MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
the light still dim behind it, it was black like an
ancient daguerreotype. It was also as motionless and
as grave.
“How much does she know?"
The question would thrust itself into the mother's
thoughts. She watched her daughter intently from
the dark corner where her head lay, thinking that
with the broadening of the day she might read the
answer in that still face. But she read nothing even
when every feature was revealed in the clear dead
light, for the face which she saw was the face of
one who lived much apart within itself, building
amongst her own dreams as a child builds upon the
sand and pays no heed to those who pass. And to
none of her dreams had Mrs. Thesiger the key. De-
liberately her daughter had withdrawn herself
amongst them, and they had given her this return for
her company. They had kept her fresh and gentle in
a circle where freshness was soon lost and gentleness
put aside.
Sylvia Thesiger was at this time seventeen, although
her mother dressed her to look younger, and even
then overdressed her like a toy. It was of a piece with
the nature of the girl that, in this matter as in the
rest, she made no protest. She foresaw the scene, the
useless scene, which would follow upon her protest,
exclamations against her ingratitude, abuse for her
impertinence, and very likely a facile shower of tears
at the end; and her dignity forbade her to enter upon
it. She just let her mother dress her as she chose,

















Running waterAlfred Edward Woodley Mason


1. fiction
English
NELOESEA
BROOKLYN
BROK


WCW
Masa





Running Water


By tbc Same futbor
THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER
MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY
LAURENCE CLAVERING
THE PHILANDERERS
ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY
CLEMENTINA
THE WATCHERS
THE FOUR FEATHERS
THE TRUANTS






She became aware of her over-elaborate appearance'


Nams
Running Water
BY
A. E. W. MASON
AUTHOR or " THE FOUR FEATHERS," ETC.

111
S
ALEC
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1907


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
683748 A
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
1993
Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
THE CENTURY Co.
Published, February, 1907
THE DE VINNE PRE88


CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
PAGE
i Shows MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME . . . I
II INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS. .. 12
III THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY . . . . . .
IV MR. JARVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
v MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY. 51
vi THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN . . . . . . . . 65
VII THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE . . . . . . . 77
viu SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER . . . . . . 95
IX SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER 106
X A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS . . . . . . 121
XI SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE. . . . . . 133
XII THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER . . . . . 146
XIII CHAYNE RETURNS . . . . . . . . . . . 162
XIV AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET . . . 177
XV KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY. . . . . . . . . 189
XVI AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN . . . . . . . . . 201
XVII SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS.... 215
VIII BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION. ...... 229
XIX THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM . . . . . . . . 240
XX ON THE DOWN . . . . . . · · · · · · 249
1X685
V


CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
xxI CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS ...... 262
XXII REVAILLOUD REVISITED . . . . . . . . . 283
XXIII MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FÜHRBUCH . . . . . . 294
xxiv THE BRENVA RIDGE. .......... 309
XXV A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE . . . . . . . . 327
.
.
.
XXVI RUNNING WATER . . . . . . . . . . . . 343


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“She became aware of her over-elaborate appearance"
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
“She stood upon the narrow ridge of snow" ..... 92
“She crept with a beating heart down the stairs". ... 132
“She had been behind him while he had spoken"
..
. 170
“She is the daughter of a great friend of mine!"
... 204
"
I am afraid !' she said in a trembling whisper"
... 214
“He offered them the hospitalities of his house” . . . . 290





Running Water





Running Water
CHAPTER I
SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
THE Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare
de Lyons. For a few minutes the lights of
outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with
a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and
lurches merged into one regular purposeful throb,
the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the coaches,
into one continuous hum. And already in the upper
berth of her compartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep.
The noise of a train had no unrest for her. Indeed, a
sleeping compartment in a Continental express was
the most permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had
possessed for a good many more years than she would
have cared to acknowledge. She spent her life in
hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered com-
panion. From a winter in Vienna or in Rome she
passed to a spring at Venice or at Constantinople,
3


RUNNING WATER
thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at the
bathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in
Paris again. But always she came back to the sleep-
ing-car. It was the one familiar room which was al-
ways ready for her; and though the prospect from
its windows changed, it was the one room she knew
which had always the same look, the same cramped
space, the same furniture—the one room where, the
moment she stepped into it, she was at home.
Yet on this particular journey she woke while it
was yet dark. A noise slight in comparison to the
clatter of the train, but distinct in character and quite
near, told her at once what had disturbed her. Some
one was moving stealthily in the compartment—her
daughter. That was all. But Mrs. Thesiger lay quite
still, and, as would happen to her at times, a sudden
terror gripped her by the heart. She heard the girl
beneath her, dressing very quietly, subduing the rustle
of her garments, even the sound of her breathing.
"How much does she know?" Mrs. Thesiger asked
of herself; and her heart sank and she dared not
answer.
The rustling ceased. A sharp click was heard,
and the next moment through a broad pane of glass
a faint twilight crept into the carriage. The blind had
been raised from one of the windows. It was two
o'clock on a morning of July and the dawn was break-
ing. Very swiftly the daylight broadened, and against
the window there came into view the profile of a girl's
head and face. Seen as Mrs. Thesiger saw it, with
4


MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
the light still dim behind it, it was black like an
ancient daguerreotype. It was also as motionless and
as grave.
"How much does she know?"
The question would thrust itself into the mother's
thoughts. She watched her daughter intently from
the dark corner where her head lay, thinking that
with the broadening of the day she might read the
answer in that still face. But she read nothing even
when every feature was revealed in the clear dead
light, for the face which she saw was the face of
one who lived much apart within itself, building
amongst her own dreams as a child builds upon the
sand and pays no heed to those who pass. And to
none of her dreams had Mrs. Thesiger the key. De-
liberately her daughter had withdrawn herself
amongst them, and they had given her this return for
her company. They had kept her fresh and gentle in
a circle where freshness was soon lost and gentleness
put aside.
Sylvia Thesiger was at this time seventeen, although
her mother dressed her to look younger, and even
then overdressed her like a toy. It was of a piece with
the nature of the girl that, in this matter as in the
rest, she made no protest. She foresaw the scene, the
useless scene, which would follow upon her protest,
exclamations against her ingratitude, abuse for her
impertinence, and very likely a facile shower of tears
at the end; and her dignity forbade her to enter upon
it. She just let her mother dress her as she chose,
5


RUNNING WATER
and she withdrew just a little more into the secret
chamber of her dreams. She sat now looking steadily
out of the window, with her eyes uplifted and aloof, in
a fashion which had become natural to her, and her
mother was seized with a pang of envy at the girl's
beauty. For beauty Sylvia Thesiger had, uncommon
in its quality rather than in its degree. From the
temples to the round point of her chin the contour of
her face described a perfect oval. Her forehead was
broad and low and her hair, which in color was a
dark chestnut, parted in the middle, whence it rippled
in two thick daring waves to the ears, a fashion which
noticeably became her, and it was gathered behind
into a plait which lay rather low upon the nape of her
neck. Her eyes were big, of a dark gray hue and
very quiet in their scrutiny; her mouth, small and
provoking. It provoked, when still, with the promise
of a very winning smile, and the smile itself was not so
frequent but that it provoked a desire to summon it to
her lips again. It had a way of hesitating, as though
Sylvia were not sure whether she would smile or not;
and when she had made up her mind, it dimpled her
cheeks and transfigured her whole face, and revealed
in her tenderness and a sense of humor. Her com-
plexion was pale, but clear, her figure was slender and
active, but without angularities, and she was of the
middle height. Yet the quality which the eye first
remarked in her was not so much her beauty, as a
certain purity, a look almost of the Madonna, a cer-
tainty, one might say, that even in the circle in which
6


MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
she moved, she had kept herself unspotted from the
world.
Thus she looked as she sat by the carriage window.
But as the train drew near to Amberieu, the air bright-
ened and the sunlight ministered to her beauty like a
careful handmaid, touching her pale cheeks to a rosy
warmth, giving a luster to her hair, and humaning
her to a smile. Sylvia sat forward a little, as though
to meet the sunlight, then she turned toward the
carriage and saw her mother's eyes intently watching
her.
"You are awake?" she said in surprise.
"Yes, child. You woke me."
"I am very sorry. I was as quiet as I could be. I
could not sleep."
"Why?" Mrs. Thesiger repeated the question with
insistence. "Why could n't you sleep?"
"We are traveling to Chamonix," replied Sylvia.
"I have been thinking of it all night," and though she
smiled in all sincerity, Mrs. Thesiger doubted. She
lay silent for a little while. Then she said, with a
detachment perhaps slightly too marked:
"We left Trouville in a hurry yesterday, did n't
we?"
"Yes," replied Sylvia, "I suppose we did," and she
spoke as though this was the first time that she had
given the matter a thought.
"Trouville was altogether too hot," said Mrs.
Thesiger; and again silence followed. But Mrs.
Thesiger was not content. "How much does she
7


RUNNING WATER
know?" she speculated again, and was driven on to
find an answer. She raised herself upon her elbow,
and while rearranging her pillow said carelessly:
"Sylvia, our last morning at Trouville you were
reading a book which seemed to interest you very
much."
"Yes."
Sylvia volunteered no information about that
book.
"You brought it down to the sands. So I suppose
you never noticed a strange-looking couple who passed
along the deal boards just in front of us." Mrs.
Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her
pillow. But during that movement her eyes had never
left her daughter's face. "A middle-aged man with
stiff gray hair, a stiff, prim face, and a figure like a
ramrod. Oh, there never was anything so stiff." A
noticeable bitterness began to sound in her voice and
increased as she went on. "There was an old woman
with him as precise and old-fashioned as himself. But
you did n't see them? I never saw anything so ludi-
crous as that couple, austere and provincial as their
clothes, walking along the deal boards between the
rows of smart people." Mrs. Thesiger laughed as she
recalled the picture. "They must have come from the
Provinces. I could imagine them living in a chateau
on a hill overlooking some tiny village in—where shall
we say?" She hesitated for a moment, and then with
an air of audacity she shot the word from her lips—
"in Provence."
8


MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
The name, however, had evidently no significance
for Sylvia, and Mrs. Thesiger was relieved of her
fears.
"But you did n't see them," she repeated, with a
laugh.
"Yes, I did," said Sylvia, and brought her mother
up on her elbow again. "It struck me that the old
lady must be some great lady of a past day. The man
bowed to you and—"
She stopped abruptly, but her mother completed the
sentence with a vindictiveness she made little effort to
conceal.
"And the great lady did not, but stared in the way
great ladies have. Yes, I had met the man—once—
in Paris," and she lay back again upon her pillow,
watching her daughter. But Sylvia showed no curi-
osity and no pain. It was not the first time when peo-
ple passed her mother that she had seen the man bow
and the woman ignore. Rather she had come to ex-
pect it. She took her book from her berth and
opened it.
Mrs. Thesiger was satisfied. Sylvia clearly did not
suspect that it was just the appearance of that stiff,
old-fashioned couple which had driven her out of
Trouville a good month before her time—her, Mrs.
Thesiger of the many friends. She fell to wondering
what in the world had brought M. de Camours and his
mother to that watering place amongst the brilliant
and the painted women. She laughed again at the
odd picture they had made, and her thoughts went
9


RUNNING WATER
back over twenty years to the time when she had been
the wife of M. de Camours in the chateau overlooking
the village in Provence, and M. de Camours' mother
had watched her with an unceasing jealousy. Much
had happened since those days. Madame de Camours'
watchings had not been in vain, a decree had been
obtained from the Pope annulling the marriage. Much
had happened. But even after twenty years the
memory of that formal life in the Provenqal chateau
was vivid enough; and Mrs. Thesiger yawned. Then
she laughed. Monsieur de Camours and his mother
had always been able to make people yawn.
"So you are glad that we are going to Chamomx,
Sylvia—so glad that you could n't sleep?"
"Yes."
It sounded rather unaccountable to Mrs. Thesiger,
but then Sylvia was to her a rather unaccountable
child. She turned her face to the wall and fell
asleep.
Sylvia's explanation, however, happened to be true.
Chamonix meant the great range of Mont Blanc, and
Sylvia Thesiger had the passion for mountains in her
blood. The first appearance of their distant snows
stirred her as no emotion ever had, so that she came
to date her life by these appearances rather than by
the calendar of months and days. The morning when
from the hotel windows at Glion she had first seen the
twin peaks of the Dent du Midi towering in silver high
above a blue corner of the Lake of Geneva, formed
one memorable date. Once, too, in the winter-time,
10


MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
as the Rome express stopped at three o'clock in the
morning at the frontier on the Italian side of the Mont
Cenis tunnel, she had carefully lifted the blind on the
right-hand side of the sleeping compartment and had
seen a great wall of mountains tower up in a clear
frosty moonlight from great buttresses of black rock
to delicate pinnacles of ice soaring infinite miles away
into a cloudless sky of blue. She had come near to
tears that night as she looked from the window; such
a tumult of vague longings rushed suddenly in upon
her and uplifted her. She was made aware of dim
uncomprehended thoughts stirring in the depths of
her being, and her soul was drawn upward to those
glittering spires, as to enchanted magnets. Ever
afterward Sylvia looked forward, through weeks, to
those few moments in her mother's annual itinerary,
and prayed with all her heart that the night might be
clear of mist and rain.
She sat now at the window with no thought of
Trouville or their hurried flight. With each throb of
the carriage-wheels the train flashed nearer to Cha-
monix. She opened the book which lay upon her
lap—the book in which she had been so interested
when Monsieur de Camours and his mother passed her
by. It was a volume of the "Alpine Journal," more
than twenty years old, and she could not open it but
some exploit of the pioneers took her eyes, some his-
tory of a first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Such a
history she read now. She was engrossed in it, and
yet at times a little frown of annoyance wrinkled her
II


RUNNING WATER
forehead. She gave an explanation of her annoyance;
for once she exclaimed half aloud, "Oh, if only he
would n't be so funny!" The author was indeed being
very funny, and to her thinking never so funny as
when the narrative should have been most engrossing.
She was reading the account of the first ascent of an
aiguille in the Chamonix district, held by guides to
be impossible and conquered at last by a party of ama-
teurs. In spite of its humor Sylvia Thesiger was
thrilled by it. She envied the three men who had taken
part in that ascent, envied them their courage, their
comradeship, their bivouacs in the open air beside
glowing fires, on some high shelf of rock above the
snows. But most of all her imagination was touched
by the leader of that expedition, the man who some-
times alone, sometimes in company, had made sixteen
separate attacks upon that peak. He stared from the
pages of the volume—Gabriel Strood. Something of
his great reach of limb, of his activity, of his endur-
ance, she was able to realize. Moreover he had a par-
ticular blemish which gave to him a particular interest
in her eyes, for it would have deterred most men alto-
gether from his pursuit and it greatly hampered him.
And yet in spite of it, he had apparently for some sea-
sons stood prominent in the Alpine fraternity. Gabriel
Strood was afflicted with a weakness in the muscles
of one thigh. Sylvia, according to her custom, began
to picture him, began to talk with him.
She wondered whether he was glad to have reached
that summit, or whether he was not on the whole
12


MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME
rather sorry—sorry for having lost out of his life a
great and never-flagging interest. She looked through
the subsequent papers in the volume, but could find
no further mention of his name. She perplexed her
fancies that morning. She speculated whether having
made this climb he had stopped and climbed no more;
or whether he might not get out of this very train on
to the platform at Chamonix. But as the train slowed
down near to Annemasse, she remembered that the ex-
ploit of which she had read had taken place more than
twenty years ago.
13


CHAPTER II
INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD's SUCCESSORS
BUT though Gabriel Strood occupied no seat in
that train, one of his successors was traveling by
it to Chamonix after an absence of four years. Of
those four years Captain Chayne had passed the last
two among the coal-stacks of Aden, with the yellow
land of Arabia at his back, longing each day for this
particular morning, and keeping his body lithe and
strong against its coming. He left the train at Anne-
masse, and crossing the rails to the buffet, sat down
at the table next to that which Mrs. Thesiger and her
daughter already occupied.
He glanced at them, placed them in their category,
and looked away, utterly uninterested. They be-
longed to the great class of the continental wanderers,
people of whom little is known and everything sus-
pected—people with no kinsfolk, who flit from hotel to
hotel and gather about them for a season the knowing
middle-aged men and the ignorant young ones, and
perhaps here and there an unwary woman deceived by
the more than fashionable cut of their clothes. The
mother he put down as nearer forty than thirty, and
14


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
engaged in a struggle against odds to look nearer
twenty than thirty. The daughter's face Chayne could
not see, for it was bent persistently over a book. But
he thought of a big doll in a Christmas toy-shop.
From her delicate bronze shoes to her large hat of
mauve tulle everything that she wore was unsuitable.
The frock with its elaborations of lace and ribbons
might have passed on the deal boards of Trouville.
Here at Annemasse her superfineness condemned
her.
Chayne would have thought no more of her, but
as he passed her table on his way out of the buffet his
eyes happened to fall on the book which so engrossed
her. There was a diagram upon the page with which
he was familiar. She was reading an old volume of
the "Alpine Journal." Chayne was puzzled—there
was so marked a contradiction between her outward
appearance and her intense absorption in such a sub-
ject as Alpine adventure. He turned at the door and
looked back. Sylvia Thesiger had raised her head
and was looking straight at him. Thus their eyes met,
and did more than meet.
Chayne, surprised as he had been by the book which
she was reading, was almost startled by the gentle and
rather wistful beauty of the face which she now
showed to him. He had been prepared at the best for
a fresh edition of the mother's worn and feverish pret-
tiness. What he saw was distinct in quality. It
seemed to him that an actual sympathy and friendli-
ness looked out from her dark and quiet eyes, as
IS


RUNNING WATER
though by instinct she understood with what an eager
exultation he set out upon his holiday. Sylvia, indeed,
living as she did within herself, was inclined to hero-
worship naturally; and Chayne was of the type to
which, to some extent through contrast with the run
of her acquaintance, she gave a high place in her
thoughts. A spare, tall man, clear-eyed and clean of
feature, with a sufficient depth of shoulder and won-
derfully light of foot, he had claimed her eyes the mo-
ment that he entered the buffet. Covertly she had
watched him, and covertly she had sympathized with
the keen enjoyment which his brown face betrayed.
She had no doubts in her mind as to the intention of
his holiday; and as their eyes met now involuntarily,
a smile began to hesitate upon her lips. Then she be-
came aware of the buffet, and her ignorance of the
man at whom she looked, and, with a sudden mortifica-
tion, of her own over-elaborate appearance. Her face
flushed, and she lowered it again somewhat quickly to
the pages of her book. But it was as though for a
second they had spoken.
Chayne, however, forgot Sylvia Thesiger. As the
train moved on to Le Fayet he was thinking only of
the plans which he had made, of the new expeditions
which were to be undertaken, of his friend John Lat-
tery and his guide Michel Revailloud who would be
waiting for him upon the platform of Chamonix. He
had seen neither of them for four years. The electric
train carried the travelers up from Le Fayet. The
snow-ridges and peaks came into view; the dirt-strewn
16


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
Glacier des Bossons shot out a tongue of blue ice al-
most to the edge of the railway track, and a few min-
utes afterward the train stopped at the platform of
Chamonix.
Chayne jumped down from his carriage and at once
suffered the first of his disappointments. Michel Rev-
ailloud was on the platform to meet him, but it was a
Michel Revailloud whom he hardly knew, a Michel
Revailloud grown very old. Revailloud was only
fifty-two years of age, but during Chayne's absence
the hardships of his life had taken their toll of his
vigor remorselessly. Instead of the upright, active
figure which Chayne so well remembered, he saw in
front of him a little man with bowed shoulders, red-
rimmed eyes, and a withered face seamed with tiny
wrinkles.
At this moment, however, Michel's pleasure at once
more seeing his old patron gave to him at all events
some look of his former alertness, and as the two men
shook hands he cried:
"Monsieur, but I am glad to see you! You have
been too long away from Chamonix. But you have
not changed. No, you have not changed."
In his voice there was without doubt a note of wist-
fulness. "I would I could say as much for myself."
That regret was as audible to Chayne as though it had
been uttered. But he closed his ears to it. He began
to talk eagerly of his plans. There were familiar
peaks to be climbed again and some new expeditions to
be attempted.
17


RUNNING WATER
"I thought we might try a new route up the Aiguille
sans Nom," he suggested, and Michel assented but
slowly, without the old heartiness and without that
light in his face which the suggestion of something
new used always to kindle. But again Chayne shut
his ears.
"I was very lucky to find you here," he went
on cheerily. "I wrote so late that I hardly hoped for
it."
Michel replied with some embarrassment:
"I do not climb with every one, monsieur. I hoped
perhaps that one of my old patrons would want me.
So I waited."
Chayne looked round the platform for his friend.
"And Monsieur Lattery?" he asked.
The guide's face lit up.
"Monsieur Lattery? Is he coming too? It will be
the old days once more."
"Coming? He is here now. He wrote to me from
Zermatt that he would be here."
Revailloud shook his head.
"He is not in Chamonix, monsieur."
Chayne experienced his second disappointment that
morning, and it quite chilled him. He had come pre-
pared to walk the heights like a god in the perfection
of enjoyment for just six weeks. And here was his
guide grown old; and his friend, the comrade of so
many climbs, so many bivouacs above the snow-line,
had failed to keep his tryst.
"Perhaps there will be a letter from him at Cout-
18


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
tet's," said Chayne, and the two men walked through
the streets to the hotel. There was no letter, but on
the other hand there was a telegram. Chayne tore it
open.
"Yes, it 's from Lattery," he said, as he glanced
first at the signature. Then he read the telegram and
his face grew very grave. Lattery telegraphed from
Courmayeur, the Italian village just across the chain of
Mont Blanc:
"Starting now by Col du Geant and Col des Nantil-
lons."
The Col du Geant is the most frequented pass across
the chain, and no doubt the easiest. Once past its
great ice-fall, the glacier leads without difficulty to the
Montanvert hotel and Chamonix. But the Col des
Nantillons is another affair. Having passed the ice-
fall, and when within two hours of the Montanvert,
Lattery had turned to the left and had made for the
great wall of precipitous rock which forms the west-
ern side of the valley through which the Glacier du
Geant flows down, the wall from which spring the
peaks of the Dent du Requin, the Aiguille du Plan, the
Aiguille de Blaitiere, the Grepon and the Charmoz.
Here and there the ridge sinks between the peaks, and
one such depression between the Aiguille de Blaitiere
and the Aiguille du Grepon is called the Col des Nan-
tillons. To cross that pass, to descend on the other
side of the great rock-wall into that bay of ice facing
Chamonix, which is the Glacier des Nantillons, had
been Lattery's idea.
19


RUNNING WATER
Chayne turned to the porter.
"When did this come?"
"Three days ago."
The gravity on Chayne's face changed into a deep
distress. Lattery's party would have slept out one
night certainly. They would have made a long march
from Courmayeur and camped on the rocks at the foot
of the pass. It was likely enough that they should
have been caught upon that rock-wall by night upon
the second day. The rock-wall had never been as-
cended, and the few who had descended it bore ample
testimony to its difficulties. But a third night, no!
Lattery should have been in Chamonix yesterday,
without a doubt. He would not indeed have food for
three nights and days.
Chayne translated the telegram into French and read
it out to Michel Revailloud.
"The Col des Nantillons," said Michel, with a shake
of the head, and Chayne saw the fear which he felt
himself looking Out from his guide's eyes.
"It is possible," said Michel, "that Monsieur.Lat-
tery did not start after all."
"He would have telegraphed again."
"Yes," Michel agreed. "The weather has been fine
too. There have been no fogs. Monsieur Lattery
could not have lost his way."
"Hardly in a fog on the Glacier du Geant," replied
Chayne.
Michel Revailloud caught at some other possibility.
"Of course, some small accident—a sprained ankle
20


