The Silent Barrier
light of a rather far fetched joke. Bower stood so high in her esteem
that she was sure the outspoken announcement of his intentions was
dictated chiefly by anger at Millicent's unfair utterances. Perhaps he
had some thought of marriage; but he must seek a wife in a more
exalted sphere. She felt in her heart that Spencer was only awaiting a
favorable opportunity to declare his love, and she did not strive to
repress the wave of divine happiness that flooded her heart at the
thought.
After much secret pondering and some shy confidences intrusted to Mrs.
de la Vere, she had resolved to tell him that if he left the Maloja at
once--an elastic phrase in lovers' language--and came to her in
London next month, she would have an answer ready. She persuaded
herself that there was no other honorable way out of an embarrassing
position. She had come to Switzerland for work, not for love making.
Spencer would probably wish to marry her forthwith, and that was not
to be thought of while "The Firefly's" commission was only half
completed. All of which modest and maidenly reasoning left wholly out
of account Spencer's strenuous wooing; it is chronicled here merely to
show her state of mind when she kissed Millicent farewell.
It is worthy of note also that two young people who might be expected
to take the liveliest interest in each other's company were steadfast
in their determination to separate. Each meant to send the other back
to England with the least possible delay, and both were eager to fly
into each other's arms--in London! Whereat the gods may have laughed,
or frowned, as the case may be, if they glanced at the horoscopes of
certain mortals pent within the mountain walls of the Upper Engadine.
While Helen was still gazing after Millicent's retreating carriage,
Bower came from the darksome foyer to the sunlit veranda. "So you
parted the best of friends?" he said quietly.
She turned and looked at him with shining eyes. "I cannot tell you how
pleased I am that a stupid misunderstanding should be cleared away!"
she said.
"Then I share your pleasure, though, to be candid, I was thinking
that a woman's kiss has infinite gradations. It may savor of Paradise
or the Dead Sea."
"But she told me how grieved she was that she had behaved so
foolishly, and appealed to me not to let the folly of a day break the
friendship of years."
"Ah! Millicent picks up some well turned sentiments on the stage. Come
out for a little stroll, and tell me all about it."
Helen hesitated. "It will soon be tea time," she said, with a self
conscious blush. She had promised Spencer to walk with him to the
chateau; but her visit to Millicent had intervened, and he was not on
the veranda at the moment.
"We need not go far. The sun has garnished the roads for us. What do
you say if we make for the village, and interview Johann Klucker's cat
on the weather?"
His tone was quite reassuring. To her transparent honesty of purpose
it seemed better that they should discuss Millicent's motive in coming
to the hotel and then dismiss it for ever. "A most excellent idea,"
she cried lightly. "I have been writing all the morning, so a breath
of fresh air will be grateful."
They passed down the steps.
They had not gone more than a few paces when the driver of an empty
carriage pulled up his vehicle and handed Bower a telegram.
"They gave it to me at St. Moritz, Herr Bower," he said. "I took a
message there for Herr Spencer, and they asked me to bring this to
you, as it would reach you more quickly than if it came by the post."
Bower thanked the man, and opened the envelop. It was a very long
telegram; but he only glanced at it in the most cursory manner before
putting it in a pocket.
At a distant corner of the road by the side of the lake, Millicent
turned for a last look at the hotel and waved a hand at them. Helen
replied.
"I almost wish now she was staying here a few days," she said
wistfully. "She ought to have seen our valley in its summer greenery."
"I fear she brought winter in her train," was Bower's comment. "But
the famous cat must decide. Here, boy," he went on, hailing a village
urchin, "where is Johann Klucker's house?"
The boy pointed to a track that ran close to the right bank of the
tiny Inn. He explained volubly, and was rewarded with a franc.
"Do you know this path?" asked Bower. "Klucker's chalet is near the
waterfall, which should be a fine sight owing to the melting snow."
It was Helen's favorite walk. She would have preferred a more
frequented route; but the group of houses described by the boy was
quite near, and she could devise no excuse for keeping to the busy
highway. As the path was narrow she walked in front. The grass and
flowers seemed to have drawn fresh tints from the snow, which had
cleared away with magical rapidity from this sheltered spot. But
the little rivulet, usually diamond bright, was now a turbulent and
foaming stream. Care was needed not to slip. If anyone fell into that
miniature torrent, it would be no easy matter to escape without broken
bones.
"Would you ever believe that a few hours' snow, followed by a hot sun,
would make such a difference to a mere ribbon of water like this?" she
asked, when they were passing through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock
through which the Inn roared with a quite respectable fury.
"I am in a mood to believe anything," said Bower. "Do you remember our
first meeting at the Embankment Hotel? Who would have imagined then
that Millicent Jaques, a few weeks later, would rush a thousand miles
to the Maloja and scream her woes to Heaven and the multitude. Neither
you nor I, I fancy, had seen her during the interval. Did she tell you
the cause of her extraordinary behavior?"
"No. I did not ask her. But it scarce needed explanation, Mr. Bower.
