister’s neck, just as she had done years ago when she was a child.

‘God bless you, and reward you for all you have been to me, Lina!’ she faltered tearfully; and so, with a fervent embrace, they parted.