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
—may have detained him at the hut on the Col du
Geant. Such things have happened. It will be as well
to telegraph to Courmayeur."
"Why, that 's true," said Chayne, and as they
walked to the post-office he argued more to convince
himself than Michel Revailloud. "It 's very likely—
some quite small accident—a sprained ankle." But
the moment after he had sent the telegram, and when
he and Michel stood again outside the post-office, the
fear which was in him claimed utterance.
"The Col des Nantillons is a bad place, Michel,
that 's the truth. Had Lattery been detained in the
hut he would have found means to send us word. In
weather like this, that hut would be crowded every
night; every day there would be some one coming from
Courmayeur to Chamonix. No! I am afraid of the
steep slabs of that rock-wall."
And Michael Revailloud said slowly:
"I, too, monsieur. It is a bad place, the Col des
Nantillons; it is not a quick way or a good way to any-
where, and it is very dangerous. And yet I am not
sure: Mousieur Lattery was very safe on rocks. Ice,
that is another thing. But he would be on rock."
It was evident that Michel was in doubt, but it
seemed that Chayne could not force himself to share it.
"You had better get quietly together what guides
you can, Michel," he said. "By the time a rescue
party is made up the answer will have come from
Courmayeur."
Chayne walked slowly back to the hotel. All those
21


RUNNING WATER
eager anticipations which had so shortened his journey
this morning, which during the last two years had so
often raised before his eyes through the shimmering
heat of the Red Sea cool visions of ice-peaks and sharp
spires of rock, had crumbled and left him desolate.
Anticipations of disaster had taken their place. He
waited in the garden of the hotel at a spot whence he
could command the door and the little street leading
down to it. But for an hour no messenger came from
the post-office. Then, remembering that a long sad
work might be before him, he went into the hotel and
breakfasted. It was twelve o'clock and the room was
full. He was shown a place amongst the other new-
comers at one of the long tables, and he did not notice
that Sylvia Thesiger sat beside him. He heard her
timid request for the salt, and passed it to her; but he
did not speak, he did not turn; and when he pushed
back his chair and left the room, he had no idea who
had sat beside him, nor did he see the shadow of dis-
appointment on her face. It was not until later in the
afternoon when at last the blue envelope was brought
to him. He tore it open and read the answer of the
hotel proprietor at Courmayeur:
"Lattery left four days ago with one guide for Col
duGeant."
He was standing by the door of the hotel, and look-
ing up he saw Michel Revailloud and a small band of
guides, all of whom carried ice-axes and some, Ruck-
sacks on their backs, and ropes, come tramping down
the street toward him.
22


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
Michel Revailloud came close to his side and spoke
with excitement.
"He has been seen, monsieur. It must have been
Monsieur Lattery with his one guide. There were two
of them," and Chayne interrupted him quickly.
"Yes, there were two," he said, glancing at his tele-
gram. "Where were they seen?"
"High up, monsieur, on the rocks of the Blaitiere.
Here, Jules"; and in obedience to Michel's summons, a
young brown-bearded guide stepped out from the rest.
He lifted his hat and told his story:
"It was on the Mer de Glace, monsieur, the day
before yesterday. I was bringing a party back from
the Jardin, and just by the Moulin I saw two men
very high up on the cliffs of the Blaitiere. I was
astonished, for I had never seen any one upon those
cliffs before. But I was quite sure. None of my party
could see them, it is true, but I saw them clearly.
They were perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge
between the Blaitiere and the Grepon and to the left of
the Col."
"What time was this?"
"Four o'clock in the afternoon."
"Yes," said Chayne. The story was borne out by
the telegram. Leaving Courmayeur early, Lattery
and his guide would have slept the night on the rocks
at the foot of the Blaitiere, they would have climbed
all the next day and at four o'clock had reached within
two hundred feet of the ridge", within two hundred
feet of safety. Somewhere within those last two hun-
23


RUNNING WATER
dred feet the fatal slip had been made; or perhaps a
stone had fallen.
"For how long did you watch them?" asked
Chayne
"For a few minutes only. My party was anxious
to get back to Chamonix. But they seemed in no dif-
ficulty, monsieur. They were going well."
Chayne shook his head at the hopeful words and
handed his telegram to Michel Revailloud.
"The day before yesterday they were on the rocks
of the Blaitiere," he said. "I think we had better go
up to the Mer de Glace and look for them at the foot
of the cliffs."
"Monsieur, I have eight guides here and two will
follow in the evening when they come home. We will
send three of them, as a precaution, up the Mer de
Glace. But I do not think they will find Monsieur
Lattery there."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I believe Monsieur Lattery has made
the first passage of the Col des Nantillons from the
east," he said, with a peculiar solemnity. "I think we
must look for them on the western side of the pass,
in the crevasses of the Glacier des Nantillons."
"Surely not," cried Chayne. True, the Glacier des
Nantillons in places was steep. True, there were the
seracs—those great slabs and pinnacles of ice set up on
end and tottering, high above, where the glacier curved
over a brow of rock and broke—one of them might
have fallen. But Lattery and he had so often ascended
24


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
and descended that glacier on the way to the Charmoz
and the Grépon and the Plan. He could not believe
his friend had come to harm that way.
Michel, however, clung to his opinion.
“The worst part of the climb was over,” he argued.
"The very worst pitch, monsieur, is at the very be-
ginning when you leave the glacier, and then it is very
bad again half way up when you descend into a gully;
but Monsieur Lattery was very safe on rock, and hav-
ing got so high, I think he would have climbed the last
rocks with his guide."
Michel spoke with so much certainty that even in
the face of his telegram, in the face of the story which
Jules had told, hope sprang up within Chayne's heart.
“Then he may be still up there on some ledge. He
would surely not have slipped on the Glacier des Nan-
tillons.”
That hope, however, was not shared by Michel
Revailloud.
"There is very little snow this year," he said.
"The glaciers are uncovered as I have never seen
them in all my life. Everywhere it is ice, ice, ice.
Monsieur Lattery had only one guide with him and
he was not so sure on ice. I am afraid, monsieur,
that he slipped out of his steps on the Glacier des
Nantillons.”
"And dragged his guide with him?" exclaimed
Chayne. His heart rather than his judgment protested
against the argument. It seemed to him disloyal to
believe it. A man should not slip from his steps on
25


RUNNING WATER
the Glacier des Nantillons. He turned toward the
door.
"Very well," he said. "Send three guides up the
Mer de Glace. We will go up to the Glacier des Nan-
tillons."
He went up to his room, fetched his ice-ax and a
new club-rope with the twist of red in its strands, and
came down again. The rumor of an accident had
spread. A throng of tourists stood about the door
and surrounded the group of guides, plying them with
questions. One or two asked Chayne as he came out
on what peak the accident had happened. He did not
reply. He turned to Michel Revailloud and forgetful
for the moment that he was in Chamonix, he uttered
the word so familiar in the High Alps, so welcome in
its sound.
"Vorw'drts, Michel," he said, and the word was the
Open Sesame to a chamber which he would gladly
have kept locked. There was work to do now; there
would be time afterward to remember—too long a
time. But in spite of himself his recollections rushed
tumultuously upon him. Up to these last four years,
on some day in each July his friend and he had been
wont to foregather at some village in the Alps, Lattery
coming from a Government Office in Whitehall,
Chayne now from some garrison town in England,
now from Malta or from Alexandria, and sometimes
from a still farther dependency. Usually they had
climbed together for six weeks, although there were
red-letter years when the six weeks were extended to
26


ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
eight, six weeks during which they lived for the most
part on the high level of the glaciers, sleeping in huts,
or mountain inns, or beneath the stars, and coming
down only for a few hours now and then into the val-
ley towns. Vorwarts! The months of their comrade-
ship seemed to him epitomized in the word. The joy
and inspiration of many a hard climb came back, made
bitter with regret for things very pleasant and now
done with forever. Nights on some high ledge, shel-
tered with rocks and set in the pale glimmer of snow-
fields, with a fire of brushwood lighting up the faces of
well-loved comrades; half hours passed in rock chim-
neys wedged overhead by a boulder, or in snow-gullies
beneath a bulge of ice, when one man struggled above,
out of sight, and the rest of the party crouched below
with what security it might waiting for the cheery cry,
"Es geht. Vorwarts!"; the last scramble to the sum-
mit of a virgin peak; the swift glissade down the final
snow-slopes in the dusk of the evening with the lights
of the village twinkling below; his memories tramped
by him fast and always in the heart of them his friend's
face shone before his eyes. Chayne stood for a mo-
ment dazed and bewildered. There rose up in his mind
that first helpless question of distress, "Why?" and
while he stood, his face puzzled and greatly troubled,
there fell upon his ears from close at hand a simple
message of sympathy uttered in a whisper gentle but
distinct:
"I am very sorry."
Chayne looked up. It was the overdressed girl
27


RUNNING WATER
of the Annemasse buffet, the girl who had seemed to
understand then, who seemed to understand now. He
raised his hat to her with a sense of gratitude. Then
he followed the guides and went up among the trees
toward the Glacier des Nantillons.


CHAPTER III
THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
THE rescue party marched upward between the
trees with the measured pace of experience.
Strength which would be needed above the snow-line
was not to be wasted on the lower slopes. But on the
other hand no halts were made; steadily the file of men
turned to the right and to the left and the zigzags of
the forest path multiplied behind them. The zigzags
increased in length, the trees became sparse; the rescue
party came out upon the great plateau at the foot of
the peaks called the Plan des Aiguilles, and stopped at
the mountain inn built upon its brow, just over Cha-
monix. The evening had come, below them the mists
were creeping along the hillsides and blotting the val-
ley out.
"We will stop here," said Michel Revailloud, as he
stepped on to the little platform of earth in front of
the door. "If we start again at midnight, we shall be
on the glacier at daybreak. We cannot search the Gla-
cier des Nantillons in the dark."
Chayne agreed reluctantly. He would have liked to
push on if only to lull thought by the monotony of
20


RUNNING WATER
their march. Moreover during these last two hours,
some faint rushlight of hope had been kindled in his
mind which made all delay irksome. He himself
would not believe that his friend John Lattery, with
all his skill, his experience, had slipped from his ice-
steps like any tyro; Michel, on the other hand, would
not believe that he had fallen from the upper rocks of
the Blaitiere on the far side of the Col. From these
two disbeliefs his hope had sprung. It was possible
that either Lattery or his guide lay disabled, but alive
and tended, as well as might be, by his companion on
some insecure ledge of that rock-cliff. A falling stone,
a slip checked by the rope might have left either hurt
but still living. It was true that for two nights and
a day the two men must have already hung upon their
ledge, that a third night was to follow. Still such en-
durance had been known in the annals of the Alps,
and Lattery was a hard strong man.
A girl came from the chalet and told him that his
dinner was ready. Chayne forced himself to eat and
stepped out again on to the platform. A door opened
and closed behind him. Michel Revailloud came from
the guides' quarters at the end of the chalet and stood
beside him in the darkness, saying nothing since sym-
pathy taught him to be silent, and when he moved
moving with great gentleness.
"I am glad, Michel, that we waited here since we
had to wait," said Chayne.
"This chalet is new to you, monsieur. It has been
built while you were away."
30


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
"Yes. And therefore it has no associations, and no
memories. Its bare whitewashed walls have no stories
to tell me of cheery nights on the eve of a new climb
when he and I sat together for a while and talked
eagerly of the prospects of to-morrow."
The words ceased. Chayne leaned his elbows on
the wooden rail. The mists in the valley below had
been swept away; overhead the stars shone out of an
ebony sky very bright as on some clear winter night of
frost, and of all that gigantic amphitheater of moun-
tains which circled behind them from right to left there
was hardly a hint. Perhaps here some extra cube of
darkness showed where a pinnacle soared, or there a
vague whiteness glimmered where a high glacier hung
against the cliff, but for the rest the darkness hid the
mountains. A cold wind blew out of the East and
Chayne shivered.
"You are cold, monsieur?" said Michel. "It is
your first night."
"No, I am not cold," Chayne replied, in a low and
quiet voice. "But I am thinking it will be deadly cold
up there in the darkness on the rocks of the Blaitiere."
Michel answered him in the same quiet voice. On
that broad open plateau both men spoke indeed as
though they were in a sick chamber.
"While you were away, monsieur, three men with-
out food sat through a night on a steep ice-sheltered
ice-slope behind us, high up on the Aiguille du Plan,
as high up as the rocks of the Blaitiere. And not one
of them came to any harm."
31


RUNNING WATER
"I know. I read of it," said Chayne, but he gath-
ered little comfort from the argument.
Michel fumbled in his pocket and drew out a pipe.
"You do not smoke any more?" he asked. "It is a
good thing to smoke."
"I had forgotten," said Chayne.
He filled his pipe and then took a fusee from his
match-box.
"No, don't waste it," cried Michel quickly before he
could strike it. "I remember your fusees, monsieur."
Michel struck a sulphur match and held it as it
spluttered, and frizzled, in the hollow of his great
hands. The flame burnt up. He held it first to
Chayne's pipe-bowl and then to his own; and for a
moment his face was lit with the red glow. Its age
thus revealed, and framed in the darkness, shocked
Chayne, even at this moment, more than it had done on
the platform at Chamonix. Not merely were its deep
lines shown up, but all the old humor and alertness had
gone. The face had grown mask-like and spiritless.
Then the match went out.
Chayne leaned upon the rail and looked downward.
A long way below him, in the clear darkness of the val-
ley the lights of Chamonix shone bright and very
small. Chayne had never seen them before so straight
beneath him. As he looked he began to notice them;
as he noticed them, more and more they took a defin-
ite shape. He rose upright, and pointing downward
with one hand he said in a whisper, a whisper of awe—
"Do you see, Michel? Do you see?"
32


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
The great main thoroughfare ran in a straight line
eastward through the town, and, across it, inter-
secting it at the little square where the guides gather
of an evening, lay the other broad straight road from
the church across the river. Along those two roads
the lights burned most brightly, and thus there had
emerged before Chayne's eyes a great golden cross.
It grew clearer and clearer as he looked; he looked
away and then back again, and now it leapt to view,
he could not hide it from his sight, a great cross of
light lying upon the dark bosom of the valley.
"Do you see, Michel?"
"Yes." The answer came back very steadily.
"But so it was last night and last year. Those three
men on the Plan had it before their eyes all night.
It is no sign of disaster." For a moment he was
silent, and then he added timidly: "If you look for a
sign, monsieur, there is a better one."
Chayne turned toward Michel in the darkness rather
quickly.
"As we set out from the hotel," Michel continued,
"there was a young girl upon the steps with a very
sweet and gentle face. She spoke to you, monsieur.
No doubt she told you that her prayers would be with
you to-night."
"No, Michel," Chayne replied, and though the
darkness hid his face, Michel knew that he smiled.
"She did not promise me her prayers. She simply
said: 'I am sorry.'"
Michel Revailloud was silent for a little while, and
8 33


RUNNING WATER
when he spoke again, he spoke very wistfully. One
might almost have said that there was a note of envy
in his voice.
"Well, that is still something, monsieur. You
are very lonely to-night, is it not so? You came back
here after many years, eager with hopes and plans
and not thinking at all of disappointments. And the
disappointments have come, and the hopes are all
fallen. Is not that so, too? Well, it is something,
monsieur—I, who am lonely too, and an old man
besides, so that I cannot mend my loneliness, I tell
you—it is something that there is a young girl down
there with a sweet and gentle face who is sorry for
you, who perhaps is looking up from among those
lights to where we stand in the darkness at this
moment."
But it seemed that Chayne did not hear, or, if he
heard, that he paid no heed. And Michel, knocking
the tobacco from his pipe, said:
"You will do well to sleep. We may have a long
day before us"; and he walked away to the guides'
quarters.
But Chayne could not sleep; hope and doubt fought
too strongly within him, wrestling for the life of his
friend. At twelve o'clock Michel knocked upon his
door. Chayne got up from his bed at once, drew on
his boots, and breakfasted. At half past the rescue
party set out, following a rough path through a wil-
derness of boulders by the light of a lantern. It was
still dark when they came to the edge of the glacier,
34


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
and they sat down and waited. In a little while the
sky broke in the East, a twilight dimly revealed the
hills, Michel blew out the lantern, the blurred figures
of the guides took shape and outline, and silently the
morning dawned upon the world.
The guides moved on to the glacier and spread over
it, ascending as they searched.
"You see, monsieur, there is very little snow this
year," said Michel, chipping steps so that he and
Chayne might round the corner of a wide crevasse.
"Yes, but it does not follow that he slipped," said
Chayne, hotly, for he was beginning to resent that
explanation as an imputation against his friend.
Slowly the party moved upward over the great
slope of ice into the recess, looking for steps abruptly
ending above a crevasse or for signs of an avalanche.
They came level with the lower end of a long rib of
rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise
bisects the glacier. Here the search ended for a while.
The rib of rocks is the natural path, and the guides
climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier
and spread out once more, roped in couples. They
were now well within the great amphitheater. On
their left the cliffs of the Charmoz overlappea them, on
the right the rocks of the Blaitiere. For an hour they
advanced, cutting steps since the glacier was steep,
and then from the center of the glacier a cry rang
out. Chayne at the end of the line upon the right
looked across. A little way in front of the two men
who had shouted something dark lay upon the ice.
35


RUNNING WATER
Chayne, who was with Michel Revailloud, called to
him and began hurriedly to scratch steps diagonally
toward the object.
"Take care, monsieur," cried Michel.
Chayne paid no heed. Coming up from behind on
the left-hand side, he passed his guide and took the
lead. He could tell now what the dark object was,
for every now and then a breath of wind caught
it and whirled it about the ice. It was a hat. He
raised his ax to slice a step and a gust of wind,
stronger than the others, lifted the hat, sent it rolling
and skipping down the glacier, lifted it again and
gently dropped it at his feet. He stooped down and
picked it up. It was a soft broad-brimmed hat of dark
gray felt. In the crown there was the name of
an English maker. There was something more too.
There were two initials—J. L.
Chayne turned to Michel Revailloud.
"You were right, Michel," he said, solemnly. "My
friend has made the first passage of the Col des Nan-
tillons from the East."
The party moved forward again, watching with re-
doubled vigilance for some spot in the glacier, some
spot above a crevasse, to which ice-steps descended
and from whidh they did not lead down. And three
hundred yards beyond a second cry rang out. A
guide was standing on the lower edge of a great cre-
vasse with a hand upheld above his head. The search-
ers converged quickly upon him. Chayne hurried
forward, plying the pick of his ax as never in his
36


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
life had he plied it. Had the guide come upon the
actual place where the accident took place, he asked
himself? But before he reached the spot, his pace
slackened, and he stood still. He had no longer any
doubt. His friend and his friend's guide were not
lying upon any ledge of the rocks of the Aiguille de
Blaitiere; they were not waiting for any succor.
On the glacier, a broad track, littered with blocks
of ice, stretched upward in a straight line from the
upper lip of the crevasse to the great ice-fall on the
sky-line where the huge slabs and pinnacles of ice,
twisted into monstrous shapes, like a sea suddenly
frozen when a tempest was at its height, stood mar-
shaled in serried rows. They stood waiting upon the
sun. One of them, melted at the base, had crashed
down the slope, bursting into huge fragments as it
fell, and cleaving a groove even in that hard glacier.
Chayne went forward and stopped at the guide's
side on the lower edge of the crevasse. Beyond the
chasm the ice rose in a blue straight wall for some
three feet, and the upper edge was all crushed and
battered; and then the track of the falling serac ended.
It had poured into the crevasse.
The guide pointed to the left of the track.
"Do you see, monsieur? Those steps which come
downward across the glacier and stop exactly where
the track meets them? They do not go on, on the
other side of the track, monsieur."
Chayne saw clearly enough. The two men had
been descending the glacier in the afternoon, the ava-
37


RUNNING WATER
lanche had fallen and swept them down. He dropped
upon his knees and peered into the crevasse. The
walls of the chasm descended smooth and precipitous,
changing in gradual shades and color from pale trans-
parent green to the darkest blue, until all color was
lost in darkness. He bent his head and shouted into
the depths:
“Lattery! Lattery!"
And only his voice came back to him, cavernous
and hollow. He shouted again, and then he heard
Michel Revailloud saying solemnly behind him:
“Yes, they are here."
Suddenly Chayne turned round, moved by a fierce
throb of anger.
“It 's not true, you see," he cried. “He did n't
slip out of his steps and drag his guide down with
him. You were wrong, Michel.”
Michel was standing with his hat in his hand.
"Yes, monsieur, I was quite wrong," he said, gently.
He turned to a big and strong man:
“François, will you put on the rope and go
down?”
They knotted the rope securely about François'
waist and he took his ice-ax in his hand, sat down on
the edge of the crevasse with his legs dangling, turned
over upon his face and said:
“When I pull the rope, haul in gently."
They lowered him carefully down for sixty feet,
and at that depth the rope slackened. François had
reached the bottom of the crevasse. For a few mo-
38


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
ments they watched the rope move this way and that,
and then there came a definite pull.
"He has found them," said Michel.
Some of the guides lined out with the rope in their
hands. Chayne took his position in the front, at the
head of the line and nearest to the crevasse. The
pull upon the rope was repeated, and slowly the
men began to haul it in. It did not occur to Chayne
that the weight upon the rope was heavy. One ques-
tion filled his mind, to the exclusion of all else. Had
Francois found his friend? What news would he
bring of them when he came again up to the light?
Francois' voice was heard now, faintly, calling from
the depths. But what he said could not be heard.
The line of men hauled in the rope more and more
quickly and then suddenly stopped and drew it in
very gently. For they could now hear what Francois
said. It was but one word, persistently repeated:
"Gently! Gently!"
And so gently they drew him up toward the mouth
of the crevasse. Chayne was standing too far back to
see down beyond the edge, but he could hear Fran-
qois' ax clattering against the ice-walls, and the grat-
ing of his boots. Michel, who was kneeling at the
edge of the chasm, held up his hand, and the men
upon the rope ceased to haul. In a minute or two he
lowered it.
"Gently," he said, "gently," gazing downward with
a queer absorption. Chayne began to hear Fran-
cois' labored breathing and then suddenly at the
39


RUNNING WATER
edge of the crevasse he saw appear the hair of a man's
head.
"Up with him," cried a guide; there was a quick
strong pull upon the rope and out of the chasm, above
the white level of the glacier, there appeared a face
-not François' face—but the face of a dead man.
Suddenly it rose into the colorless light, pallid and
wax-like, with open, sightless eyes and a dropped jaw,
and one horrid splash of color on the left forehead,
where blood had frozen. It was the face of Chayne's
friend, John Lattery; and in a way most grotesque and
horrible it bobbed and nodded at him, as though the
neck was broken and the man yet lived. When Fran-
çois just below cried, “Gently! Gently,” it seemed that
the dead man's mouth was speaking.
Chayne uttered a cry; then a deathly sickness over-
came him. He dropped the rope, staggered a little
way off like a drunken man and sat down upon the
ice with his head between his hands.
Some while later a man came to him and said:
“We are ready, monsieur.”
Chayne returned to the crevasse. Lattery's guide
had been raised from the crevasse. Both bodies had
been wrapped in sacks and cords had been fixed about
their legs. The rescue party dragged the bodies down
the glacier to the path, and placing them upon doors
taken from a chalet, carried them down to Chamonix.
On the way down François talked for a while to
Michel Revailloud, who in his turn fell back to where
at the end of the procession Chayne walked alone.
40


THE FINDING OF JOHN LATTERY
"Monsieur," he said, and Chayne looked at him
with dull eyes like a man dazed.
"There is something which Franqois noticed, which
he wished me to tell you. Francois is a good lad. He
wishes you to know that your friend died at once—
there was no sign of a movement. He lay in the bot-
tom of the crevasse in some snow which was quite
smooth. The guide—he had kicked a little with his
feet in the snow—but your friend had died at once."
"Thank you," said Chayne, without the least emo-
tion in his voice. But he walked with uneven steps.
At times he staggered like one overdone and very tired.
But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly
aware that he had his friend's reputation to defend:
"You see he did n't slip on the ice, Michel. You
were quite wrong. It was the avalanche. It was no
fault of his."
"I was wrong," said Michel, and he took Chayne by
the arm lest he should fall; and these two men came
long after the others into Chamonix.
41


CHAPTER IV
MR. JARVICE
THE news of Lattery's death was telegraphed to
England on the same evening. It appeared the
next morning under a conspicuous head-line in the
daily newspapers, and Mr. Sidney Jarvice read the
item in the Pullman car as he traveled from Brighton
to his office in London. He removed his big cigar
from his fat red lips, and became absorbed in thought.
The train rushed past Hassocks and Three Bridges and
East Croydon. Mr. Jarvice never once looked at his
newspaper again. The big cigar of which the costli-
ness was proclaimed by the gold band about its middle
had long since gone out, and for him the train came
quite unexpectedly to a stop at the ticket platform on
Battersea Bridge.
Mr. Jarvice was a florid person in his looks and in
his dress. It was in accordance with his floridness
that he always retained the gold band about his cigar
while he smoked it. He was a man of middle age,
with thick, black hair, a red, broad face, little bright,
black eyes, a black mustache and rather prominent
teeth. He was short and stout, and drew attention to
his figure by wearing light-colored trousers adorned
42