I--I fear she suspected me of flirting. It was unjust; but I can well
conceive that a woman who thinks her friend is robbing her of a man's
affections does not wait to consider nice points of procedure."
"Surely Millicent did not say that I had promised to marry her?"
Though Helen was not prepared for this downright plunge into an
embarrassing discussion, she managed to evade a direct answer. "There
was more than a suggestion of that in her words last night," she said.
"Perhaps she thought so in all seriousness. You seem to have
undeceived her to-day, and I am sure you must have dealt with her
kindly, or she would not have acknowledged her mistake in such frank
terms to me. There, now! That is the end of a very disagreeable
episode. Shall we say no more about it?"
Helen was flushed and hurried of speech: but she persevered bravely,
hoping that Bower's tact would not desert him at this crisis. She
quickened her pace a little, with the air of one who has said the last
word on a difficult topic and is anxious to forget it.
Bower overtook her. He grasped her shoulder almost roughly, and drew
her round till she faced him. "You are trying to escape me, Helen!" he
said hoarsely. "That is impossible. Someone must have told you what I
said to Millicent in the hearing of all who chose to listen. Her
amazing outburst forced from me an avowal that should have been made
to you alone. Helen, I want you to be my wife. I love you better than
all the world. I have my faults,--what man is flawless?--but I have
the abiding virtue of loving you. I shall make your life happy, Helen.
For God's sake do not tell me that you are already promised to
another!"
His eyes blazed into hers with a passion that was appalling in its
intensity. She seemed to lose the power to speak or move. She looked
up at him like a frightened child, who hears strange words that she
does not comprehend. Thinking he had won her, he threw his arms about
her and strained her fiercely to his breast. He strove to kiss away
the tears that began to fall in piteous protest; but she bent her head
as if in shame.
"Oh, please let me go!" she sobbed. "Please let me go! What have I
done that you should treat me so cruelly."
"Cruelly, Helen? How should I be cruel to you whom I hold so dear?"
Still he clasped her tightly, hardly knowing what he did in his
transport of joy at the belief that she was his.
She struggled to free herself. She shrank from this physical contact
with a strange repulsion. She felt as a timid animal must feel when
some lord of the jungle pulls it down and drags it to his lair. Bower
was kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hair, finding a mad rapture
in the fragrance of her skin. He crushed her in a close embrace that
was almost suffocating.
"Oh, please let me go!" she wailed. "You frighten me. Let me go! How
dare you!"
She fought so wildly that he yielded to a dim sense that she was in
earnest. He relaxed his grip. With the instinct of a hunted thing, she
took a dangerous leap for safety clean across the swollen Inn. Luckily
she alighted on a broad boulder, or a sprained ankle would have been
the least penalty for that desperate means of escape.
As she stood there, with tears streaming down her face and the crimson
brand of angry terror on her brow, the dreadful knowledge that he had
lost her smote Bower like a rush of cold air from a newly opened tomb.
Between them brawled the tiny torrent. It offered no bar to an active
man; but even in his panic of sudden perception he resisted the
impulse that bade him follow.
"Helen," he pleaded, stretching forth his hands in frenzied gesture,
"why do you cast me off? I swear by all a man holds sacred that I mean
no wrong. You are dear to me as life itself. Ah, Helen, say that I may
hope! I do not even ask for your love. I shall win that by a lifetime
of devotion."
At last she found utterance. He had alarmed her greatly; but no woman
can feel it an outrage that a man should avow his longing. And she
pitied Bower with a great pity. Deep down in her heart was a suspicion
that they might have been happy together had they met sooner. She
would never have loved him,--she knew that now beyond cavil,--but if
they were married she must have striven to make life pleasant for him,
while she drifted down the smooth stream of existence free from either
abiding joys or carking sorrows.
"I am more grieved than I can tell that this should have happened,"
she said, striving hard to restrain the sob in her voice, though it
gave her words the ring of genuine regret. "I little dreamed that
you thought of me in that way, Mr. Bower. But I can never marry
you--never, no matter what the circumstances! Surely you will help me
to dispel the memory of a foolish moment. It has been trying to both
of us. Let us pretend that it never was."
Had she struck him with a whip he could not have flinched so visibly
beneath the lash as from the patent honesty of her words. For a time
he did not answer, and the sudden calm that came quick on the heels of
frenzy had in it a weird peacefulness.
Neither could ever again forget the noisy rush of the stream, the glad
singing of birds in a thicket overhanging the bank, the tinkle of the
cow bells as the cattle began to climb to the pastures for a luxurious
hour ere sundown. It was typical of their lives that they should be
divided by the infant Inn, almost at its source, and that thenceforth
the barrier should become ever wider and deeper till it reached the
infinite sea.
He seemed to take his defeat well. He was pale, and his lips twitched
with the effort to attain composure. He looked at Helen with a hungry
longing that was slowly acknowledging restraint.
"I must have frightened you," he said, breaking a silence that was
growing irksome. "Of course I apologize for that. But we cannot leave
things where they are. If you must send me away from you, I may at
least demand a clear understanding. Have no fear that I shall distress