MR. JARVICE
with a striking check. From Victoria Station he
drove at once to his office in Jermyn Street. A young
and wizened-looking clerk was already at work in the
outer room.
"I will see no one this morning, Maunders," said
Mr. Jarvice as he pressed through.
"Very well, sir. There are a good number of let-
ters," replied the clerk.
"They must wait," said Mr. Jarvice, and entering
his private room he shut the door. He did not touch
the letters upon his table, but he went straight to his
bureau, and unlocking a drawer, took from it a copy
of the Code Napoleon. He studied the document care-
fully, locked it up again and looked at his watch. It
was getting on toward one o'clock. He rang the bell
for his clerk.
"Maunders," he said, "I once asked you to make
some inquiries about a young man called Walter
Hine."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you remember what his habits were? Where
he lunched, for instance?"
Maunders reflected for a moment.
"It ?s a little while ago, sir, since I made the inquir-
ies. As far as I remember, he did not lunch regularly
anywhere. But he went to the American Bar of the
Criterion restaurant most days for a morning drink
about one."
"Oh, he did? You made his acquaintance, of
course?"
43


RUNNING WATER
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you might find him this morning, give him
some lunch, and bring him round to see me at three.
See that he is sober."
At three o'clock accordingly Mr. Walter Hine was
shown into the inner room of Mr. Jarvice. Jarvice
bent his bright eyes upon his visitor. He saw a young
man with very fair hair, a narrow forehead, watery
blue eyes and a weak, dissipated face. Walter Hine
was dressed in a cheap suit of tweed much the worse
for wear, and he entered the room with the sullen tim-
idity of the very shy. Moreover, he was a little un-
steady as he walked, as though he had not yet recov-
ered from last night's intoxication.
Mr. Jarvice noted these points with his quick
glance, but whether they pleased him or not there was
no hint upon his face.
"Will you sit down?" he said, suavely, pointing to
a chair. "Maunders, you can go."
Walter Hine turned quickly, as though he would
have preferred Maunders to stay, but he let him go.
Mr. Jarvice shut the door carefully, and, walking
across the room, stood over his visitor with his hands
in his pockets, and renewed his scrutiny. Walter Hine
grew uncomfortable, and blurted out with a cockney
twang—
"Maunders told me that if I came to see you it might
be to my advantage."
"I think it will," replied Mr. Jarvice. "Have you
seen this morning's paper?"
44


MR. JARVICE
"On'y the 'Sportsman'."
"Then you have probably not noticed that your
cousin, John Lattery, has been killed in the Alps."
He handed his newspaper to Hine, who glanced at it
indifferently.
"Well, how does that affect me?" he asked.
"It leaves you the only heir to your uncle, Mr. Jo-
seph Hine, wine-grower at Maqon, who, I believe, is a
millionaire. Joseph Hine is domiciled in France, and
must by French law leave a certain portion of his prop-
erty to his relations, in other words, to you. I have
taken some trouble to go into the matter, Mr. Hine,
and I find that your share must at the very least
amount to two hundred thousand pounds."
"I know all about that," Hine interrupted. "But
as the old brute won't acknowledge me and may live
another twenty years, it 's not much use to me now."
"Well," said Mr. Jarvice, smiling suavely, "my
young friend, that is where I come in."
Walter Hine looked up in surprise. Suspicion fol-
lowed quickly upon the surprise.
"Oh, on purely business terms, of course," said Jar-
vice. He took a seat and resumed gaily. "Now I am
by profession—what would you guess? I am a
money-lender. Luckily for many people I have
money, and I lend it—I lend it upon very easy terms.
I make no secret of my calling, Mr. Hine. On the
contrary, I glory in it. It gives me an opportunity of
doing a great deal of good in a quiet way. If I were
to show you my books you would realize that many
45


RUNNING WATER
famous estates are only kept going through my assis-
tance; and thus many a farm laborer owes his daily
bread to me and never knows his debt. Why should I
conceal it?"
Mr. Jarvice turned toward his visitor with his hands
outspread. Then his voice dropped.
"There is only one thing I hide, and that, Mr. Hine,
is the easiness of the terms on which I advance my
loans. I must hide that. I should have all my pro-
fession against me were it known. But you shall
know it, Mr. Hine." He leaned forward and patted
his young friend upon the knee with an air of great
benevolence. "Come, to business! Your circum-
stances are not, I think, in a very flourishing condi-
tion."
"I should think not," said Walter Hine, sullenly. "I
have a hundred and fifty a year, paid weekly. Three
quid a week don't give a fellow much chance of a
flutter."
"Three pounds a week. Ridiculous!" cried Mr. Jar-
vice, lifting up his hands. "I am shocked, really
shocked. But we will alter all that. Oh yes, we will
soon alter that."
He sprang up briskly, and unlocking once more the
drawer in which he kept his copy of the Code Napo-
leon, he took out this time a slip of paper. He seated
himself again, drawing up his chair to the table.
"Will you tell me, Mr. Hine, whether these particu-
lars are correct? We must be business-like, you know.
Oh yes," he said, gaily wagging his head and cocking
46


MR. JARVICE
his bright little eyes at his visitor. And he began to
read aloud, or rather paraphrase, the paper which he
held:
"Your father inherited the same fortune as your
uncle, Joseph Hine, but lost almost the entire amount
in speculation. In middle life he married your mother,
who was—forgive me if I wound the delicacy of your
feelings, Mr. Hine—not quite his equal in social posi-
tion. The happy couple then took up their residence
in Arcade Street, Croydon, where you were born on
March 6, twenty-three years ago."
"Yes," said Walter Hine.
"In Croydon you passed your boyhood. You were
sent to the public school there. But the rigorous dis-
cipline of school life did not suit your independent
character." Thus did Mr. Jarvice gracefully para-
phrase the single word "expelled" which was written
on his slip of paper. "Ah, Mr. Hine," he cried, smil-
ing indulgently at the sullen, bemused weakling who
sat before him, stale with his last night's drink. "You
and Shelley! Rebels, sir, rebels both! Well, well!
After you left school, at the age of sixteen, you pur-
sued your studies in a desultory fashion at home.
Your father died the following year. Your mother
two years later. You have since lived in Russell
Street, Bloomsbury, on the income which remained
from your father's patrimony. Three pounds a week
—to be sure, here it is—paid weekly by trustees ap-
pointed by your mother. And you have adopted none
of the liberal professions. There we have it, I think."
47


RUNNING WATER
"You seem to have taken a lot of trouble to find
out my history," said Walter Hine, suspiciously.
"Business, sir, business," said Mr. Jarvice. It was
on the tip of his tongue to add, "The early bird, you
know," but he was discreet enough to hold the words
back. "Now let me look to the future, which opens
out in a brighter prospect. It is altogether absurd, Mr.
Hine, that a young gentleman who will eventually
inherit a quarter of a million should have* to scrape
through meanwhile on three pounds a week. I put it
on a higher ground. It is bad for the State, Mr. Hine,
and you and I, like good citizens of this great empire,
must consider the State. When this great fortune
comes into your hands you should already have
learned how to dispose of it."
"Oh, I could dispose of it all right," interrupted
Mr. Hine with a chuckle. "Don't you worry your
head about that."
Mr. Jarvice laughed heartily at the joke. Walter
Hine could not but think that he had made a very
witty remark. He began to thaw into something like
confidence. He sat more easily on his chair.
"You will have your little joke, Mr. Hine. You
could dispose of it! Very good indeed! I must really
tell that to my dear wife. But business, business!"
He checked his laughter with a determined effort, and
lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. "I propose to
allow you two thousand pounds a year, paid quarterly
in advance. Five hundred pounds each quarter.
Forty pounds a week, Mr. Hine, which with your
48


MR. JARVICE
three will make a nice comfortable living wage! Ha!
Hal"
"Two thousand a year!" gasped Mr. Hine, leaning
back in his chair. "It ain't possible. Two thou—
here, what am I to do for it?"
"Nothing, except to spend it like a gentleman,"
said Mr. Jarvice, beaming upon his visitor. It did not
seem to occur to either man that Mr. Jarvice had set
to his loan the one condition which Mr. Walter Hine
never could fulfil. Walter Hine was troubled with
doubts of quite another kind.
"But you come in somewhere," he said, bluntly.
"On'y I 'm hanged if I see where."
"Of course I come in, my young friend," replied
Jarvice, frankly. "I or my executors. For we may
have to wait a long time. I propose that you execute
in my favor a post-obit on your uncle's life, giving
me—well, we may have to wait a long time. Twenty
years you suggested. Your uncle is seventy-three,
but a hale man, living in a healthy climate. We will
say four thousand pounds for every two thousand
which I lend you. Those are easy terms, Mr. Hine.
I don't make you take cigars and sherry! No! I
think such practices almost reflect discredit on my call-
ing. Two thousand a year! Five hundred a quarter!
Forty pounds a week! Forty-three with your little
income! Well, what do you say?"
Mr. Hine sat dazzled with the prospect of wealth,
immediate wealth, actually within his reach now. But
he had lived amongst people who never did anything
49


RUNNING WATER
for nothing, who spoke only a friendship when they
proposed to borrow money, and at the back of his
mind suspicion and incredulity were still at work.
Somehow Jarvice would be getting the better of him.
In his dull way he began to reason matters out.
"But suppose I died before my uncle, then you
would get nothing," he objected.
"Ah, to be sure! I had not forgotten that point,"
said Mr. Jarvice. "It is a contingency, of course, not
very probable, but still we do right to consider it."
He leaned back in his chair, and once again he fixed
his eyes upon his visitor in a long and silent scrutiny.
When he spoke again, it was in a quieter voice than
he had used. One might almost have said that the
real business of the interview was only just beginning.
"There is a way which will save me from loss.
You can insure your life as against your uncle's, for
a round sum—say for a hundred thousand pounds.
You will make over the policy to me. I shall pay the
premiums, and so if anything were to happen to you I
should be recouped."
He never once removed his eyes from Hine's face.
He sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair and
his hands folded beneath his chin, quite still, but with
a queer look of alertness upon his whole person.
"Yes, I see," said Mr. Hine, as he turned the pro-
posal over in his mind.
"Do you agree?" asked Jarvice.
"Yes," said Walter Hine.
"Very well," said Jarvice, all his old briskness
5°


MR. JARVICE
returning. "The sooner the arrangement is pushed
through, the better for you, eh? You will begin to
touch the dibs." He laughed and Walter Hine chuck-
led. "As to the insurance, you will have to get the
company's doctor's certificate, and I should think it
would be wise to go steady for a day or two, what?
You have been going the pace a bit, have n't you?
You had better see your solicitor to-day. As soon as
the post-obit and the insurance policy are in this office,
Mr. Hine, your first quarter's income is paid into your
bank. I will have an agreement drawn, binding me
on my side to pay you two thousand a year until your
uncle's death."
Mr. Jarvice rose as if the interview was ended. He
moved some papers on his table, and added carelessly—
"You have a good solicitor, I suppose?"
"I have n't a solicitor at all," said Walter Hine, as
he, too, rose.
"Oh, have n't you?" said Mr. Jarvice, with all the
appearance of surprise. "Well, shall I give you an
introduction to one?" He sat down, wrote a note,
placed it in an envelope, which he left unfastened, and
addressed it. Then he handed the envelope to his
client.
"Messrs. Jones and Stiles, Lincoln's Inn Fields,"
he said. "But ask for Mr. Driver. Tell him the
whole proposal frankly, and ask his advice."
"Driver?" said Hine, fingering the envelope.
"Had n't I ought to see one of the partners?"
Mr. Jarvice smiled.
51


RUNNING WATER
"You have a business head, Mr. Hine, that 's very
clear. I 'll let you into a secret. Mr. Driver is rather
like yourself—something of a rebel, Mr. Hine. He
came into disagreement with that very arbitrary body
the Incorporated Law Society, so,—well his name does
not figure in the firm. But he is Jones and Stiles.
Tell him everything! If he advises you against my
proposal, I shall even say take his advice. Good-
morning." Mr. Jarvice went to the door and opened
it.
"Well, this is the spider's web, you know," he said,
with the good-humored laugh of one who could afford
to despise the slanders of the ill-affected. "Not such a
very uncomfortable place, eh?" and he bowed Mr. Fly
out of his office.
He stood at the door and waited until the outer
office closed. Then he went to his telephone and rang
up a particular number.
"Are you Jones and Stiles?" he asked. "Thank
you! Will you ask Mr. Driver to come to the tele-
phone"; and with Mr. Driver he talked genially for
the space of five minutes.
Then, and not till then, with a smile of satisfaction,
Mr. Jarvice turned to the unopened letters which had
come to him by the morning post.
52


CHAPTER V
MICHEL REVAILLOUD EXPOUNDS HIS PHILOSOPHY
THAT summer was long remembered in Chamonix.
July passed with a procession of cloudless days;
valley and peak basked in sunlight. August came, and
on a hot starlit night in the first week of that month
Chayne sat opposite to Michel Revailloud in the bal-
cony of a cafe which overhangs the Arve. Below him
the river tumbling swiftly amidst the boulders flashed
in the darkness like white fire. He sat facing the
street. Chamonix was crowded and gay with lights. In
the little square just out of sight upon the right, some
traveling musicians were singing, and up and down the
street the visitors thronged noisily. Women in light-
colored evening frocks, with lace shawls thrown about
their shoulders and their hair; men in attendance upon
them, clerks from Paris and Geneva upon their holi-
days; and every now and then a climber with his guide,
come late from the mountains, would cross the bridge
quickly and stride toward his hotel. Chayne watched
the procession in silence quite aloof from its light-
heartedness and gaiety. Michel Revailloud drained
his glass of beer, and, as he replaced it on the table,
said wistfully:
53


RUNNING WATER
"So this is the last night, monsieur. It is always
sad, the last night."
"It is not exactly as we planned it," replied Chayne,
and his eyes moved from the throng before him in the
direction of the churchyard, where a few days before
his friend had been laid amongst the other Englishmen
who had fallen in the Alps. "I do not think that I
shall ever come back to Chamonix," he said, in a quiet
and heart-broken voice.
Michel gravely nodded his head.
"There are no friendships," said he, "like those
made amongst the snows. But this, monsieur, I say:
Your friend is not greatly to be pitied. He was
young, had known no suffering, no ill-health, and he
died at once. He did not even kick the snow for a lit-
tle while."
"No doubt that 's true," said Chayne, submitting to
the commonplace, rather than drawing from it any
comfort. He called to the waiter. "Since it is the
last night, Michel," he said, with a smile, "we will
drink another bottle of beer."
He leaned back in his chair and once more grew si-
lent, watching the thronged street and the twinkling
lights. In the little square one of the musicians with
a very clear sweet voice was singing a plaintive song,
and above the hum of the crowd, the melody, haunt-
ing in its wistfulness, floated to Chayne's ears, and
troubled him with many memories.
Michel leaned forward upon the table and answered
not merely with sympathy but with the air of one
54


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S PHILOSOPHY
speaking out of full knowledge, and speaking more-
over in a voice of warning.
"True, monsieur. The happiest memories can be
very bitter—if one has no one to share them. All
is in that, monsieur. If," and he repeated his
phrase—"If one has no one to share them." Then
the technical side of Chayne's proposal took hold of
him.
"The Col Dolent? You will have to start early
from the Chalet de Lognan, monsieur. You will sleep
there, of course, to-morrow. You will have to start at
midnight—perhaps even before. There is very little
snow this year. The great bergschrund will be very
difficult. In any season it is always difficult to cross
that bergschrund on to the steep ice-slope beyond. It
is so badly bridged with snow. This season it will be
as bad as can be. The ice-slope up to the Col will also
take a long time. So start very early."
As Michel spoke, as he anticipated the difficulties
and set his thoughts to overcome them, his eyes lit up,
his whole face grew younger.
Chayne smiled.
"I wish you were coming with me Michel," he said,
and at once the animation died out of Michel's face.
He became once more a sad, dispirited man.
"Alas, monsieur," he said, "I have crossed my last
Col. I have ascended my last mountain."
"You, Michel?" cried Chayne.
"Yes, monsieur, I," replied Michel, quietly. "I
have grown old. My eyes hurt me on the mountains,
55


RUNNING WATER
and my feet burn. I am no longer fit for anything ex-
cept to lead mules up to the Montanvert and conduct
parties on the Mer de Glace."
Chayne stared at Michel Revailloud. He thought
of what the guide's life had been, of its interest, its
energy, its achievement. More than one of those
aiguilles towering upon his left hand, into the sky, had
been first conquered by Michel Revailloud. And how
he had enjoyed it all! What resource he had shown,
what cheerfulness. Remorse gradually seized upon
Chayne as he looked across the little iron table at his
guide.
"Yes, it is a little sad," continued Revailloud. "But
I think that toward the end, life is always a little sad,
if"—and the note of warning once more was audible
—"if one has no well-loved companion to share one's
memories."
The very resignation of Michel's voice brought
Chayne to a yet deeper compunction. The wistful
melody still throbbed high and sank, and soared again
above the murmurs of the passers-by and floated away
upon the clear hot starlit night. Chayne wondered
with what words it spoke to his old guide. He looked
at the tired sad face on which a smile of friendliness
now played, and his heart ached. He felt some shame
that his own troubles had so engrossed him. After all,
Lattery was not greatly to be pitied. That was true.
He himself too was young. There would come other
summers, other friends. The real irreparable trouble
sat there before him on the other side of the iron
56


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S PHILOSOPHY
table, the trouble of an old age to be lived out in lone-
liness.
"You never married, Michel?" he said.
"No. There was a time, long ago, when I would
have liked to," the guide answered, simply. "But I
think now it was as well that I did not get my way.
She was very extravagant. She would have needed
much money, and guides are poor people, monsieur—
not like your professional cricketers," he said, with a
laugh. And then he turned toward the massive wall
of mountains. Here and there a slim rock spire, the
Dru or the Charmoz, pointed a finger to the stars, here
and there an ice-field glimmered like a white mist held
in a fold of the hills. But to Michel Revailloud, the
whole vast range was spread out as on a raised map,
buttress and peak, and dome of snow from the Aiguille
d'Argentiere in the east to the summit of Mont Blanc
in the west. In his thoughts he turned from mountain
to mountain and found each one, majestic and beauti-
ful, dear as a living friend, and hallowed with recollec-
tions. He remembered days when they had called, and
not in vain, for courage and endurance, days of blind-
ing snow-storms and bitter winds which had caught
him half-way up some ice-glazed precipice of rock or
on some long steep ice-slope crusted dangerously with
thin snow into which the ax must cut deep hour after
hour, however frozen the fingers, or tired the limbs.
He recalled the thrill of joy with which, after many
vain attempts, he, the first of men, had stepped on to the
small topmost pinnacle of this or that new peak. He
57


RUNNING WATER
recalled the days of travel, the long glacier walks on
the high level from Chamonix to Zermatt, and from
Zermatt again to the Oberland; the still clear mornings
and the pink flush upon some high white cone which
told that somewhere the sun had risen; and the un-
known ridges where expected difficulties suddenly van-
ished at the climber's approach, and others where an
easy scramble suddenly turned into the most difficult of
climbs. Michel raised his glass in the air. "Here is
good-by to you—the long good-by," he said, and his
voice broke. And abruptly he turned to Chayne with
his eyes full of tears and began to speak in a quick
passionate whisper, while the veins stood out upon his
forehead and his face quivered.
"Monsieur, I told you your friend was not greatly to
be pitied. I tell you now something more. The guide
we brought down with him from the Glacier des Nan-
tillons a fortnight back—all this fortnight I have been
envying him—yes, yes, even though he kicked the snow
with his feet for a little before he died. It is better to
do so than to lead mules up to the Montanvert."
"I am sorry," said Chayne.
The words sounded, as he spoke them, lame enough
and trivial in the face of Michel's passionate lament.
But they had an astonishing effect upon the guide.
The flow of words stopped at once, he looked at his
young patron almost whimsically and a little smile
played about his mouth.
"T am sorry,'" he repeated. "Those were the
words the young lady spoke to you on the steps of the
58


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S PHILOSOPHY
hotel. You have spoken with her, monsieur, and
thanked her for them?"
"No," said Chayne, and there was much indifference
in his voice.
Women had, as yet, not played a great part in
Chayne's life. Easy to please, but difficult to stir, he
had in the main just talked with them by the way and
gone on forgetfully: and when any one had turned
and walked a little of his road beside him, she had
brought to him no thought that here might be a com-
panion for all the way. His indifference roused Mi-
chel to repeat, and this time unmistakably, the warn-
ing he had twice uttered.
He leaned across the table, fixing his eyes very earn-
estly on his patron's face. "Take care, monsieur," he
said. "You are lonely to-night—very lonely. Then
take good care that your old age is not one lonely night
like this repeated and repeated through many years!
Take good care that when you in your turn come to the
end, and say good-by too"—he waved his hand toward
the mountains—"you have some one to share your
memories. See, monsieur!" and very wistfully he be-
gan to plead, "I go home to-night, I go out of Chamo-
nix, I cross a field or two, I come to Les Praz-Conduits
and my cottage. I push open the door. It is all dark
within. I light my own lamp and I sit ther*e a little
by myself. Take an old man's wisdom, monsieur!
When it is all over and you go home, take care that
there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room not
empty. Have some one to share your memories when
59


RUNNING WATER
life is nothing but memories." He rose as he ended,
and held out his hand. As Chayne took it, the guide
spoke again, and his voice shook:
"Monsieur, you have been a good patron to me," he
said, with a quiet and most dignified simplicity, "and
I make you what return I can. I have spoken to you
out of my heart, for you will not return to Chamonix
and after to-night we shall not meet again."
"Thank you," said Chayne, and he added: "We
have had many good days together, Michel."
"We have, monsieur."
"I climbed my first mountain with you."
"The Aiguille du Midi. I remember it well."
Both were silent after that, and for the same reason.
Neither could trust his voice. Michel Revailloud
picked up his hat, turned abruptly away and walked
out of the cafe into the throng of people. Chayne
resumed his seat and sat there, silent and thoughtful,
until the street began to empty and the musicians in
the square ceased from their songs.
Meanwhile Michel Revailloud walked slowly down
the street, stopping to speak with any one he knew
however slightly, that he might defer his entrance into
the dark and empty cottage at Les Praz-Conduits.
He drew near to the hotel where Chayne was staying
and saw under the lamp above the door a guide whom
he knew talking with a young girl. The young girl
raised her head. It was she who had said, "I am
sorry." As Michel came within the circle of light she
recognized him. She spoke quickly to the guide and
he turned at once and called "Michel," and when Rev-
6b


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S PHILOSOPHY
ailloud approached, he presented him to Sylvia Thes-
iger. "He has made many first ascents in the range of
Mont Blanc, mademoiselle."
Sylvia held out her hand with a smile of admira-
tion.
"I know,” she said. “I have read of them.”
“Really?” cried Michel. “You have read of them-
you, mademoiselle?”
There was as much pleasure as wonder in his tone.
After all, flattery from the lips of a woman young and
beautiful was not to be despised, he thought, the more
especially when the flattery was so very well deserved.
Life had perhaps one or two compensations to offer
him in his old age.
“Yes, indeed. I am very glad to meet you, Michel.
I have known your name a long while and envied you
for living in the days when these mountains were un-
known.”
Revailloud forgot the mules to the Montanvert and
the tourists on the Mer de Glace. He warmed into
cheerfulness. This young girl looked at him with so
frank an envy.
“Yes, those were great days, mademoiselle," he
said, with a thrill of pride in his voice. “But if we
love the mountains, the first ascent or the hundredth-
there is just the same joy when you feel the rough
rock beneath your fingers or the snow crisp under
your feet. Perhaps mademoiselle herself will some
time—"
At once Sylvia interrupted him with an eager happi-
ness
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RUNNING WATER
"Yes, to-morrow," she said.
"Oho! It is your first mountain, mademoiselle?"
"Yes."
"And Jean here is your guide. Jean and his brother,
I suppose?" Michel laid his hand affectionately on
the guide's shoulder. "You could not do better,
mademoiselle."
He looked at her thoughtfully for a little while.
She was fresh—fresh as the smell of the earth in
spring after a fall of rain. Her eyes, the alertness of
her face, the eager tones of her voice, were irresistible
to him, an old tired man. How much more irresistible
then to a younger man. Her buoyancy would lift such
an one clear above his melancholy, though it were deep
as the sea. He himself, Michel Revailloud, felt twice
the fellow he had been when he sat in the balcony
above the Arve.
"And what mountain is it to be, mademoiselle?" he
asked.
The girl took a step from the door of the hotel and
looked upward. To the south, but quite close, the
long thin ridge of the Aiguille des Charmoz towered
jagged and black against the starlit sky. On one pin-
nacle of that ridge a slab of stone was poised like the
top of a round table on the slant. It was at that partic-
ular pinnacle that Sylvia looked.
"L'Aiguille des Charmoz," said Michel, doubtfully,
and Sylvia swung round to him and argued against
his doubt.
"But I have trained myself," she said. "I have
62


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S PHILOSOPHY
been up the Brevent and Flegere. I am strong,
stronger than I look."
Michel Revailloud smiled.
"Mademoiselle, I do not doubt you. A young lady
who has enthusiasm is very hard to tire. It is not
because of the difficulty of that rock-climb that I
thought to suggest—the Aiguille d'Argentiere."
Sylvia turned with some hesitation to the younger
guide.
"You too spoke of that mountain," she said.
Michel pressed his advantage.
"And wisely, mademoiselle. If you will let me ad-
vise you, you will sleep to-morrow night at the Pavil-
lon de Lognan and the next day climb the Aiguille
d'Argentiere."
Sylvia looked regretfully up to the ridge of the
Charmoz which during this last fortnight had greatly
attracted her. She turned her eyes from the mountain
to Revailloud and let them rest quietly upon his face.
"And why do you advise the Aiguille d'Argen-
tiere?" she asked.
Michel saw her eyes softly shining upon him in the
darkness, and all the more persisted. Was not his
dear patron who must needs be helped to open his
eyes, since he would not open them himself, going to
sleep to-morrow in the Pavillon de Lognan? The
roads to the Col Dolent and the Aiguille d'Argentiere
both start from that small mountain inn. But this was
hardly the reason which Michel could give to the young
girl who questioned him. He bethought him of an-
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RUNNING WATER
other argument, a subtle one which he fancied would
strongly appeal to her. Moreover, there was truth
in it.
"I will tell you why, mademoiselle. It is to be
your first mountain. It will be a day in your life
which you will never forget. Therefore you want
it to be as complete as possible—is it not so? It is a
good rock-climb, the Aiguille des Charmoz—yes.
But the Argentiere is more complete. There is a
glacier, a rock traverse, a couloir up a rock-cliff, and
at the top of that a steep ice-slope. And that is not
all. You want your last step on to the summit to
reveal a new world to you. On the Charmoz, it is
true, there is a cleft at the very top up which you
scramble between two straight walls and you pop your
head out above the mountain. Yes, but you see little
that is new; for before you enter the cleft you see
both sides of the mountain. With the Argentiere it
is different. You mount at the last, for quite a time
behind the mountain with your face to the ice-slope;
and then suddenly you step out upon the top and the
chain of Mont Blanc will strike suddenly upon your
eyes and heart. See, mademoiselle, I love these moun-
tains with a very great pride and I would dearly like
you to have that wonderful white revelation of a new
strange world upon your first ascent."
Before he had ended, he knew that he had won.
He heard the girl draw sharply in her breath. She
was making for herself a picture of the last step from
the ice-slope to summit ridge.
64


CHAPTER VI
THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN
THE Pavillon de Lognan is built high upon the
southern slope of the valley of Chamonix, under
the great buttresses of the Aiguille Verte. It faces
the north and from the railed parapet before its door
the path winds down through pastures bright with
Alpine flowers to the pine woods, and the village of
Les Tines in the bed of the valley. But at its eastern
end a precipice drops to the great ice-fall of the Glacier
d'Argentiere, and night and day from far below the
roar of the glacier streams enters in at the windows
and fills the rooms with the music of a river in spate.
At five o'clock on the next afternoon, Chayne was
leaning upon the rail looking straight down to the
ice-fall. The din of the torrent was in his ears, and
it was not until a foot sounded lightly close behind
him that he knew he was no longer alone. He turned
round and saw to his surprise the over-dainty doll
of the Annemasse buffet, the child of the casinos and
the bathing beaches, Sylvia Thesiger. His surprise
was very noticeable and Sylvia's face flushed. She
made him a little bow and went into the chalet.
Chayne noticed a couple of fresh guides by the
66


THE PA VILLON DE LOGNAN
door of the guides' quarters. He remembered the
book which he had seen her reading with so deep an
interest in the buffet. And in a minute or two she
came out again on to the earth platform and he saw
that she was not overdressed to-day. She was simply
and warmly dressed in a way which suggested busi-
ness. On the other hand she had not made herself un-
gainly. He guessed her mountain and named it to
her.
"Yes," she replied. "Please say that it will be fine
to-morrow!"
"I have never seen an evening of better promise,"
returned Chayne, with a smile at her eagerness. The
brown cliffs of the Aiguille du Chardonnet just across
the glacier glowed red in the sunlight; and only a
wisp of white cloud trailed like a lady's scarf here and
there in the blue of the sky. The woman of the chalet
came out and spoke to him.
"She wants to know when we will dine," he ex-
plained to Sylvia. "There are only you and I. We
should dine early, for you will have to start early";
and he repeated the invariable cry of that year:
"There is so very little snow. It may take you some
time to get off the glacier on to your mountain.
There is always a crevasse to cross."
"I know," said Sylvia, with a smile. "The berg-
schrund."
"I beg your pardon," said Chayne, and in his turn
he smiled too. "Of course you know these terms.
I saw you reading a copy of the 'Alpine Journal.'"
67


RUNNING WATER
They dined together an hour later with the light of
the sunset reddening the whitewashed walls of the lit-
tle simple room and bathing in glory the hills without.
Sylvia Thesiger could hardly eat for wonder. Her
face was always to the window, her lips were always
parted in a smile, her gray eyes bright with happiness.
"I have never known anything like this," she said.
"It is all so strange, so very beautiful."
Her freshness and simplicity laid their charm on
him, even as they had done on Michel Revailloud the
night before. She was as eager as a child to get the meal
done with and to go out again into the open air, be-
fore the after-glow had faded from the peaks. There
was something almost pathetic in her desire to make
the very most of such rare moments. Her eagerness
so clearly told him that such holidays came but seldom
in her life. He urged her, however, to eat, and when
she had done they went out together and sat upon the
bench, watching in silence the light upon the peaks
change from purple to rose, the rocks grow cold, and
the blue of the sky deepen as the night came.
"You too are making an ascent?" she asked.
"No," he answered. "I am crossing a pass into
Italy. I am going away from Chamonix altogether."
Sylvia turned to him; her eyes were gentle with
sympathy.
"Yes, I understand that," she said. "I am sorry."
"You said that once before to me, on the steps of
the hotel," said Chayne. "It was kind of you.
Though I said nothing, I was grateful"; and he was
68


THE PAVILLON DE LOGNAN
moved to open his heart to her, and to speak of his dead
friend. The darkness gathered about them; he spoke
in the curt sentences which men use who shrink from
any emotional display; he interrupted himself to light
his pipe. But none the less she understood the reality
of his distress. He told her with a freedom of which
he was not himself at the moment quite aware, of a
clean, strong friendship which owed nothing to senti-
ment, which was never fed by protestations, which en-
dured through long intervals, and was established by
the memory of great dangers cheerily encountered and
overcome. It had begun amongst the mountains, and
surely, she thought, it had retained to the end some-
thing of their inspiration.
"We first met in the Tyrol, eight years ago. I had
crossed a mountain with a guide—the Glockturm—
and came down in the evening to the Radurschal Thal
where I had heard there was an inn. The evening had
turned to rain; but from a shoulder of the mountain I
had been able to look right down the valley and had
seen one long low building about four miles from the
foot of the glacier. I walked through the pastures
toward it, and found sitting outside the door in the
rain the man who was to be my friend. The door was
locked, and there was no one about the house, nor was
there any other house within miles. My guide, how-
ever, went on. Lattery and I sat out there in the rain
for a couple of hours, and then an old woman with
a big umbrella held above her head came down from
the upper pastures, driving some cows in front of her.
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RUNNING WATER
She told us that no one had stayed at her inn for four-
teen years. But she opened her door, lit us a great
fire, and cooked us eggs and made us coffee. I remem-
ber that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. We
sat in front of the fire with the bedding and the mat-
tresses airing behind us until late into the night. The
rain got worse too. There was a hole in the thatch
overhead, and through it I saw the lightning slash the
sky, as I lay in bed. Very few people ever came up or
down that valley; and the next morning, after the
storm, the chamois were close about the inn, on the
grass. We went on together. That was the begin-
ning."
He spoke simply, with a deep quietude of voice.
The tobacco glowed and grew dull in the bowl of his
pipe regularly; the darkness hid his face. But the
tenderness, almost the amusement with which he dwelt
on the little insignificant details of that first meeting
showed her how very near to him it was at this mo-
ment.
"We went from the Tyrol down to Verona and baked
ourselves in the sun there for a day, under the colon-
nades, and then came back through the St. Gotthard to
Goschenen. Do you know the Goschenen Thal?
There is a semicircle of mountains, the Winterbergen,
which closes it in at the head. We climbed there to-
gether for a week, just he and I and no guides. I re-
member a rock-ridge there. It was barred by a pin-
nacle which stood up from it—'a gendarme,' as they
call it. We had to leave the arete and work out along
70


THE PA VILLON DE LOGNAN
the face of the pinnacle at right angles to the moun-
tain. There was a little ledge. You could look down
between your feet quite straight to the glacier, two
thousand feet below. We came to a place where the
wall of the pinnacle seemed possible. Almost ten feet
above us, there was a flaw in the rock which elsewhere
was quite perpendicular. I was the lightest. So my
friend planted himself as firmly as he could on the
ledge with his hands flat against the rock face. There
was n't any handhold, you see, and I climbed out on to
his back and stood upon his shoulders. I saw that the
rock sloped back from the flaw or cleft in quite a prac-
ticable way. Only there was a big boulder resting on
the slope within reach, and which we could hardly
avoid touching. It did not look very secure. So I
put out my hand and just touched it—quite, quite gen-
tly. But it was so exactly balanced that the least little
vibration overset it, and I saw it begin to move, very
slowly, as if it meant no harm whatever. But it was
moving, nevertheless, toward me. My chest was on a
level with the top of the cleft, so that I had a good view
of the boulder. I could n't do anything at all. It was
much too heavy and big for my arms to stop and I
could n't move, of course, since I was standing on Jack
Lattery's shoulders. There did not seem very much
chance, with nothing below us except two thousand
feet of vacancy. But there was just at my side a little
bit of a crack in the edge of the cleft, and there was
just a chance that the rock might shoot out down that
cleft past me. I remember standing and watching the
7*


RUNNING WATER
thing sliding down, not in a rush at all, but very
smoothly, almost in a friendly sort of way, and I won-
dered how long it would be before it reached me.
Luckily some irregularity in the slope of rock just
twisted it into the crack, and it suddenly shot out into
the air at my side with a whizz. It was so close to me
that it cut the cloth of my sleeve. I had been so fascina-
ted by the gentle movement of the boulder that I had
forgotten altogether to tell Lattery what was happen-
ing; and when it whizzed out over his head, he was so
startled that he nearly lost his balance on the little shelf
and we were within an ace of following our rock down
to the glacier. Those were our early days." And he
laughed with a low deep ring of amusement in his
voice.
"We were late that day on the mountain," he re-
sumed, "and it was dark when we got down to a long
snow-slope at its foot. It was new ground to us. We
were very tired. We saw it glimmering away below
us. It might end in a crevasse and a glacier for all we
knew, and we debated whether we should be prudent
or chance it. We chanced the crevasse. We sat down
and glissaded in the dark with only the vaguest idea
where we should end. Altogether we had very good
times, he and I. Well, they have come to an end on
the Glacier des Nantillons."
Chayne became silent; Sylvia Thesiger sat at his
side and did not interrupt. In front of them the pas-
tures slid away into darkness. Only a few small clear
lights shining in the chalets told them there were other
72


THE PA VILLON DE LOGNAN
people awake in the world. Except for the reverbera-
tion of the torrent deep in the gorge at their right, no
sound at all broke the deep silence. Chayne knocked
the ashes from his pipe.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been talking
to you about one whom you never knew. You were
so quiet that I seemed to be merely remembering to
myself."
"I was so quiet," Sylvia explained, "because I
wished you to go on. I was very glad to hear you. It
was all new and strange and very pleasant to me—this
story of your friendship. As strange and pleasant as
this cool, quiet night here, a long way from the hotels
and the noise, on the edge of the snow. For I have
heard little of such friendships and I have seen still
less."
Chayne's thoughts were suddenly turned from his
dead friend to this, the living companion at his side.
There was something rather sad and pitiful in the tone
of her voice, no less than in the words she used. She
spoke with so much humility. He was aware with a
kind of shock, that here was a woman, not a child.
He turned his eyes to her, as he had turned his
thoughts. He could see dimly the profile of her face.
It was still as the night itself. She was looking
straight in front of her into the darkness. He pon-
dered upon her life and how she bore with it, and how
she had kept herself unspoiled by its associations. Of
the saving grace of her dreams he knew nothing. But
the picture of her mother was vivid to his eyes, the
73


RUNNING WATER
outlawed mother, shunned instinctively by the women,
noisy and shrill, and making her companions of the
would-be fashionable loiterers and the half-pay officers
run to seed. That she bore it ill her last words had
shown him. They had thrown a stray ray of light
upon a dark place which seemed a place of not much
happiness.
"I am very glad that you are here to-night," he said.
"It has been kind of you to listen. I rather dreaded
this evening."
Though what he said was true, it was half from pity
that he said it. He wished her to feel her value. And
in reply she gave him yet another glimpse into the dark
place.
"Your friend," she said, "must have been much
loved in Chamonix."
"Why?"
"So many guides came of their own accord to search
for him."
Again Chayne's face was turned quickly toward her.
Here indeed was a sign of the people amongst whom
she lived, and of their unillumined thoughts. There
must be the personal reason always, the personal rea-
son or money. Outside of these, there were no mo-
tives. He answered her gently:
"No; I think that was not the reason. How shall I
put it to you?" He leaned forward with his elbows
upon his knees, and spoke slowly, choosing his words.
"I think these guides obeyed a law, a law not of any
man's making, and the one law last broken—the law
74


THE PA VILLON DE LOGNAN
that what you know, that you must do, if by doing it
you can save a life. I should think nine medals out
of ten given by the Humane Society are given because
of the compulsion of that law. If you can swim, sail
a boat, or climb a mountain, and the moment comes
when a life can only be saved if you use your know-
ledge—well, you have got to use it. That 's the law.
Very often, I have no doubt, it 's quite reluctantly
obeyed, in most cases I think it 's obeyed by instinct,
without consideration of the consequences. But it is
obeyed, and the guides obeyed it when so many of
them came with me on to the Glacier des Nantillons."
He heard the girl at his side draw in a sharp breath.
She shivered.
"You are cold?"
"No," she answered. "But that, too, is all strange
to me. I should have known of that law without the
need to be told of it. But I shall not forget it."
Again humility was very audible in the quiet tone
of her voice. She understood that she had been in-
structed. She felt she should not have needed it.
She faced her ignorance frankly.
"What one knows, that one must do," she repeated,
fixing the words in her mind, "if by doing it one can
save a life. No, I shall not forget that."
She rose from the seat.
"I must go in."
"Yes," cried Chayne, Starting up. "You have stayed
up too long as it is. You will be tired to-morrow."
"Not till to-morrow evening," she said, with a
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RUNNING WATER
laugh. She looked upward to the starlit sky. "It will
be fine, I hope. Oh, it must be fine. To-morrow is
my one day. I do so want it to be perfect," she ex-
claimed.
"I don't think you need fear."
She held out her hand to him.
"This is good-by, I suppose," she said, and she
did not hide the regret the words brought to her.
Chayne took her hand and kept it for a second or
two. He ought to start an hour and a half before her.
That he knew very well. But he answered:
"No. We go the same road for a little while.
When do you start?"
"At half past one."
"I too. It will be daybreak before we say good-
by. I wonder whether you will sleep at all to-night.
I never do the first night."
He spoke lightly, and she answered him in the same
key.
"I shall hardly know whether I sleep or wake,
with the noise of that stream rising through my win-
dow. For so far back as I can remember I always
dream of running water."
The words laid hold upon Chayne's imagination and
fixed her in his memories. He knew nothing of her
really, except just this one curious fact. She dreamed
of running water. Somehow it was fitting that she
should. There was a kind of resemblance; running
water was, in a way, an image of her. She seemed in
her nature to be as clear and fresh; yet she was as
76


THE PA VILLON DE LOGNAN
elusive; and when she laughed, her laugh had a
music as light and free.
She went into the chalet. Through the window
Chayne saw her strike a match and hold it to the can-
dle. She stood for a moment looking out at him
gravely, with the light shining upward upon her young
face. Then a smile hesitated upon her lips and slowly
took possession of her cheeks and eyes. She turned
and went into her room.
77


CHAPTER VII
THE AIGUILLE d'aRGENTIERE
CHAYNE smoked another pipe alone and then
walking to the end of the little terrace looked
down on to the glistening field of ice below. Along
that side of the chalet no light was burning. Was
she listening? Was she asleep? The pity which
had been kindled within him grew as he thought upon
her. To-morrow she would be going back to a life
she clearly hated. On the whole he came to the con-
clusion that the world might have been better organ-
ized. He lit his candle and went to bed, and it seemed
that not five minutes had passed before one of his
guides knocked upon his door. When he came into
the living-room Sylvia Thesiger was already break-
fasting.
"Did you sleep?" he asked.
"I was too excited," she answered. "But I am
not tired"; and certainly there was no trace of fatigue
in her appearance.
They started at half past one and went up behind
the hut.
The stars shimmered overhead in a dark and cloud-
78


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
less sky. The night was still; as yet there was no
sign of dawn. The great rock cliffs of the Chardonnet
across the glacier and the towering ice-slopes of the
Aiguille Verte beneath which they passed were all
hidden in darkness. They might have been walking
on some desolate plain of stones flat from horizon
to horizon. They walked in single file, Jean leading
with a lighted lantern in his hand, so that Sylvia,
who followed next, might pick her way amongst the
boulders. Thus they marched for two hours along
the left bank of the glacier and then descended on
to ice. They went forward partly on moraine, partly
on ice at the foot of the crags of the Aiguille Verte.
And gradually the darkness thinned. Dim masses
of black rock began to loom high overhead, and
to all seeming very far away. The sky paled, the dim
masses of rock drew near about the climbers, and
over the steep walls, the light flowed into the white
basin of the glacier as though from every quarter of
the sky.
Sylvia stopped and Chayne came up with her.
"Well?" he asked; and as he saw her face his
thoughts were suddenly swept back to the morn-
ing when the beauty of the ice-world was for the first
time vouchsafed to him. He seemed to recapture the
fine emotion of that moment.
Sylvia stood gazing with parted lips up that wide
and level glacier to its rock-embattled head. The
majestic silence of the place astounded her. There
was no whisper of wind, no rustling of trees, no
79


RUNNING WATER
sound of any bird. As yet too there was no crack of
ice, no roar of falling stones. And as the silence sur-
prised her ears, so the simplicity of color smote upon
her eyes. There were no gradations. White ice filled
the basin and reached high into the recesses of the
mountains, hanging in rugged glaciers upon their
flanks, and streaking the gullies with smooth narrow
ribands. And about the ice, and above it, circling it
in, black walls of rock towered high, astonishingly
steep and broken at the top into pinnacles of an ex-
auisite beauty.
"I shall be very glad to have seen this," said Sylvia,
as she stored the picture in her mind, "more glad
than I am even now. It will be a good memory to
fall back upon when things are troublesome."
"Must things be troublesome?" he asked.
"Don't let me spoil my one day," she said, with a
smile.
She moved on, and Chayne, falling back, spoke for
a little with his guides. A little further on Jean
stopped.
"That is our mountain, mademoiselle," he said,
pointing eastward across the glacier.
Sylvia turned in that direction.
Straight in front of her a bay of ice ran back,
sloping ever upward, and around the bay there rose a
steep wall of cliffs which in the center sharpened pre-
cipitously to an apex. The apex was not a point but a
rounded level ridge of snow which curved over on the
top of the cliffs like a billow of foam. A tiny black
80


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
tower of rock stood alone on the northern end of the
snow-ridge.
"That, mademoiselle, is the Aiguille d'Argentiere.
We cross the glacier here."
Jean put the rope about her waist, fixing it with
the fisherman's bend, and tied one end about his own,
using the overhand knot, while his brother tied on
behind. They then turned at right angles to their
former march and crossed the glacier, keeping the
twenty feet of rope which separated each person ex-
tended. Once Jean looked back and uttered an ex-
clamation of surprise. For he saw Chayne and his
guides following across the glacier behind, and
Chayne's road to the Col Dolent at the head of the
glacier lay straight ahead upon their former line of
advance. However he said nothing.
They crossed the bergschrund with less difficulty
than they had anticipated, and ascending a ridge of
debris, by the side of the lateral glacier which de-
scended from the cliffs of the Aiguille d'Argentiere,
they advanced into the bay under the southern wall of
the Aiguille du Chardonnet. On the top of this
moraine Jean halted, and the party breakfasted, and
while they breakfasted Chayne told Sylvia something
of that mountain's history. "It is not the most diffi-
cult of peaks," said he, "but it has associations, which
some of the new rock-climbs have not. The pioneers
came here." Right behind them there was a gap, the
pass between their mountain and the Aiguille du
Chardonnet. "From that pass Moore and Whymper
8 81


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
"It needs care," said Chayne.
"Especially this year when there is so little snow,"
added Sylvia.
"Yes. Twelve hundred feet of ice at an angle of
fifty degrees."
"And the bergschrund 's just beneath."
"Yes, you must not slip on the Col Dolent," said
he, quietly.
Sylvia was silent a little while. Then she said with
a slight hesitation:
"And you cross that pass to-day?"
There was still more hesitation in Chayne's voice
as he answered:
"Well, no! You see, this is your first mountain.
And you have only two guides."
Sylvia looked at him seriously.
"How many should I have taken for the Aiguille
d'Argentiere? Twelve?"
Chayne smiled feebly.
"Well, no," and his confusion increased. "Two,
as a rule, are enough—unless—"
"Unless the amateur is very clumsy," she added.
"Thank you, Captain Chayne."
"I did n't mean that," he cried. He had no idea
whether she was angry or not. She was just looking
quietly and steadily into his face and waiting for his
explanation.
"Well, the truth is," he blurted out, "I wanted to
go up the Aiguille d'Argentiere with you," and he saw
a smile dimple her cheeks.
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RUNNING WATER
"I am honored," she said, and the tone of her voice
showed besides that she was very glad.
"Oh, but it was n't only for the sake of your com-
pany," he said, and stopped. "I don't seem to be very
polite, do I?" he said, lamentably.
"Not very," she replied.
"What I mean is this," he explained. "Ever since
we started this morning, I have been recapturing my
own sensations on my first ascent. Watching you,
your enjoyment, your eagerness to live fully every
moment of this day, I almost feel as if I too had come
fresh to the mountains, as if the Argentiere were my
first peak."
He saw the blood mount into her cheeks.
"Was that the reason why you questioned me as
to what I thought and felt?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I thought you were testing me," she said, slowly.
"I thought you were trying whether I was—worthy";
and once again humility had framed her words and
modulated their utterance. She recognized without
rancor, but in distress, that people had the right to
look on her as without the pale.
The guides packed up the Riicksacks, and they
started once more up the moraine. In a little while
they descended on to the lateral glacier which descend-
ing from the recesses of the Aiguille d'Argentiere in
front of them flowed into the great basin behind.
They roped together now in one party and ascended
the glacier diagonally, rounding a great buttress which
34


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
descends from the rock ledge and bisects the ice, and
drawing close to the steep cliffs. In a little while
they crossed the bergschrund from the glacier on to
the wall of mountain, and traversing by easy rocks
at the foot of the cliffs came at last to a big steep
gully filled with hard ice which led up to the ridge
just below the final peak.
"This is our way" said Jean. "We ascend by the
rocks at the side."
They breakfasted again and began to ascend the
rocks to the left of the great gully, Sylvia following
second behind her leading guidt. The rocks were
not difficult, but they were very steep and at times
loose. Moreover, Jean climbed fast and Sylvia had
much ado to keep pace with him. But she would
not call on him to slacken his pace, and she was most
anxious not to come up on the rope but to climb with
her own hands and feet. Thus they ascended for the
better part of an hour and Jean halted on a convenient
ledge. Sylvia had time to look down. She had
climbed with her face to the wall of rock, her eyes
searching quickly for her holds, fixing her feet se-
curely, gripping firmly with her hands, avoiding the
loose boulders. Moreover, the rope had worried her.
When she had left it at its length between herself and
the guide in front of her, it would hang about her
feet, threatening to trip her, or catch as though in
active malice in any crack which happened to be handy.
If she shortened it and held it in her hands, there
would come a sudden tug from above as the leader
85


RUNNING WATER
raised himself from one ledge to another which almost
overset her.
Now, however, flushed with her exertion and glad
to draw her breath at her ease, she looked down and
was astonished. So far below her already seemed the
glacier she had left, so steep the rocks up which she
had climbed.
"You are not tired?" said Chayne.
Sylvia laughed. Tired, when a dream was grow-
ing real, when she was actually on the mountain face!
She turned her face again to the rock-wall and in a
little more than an hour after leaving the foot of the
gully she stepped out on to a patch of snow on the
shoulder of the mountain. She stood in sunlight,
and all the country to the east was suddenly unrolled
before her eyes. A moment before and her face
was to the rock, now at her feet the steep snow-slopes
dropped to the Glacier of Saleinaz. The crags of the
Aiguille Dorees, and some green uplands gave color
to the glittering world of ice, and far away towered
the white peaks of the Grand Combin and the Weiss-
horn in a blue cloudless sky, and to the left over the
summit of the Grande Fourche she saw the huge
embattlements of the Oberland. She stood absorbed
while the rest of the party ascended to her side. She
hardly knew indeed that they were there until Chayne
standing by her asked:
"You are not disappointed?"
She made no reply. She had no words wherewith to
express the emotion which troubled her to the depths.
86


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
They rested for a while on this level patch of snow.
To their right the ridge ran sharply up to the summit.
But not by that ridge was the summit to be reached.
They turned over on to the eastern face of the moun-
tain and traversed in a straight line across the great
snow-slope which sweeps down in one white unbroken
curtain toward the Glacier of Saleinaz. Their order
had been changed. First Jean advanced. Chayne
followed and after him came Sylvia.
The leading guide kicked a step or two in the snow.
Then he used the adz of his ax. A few steps still, and
he halted.
"Ice," he said, and from that spot to the mountain
top he used the pick.
The slope was at a steep angle, the ice very hard,
and each step had to be cut with care, especially on
the traverse where the whole party moved across the
mountain upon the same level, and there was no
friendly hand above to give a pull upon the rope. The
slope ran steeply down beneath them, then curved over
a brow and steepened yet more.
"Are the steps near enough together?" Chayne
asked.
"Yes," she replied, though she had to stretch in her
stride.
And upon that Jean dug his pick in the slope at his
side and turned round.
"Lean well way from the slope, mademoiselle, not
toward it. There is less chance then of slipping from
the steps," he said anxiously, and there came a look
87


RUNNING WATER
of surprise upon his face. For he saw that already of
her own thought she was standing straight in her
steps, thrusting herself out from the slope by pressing
the pick of her ax against it at the level of her waist
.
And more than once thereafter Jean turned about and
watched her with a growing perplexity. Chayne
looked to see whether her face showed any sign of
fear. On the contrary she was looking down that
great sweep of ice with an actual exultation. And it
was not ignorance which allowed her to exult. The
evident anxiety of Chayne's words, and the silence
which since had fallen upon one and all were alone
enough to assure her that here was serious work. But
she had been reading deeply of the Alps, and in all
the histories of mountain exploits which she had read,
of climbs up vertical cracks in sheer walls of rocks,
balancings upon ridges sharp as a knife edge, crawlings
over smooth slabs with nowhere to rest the feet or
hands, it was the ice-slope which had most kindled her
imagination. The steep, smooth, long ice-slope, white
upon the surface, grayish-green or even black where
the ax had cut the step, the place where no slip must be
made. She had lain awake at nights listening to the
roar of the streets beneath her window and picturing
it, now sleeping in the sunlight, now enwreathed in
mists which opened and showed still higher heights
and still lower depths, now whipped angrily with
winds which tore off the surface icicles and snow, and
sent them swirling like smoke about the shoulders of
the peak. She had dreamed herself on to it, half
88


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
shrinking, half eager, and now she was actually upon
one and she felt no fear. She could not but exult.
The sunlight was hot upon this face of the moun-
tain; yet her feet grew cold, as she stood patiently in
her steps, advancing slowly as the man before her
moved. Once as she stood, she moved her foot and
scratched the sole of her boot on the ice to level a
roughness in the step, and at once she saw Chayne and
the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard
into the slope at their side and stand tense as if ex-
pecting a jerk upon the rope. Afterward they both
looked round at her, and seeing she was safe turned
back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps,
Chayne polishing them behind him.
In a little while the guide turned his face to the
slope and cut upward instead of across. The slope
was so steep that instead of cutting zigzags across
its face, he chopped pigeon holes straight up. They
moved from one to the other as on a ladder, and their
knees touched the ice as they stood upright in the
steps. For a couple of hours the axes never ceased,
and then the leader made two or three extra steps at
the side of the staircase. On to one of them he moved
out, Chayne went up and joined him.
"Come, mademoiselle," he said, and he drew in
the rope as Sylvia advanced. She climbed up level
with them on the ladder and waited, not knowing why
they stood aside.
"Go on, mademoiselle," said the guide. She took
another step or two upon snow and uttered a cry.
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RUNNING WATER
She had looked suddenly over the top of the moun-
tain on to the Aiguille Verte and the great pile of
Mont Blanc, even as Revailloud had told her that she
would. The guide had stood aside that she might be
the first to step out upon the summit of the mountain.
She stood upon the narrow ridge of snow, at her feet
the rock-cliffs plastered with bulging masses of ice
fell sheer to the glacier.
Her first glance was downward to the Col Dolent.
Even at this hour when the basin of the valley was
filled with sunshine that one corner at the head of the
Glacier d'Argentiere was still dead white, dead black.
She shivered once more as she looked at it—so grim
and so menacing the rock-wall seemed, so hard and
steep the riband of ice. Then Chayne joined her on the
ridge. They sat down and ate their meal and lay for
an hour sunning themselves in the clear air.
"You could have had no better day," said Chayne.
Only a few white scarfs of cloud flitted here and
there across the sky and their shadows chased each
other across the glittering slopes of ice and snow.
The triangle of the Aiguille Verte was over against
her, the beautiful ridges of Les Courtes and Les Droites
to her right and beyond them the massive domes and
buttresses of the great white mountain. Sylvia lay
upon the eastern slope of the Argentiere looking over
the brow, not wanting to speak, and certainly not
listening to any word that was uttered. Her soul was
at peace. The long-continued tension of mind and
muscle, the excitement of that last ice-slope, both
90


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
were over and had brought their reward. She looked
out upon a still and peaceful world, wonderfully bright,
wonderfully beautiful, and wonderfully colored. Here
a spire would pierce the sunlight with slabs of red
rock interspersed amongst its gray; there ice-cliffs
sparkled as though strewn with jewels, bulged out in
great green knobs, showed now a grim gray, now a
transparent blue. At times a distant rumble like thun-
der far away told that the ice-fields were hurling their
avalanches down. Once or twice she heard a great
roar near at hand, and Chayne pointing across the
valleys would show her what seemed to be a handful
of small stones whizzing down the rocks and ice-
gullies of the Aiguille Verte. But on the whole this
new world was silent, communing with the heavens.
She was in the hushed company of the mountains.
Days there would be when these sunlit ridges would
be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would
shriek about the gullies, and dark mists swirl around
the peaks. But on this morning there was no anger
on the heights.
"Yes—you could have had no better day for your
first mountain, mademoiselle," said Jean, as he stood
beside her. "But this is not your first mountain."
She turned to him.
"Yes, it is."
Her guide bowed to her.
"Then, mademoiselle, you have great gifts. For
you stood upon that ice-slope and moved along and
up it, as only people of experience stand and move.
91


RUNNING WATER
I noticed you. On the rocks, too, you had the instinct
for the hand-grip and the foothold and with which
foot to take the step. And that instinct, mademoi-
selle, comes as a rule only with practice." He paused
and looked at her in perplexity.
"Moreover, mademoiselle, you remind me of some
one," he added. "I can not remember who it is, or
why you remind me of him. But you remind me of
some one very much." He picked up the Rucksack
which he had taken from his shoulders.
It was half past eleven. Sylvia took a last look
over the wide prospect of jagged ridge, ice pinnacles
and rock spires. She looked down once more upon
the slim snow peak of Mont Dolent and the grim wall
of rocks at the Col.
"I shall never forget this," she said, with shining
eyes. "Never."
The fascination of the mountains was upon her.
Something new had come into her life that morning
which would never fail her to the very end, which
would color all her days, however dull, which would
give her memories in which to find solace, longings
wherewith to plan the future. This she felt and some
of this her friend understood.
"Yes," he said. "You understand the difference it
makes to one's whole life. Each year passes so quickly
looking back and looking forward."
"Yes, I understand," she said.
"You will come back?"
But this time she did not answer at once. She
92



“She stood upon the narrow ridge of snow"





THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIÈRE
stood looking thoughtfully out over the bridge of the
Argentière. It seemed to Chayne that she was coming
slowly to some great decision which would somehow
affect all her life. Then she said-and it seemed to
him that she had made her decision:
"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back."
They turned away and went carefully down the
slope. Again her leading guide, who on the return
journey went last, was perplexed by that instinct
for the mountain side which had surprised him. The
technique came to her so naturally. She turned her
back to the slope, and thus descended, she knew just
the right level at which to drive in the pick of her ax
that she might lower herself to the next hole in their
ice-ladder. Finally as they came down the rocks by
the great couloir to the glacier, he cried out:
"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you
remind me of. I have been watching you. I know
now.”
She looked up.
“Who is it?"
"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a
whole season many years ago. A great climber,
mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name.
Gabriel Strood."
"Gabriel Strood !” she cried, and then she laughed.
“I too know his name. You are flattering me,
Jean."
But Jean would not admit it.
"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. “I do not
93


RUNNING WATER
say you have his skill—how should you? But there
are certain movements, certain neat ways of putting
the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind
me of him."
Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment.
They reached the lateral glacier, descended it and
crossed the Glacier d'Argentiere. They found their
stone-encumbered pathway of the morning and at
three o'clock stood once more upon the platform in
front of the Pavillon de Lognan. Then she rested for
a while, saying very little.
"You are tired?" he said.
"No," she replied. "But this day has made a
great difference to me."
Her guides approached her and she said no more
upon the point. But Chayne had no doubt that she was
referring to that decision which she had taken on the
summit of the peak. She stood up to go.
"You stay here to-night?" she said.
"Yes."
"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?"
"Yes."
She looked at him quickly and then away.
"You will be careful? In the shadow there?"
"Yes."
She was silent for a moment or two, looking up the
glacier toward the Aiguille d'Argentiere.
"I thank you very much for coming with me," and
again the humility in her voice, as of one outside the
door, touched and hurt him. "I am very grateful,"
94


THE AIGUILLE D'ARGENTIERE
and here a smile lightened her grave face, "and I am
rather proud!"
"You came up to Lognan at a good time for me,"
he answered, as they shook hands. "I shall cross the
Col Dolent with a better heart to-morrow."
They shook hands, and he asked:
"Shall I see no more of you?"
"That is as you will," she replied, simply.
"I should like to. In Paris, perhaps, or wherever
you are likely to be. I am on leave now for some
months."
She thought for a second or two. Then she said:
"If you will give me your address, I will write to
you. I think I shall be in England."
"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs."
She took his card, and as she turned away she
pointed to the Aiguille d'Argentiere.
"I shall dream of that to-night."
"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her
over the wooden balustrade. "You will dream of
running water."
She glanced up at him in surprise that he should
have remembered this strange quality of hers. Then
she turned away and went down to the pine woods
and the village of Les Tines.
95


CHAPTER VIII
SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
MEANWHILE Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill
laugh and chatted noisily in the garden of the ho-
tel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent
amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with
a few detached idlers of various nationalities.
"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled
with enthusiasm over the artificial lake and the artifi-
cial rocks amongst which she seemed so appropriate a
figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the
eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly
burning her complexion to the color of brick-dust
among those stupid mountains. She came back a tri-
fle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the even-
ing slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back
of the Casino, where she played baccarat in a company
which flattery could hardly have termed doubtful. She
was indeed not displeased to be rid of her unsatisfac-
tory daughter for a night and a couple of days.
"Sylvia won't fit in."
Thus for a long time she had been accustomed pite-
ously to complain; and with ever more reason. Less
and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs. Thesiger"s scheme
06


RUNNING WATER
claimed pettishly to Monsieur Pettigrat. "Upon my
word, I really know nothing of her except one ridicu-
lous thing. She always dreams of running water.
Now, I ask you, what can you do with a daughter so
absurd that she dreams of running water?"
Monsieur Pettigrat was a big, broad, uncommon
man; he knew that he was uncommon, and dressed ac-
cordingly in a cloak and a brigand's hat; he saw what
others did not, and spoke in a manner suitably impres-
sive:
"I will tell you, madame, about your daughter," he
said somberly. "To me she has a fated look."
Mrs. Thesiger was a little consoled to think that she
had a daughter with a fated look.
"I wonder if others have noticed it," she said, cheer-
fully.
"No," replied Monsieur Pettigrat. "No others.
Only I."
"There! That 's just like Sylvia," cried Mrs. Thes-
iger, in exasperation. "She has a fated look and
makes nothing of it."
But the secret of her discontent was just a woman's
jealousy of a younger rival. Men were beginning to
turn from her toward her daughter. That Sylvia
never competed only made the sting the sharper. The
grave face with its perfect oval, which smiled so rarely,
but in so winning a way, its delicate color, its fresh-
ness,, were points which she could not forgive her
daughter. She felt faded and yellow beside her, she
rouged more heavily on account of her, she looked with
more apprehension at the crow's-feet which were begin-
08


SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
ning to show about the corners of her eyes, and the
lines which were beginning to run from the nostrils to
the corners of her mouth.
Sylvia reached the hotel in time for dinner, and as
she sat with her mother, drinking her coffee in the gar-
den afterward, Monsieur Pettigrat planted himself be-
fore the little iron table.
He shook his head, which was what his friends
called "leonine."
"Mademoiselle," he said, in his most impressive
voice, "I envy you."
Sylvia looked up at him with a little smile of mis-
chief upon her lips.
"And why, monsieur?"
He waved his arm magnificently.
"I watched you at dinner. You are of the elect,
mademoiselle, for whom the snow peaks have a mes-
sage."
Sylvia's smile faded from her face.
"Perhaps so, monsieur," she said, gravely, and her
mother interposed testily:
"A message! Ridiculous! There are only two
words in the message, my dear. Cold-cream! and
be sure you put it on your face before you go to
bed."
Sylvia apparently did not hear her mother's com-
ment. At all events she disregarded it, and Monsieur
Pettigrat once again shook his head at Sylvia with a
kindly magnificence.
"They have no message for me, mademoiselle," he
said, with a sigh, as though he for once regretted that
99 683748A


RUNNING WATER
he was so uncommon. "I once went up there to see."
He waved his hand generally to the chain of Mont
Blanc and drifted largely away.
Mrs. Thesiger, however, was to hear more definitely
of that message two days later. It was after dinner.
She was sitting in the garden with her daughter on
a night of moonlight; behind them rose the wall of
mountains, silent and shadowed, in front were the
lights of the little town, and the clatter of its crowded
streets. Between the town and the mountains, at
the side of the hotel this garden lay, a garden
of grass and trees, where the moonlight slept in
white brilliant pools of light, or dripped between the
leaves of the branches. It partook alike of the silence
of the hills and the noise of the town, for a murmur of
voices was audible from this and that point, and under
the shadows of the trees could be seen the glimmer of
light-colored frocks and the glow of cigars waxing and
waning. A waiter came across the garden with some
letters for Mrs. Thesiger. There were none for Sylvia
and she was used to none, for she had no girl friends,
and though at times men wrote her letters she did not
answer them.
A lamp burned near at hand. Mrs. Thesiger opened
her letters and read them. She threw them on to the ta-
ble when she had read them through. But there was
one which angered her, and replacing it in its envelope,
she tossed it so petulantly aside that it slid off the iron
table and fell at Sylvia's feet. Sylvia stooped and
picked it up. It had fallen face upward.
ioo


SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
"This is from my father."
Mrs. Thesiger looked up startled. It was the first
time that Sylvia had ever spoken of him to her. A
wariness come into her eyes.
"Well?" she asked.
"I want to go to him."
Sylvia spoke very simply and gently, looking
straight into her mother's face with that perplexing
steadiness of gaze which told so very little of what
thoughts were busy behind it. Her mother turned her
face aside. She was rather frightened. For a while
she made no reply at all, but her face beneath its paint
looked haggard and old in the white light, ana she
raised her hand to her heart. When she did speak, her
voice shook.
"You have never seen your father. He has never
seen you. He and I parted before you were born."
"But he writes to you."
"Yes, he writes to me," and for all that she tried,
she could not altogether keep a tone of contempt out
of her voice. She added with some cruelty: "But he
never mentions you. He has never once inquired after
you, never once."
Sylvia looked very wistfully at the letter, but her
purpose was not shaken.
"Mother, I want to go to him," she persisted. Her
lips trembled a little, and with a choke of the voice, a
sob half caught back, she added: "I am most unhappy
here."
The rarity of a complaint from Sylvia moved her
IOI


RUNNING WATER
mother strangely. There was a forlornness, more-
over, in her appealing attitude. Just for a moment
Mrs. Thesiger began to think of early days of which
the memory was at once a pain and a reproach. A cer-
tain little village underneath the great White Horse on
the Dorsetshire Downs rose with a disturbing vivid-
ness before her eyes. She almost heard the mill
stream babble by. In that village of Sutton Poyntz
she had herself been born, and to it she had returned,
caught back again for a little while by her own country
and her youth, that Sylvia might be born there too.
These months had made a kind of green oasis in her
life. She had rested there in a farm-house, after a time
of much turbulence, with the music of running water
night and day in her ears, a high-walled garden of
flowers and grass about her, and the downs with the
shadow-filled hollows, and brown treeless slopes rising
up from her very feet. She could not but think of
that short time of peace, and her voice softened as she
answered her daughter.
"We don't keep step, Sylvia," she said, with an un-
easy laugh. "I know that. But, after all, would you
be happier with your father, even if he wants to keep
you! You have all you want here—frocks, amusement,
companions. Try to be more friendly with people."
But Sylvia merely shook her head.
"I can't go on any longer like this," she said, slowly.
"I can't, mother. If my father won't have me, I must
see what I can do. Of course, I can't do much. I
don't know anything. But I am too unhappy here. I
102


SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
cannot endure the life we are living without a home or
-respect," Sylvia had not meant to use that
word. But it had slipped out before she was aware.
She broke off and turned her eyes again to her mother.
They were very bright, for the moonlight glistened
upon tears. But the softness had gone from her
mother's face. She had grown in a moment hard, and
her voice rang hard as she asked:
“Why do you think that your father and I parted ?
Come, let me hear!"
Sylvia turned her head away.
"I don't think about it,” she said, gently. “I don't
want to think about it. I just think that he left you,
because you did not keep step either.”
“Oh, he left me? Not I him? Then why does he
write to me?"
The voice was growing harder with every word.
“I suppose because he is kind”; and at that simple
explanation Sylvia's mother laughed with a bitter
amusement. Sylvia sat scraping the gravel with her
slipper.
"Don't do that!” cried her mother, irritably. Then
she asked suddenly a question which startled her
daughter.
“Did you meet any one last night on the mountain,
at the inn?"
Sylvia's face colored, but the moonlight hid the
change.
“Yes,” she said.
“A man?"
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RUNNING WATER
"Yes."
"Who was it?"
"A Captain Chayne. He was at the hotel all last
week. It was his friend who was killed on the Gla-
cier des Nantillons."
"Were you alone at the inn, you and he?"
"Yes."
"Did he know your father?"
Sylvia stared at her mother.
"I don't know. I suppose not. How should he?"
"It's not impossible," replied Mrs. Thesiger. Then
she leaned on the table. "It was he who put these
ideas into your head about going away, about leaving
me." She made an accusation rather than put a ques-
tion, and made it angrily.
"No, mother," Sylvia replied. "He never spoke of
you. The ideas have been growing in my mind for a
long time, and to-day—" She raised her head, and
turning slightly, looked up to where just behind her
the ice-peaks of the Aiguilles du Midi and de Blaitiere
soared into the moonlit sky. "To-day the end came.
I became certain that I must go away. I am very
sorry, mother."
"The message of the mountains!" said her mother
with a sneer, and Sylvia answered quietly:
"Yes."
"Very well," said Mrs. Thesiger. She had been
deeply stung by her daughter's words, by her wish to
go, and if she delayed her consent, it was chiefly
through a hankering to punish Sylvia. But the thought
104


SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
came to her that she would punish Sylvia more com-
pletely if she let her go. She smiled cruelly as she
looked at the girl's pure and gentle face. And, after
all, she herself would be free—free from Sylvia's un-
conscious rivalry, free from the competition of her
freshness and her youth, free from the grave criticism
of her eyes.
"Very well, you shall go to your father. But re-
member! You have made your choice. You must n't
come whining back to me, because I won't have you,"
she said, brutally. "You shall go to-morrow."
She took the letter from its envelope, but she did not
show it to her daughter.
"I don't use your father's name," she said. "I have
not used it since"—and again the cruel smile appeared
upon her lips—"since he left me, as you say. He is
called Garratt Skinner, and he lives in a little house in
Hobart Place. Yes, you shall start for your home to-
morrow."
Sylvia stood up.
"Thank you," she said. She looked wistfully at
her mother, asking her pardon with the look. But
she did not approach her. She stood sadly in front
of her. Mrs. Thesiger made no advance.
"Well?" she asked, in her hard, cold voice.
"Thank you, mother," Sylvia repeated, and she
walked slowly to the door of the hotel. She looked
up to the mountains. Needle spires of rock, glistening
pinnacles of ice, they stood dreaming to the moon-
light and the stars. The great step had been taken.
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RUNNING WATER
She prayed for something of their calm, something of
their proud indifference to storm and sunshine, solitude
and company. She went up to her room and began to
pack her trunks. And as she packed, the tears gath-
ered in her eyes and fell.
Meanwhile, her mother sat in the garden. So
Sylvia wanted a home; she could not endure the life
she lived with her mother. Afar off a band played;
the streets beyond were noisy as a river; beneath
the trees of the garden here people talked quietly.
Mrs. Thesiger sat with a little vindictive smile upon
her face. Her rival was going to be punished. Mrs.
Thesiger had left her husband, not he her. She read
through the letter which she had received from him
this evening. It was a pressing request for money.
She was not going to send him money. She wondered
how he would appreciate the present of a daughter
instead.
106


CHAPTER IX
SYLVIA MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HER FATHER
SYLVIA left Chamonix the next afternoon. It
was a Saturday, and she stepped out of her rail-
way-carriage on to the platform of Victoria Station
at seven o'clock on the Sunday evening. She was
tired by her long journey, and she felt rather lonely
as she waited for her trunks to be passed by the officers
of the custom-house. It was her very first visit to
London, and there was not one person to meet her.
Other travelers were being welcomed on all sides by
their friends. No one in all London expected her.
She doubted if she had one single acquaintance in
the whole town. Her mother, foreseeing this very
moment, had with a subtlety of malice refrained
from so much as sending a telegram to the girl's
father; and Sylvia herself, not knowing him, had
kept silence too. Since he did not expect her, she
thought her better plan was to see him, or rather,
since her thoughts were frank, to let him see her.
Her mirror had assured her that her looks would be
a better introduction than a telegram.
She had her boxes placed upon a cab and drove
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RUNNING WATER
off to Hobart Place. The sense of loneliness soon
left her. She was buoyed up by excitement. The
novelty of the streets amused her. Moreover, she
had invented her father, clothed him with many
qualities as with shining raiment, and set him high
among the persons of her dreams. Would he be
satisfied with his daughter? That was her fear, and
with the help of the looking-glass at the side of her
hansom, she tried to remove the traces of travel from
her young face.
The cab stopped at a door in a narrow wall between
two houses, and she got out. Over the wall she
saw the green leaves and branches of a few lime trees
which rose from a little garden, and at the end of the
garden, in the far recess between the two side walls,
the upper windows of a little neat white house. Sylvia
was charmed with it. She rang the bell, and a servant
came to the door.
"Is Mr. Skinner in?" asked Sylvia.
"Yes," she said, doubtfully, "but—"
Sylvia, however, had made her plans.
"Thank you," she said. She made a sign to the
cabman, and walked on through the doorway into a
little garden of grass with a few flowers on each side
against the walls. A tiled path led through the
middle of the grass to the glass door of the house.
Sylvia walked straight down, followed by the cab-
man who brought her boxes in one after the other.
The servant, giving way before the composure of
this strange young visitor, opened the door of a sitting-
108


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
room upon the left hand, and Sylvia, followed by her
trunks, entered and took possession.
"What name shall I say?" asked the servant in
perplexity. She had had no orders to expect a visitor.
Sylvia paid the cabman and waited until she heard the
garden door close and the jingle of the cab as it was
driven away. Then, and not till then, she answered
the question.
"No name. Just please tell Mr. Skinner that some
one would like to see him.”
The servant stared, but went slowly away. Sylvia
seated herself firmly upon one of the boxes. In spite
of her composed manner, her heart was beating wildly.
She heard a door open and the firm tread of a man
along the passage. Sylvia clung to her box. After
all she was in the house, she and her baggage. The
door opened and a tall broad-shouldered man, who
seemed to fill the whole tiny room, came in and stared
at her. Then he saw her boxes, and he frowned in
perplexity. As he appeared to Sylvia, he was a
man of about forty-five, with a handsome, deeply-
lined aquiline face. He had thick, dark brown hair,
a mustache of a lighter brown and eyes of the color
of hers-a man rather lean but of an athletic
build. Sylvia watched him intently, but the only
look upon his face was one of absolute astonish-
ment. He saw a young lady, quite unknown to him,
perched upon her luggage in a sitting-room of his
house.
"You wanted to see me?” he asked.
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RUNNING WATER
“Yes," she replied, getting on to her feet. She
looked at him gravely. "I am Sylvia,” she said.
A smile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about
his mouth.
"And
"Who is Sylvia ? What is she?
Her trunks do not proclaim her!"
he said. “Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to
stay, I am rather in the dark.”
"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?”
“Yes."
"I am your daughter Sylvia.”
“My daughter Sylvia !” he exclaimed in a daze.
Then he sat down and held his head between his
hands.
“Yes, by George. I have got a daughter Sylvia,”
he said, obviously recollecting the fact with surprise.
"But you are at Chamonix.”
“I was at Chamonix yesterday.”
Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia.
“Did your mother send you to me?"
"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came
of my own accord. A letter came from you—".
"Did you see it?” interrupted her father. "Did
she show it you?”
"No, but she gave me your address when I told her
that I must come away."
"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that
IIO


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
kindly act," he said, with a sudden bitterness. Then
he looked curiously at his daughter.
"Why did you want to come away?"
"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been
thinking over this. I hated it all—the people we met,
the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether. Then at
Chamonix I went up a mountain."
"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you
went up a mountain? Which one?"
"The Aiguille d'Argentiere. Do you know it,
father?"
"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner.
"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is
difficult to explain. But I felt the difference. I felt
something had happened to me which I had to recog-
nize—a new thing. Climbing that mountain, staying
for an hour upon its summit in the sunlight with all
those great still pinnacles and ice-slopes about me—it
was just like hearing very beautiful music." She
was sitting now leaning forward with her hands
clasped in front of her and speaking with great ear-
nestness. "All the vague longings which had ever
stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and
beyond, came back upon me in a tumult. There
was a place in shadow at my feet far below, the only
place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col
Dolent. It seemed to me that I was living in that
cold shadow. I wanted to get up on the ridge, with
the sunlight. So I came to you."
It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her
m


RUNNING WATER
words were and must be elusive to another, unless
that other had felt what she felt or were moved by
sympathy to feel it. Her father listened without
ridicule, without a smile. Indeed, once or twice he
nodded his head to her words. Was it comprehension,
she wondered, or was it only patience?
"When I came down from that summit, I felt that
what I had hated before was no longer endurable at
all. So I came to you."
Her father got up from his chair and stood for a
little while looking out of the window. He was clearly
troubled by her words. He turned away with a shrug
of his shoulders.
"But—but—what can I do for you here?" he cried.
"Sylvia, I am a very poor man. Your mother, on the
other hand, has some money."
"Oh, father, I shan't cost you much," she replied,
eagerly. "I might perhaps by looking after things
save you money. I won't cost you much."
Garratt Skinner looked at her with a rueful smile.
"You look to me rather an expensive person to keep
up," he said.
"Mother dressed me like this. It 's not my choice,"
she said. "I let her do as she wished. It did not
seem to matter much. Really, if you will let me
stay, you will find me useful," she said, in a pathetic
appeal.
"Useful?" said Garratt Skinner, suddenly. He
again took stock of her, but now with a scrutiny which
caused her a vague discomfort. He seemed to be
112


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
appraising her from the color of her hair and eyes to
the prettiness of her feet, almost as though she was for
sale, and he a doubtful purchaser. She looked down
on the carpet and slowly her blood colored her neck
and rose into her face. "Useful," he said, slowly.
"Perhaps so, yes, perhaps so." And upon that he
changed his tone. "We will see, Sylvia. You must
stay here for the present, at all events. Luckily, there
is a spare room. I have some friends here staying to
supper—just a bachelor's friends, you know, taking
pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not
polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl,
sound of heart." All his perplexity had vanished;
he had taken his part; and he rattled along with a
friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from
Sylvia's thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare
and winning smile. He rang the bell for the house-
maid.
"My daughter will stay here," he said, to the ser-
vant's astonishment. "Get the spare room ready at
once. You will be hostess to-night, Sylvia, and sit at
the head of the table. I become a family man. Well,
well!"
He took Sylvia up-stairs and showed her a little
bright room with a big window which looked out
across the garden. He carried her boxes up himself.
"We don't run to a butler," he said. "Got every-
thing you want? Ring if you have n't. We have
supper at eight and we shan't dress. Only—well, you
could n't look dowdy if you tried."
8 113


RUNNING WATER
Sylvia had not the slightest intention to try. She
put on a little frock of white lace, high at the throat,
dressed her hair, and then having a little time to spare
she hurriedly wrote a letter. This letter she gave to
the servant and she ran down-stairs.
"You will be careful to have it posted, please!" she
said, and at that moment her father came out into the
passage, so quickly that he might have been listening
for her approach.
She stopped upon the staircase, a few steps above
him. The evening was still bright, and the daylight
fell upon her from a window above the hall door.
"Shall I do?" she asked, with a smile.
The staircase was paneled with a dark polished
wood, and she stood out from that somber back-
ground, a white figure, delicate and dainty and whole-
some, from the silver buckle on her satin slipper to the
white flower she had placed in her hair. Her face,
with its remarkable gentleness, its suggestion of
purity as of one unspotted by the world, was turned
to him with a confident appeal. Her clear gray eyes
rested quietly on his. Yet she saw his face change.
It seemed that a spasm of pain or revolt shook him.
Upon her face there came a blank look. Why was he
displeased? But the spasm passed. He shrugged his
shoulders and threw off his doubt.
"You are very pretty," he said.
Sylvia's smile just showed about the corners of her
lips and her face cleared.
"Yes," she said, with satisfaction.
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SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
Garratt Skinner laughed.
"Oh, you know that?"
"Yes," she replied, nodding her head at him.
He led the way down the passage toward the back
of the house, and throwing open a door introduced her
to his friends.
"Captain Barstow," he said, and Sylvia found her-
self shaking hands with a little middle-aged man with
a shiny bald head and a black square beard. He had
an eye-glass screwed into his right eye, and that whole
side of his face was distorted by the contraction of
the muscles and drawn upward toward the eye. He
did not look at her directly, but with an oblique and
furtive glance he expressed his sense of the honor
which the introduction conferred on him. However,
Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed. She
turned to the next of her father's guests.
"Mr. Archie Parminter."
He at all events looked her straight in the face. He
was a man of moderate height, youthful in build, but
old of face, upon which there sat always a smirk of
satisfaction. He was of those whom no beauty in
others, no grace, no sweetness, could greatly impress,
so filled was he with self-complacency. He had no
time to admire, since always he felt that he was being
admired, and to adjust his pose, and to speak so that
his words, carried to the right distance, occupied too
much of his attention. He seldom spoke to the person
he talked with but generally to some other, a woman
for choice, whom he believed to be listening to the im-


RUNNING WATER
portant sentences he uttered. For the rest, he had
grown heavy in jaw and his face (a rather flat face in
which were set a pair of sharp dark eyes) narrowed
in toward the top of his head like a pear.
He bowed suavely to Sylvia, with the air of one
showing to the room how a gentleman performed that
ceremony, but took little note of her.
But Sylvia was determined not to be disappointed.
Her father took her by the elbow and turned her
about.
"Mr. Hine."
Sylvia was confronted with a youth who reddened
under her greeting and awkwardly held out a damp
coarse hand, a poor creature with an insipid face,
coarse hair, and manner of great discomfort. He was
as tall as Parminter, but wore his good clothes with
Sunday air, and having been introduced to Sylvia
could find no word to say to her.
"Well, let us go in to supper," said her father, and
he held open the door for her to pass.
Sylvia went into the dining-room across the narrow
hall, where a cold supper was laid upon a round table.
In spite of her resolve to see all things in a rosy light,
she grew conscious, in spite of herself, that she wai
disappointed in her father's friends. She was per-
plexed, too. He was so clearly head and shoulders
above his associates, that she wondered at their pres-
ence in his house. Yet he seemed quite content, and in
a most genial mood.
"You sit here, Sylvia, my dear," he said, pointing to
116


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
a chair. "Wallie"—this to the youth Hine—"sit be-
side my daughter and keep her amused. Barstow, you
on the other side; Parminter next to me."
He sat opposite Sylvia and the rest took their
places, Hine sidling timidly into his chair and tortured
by the thought that he had to amuse this delicate be-
ing at his side.
"The supper is on the table," said Garratt Skinner.
"Parminter, will you cut up this duck? Hine, what
have you got in front of you? Really, this is so excep-
tional an occasion that I think—" he started up sud-
denly, as a man will with a new and happy idea—
"yes, I certainly think that for once in a way we might
open a bottle of champagne."
Surprise and applause greeted this brilliant idea, and
Hine cried out:
"I think champagne fine, don't you, Miss Skinner?"
He collapsed at his own boldness. Parminter
shrugged his shoulders to show that champagne was
an every-day affair with him.
"It 's drunk a good deal at the clubs nowadays," he
said.
Meanwhile Garratt Skinner had not moved. He
stood looking across the table to his daughter.
"What do you say, Sylvia? It 's an extravagance.
But I don't have such luck every day. It 's in your
honor. Shall we? Yes, then!"
He did not wait for an answer, but opened the door
of a cupboard in the sideboard, and there, quite ready,
stood half a dozen bottles of champagne. A doubt
117


RUNNING WATER
flashed into Sylvia's mind—a doubt whether her
father's brilliant idea was really the inspiration which
his manner had suggested. Those bottles looked so
obviously got in for the occasion. But Garratt Skinner
turned to her apologetically, as though he divined her
thought.
"We don't run to a wine cellar, Sylvia. We have
to keep what little stock we can afford in here."
Her doubt vanished, but in an instant it returned
again, for as her father came round the table with the
bottle in his hand, she noticed that shallow champagne
glasses were ready laid at every place. Garratt
Skinner filled the glasses and returned to his place.
"Sylvia," he said, and, smiling, he drank to her.
He turned to his companions. "Congratulate me!"
Then he sat down.
The champagne thawed the tongues of the com-
pany, and as they spoke Sylvia's heart sank more and
more. For in word and thought and manner her
father's guests were familiar to her. She refused to
acknowledge it, but the knowledge was forced upon
her. She had thought to step out of a world which
she hated, against which her delicacy and her purity
revolted, and lo! she had stepped out merely to take
a stride and step down into it again at another place.
The obsequious attentiveness of Captain Barstow,
the vanity of Mr. Parminter and his affected voice,
suggesting that he came out of the great world to this
little supper party, really without any sense of con-
descension at all, and the behavior of Walter Hine,
118


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
who, to give himself courage, gulped down his cham-
pagne—it was all horribly familiar. Her one consola-
tion was her father. He sat opposite to her, his strong
aquiline face a fine contrast to the faces of the others;
he had an ease of manner which they did not possess;
he talked with a quietude of his own, and he had a
watchful eye and a ready smile for his daughter. In-
deed, it seemed that what she felt his guests felt too.
For they spoke to him with a certain deference, almost
as if they spoke to their master. He alone apparently
noticed no unsuitability in his guests. He sat at his
ease, their bosom friend.
Meanwhile, plied with champagne by Archie Par-
minter, who sat upon the other side of him, "Wallie"
Hine began to boast. Sylvia tried to check him, but
he was not now to be stopped. His very timidity
pricked him on to extravagance, and his boasting was
that worst form of boasting—the vaunt of the innocent
weakling anxious to figure as a conqueror of women.
With a flushed face he dropped his foolish hints of
Mrs. This and Lady That, with an eye upon Sylvia to
watch the impression which he made, and a wise air
which said "If only I were to tell you all."
Garratt Skinner opened a fresh bottle of champagne
—the supply by now was getting low—and came
round the table with it. As he held the neck of the
bottle to the brim of Hine's glass he caught an appeal-
ing look from his daughter. At once he lifted the bottle
and left the glass unfilled. As he passed Sylvia, she
said in a low voice:
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RUNNING WATER
"Thank you," and he whispered back:
"You are quite right, my dear. Interest him so
that he does n't notice that I have left his glass
empty."
Sylvia set herself then to talk to Wallie Hine. But
he was intent on making her understand what great
successes had been his. He would talk, and it
troubled her that all listened, and listened with an air
of admiration. Even her father from his side of the
table smiled indulgently. Yet the stories, or rather
the hints of stories, were certainly untrue. For this
her wanderings had taught her—the man of many
successes never talks. It seemed that there was a con-
spiracy to flatter the wretched youth.
"Yes, yes. You have been a devil of a fellow
among the women, Wallie," said Captain Barstow.
But at once Garratt Skinner interfered and sharply:
"Come, come, Barstow! That's no language to use
before my daughter."
Captain Barstow presented at the moment a re-
markable gradation of color. On the top was the bald
head, very shiny and white, below that a face now
everywhere a deep red except where the swollen veins
stood out upon the surface of his cheeks, and those
were purple, and this in its turn was enclosed by the
black square beard. He bowed at once to Garratt Skin-
ner's rebuke.
"I apologize. I do indeed, Miss Sylvia! But when
I was in the service we still clung to the traditions of
Wellington by—by George. And it 's hard to break
I20


SYLVIA MEETS HER FATHER
oneself of the habit. 'Red-hot,'" he said, with a
chuckle. "That 's what they called me in the regi-
ment. Red-hot Barstow. I 'll bet that Red-hot Bar-
stow is still pretty well remembered among the boys at
Cheltenham."
"Swearing 's bad form nowadays," said Archie
Parminter, superciliously. "They have given it up at
the clubs."
Sylvia seized the moment and rose from the table.
Her father sprang forward and opened the door.
"We will join you in a few minutes," he said.
Sylvia went down the passage to the room at the
back of the house in which she had been presented by
her father to his friends. She rang the bell at once and
when the servant came she said:
"I gave you a letter to post this evening. I should
like to have it back."
"I am sorry, miss, but it's posted."
"I am sorry, too," said Sylvia, quietly.
The letter had been written to Chayne, and gave him
the address of this house as the place where he might
find her if he called. She had no thought of going
away. She had made her choice for good or ill and
must abide by it. That she knew. But she was no
longer sure that she wished Captain Chayne to come
and find her there.
121


CHAPTER X
A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
SYLVIA sat down in a chair and waited. She
waited impatiently, for she knew that she had
almost reached the limits of her self-command, and
needed the presence of others to keep her from break-
ing down. But her native courage came to her aid,
and in half an hour she heard the steps of her father
and his guests in the passage. She noticed that her
father looked anxiously toward her as he came in.
"Do you mind if we bring in our cigars?" he
asked.
"Not at all," said she; and he came in, carrying
in his hand a box of cigars, which he placed in the
middle of the table. Wallie Hine at once stumbled
across the room to Sylvia; he walked unsteadily, his
features were more flushed than before. She shrank
a little from him. But he had not the time to sit
down beside her, for Captain Barstow exclaimed
jovially:
"I say, Garratt, I have an idea. There are five
of us here. Let us have a little round game of cards."
Sylvia started. In her heart she knew that just
some such proposal as this she had been dreading
122


A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
all the evening. Her sinking hopes died away alto-
gether.
This poor witless youth, plied with champagne; the
older men who flattered him with lies; the sugges-
tion of champagne made as though it were a sudden
inspiration, and the six bottles standing ready in the
cupboard; and now the suggestion of a little round
game of cards made in just the same tone! Sylvia
had a feeling of horror. She had kept herself un-
spotted from her world, but not through ignorance.
She knew it. She knew those little round games of
cards and what came of them, sometimes merely
misery and ruin, sometimes a pistol shot in the early
morning. She turned very pale, but she managed to
say:
"Thank you. I don't play cards."
And then she heard a sudden movement by her
father, who at the moment when Barstow spoke had
been lighting a fresh cigar. She looked up. Garratt
Skinner was staring in astonishment at Captain Bar-
stow.
"Cards!" he cried. "In my house? On a Sunday
evening?"
With each question his amazement grew, and he
ended in a tone of remonstrance.
"Come, Barstow, you know me too well to propose
that. I am rather hurt. A friendly talk, and a smoke,
yes. Perhaps a small whisky and soda. I don't
say no. But cards on a Sunday evening!" No in-
deed."
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RUNNING WATER
“Oh, I say, Skinner," objected Wallie Hine.
“There 's no harm in a little game."
Garratt Skinner shook his head at Hine in a grave
friendly way.
“Better leave cards alone, Wallie, always. You
are young, you know.”
Hine flushed.
"I am old enough to hold my own against any
man,” he cried, hotly. He felt that Garratt Skinner
had humiliated him, and before this wonderful daugh-
ter of his in whose good favors Mr. Hine had been
making such inroads during supper. Barstow apolo-
gized for his suggestion at once, but Hine was now
quite unwilling that he should withdraw it.
“There 's no harm in it,” he cried. "I really
think you are too Puritanical, is n't he, Miss-Miss
Sylvia ?”
Hine had been endeavoring to pluck up courage
to use her Christian name all the evening. His pride
that he had actually spoken it was so great that he
did not remark at all her little movement of disgust.
Garratt Skinner seemed to weaken in his resolu-
tion.
"Well, of course, Wallie,” he said, "I want you
to enjoy yourselves. And if you especially want
it-"
Did he notice that Sylvia closed her eyes and really
shivered? She could not tell. But he suddenly spoke
in a tone of revolt:
"But card-playing on Sunday. Really no!"
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A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
"It's done nowadays at the West-End Clubs," said
Archie Parminter.
"Oh, is it?" said Garratt Skinner, again grown
doubtful. "Is it, indeed? Well, if they do it in the
Clubs—" And then with an exclamation of relief—
"But I have n't got a pack of cards in the house.
That settles the point."
"There 's a public house almost next door," replied
Barstow. "If you send out your servant, I am sure
she could borrow one."
"No," said Garratt Skinner, indignantly. "Really,
Barstow, your bachelor habits have had a bad effect
on you. I would not think of sending a girl out to a
public house on any consideration. It might be the
very first step downhill for her, and I should be re-
sponsible."
"Oh well, if you are so particular, I 'II go myself,"
cried Barstow, petulantly. He got up and walked to
the door.
"I don't mind so much if you go yourself. Only
please don't say you come from this house," said
Garratt Skinner, and Barstow went out from the
room. He came back in a very short time, and Sylvia
noticed at once that he held two quite new and un-
opened packs of cards in his hand.
"A stroke of luck," he cried. "The landlord had
a couple of new packs, for he was expecting to give
a little party to-night. But a relation of his wife died
rather suddenly yesterday, and he put his guests off.
A decent-minded fellow, I think. What?"
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RUNNING WATER
"Yes. It's not every one who would have shown so
much good feeling," said Garratt Skinner, seriously.
"One likes to know that there are men about like that.
One feels kindlier to the whole world"; and he drew
up his chair to the table.
Sylvia was puzzled. Was this story of the landlord
a glib lie of Captain Barstow's to account, with a detail
which should carry conviction, for the suspiciously
new pack of cards? And if so, did her father believe
in its truth? Had the packs been waiting in Captain
Barstow's coat pocket in the hall until the fitting
moment for their appearance? If so, did her father
play a part in the conspiracy? His face gave no sign.
She was terribly troubled.
"Penny points," said Garratt Skinner. "Nothing
more."
"Oh come, I say," cried Hine, as he pulled out a
handful of sovereigns.
"Nothing more than penny points in my house.
Put that money away, Wallie. We will use counters."
Garratt Skinner had a box of counters if he had no
pack of cards.
"Penny points, a sixpenny ante and a shilling
limit," he said. "Then no harm will be done to any
one. The black counters a shilling, the red sixpence,
and the white ones a penny. You have each a pound's
worth," he said as he dealt them out.
Sylvia rose from her chair.
"I think I will go to bed."
Wallie Hine turned round in his chair, holding his
126


A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
counters in his hand. "Oh, don't do that, Miss
Sylvia. Sit beside me, please, and bring me luck."
"You forget, Wallie, that my daughter has just
come from a long journey. No doubt she is tired,"
said Garratt Skinner, with a friendly reproach in
his voice. He got up and opened the door for his
daughter. After she had passed out he followed
her.
"I shall take a hand for a little while, Sylvia, to
see that they keep to the stakes. I think young Hine
wants looking after, don't you? He does n't know any
geography. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well!"
He took her by the elbow and drew her toward
him. He stooped to her, meaning to kiss her. Sylvia
did not resist, but she drooped her head so that her
forehead, not her lips, was presented to his embrace.
And the kiss was never given. She remained stand-
ing, her face lowered from his, her attitude one of
resignation and despondency. She felt her father's
hand shake upon her arm, and looking up saw his
eyes fixed upon her in pity. He dropped her arm
quickly, and said in a sharp voice:
"There! Go to bed, child!"
He watched her as she went up the stairs. She
went up slowly and without turning round, and she
walked like one utterly tired out. Garratt Skinner
waited until he heard her door close. "She should
never have come," he said. "She should never have
come." Then he went slowly back to his friends.
Sylvia went to bed, but she did not sleep. The
127


RUNNING WATER
excitement which had buoyed her up had passed;
and her hopes had passed with it. She recalled the
high anticipations with which she had set out from
Chamonix only yesterday—yes, only yesterday. And
against them in a vivid contrast she set the actual
reality, the supper party, Red-hot Barstow, Archie
Parminter, and the poor witless Wallie Hine, with his
twang and his silly boasts. She began to wonder
whether there was any other world than that which
she knew, any other people than those with whom
she had lived. Her father was different—yes, but—
but— Her father was too perplexing a problem to
her at this moment. Why had he so clearly pitied
her just now in the passage? Why had he checked
himself from the kiss? She was too tired to reason
it out. She was conscious that she was very wretched,
and the tears gathered in her eyes; and in the dark-
ness of her room she cried silently, pressing the sheet
to her lips lest a sob should be heard. Were all her
dreams mere empty imaginings? she asked. If so,
why should they ever have come to her? she inquired
piteously; why should she have found solace in them—
why should they have become her real life? Did no
one walk the earth of all that company which went
with her in her fancies?
Upon that her thoughts flew to the Alps, to the
evening in the Pavillon de Lognan, the climb upon
the rocks and the glittering ice-slope, the perfect hour
upon the sunlit top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere. The
memory of the mountains brought her consolation
128


A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
in her bad hour, as her friend had prophesied it would.
Her tears ceased to flow, she lived that day—her one
day—over again, jealous of every minute. After all
that had been real, and more perfect than any dream.
Moreover, there had been with her through the day
a man honest and loyal as any of her imagined com-
pany. She began to take heart a little; she thought
of the Col Dolent with its broad ribbon of ice set in
the sheer black rocks, and always in shadow. She
thought of herself as going up some such hard, cold
road in the shadow, and remembered that on the top
of the Col one came out into sunlight and looked
southward into Italy. So comforted a little, she fell
asleep.
It was some hours before she woke. It was already
day, and since she had raised her blinds before she
had got into bed, the light streamed into the room.
She thought for a moment that it was the light which
had waked her. But as she lay she heard a murmur
of voices, very low, and a sound of people moving
stealthily. She looked out of the window. The streets
were quite empty and silent. In the houses on the
opposite side the blinds were drawn; a gray clear light
was spread over the town; the sun had not yet risen.
She looked at her watch. It was five o'clock. She
listened again, gently opening her door for an inch
or so. She heard the low voices more clearly now.
Those who spoke were speaking almost in whispers.
She thought that thieves had broken in. She hurried
on a few clothes, cautiously opened her door wider,
9 129


RUNNING WATER
slipped through, and crept with a beating heart down
the stairs.
Half way down the stairs she looked over the rail
of the banister, turning her head toward the back
part of the house whence the murmurs came. At the
end of the passage was the little room in which the
round game of cards was played the night before.
The door stood open now, and she looked right into
the room.
And this is what she saw:
Wallie Hine was sitting at the table. About him
the carpet was strewn with crumpled pieces of paper.
There was quite a number of them littered around
his chair. He was writing, or rather, trying to write.
For Archie Parminter leaning over the back of the
chair held his hand and guided it. Captain Barstow
stood looking intently on, but of her father there was
no sign. She could not see the whole room, however.
A good section of it was concealed from her. Wallie
Hine was leaning forward on the table, with his head
so low and his arms so spread that she could not see in
what book he was writing. But apparently he did
not write to the satisfaction of his companions. In
spite of Parminter's care his pen spluttered. Sylvia
saw Archie look af Barstow, and she heard Barstow
answer "No, that won't do." Archie Parminter
dropped Hine's hand, tore a slip of paper out of the
book, crumpled it, and threw it down with a gesture
of anger on to the carpet.
"Try again, old fellow," said Barstow, eagerly,
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A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
bending down toward Hine with a horrid smile upon
his face, a smile which tried to conceal an intense
exasperation, an intense desire to strike. Again
Parminter leaned over the chair, again he took Wallie
Hine's hand and guided the pen, very carefully lifting
it from the paper at the end of an initial or a word,
and spacing the letters. This time he seemed con-
tent.
"That will do, I think," he said, in a whisper.
Captain Barstow bent down and examined the writ-
ing carefully with his short-sighted eyes.
"Yes, that 's all right."
Parminter tore the leaf out, but this time he did
not crumple it. He blotted it carefully, folded it, and
laid it on the mantle-shelf.
"Let us get him up," he said, and with Barstow's
help they lifted Hine out of his chair. Sylvia caught
a glimpse of his face. His mouth was loose, his eyes
half shut, and the lids red; he seemed to be in a stupor.
His head rolled upon his shoulders. He swayed as
his companions held him up; his knees gave under him.
He began incoherently to talk.
"Hush!" said Parminter. "You 'll wake the house.
You don't want that pretty girl to see you in this
state, do you, Wallie? After the impression you made
on her, too! Get his hat and coat out of the passage,
Barstow."
He propped Hine against the table, and holding
him upright turned to the door. He saw "the pretty
girl" leaning over the banister and gazing with hor-
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RUNNING WATER
ror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back
on the instant. With a gesture of his hand, Archie
Parminter stopped Barstow on his way to the door.
Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the stair-
case, holding her breath, and tightly pressing a hand
upon her heart. Had they seen her? Would they
come out into the passage? What would happen?
Would they kill her? The questions raced through
her mind. She could not have moved, she thought,
had Death stood over her. But nothing happened.
She could not now see into the room, and she heard
no whisper, no footsteps creeping stealthily along
the passage toward her, no sound at all. Presently
she recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once
in her room, with great care she locked the door, and
sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling. There
she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very
gently roused her. She crept along the wall till she
was by the side of the window. Then she raised her-
self against the wall and peered out. She saw Barstow
and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each
with an arm through his. A hansom-cab drove up,
they lifted Hine into it, got in themselves, and drove
off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced up
to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind
the curtains at the side. He could not have seen her.
Sylvia leaned her head against the panels of the
door and concentrated all her powers so that not a
movement in the house might escape her ears. She
listened for the sound of some one else moving in the
132



“She crept with a beating heart down the stairs"


A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS
room below, some one who had been left behind. She
listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a
coat against the stair rail, the sound of some one
going stealthily to his room. She stood at the door,
with her face strangely set for a long while. Her
mind was quite made up. If she heard her father
moving from that room, she would just wait until he
was asleep, and then she would go—anywhere. She
could not go back to her mother, that she knew. She
had no one to go to; nevertheless, she would go.
But no sound reached her. Her father was not in
the room below. He must have gone to bed and left
the others to themselves. The pigeon had been
plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her father
had had no hand in the plucking. She laid herself
down upon her bed, exhausted, and again sleep came
to her. And in a moment the sound of running water
was in her ears.
133


CHAPTER XI
SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
CYLVIA did not wake again until the maid brought
u in her tea and told her that it was eight o'clock.
When she went down-stairs, her father was already in
the dining-room. She scanned him closely, but his face
bore no sign whatever of a late and tempestuous night;
and a great relief enheartened her. He met her with
an open smile.
"Did you sleep well, Sylvia ?”
“Not very well, father,” she answered, as she
watched his face. “I woke up in the early morning."
But nothing could have been more easy or natural
than his comment on her words.
“Yet you look like a good sleeper. A strange house,
I suppose, Sylvia.”
"Voices in the strange house," she answered.
“Voices?"
Garratt Skinner's face darkened.
“Did those fellows stay so late?” he asked with an-
noyance. "What time was it when they woke you up,
Sylvia ?”
“A little before five."
Garratt Skinner's annoyance increased.
134


SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
"That's too bad," he cried. "I left them and went
to bed. But they promised me faithfully only to stay
another half-hour. I am very sorry, Sylvia." And
as she poured out the tea, he continued: "I will speak
pretty sharply to Barstow. It 's altogether too bad."
Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the
clock, and as soon as the hands pointed to five minutes
to nine, he rose from the table.
"I must be off—business, my dear." He came
round the table to her and gently laid a hand upon her
shoulder. "It makes a great difference, Sylvia, to have
a daughter, fresh and young and pretty, sitting oppo-
site to me at the breakfast table—a very great differ-
ence. I shall cut work early to-day on account of it;
I 'll come home and fetch you, and we 'll go out and
lunch somewhere together."
He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and
Sylvia, looking up into his face, was moved by what he
said. He smiled down at her, with her own winning
smile; he looked her in the face with her own frank-
ness, her own good humor.
"I have been a lonely man for a good many years,
Sylvia," he said, "too lonely. I am glad the years
have come to an end"; and this time he did what yes-
terday night he had checked himself from doing. He
stooped down and kissed her on the forehead. Then
he went from the room, took his hat, and letting him-
self out of the house closed the door behind him. He
called a passing cab, and, as he entered it, he said to the
driver:
135


RUNNING WATER
"Go to the London and County Bank in Victoria
Street," and gaily waving his hand to his daughter,
who stood behind the window, he drove off.
At one o'clock he returned in the same high spirits.
Sylvia had spent the morning in removing the super-
fluous cherries and roses from her best hat and making
her frock at once more simple and more suitable to her
years. Garratt Skinner surveyed her with pride.
"Come on," he said. "I have kept the cab waiting."
For a poor man he seemed to Sylvia rather reckless.
They drove to the Savoy Hotel and lunched together
in the open air underneath the glass roof, with a bank
of flowers upon one side of them and the windows of
the grill-room on the other. The day was very hot,
the streets baked in an arid glare of sunlight; a dry
dust from the wood pavement powdered those who
passed by in the Strand. Here, however, in this cool
and shaded place the pair lunched happily together.
Garratt Skinner had the tact not to ask any questions
of his daughter about her mother, or how they had
fared together. He talked easily of unimportant
things, and pointed out from time to time some person
of note or some fashionable actress who happened to
pass in or out of the hotel. He could be good com-
pany when he chose, and he chose on this morning. It
was not until coffee was set before them, and he had
lighted a cigar, that he touched upon themselves, and
then not with any paternal tone, but rather as one com-
rade conferring with another. There, indeed, was his
great advantage with Sylvia. Her mother had either
136


SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
disregarded her or treated her as a child. She could
not but be won by a father who laid bare his plans to
her and asked for her criticism as well as her assent.
Her suspicions of yesterday died away, or, at all events,
slept so soundly that they could not have troubled her
less had they been dead.
"Sylvia," he said, "I think London in August, and
in such an August, is too hot. I don't want to see you
grow pale, and for myself I have n't had a holiday for
a long time. You see there is not much temptation for
a lonely man to go away by himself."
For the second time that day he appealed to her on
the ground of his loneliness; and not in vain. She
began even to feel remorseful that she had left him to
his loneliness so long. There rose up within her an
almost maternal feeling of pity for her father. She
did not stop to think that he had never sent for her;
had never indeed shown a particle of interest in her
until they had met face to face.
"But since you are here," he continued, "well—I
have been doing fairly well in my business lately, and
I thought we might take a little holiday together, at
some quiet village by the sea. You know noth-
ing of England. I have been thinking it all out this
morning. There is no country more beautiful or more
typical than Dorsetshire. Besides, you were born
there. What do you say to three weeks or so in Dor-
setshire? We will stay at an hotel in Weymouth for
a few days and look about for a house."
"Father!" exclaimed Sylvia, leaning forward with
137


RUNNING WATER
shining eyes. "It will be splendid. Just you and
I!"
"Well, not quite," he answered, slowly; and as he
saw his daughter sink back with a pucker of disap-
pointment on her forehead, he knocked the ash off
his cigar and in his turn leaned forward over the table.
"Sylvia, I want to talk to you seriously," he said,
and glanced around to make sure that no one overheard
him. "I should very much like one person to come and
stay with us."
Sylvia made no answer. Her face was grave and
very still, her eyes dwelt quietly upon him and betrayed
nothing of what she thought.
"You have guessed who the one person is?"
Again Sylvia did not answer.
"Yes. It is Wallie Hine," he continued.
Her suspicions were stirring again from their sleep.
She waited in fear upon his words. She looked out,
through the opening at the mouth of the court into the
glare of the Strand. The bright prospect which her
vivid fancies had pictured there a minute since, trans-
forming the dusky street into fields of corn and purple
heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn by teams
of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark.
A real horror was gripping her. But she turned her
eyes quietly back upon her father's face and waited.
"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Gar-
ratt Skinner continued with an easy assurance. "You
saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last night—a
weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward,
138


SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
ered her head. Garratt Skinner, however, seemed not
to notice her confusion.
"You remember," he continued, "that I tried to stop
them playing cards at the beginning. I yielded in the
end, because it became perfectly clear that if I did n't
they would go away and play elsewhere, while I at all
events could keep the points down in my own house.
I ought to have stayed up, I suppose, until they went
away. I blame myself there a little. But I had no
idea they would stay so late. Are you sure it was their
voices you heard and not the servants moving?"
He asked the question almost carelessly, but his eyes
rather belied his tone, for they watched her intently.
"Quite sure," she answered.
"You might have made a mistake."
"No; for I saw them."
Garratt Skinner covered his mouth with his hand.
It seemed to Sylvia that he smiled. A suspicion
flashed across her mind, in spite of herself. Was he
merely testing her to see whether she would speak the
truth or not? Did he know that she had come down
the stairs in the early morning? She thrust the sus-
picion aside, remembering the self-reproach which sus-
picion had already caused her at this very luncheon ta-
ble. If it were true that her father knew, why then
Barstow or Parminter must have told him this very
morning. And if he had seen either of them this
morning, all his talk to her in this cool and quiet place
was a carefully prepared hypocrisy. No, she would
not believe that.
"You saw them?" he exclaimed. "Tell me how."
141


RUNNING WATER
ow Parmiled her fathed really
She told him the whole story, how she had come
down the staircase, what she had seen, as she leaned
over the balustrade, and how Parminter had turned.
"Do you think he saw you?” asked her father.
Sylvia looked at him closely. But he seemed really
anxious to know.
"I think he saw something,” she answered.
"Whether he knew that it was I whom he saw, I can't
tell.”
Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his ci-
gar in short, angry puffs.
"I would n't have had that happen for worlds," he
said, with a frown. “I have no doubt whatever that
the slips of paper on which poor Hine was trying to
write were I. O. U's. Heaven knows what he lost
last night.”
"I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost £480 last
night.”
“Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much
violence that the people lunching at the tables near-by
looked up at the couple with surprise. “Oh, no! I 'll
not believe it, Sylvia.” And as he lowered his voice,
he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back
upon her words, so distressed was he at the thought
that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed out of so much
money at his house.
“Four hundred and eighty pounds,” Sylvia repeated.
Garratt Skinner caught at a comforting thought.
"Well, it 's only in I. O. U's. That 's one thing. I
can stop the redemption of them. You see, he has
been robbed-that 's the plain English of it-robbed.”
142


RUNNING WATER
Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her
wrist and took out the slip of paper. She unfolded it
and spread it on the table before her. The inside was
pink.
"A check for £480 on the London and County
Bank, Victoria Street," she said.
Garratt Skinner looked over the table at the paper.
There was Wallie Hine's wavering, unfinished signa-
ture at the bottom right-hand corner. Parminter had
guided his hand as far as the end of the Christian
name, before he tore the check out and threw it away.
The amount in the body of the check had been filled
in in Barstow's hand.
"You had better give it to me, Sylvia," he said, his
fingers moving restlessly on the table-cloth. "That
check would be a very dangerous thing if Parminter
ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me."
He leaned over and took it gently from before her,
and put it carefully away in his pocket.
"Now, you see, there 's more reason than ever why
we should get Wallie Hine away from those two men.
He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the coun-
try may set his thoughts in a different groove. Will
you make this sacrifice, Sylvia? Will you let me ask
him? It will be a good action. You see he does n't
know any geography."
"Very well; ask him, father."
Garratt Skinner reached over the table and patted
her hand.
"Thank you, my dear! Then that's settled. I pro-
144


SYLVIA'S FATHER MAKES A MISTAKE
pose that you and I go down this afternoon. Can you
manage it? We might catch the four o'clock train
from Waterloo if you go home now, pack up your
traps and tell the housemaid to pack mine. I will just
wind up my business and come home in time to pick
you and the luggage up."
He rose from the table, and calling a hansom, put
Sylvia into it. He watched the cab drive out into the
Strand and turn the corner. Then he went back to
the table and asked for his bill. While he waited for
it, he lit a match and drawing from his pocket the
crumpled check, he set fire to it. He held it by the
corner until the flame burnt his fingers. Then he
dropped it in his plate and pounded it into ashes with a
fork.
"That was a bad break," he said to himself. "Left
carelessly under the edge of the hearth-rug. A very
bad break."
He paid his bill, and taking his hat, sauntered out
into the Strand. The carelessness which had left the
check underneath the hearth-rug was not, however, the
only bad break made in connection with this affair.
At a certain moment during luncheon Garratt Skinner
had unwisely smiled and had not quite concealed the
smile with his hand. Against her every wish, that
smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she
drove home. She tried to interpret it in every pleas-
ant sense, but it kept its true character in her thoughts,
try as she might. It remained vividly a very hateful
thing—the smile of the man who had gulled her.
145


CHAPTER XII
THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
A WEEK later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and
her father drove northward out of Weymouth
between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was silent
and looked about her with expectant eyes.
"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her father had said to
her. "I have secured for our summer holiday the very
house in which you were born. It cost me some trou-
ble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I
had an idea that you would be pleased. However,
you are not to see it until it is quite ready."
There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought
which greatly appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it
with a smile of tenderness. Affection, surely, could
alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very
gratefully. They were now upon their way to take
possession. A little white house set back under a hill
and looking out across the bay from a thick cluster of
trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she
wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed
the white house, and half a mile further on turned
again eastward along the road to Wareham, following
the valley, which runs parallel to the sea. They as-
146


THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
cended the long steep hill which climbs to Osmington,
until upon their left hand a narrow road branched off
between hawthorn hedges to the downs. The road
dipped to a little hollow and in the hollow a little vil-
lage nestled. A row of deep-thatched white cottages
with leaded window-panes opened on to a causeway
of stone flags which was bordered with purple phlox
and raised above the level of the road. Farther on, the
roof of a mill rose high among trees, and an open space
showed to Sylvia the black massive wheel against the
yellow wall. And then the carriage stopped at a house
on the left-hand side, and Garratt Skinner got out.
"Here we are," he said.
It was a small square house of the Georgian days,
built of old brick, duskily red. You entered it at the
side and the big level windows of the living rooms
looked out upon a wide and high-walled garden whence
a little door under a brick archway in the wall gave a
second entrance on to the road. Into this garden
Sylvia wandered. If she had met with but few peo-
ple who matched the delicate company of her dreams,
here, at all events, was a mansion where that company
might have fitly gathered. Great elms and beeches
bent under their load of leaves to the lawn; about the
lawn, flowers made a wealth of color, and away to the
right of the house twisted stems and branches, where
the green of the apples was turning to red, stood evenly
spaced in a great orchard. And the mill stream tun-
neling under the road and the wall ran swiftly between
green banks through the garden and the orchard, sing-
147


RUNNING WATER
ing as it ran. There lingered, she thought, an ancient
grace about this old garden, some flavor of forgotten
days, as in a room scented with potpourri; and she
walked the lawn in a great contentment.
The house within charmed her no less. It was a
place of many corners and quaint nooks, and of a floor-
ing so unlevel that she could hardly pass from one
room to another without taking a step up or a step
down. Sylvia went about the house quietly and with
a certain thought fulness. Here she had been born and
a mystery of her life was becoming clear to her. On
this summer evening the windows were set wide in
every room, and thus in every room, as she passed up
and down, she heard the liquid music of running water,
here faint, like a whispered melody, there pleasant, like
laughter, but nowhere very loud, and everywhere quite
audible. In one of these rooms she had been born.
In one of these rooms her mother had slept at nights
during the weeks before she was born, with that music
in her ears at the moment of sleep and at the moment
of her waking. Sylvia understood now why she had
always dreamed of running water. She wondered in
which room she had been born. She tried to remem-
ber some corner of the house, some nook in its high-
walled garden; and that she could not awoke in her a
strange and almost eery feeling. She had come back
to a house in which she had lived, to a scene on which
her eyes had looked, to sounds which had murmured
in her ears, and everything was as utterly new to her
and unimagined as though now for the first time she
148


THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
had crossed the threshold. Yet these very surround-
ings to which her memory bore no testimony had as-
suredly modified her life, had given to her a particu-
lar possession, this dream of running water, and had
made it a veritable element of her nature. She could
not but reflect upon this new knowledge, and as she
walked the garden in the" darkness of the evening, she
built upon it, as will be seen.
As she stepped back over the threshold into the li-
brary where her father sat, she saw that he was hold-
ing a telegram in his hand.
"Wallie Hine comes to-morrow, my dear," he said.
Sylvia looked at her father wistfully.
"It is a pity," she said, "a great pity. It would
have been pleasant if we could have been alone."
The warmth of her gladness had gone from her; she
walked once more in shadows; there was in her voice
a piteous appeal for affection, for love, of which she
had had too little in her life and for which she greatly
craved. She stood by the door, her lips trembling and
her dark eyes for a wonder glistening with tears. She
had always, even to those who knew her to be a woman,
something of the child in her appearance, which made
a plea from her lips most difficult to refuse. Now she
seemed a child on whom the world pressed heavily be-
fore her time for suffering had come; she had so
motherless a look. Even Garratt Skinner moved un-
comfortably in his chair; even that iron man was
stirred.
"I, too, am sorry, Sylvia," he said, gently; "but
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THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
were kept by the whole household. Indeed, Garratt
Skinner left entirely to his daughter the task of enter-
taining his guest; and although once he led them both
over the great down to Dorchester and back, at a pace
which tired his companions out, he preferred, for the
most part, to smoke his pipe in a hammock in the gar-
den with a novel at his side. The morning after that
one expedition, he limped out into the garden, rubbing
the muscles of his thigh.
"You must look after Wallie, my dear," he said.
"Age is beginning to find me out. And after all, he
will learn more of the tact and manners which he
wants from you than from a rough man like me," and
it did not occur to Sylvia, who was of a natural mod-
esty of thought, that he had any other intention of
throwing them thus together than to rid himself of a
guest with whom he had little in common.
But a week later she changed her mind. She was
driving Walter Hine one morning into Weymouth,
and as the dog-cart turned into the road beside
the bay, and she saw suddenly before her the sea
sparkling in the sunlight, the dark battle-ships at their
firing practice, and over against her, through a shim-
mering haze of heat, the crouching mass of Portland,
she drew in a breath of pleasure. It seemed to her that
her companion gave the same sign of enjoyment, and
she turned to him with some surprise. But Walter
Hine was looking to the wide beach, so black with holi-
day makers that it seemed at that distance a great and
busy ant-heap.
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Sylvia looked, and saw obsequiously smirking upon
the steps of the hotel, with his hat lifted from his shiny
head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. Fortunately
she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just ac-
knowledging his salute. It needed but this meeting to
confirm her fears. It was not coincidence which had
brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth.
He had come with knowledge and a definite pur-
pose.
"Oh, I say," protested Wallie Hine, "you might
have stopped, Miss Sylvia, and let me pass the time of
day with old Barstow."
Sylvia stopped the trap at once.
"I am sorry," she said. "You will find your own
way home. We lunch at half past one."
Hine looked doubtfully at her and then back toward
the hotel.
"I did n't mean that I wanted to leave you, Miss
Sylvia," he said. "Not by a long chalk."
"But you must leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, look-
ing at him with serious eyes, "if you want to pass the
time of day with your 'red-hot' friend."
There was no hint of a smile about her lips. She
waited for his answer. It came accompanied with a
smile which aimed at gallantry and was merely fa-
miliar.
"Of course I stay where I am. What do you think?"
Sylvia hurried over her shopping and drove home-
ward. She went at once to her father, who lay in the
hammock in the shade of the trees, reading a book.
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She came up from behind him across the grass, and he
was not aware of her approach until she spoke.
"Father!" she said, and he started up.
"Oh, Sylvia!" he said, and just for a second there
was a palpable uneasiness in his manner. He had not
merely started. He seemed also to her to have been
startled. But he recovered his composure.
"You see, my dear, I have been thinking of you,"
he said, and he pointed to a man at work among the
flower-beds. "I saw how you loved flowers, how you
liked to have the rooms bright with them. So I hired
a new gardener as a help. It is a great extravagance,
Sylvia, but you are to blame, not I."
He smiled, confident of her gratitude, and had it
been but yesterday he would have had it offered to him
in full measure. To-day, however, all her thoughts
were poisoned by suspicion. She knew it and was dis-
tressed. She knew how much happiness so simple a
forethought would naturally have brought to her. She
did not indeed suspect any new peril in her father's
action. She barely looked toward the new gardener,
and certainly neglected to note whether he worked
skilfully or no. But the fears of the morning modi-
fied her thanks. Moreover the momentary uneasiness
of her father had not escaped her notice and she was
wondering upon its cause.
"Father," she resumed, "I saw Captain Barstow in
Weymouth this morning."
Though her eyes were on his face, and perhaps be-
cause her eyes were resting there with so quiet a watch-
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THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
fulness, she could detect no self-betrayal now. Gar-
ratt Skinner stared at her in pure astonishment.
Then the astonishment gave place to annoyance.
"Barstow!" he said angrily. He lay back in the
hammock, looking up to the boughs overhead, his face
wrinkled and perplexed. "He has found us out and
followed us, Sylvia. I would not have had it happen
for worlds. Did he see you?"
"Yes."
"And I thought that here, at all events, we were safe
from him. I wonder how he found us out! Bribed
the caretaker in Hobart Place, I suppose."
Sylvia did not accept this suggestion. She sat down
upon a chair in a disconcerting silence, and waited.
Garratt Skinner crossed his arms behind his head and
deliberated.
"Barstow 's a deep fellow, Sylvia," he said. "I am
afraid of him."
He was looking up to the boughs overhead, but he
suddenly glanced toward her and then quietly removed
one of his hands and slipped it down to the book which
was lying on his lap. Sylvia took quiet note of the
movement. The book had been lying shut upon his
lap, with its back toward her. Garratt Skinner did
not alter its position; but she saw that his hand now
hid from her the title on the back. It was a big, and
had the appearance of an expensive, book. She no-
ticed the binding—green cloth boards and gold letter-
ing on the back. She was not familiar with the look
of it, and it seemed to her that she might as well know
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—and as quickly as possible—what the book was and
the subject with which it dealt.
Meanwhile Garratt Skinner repeated:
"A deep fellow—Captain Barstow," and anxiously
Garratt Skinner debated how to cope with that deep
fellow. He came at last to his conclusion.
"We can't shut our doors to him, Sylvia."
Even though she had half expected just that answer,
Sylvia flinched as she heard it uttered.
"I understand your feelings, my dear," he continued
in tones of commiseration, "for they are mine. But
we must fight the Barstows with the Barstows'
weapons. It would never do for us to close our doors.
He has far too tight a hold of Wallie Hine as yet. He
has only to drop a hint to Wallie that we are trying to
separate him from his true friends and keep him to
ourselves—and just think, my dear, what a horrible
set of motives a mean-minded creature like Barstow
could impute to us! Let us be candid, you and I,"
cried Garratt Skinner, starting up, as though carried
away by candor. "Here am I, a poor man—here are
you, my daughter, a girl with the charm and the beauty
of the spring, and here 's Wallie Hine, rich, weak,
and susceptible. Oh, there 's a story for a Barstow to
embroider! But, Sylvia, he shall not so much as hint
at the story. For your sake, my dear, for your sake,"
cried Garratt Skinner, with all the emphasis of a lov-
ing father. He wiped his forehead with his handker-
chief.
"I was carried away by my argument," he went on
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THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
in a calmer voice. Sylvia for her part had not been
carried away at all, and no doubt her watchful com-
posure helped him to subdue as ineffective the ardor of
his tones. "Barstow has only to drop this hint to
Wallie Hine, and Wallie will be off like a rabbit at the
sound of a gun. And there 's our chance gone of help-
ing him to a better life. No, we must welcome Bar-
stow, if he comes here. Yes, actually welcome him,
however repugnant it may be to our feelings. That 's
what we must do, Sylvia. He must have no suspicion
that we are working against him. We must lull him
to sleep. That is our only way to keep Wallie Hine
with us. So that, Sylvia, must be our plan of cam-
paign."
The luncheon bell rang as he ended his oration. He
got out of the hammock quickly, as if to prevent dis-
cussion of his plan; and the book which he was carry-
ing caught in the netting of the hammock and fell
to the ground. Sylvia could read the title now. She
did read it, hastily, as Garratt Skinner stooped to pick
it up. It was entitled "The Alps in 1864."
She knew the book by repute and was surprised to
find it in her father's hands. She was surprised still
more that he should have been at so much pains to con-
ceal the title from her notice. After all, what could it
matter? she wondered.
Sylvia lay deep in misery that night. Her father had
failed her utterly. All the high hopes with which she
had set out from Chamonix had fallen, all the rare
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qualities with which her dreams had clothed him as in
shining raiment must now be stripped from him. She
was not deceived. Parminter, Barstow, Garratt Skin-
ner—there was one "deep fellow" in that trio, but it
was neither Barstow nor Parminter. It was her
father. She had but to set the three faces side by side
in her thoughts, to remember the differences of man-
ner, mind and character. Garratt Skinner was the mas-
ter in the conspiracy, the other two his mere servants.
It was he who to some dark end had brought Barstow
down from London. He loomed up in her thoughts
as a relentless and sinister figure, unswayed by affec-
tion, yet with the power to counterfeit it, long-sighted
for evil, sparing no one—not even his daughter. She
recalled their first meeting in the little house in Hobart
Place, she remembered the thoughtful voice with
which, as he had looked her over, he had agreed that
she might be "useful." She thought of his caresses,
his smile of affection, his comradeship, and she shud-
dered. Walter Hine's words had informed her to-day
to what use her father had designed her. She was his
decoy.
She lay upon her bed with her hands clenched, re-
peating the word in horror. His decoy! The moon-
light poured through the open window, the music of
the stream filled the room. She was in the house in
which she had been born, a place mystically sacred to
her thoughts; and she had come to it to learn that
she was her father's decoy in a vulgar conspiracy to
strip a weakling of his money. The stream sang be-
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THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
neath her windows, the very stream of which the echo
had ever been rippling through her dreams. Always
she had thought that it must have some particular
meaning for her which would be revealed in due time.
She dwelt bitterly upon her folly. There was no
meaning in its light laughter.
In a while she was aware of a change. There came
a grayness in the room. The moonlight had lost its
white brilliance, the night was waning. Sylvia rose
from her bed, and slowly like one very tired she began
to gather together and pack into a bag such few clothes
as she could carry. She had made up her mind to go,
and to go silently before the house waked. Whither
she was to go, and what she was to do once she had
gone, she could not think. She asked herself the
questions in vain, feeling very lonely and very help-
less as she moved softly about the room by the light
of her candle. Her friend might write to her and she
would not receive his letter. Still she must go. Once
or twice she stopped her work, and crouching down
upon the bed allowed her tears to have their way.
When she had finished her preparations she blew out
her candle, and leaning upon the sill of the open win-
dow, gave her face to the cool night air.
There was a break in the eastern sky; already here
and there a blackbird sang in the garden boughs, and
the freshness, the quietude, swept her thoughts back
to the Chalet de Lognan. With a great yearning she
recalled that evening and the story of the great friend-
ship so quietly related to her in the darkness, be-
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RUNNING WATER
neath the stars. The world and the people of her
dreams existed; only there was no door of entrance
into that world for her. Below her the stream sang,
even as the glacier stream had sung, though without
its deep note of thunder. As she listened to it, certain
words spoken upon that evening came back to her
mind and gradually began to take on a particular
application.
"What you know, that you must do, if by doing it
you can save a life or save a soul.”
That was the law. “If you can save a life or save
a soul.” And she did know. Sylvia raised herself
from the window and stood in thought.
Garratt Skinner had made a great mistake that day.
He had been misled by the gentleness of her ways,
the sweet aspect of her face, and by a look of aloof-
ness in her eyes, as though she lived in dreams. He
had seen surely that she was innocent, and since he
believed that knowledge must needs corrupt, he
thought her ignorant as well. But she was not
ignorant. She had detected his trickeries. She knew
of the conspiracy, she knew of the place she filled in it
herself; and furthermore she knew that as a decoy she
had been doing her work. Only yesterday, Walter
Hine had been forced to choose between Barstow and
herself and he had let Barstow go. It was a small
matter, no doubt. Still there was promise in it.
What if she stayed, strengthened her hold on Walter
Hine and grappled with the three who were ranged
against him?
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THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER
Walter Hine was, of course, and could be, nothing
to her. He was the mere puppet, the opportunity
of obedience to the law. It was of the law that she
was thinking-and of the voice of the man who had
uttered it. She knew-by using her knowledge, she
could save a soul. She did not think at this time that
she might be saving a life too.
Quietly she undressed and slipped into her bed.
She was comforted. A smile had come upon her lips.
She saw the face of her friend in the darkness, very
near to her. She needed sleep to equip herself for
the fight, and while thinking so she slept. The moon-
light faded altogether, and left the room dark. Be-
neath the window the stream went singing through
the lawn. After all, its message had been revealed to
her in its due season.
161


CHAPTER XIII
CHAYNE RETURNS
"TTULLO," cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered
AJ. round the library after luncheon. "Here 's a
scatter-gun."
He took the gun from a corner where it stood
against the wall, opened the breech, shut it again, and
turning to the open window lifted the stock to his
shoulder.
"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays,"
he said, taking careful aim at a tulip in the garden.
"Any cartridges, Skinner?"
"I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied,
testily. The newspapers had only this moment been
brought into the room, and he did not wish to be dis-
turbed. Sylvia had never noticed that double-barreled
gun before; and she wondered whether it had been
brought into the room that morning. She watched
Captain Barstow bustle into the hall and back again.
Finally he pounced upon an oblong card-box which
lay on the top of a low book-case. He removed the
lid and pulled out a cartridge.
"Hullo!" said he. "No. 6. The very thing! I
am going to take a pot at the starlings, Skinner.
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CHAYNE RETURNS
There are too many of them about for your fruit-
trees."
"Very well," said Garratt Skinner, lazily lifting his
eyes from his newspaper and looking out across the
lawn. "Only take care you don't wing my new gar-
dener."
"No fear of that," said Barstow, and filling his
pockets with cartridges he took the gun in his hand
and skipped out into the garden. In a moment a
shot was heard, and Walter Hine rose from his chair
and walked to the window. A second shot followed.
"Old Barstow can't shoot for nuts," said Hine, with
a chuckle, and in his turn he stepped out into the gar-
den. Sylvia made no attempt to hinder him, but she
took his place at the window ready to intervene. A
flight of starlings passed straight and swift over Bar-
stow's head. He fired both barrels and not one of the
birds fell. Hine spoke to him, and the gun at once
changed hands. At the next flight Hine fired and one
of the birds dropped. Barstow's voice was raised in
jovial applause.
"That was a good egg, Wallie. A very good egg.
Let me try now!" and so alternately they shot as the
birds dSrted overhead across the lawn. Sylvia waited
for the moment when Barstow's aim would suddenly
develop a deadly precision, but that moment did not
come. If there was any betting upon this match,
Hine would not be the loser. She went quietly back
to a writing-desk and wrote her letters. She had no
wish to rouse in her father's mind a suspicion that she
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RUNNING WATER
had guessed his design and was setting herself to
thwart it. She must work secretly, more secretly than
he did himself. Meanwhile the firing continued in the
garden; and unobserved by Sylvia, Garratt Skinner
began to take in it a stealthy interest. His chair was
so placed that, without stirring, he could look into
the garden and at the same time keep an eye on Sylvia;
if she moved an elbow or raised her head, Garratt
Skinner was at once reading his paper with every
appearance of concentration. On the other hand, her
back was turned toward him, so that she saw neither
his keen gaze into the garden nor the good-tempered
smile of amusement with which he turned his eyes
upon his daughter.
In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no
more. Sylvia had, in fact, almost come to the end of
her letters, when Garratt Skinner suddenly pushed
back his chair and stood up. At the noise, abrupt as a
startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round. She saw
that her father was gazing with a look of perplexity
into the garden, and that for the moment he had for-
gotten her presence. She crossed the room quickly
and noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow,
saw what he saw. The blood flushed her throat and
mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened, and a
smile of welcome transfigured her grave face. Her
friend Hilary Chayne was standing under the archway
of the garden door. He had closed the door behind
him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not
looking toward the house. His attention was riveted
164


CHAYNE RETURNS
upon the shooting-match. Sylvia gave no thought to
his attitude at the moment. He had come—that was
enough. And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the
light in his daughter's face.
"You know him!" he cried, roughly.
"Yes."
"He has come to see you?"
"Yes."
"You should have told me," said Garratt Skinner,
angrily. "I dislike secrecies." Sylvia raised her
eyes and looked her father steadily in the face. But
Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed. He re-
turned her look as steadily.
"Who is he?" he continued, in a voice of authority.
"Captain Hilary Chayne."
It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely
familiar to Garratt Skinner, and Sylvia added:
"I met him this summer in Switzerland."
"Oh, I see," said her father, and he looked with a
new interest across the garden to the door. "He is a
great friend."
"My only friend," returned Sylvia, softly; and her
father stepped forward and called aloud, holding up
his hand:
"Barstow! Barstow!"
Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the
coming of her friend was not the only change which
had taken place since she had last looked out upon the
garden. The new gardener was now shooting alter-
nately with Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow,
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RUNNING WATER
standing a few feet behind them, recorded the hits in a
little book. He looked up at the sound of Garratt
Skinner's voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a
stop to the match. Garratt Skinner turned again to
his daughter, and spoke now without any anger at all.
There was just a hint of reproach in his voice, but as
though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand affec-
tionately upon her arm.
"Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my
dear. But you might have told me that you expected
him. Let us have no secrets from each other in the
future? Now bring him in, and we will see if we can
give him a cup of tea."
He rang the bell. Sylvia did not think it worth
while to argue that Chayne's coming was a surprise to
her as much as to her father. She crossed the garden
toward her friend. But she walked slowly and still
more slowly. Her memories had flown back to the
evening when they had bidden each other good-by on
the little platform in front of the Chalet de Lognan.
Not in this way had she then planned that they should
meet again, nor in such company. The smile had
faded from her lips, the light of gladness had gone from
her eyes. Barstow and Walter Hine were moving
toward the house. It mortified her exceedingly that
her friend should find her amongst such companions.
She almost wished that he had not found her out at
all. And so she welcomed him with a great restraint.
"It was kind of you to come," she said. "How did
you know I was here?"
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CHAYNE RETURNS
"I called at your house in London. The caretaker
gave me the address," he replied. He took her hand
and, holding it, looked with the careful scrutiny of a
lover into her face.
"You have needed those memories of your one day
to fall back upon," he said, regretfully. "Already
you have needed them. I am very sorry."
Sylvia did not deny the implication of the words
that "troubles" had come. She turned to him, grate-
ful that he should so clearly have remembered what
she had said upon that day.
"Thank you," she answered, gently. "My father
would like to know you. I wrote to you that I had
come to live with him."
"Yes."
"You were surprised?" she asked.
"No," he answered, quietly. "You came to some
important decision on the very top of the Aiguille
d'Argentiere. That I knew at the time, for I watched
you. When I got your letter, I understood what the
decision was."
To leave Chamonix—to break completely with her
life—it was just to that decision she would naturally
have come just on that spot during that one sunlit
hour. So much his own love of the mountains taught
him. But Sylvia was surprised at his insight; and
what with that and the proof that their day together
had remained vividly in his thoughts, she caught
back something of his comradeship. As they crossed
the lawn to the house her embarrassment diminished.
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She drew comfort, besides, from" the thought that
whatever her friend might think of Captain Barstow
and Walter Hine, her father at all events would im-
press him, even as she had been impressed. Chayne
would see at once that here was a man head and
shoulders above his companions, finer in quality, dif-
ferent in speech.
But that afternoon her humiliation was to be com-
plete. Her father had no fancy for the intrusion of
Captain Chayne into his quiet and sequestered house.
The flush of color on his daughter's face, the leap of
light into her eyes, had warned him. He had no wish
to lose his daughter. Chayne, too, might be incon-
veniently watchful. Garratt Skinner desired no spy
upon his little plans. Consequently he set himself to
play the host with an offensive geniality which was
calculated to disgust a man with any taste for good
manners. He spoke in a voice which Sylvia did not
know, so coarse it was in quality, so boisterous and
effusive; and he paraded Walter Hine and Captain
Barstow with the pride of a man exhibiting his dearest
friends.
"You must know 'red-hot' Barstow, Captain
Chayne," he cried, slapping the little man lustily on
the back. "One of the very best. You are both
brethren of the sword."
Barstow sniggered obsequiously and screwed his
eyeglass into his eye.
"Delighted, I am sure. But I sheathed the sword
some time ago, Captain Chayne."
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CHAYNE RETURNS
"And exchanged it for the betting book," Chayne
added, quietly.
Barstow laughed nervously.
"Oh, you refer to our little match in the garden,"
he said. "We dragged the gardener into it."
"So I saw," Chayne replied. "The gardener
seemed to be a remarkable shot. I think he would be
a match for more than one professional."
And turning away he saw Sylvia's eyes fixed upon
him, and on her face an expression of trouble and
dismay so deep that he could have bitten off his
tongue for speaking. She had been behind him while
he had spoken; and though he had spoken in a low
voice, she had heard every word. She bent her head
over the tea-table and busied herself with the cups.
But her hands shook; her face burned, she was tor-
tured with shame. She had set herself to do battle
with her father, and already in the first skirmish she
had been defeated. Chayne's indiscreet words had
laid bare to her the elaborate conspiracy. The new
gardener, the gun in the corner, the cartridges which
had to be looked for, Barstow's want of skill, Hine's
superiority which had led Barstow so naturally to
offer to back the gardener against him—all was clear
to her. It was the little round game of cards all over
again; and she had not possessed the wit to detect
the trick! And that was not all. Her friend had
witnessed it and understood!
She heard her father presenting Walter Hine, and
with almost intolerable pain she realized that had he
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RUNNING WATER
wished to leave Chayne no single opportunity of mis-
apprehension, he would have spoken just these words
and no others.
"Wallie is the grandson—and indeed the heir—of
old Joseph Hine. You know his name, no doubt.
Joseph Hine's Chateau Marlay, what? A warm man,
Joseph Hine. I don't know a man more rich. Treats
his grandson handsomely into the bargain, eh,
Wallie?"
Sylvia felt that her heart would break. That
Garrett Skinner's admission was boldly and cunningly
deliberate did not occur to her. She simply under-
stood that here was the last necessary piece of evi-
dence given to Captain Chayne which would convince
him that he had been this afternoon the witness of a
robbery and swindle.
She became aware that Chayne was standing beside
her. She did not lift her face, for she feared that it
would betray her. She wished with all her heart that
he would just replace his cup upon the tray and go
away without a word. He could not want to stay; he
could not want to return. He had no place here. If
he would go away quietly, without troubling to take
leave of her, she would be very grateful and do justice
to him for his kindness.
But though he had the mind to go, it was not with-
out a word.
"I want you to walk with me as far as the door,"
he said, gently.
Sylvia rose at once. Since after all there must be
170



“She had been behind him while he had spoken"


Ti PTK


RUNNING WATER
Sylvia leaned against the wall and covered her face
with her hands.
"Please!" he said, making his appeal with a great
simplicity. "For I love you, Sylvia."
She gave him no answer. She kept her face still
hid, and only her heaving breast bore witness to her
stress of feeling. Gently he removed her hands, and
holding them in his, urged his plea.
"Ever since that day in Switzerland, I have been
thinking of you, Sylvia, remembering your looks, your
smile, and the words you spoke. I crossed the Col
Dolent the next day, and all the time I felt that there
was some great thing wanting. I said to myself, 'I
miss my friend.' I was wrong, Sylvia. I missed you.
Something ached in me—has ached ever since. It was
my heart! Come with me now!"
Sylvia had not looked at him, though she made no
effort to draw her hands away, and still not looking at
him, she answered in a whisper:
"I can't, I can't."
"Why?" he asked, "why? You are not happy
here. You are no happier than you were at Chamo-
nix. And I would try so very hard to make you
happy. I can't leave you here—lonely, for you are
lonely. I am lonely too; all the more lonely because I
carry about with me—you—you as you stood in the
chalet at night looking through the open window, with
the candle-light striking upward on your face, and
with your reluctant smile upon your lips—you as you
lay on the top of the Aiguille d'Argentiere with the
172


CHAYNE RETURNS
wonder of a new world in your eyes—you as you said
good-by in the sunset and went down the winding path
to the forest. If you only knew, Sylvia!"
"Yes, but I don't know," she answered, and now
she looked at him. "I suppose that, if I loved, I
should know, I should understand."
Her hands lay in his, listless and unresponsive to
the pressure of his. She spoke slowly and thought-
fully, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes.
"Yet you were glad to see me when I came," he
urged.
"Glad, yes! You are my friend, my one friend. I
was very glad. But the gladness passed. When you
asked me to come with you across the garden, I was
wanting you to go away."
The words hurt him. They could not but hurt
him. But she was so plainly unconscious of offence,
she was so plainly trying to straighten out her own
tangled position, that he could feel no anger.
"Why?" he asked; and again she frankly an-
swered him.
"I was humbled," she replied, "and I have had so
much humiliation in my life."
The very quietude of her voice and the wistful look
upon the young tired face hurt him far more than her
words had done.
"Sylvia," he cried, and he drew her toward him.
"Come with me now! My dear, there will be an end
of all humiliation. We can be married, we can go
down to my home on the Sussex Downs. That old
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RUNNING WATER
house needs a mistress, Sylvia. It is very lonely."
He drew a breath and smiled suddenly. "And I would
like so much to show you it, to show you all the cor-
ners, the bridle-paths across the downs, the woods,
and the wide view from Arundel to Chichester spires.
Sylvia, come!"
Just for a moment it seemed that she leaned toward
him. He put his arm about her and held her for a
moment closer. But her head was lowered, not lifted
up to his; and then she freed herself gently from his
clasp.
She faced him with a little wrinkle of thought be-
tween her brows and spoke with an air of wisdom
which went very prettily with the childlike beauty of
her face.
"You are my friend," she said, "a friend I am
very grateful for, but you are not more than that to
me. I am frank. You see, I am thinking now of
reasons which would not trouble me if I loved you.
Marriage with me would do you no good, would hurt
you in your career."
"No," he protested.
"But I am thinking that it would," she replied,
steadily, "and I do not believe that I should give much
thought to it, if I really loved you. I am thinking of
something else, too—"and she spoke more boldly,
choosing her words with care—"of a plan which be-
fore you came I had formed, of a task which before
you came I had set myself to do. I am still thinking
of it, 9till feeling that I ought to go on with it. I do
174


CHAYNE RETURNS
not think that I should feel that if I loved. I think
nothing else would count at all except that I loved.
So you are still my friend, and I cannot go with you."
Chayne looked at her for a moment sadly, with a
mist before his eyes.
"I leave you to much unhappiness," he said, "and
I hate the thought of it."
"Not quite so much now as before you came," she
answered. "I am proud, you know, that you asked
me," and putting her troubles aside, she smiled at him
bravely, as though it was he who needed comforting.
"Good-by! Let me hear of you through your suc-
cess."
So again they said good-by at the time of sunset.
Chayne mounted into the landau and drove back along
the road to Weymouth. "So that 's the end," said
Sylvia. She opened the door and passed again into
the garden. Through the window of the library she
saw her father and Walter Hine, watching, it seemed,
for her appearance. It was borne in upon her sud-
denly that she could not meet them or speak with them,
and she ran very quickly round the house to the front
door, and escaped unaccosted to her room.
In the library Hine turned to Garratt Skinner with
one of his rare flashes of shrewdness.
"She did n't want to meet us," he said, jealously.
"Do you think she cares for him?"
"I think," replied Garratt Skinner with a smile,
"that Captain Chayne will not trouble us with his
company again."
175


CHAPTER XIV
AN OLD PASSION BETRAYS A NEW SECRET
GARRATT SKINNER, however, was wrong. He
was not aware of the great revolution which had
taken place in Chayne; and he misjudged his tenacity.
Chayne, like many another man, had mapped out his
life only to find that events would happen in a succes-
sion different to that which he had ordained. He had
arranged to devote his youth and the earlier part of
his manhood entirely to his career, if the career were
not brought to a premature end in the Alps. That
possibility he had always foreseen. He took his risks
with full knowledge, setting the gain against them, and
counting them worth while. If then he lived, he pro-
posed at some indefinite time, in the late thirties, to
fall in love and marry. He had no parents living;
there was the empty house upon the Sussex Downs;
and the small estate which for generations had de-
scended from father to son. Marriage was thus a
recognized event. Only it was thrust away into an
indefinite future. But there had come an evening
which he had not foreseen, when, sorely grieved by
the loss of his great friend, he had fallen in with a
girl who gave with open hands the sympathy he

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RUNNING WATER
well. She must be released. He had proposed to
take her away then and there. She had refused.
Well, he had been blunt. He would go about the
business in the future in a more delicate way. And
so he came again and again to the little house under
the hill where the stream babbled through the garden,
and every day the apples grew redder upon the boughs.
But it was disheartening work. His position in-
deed became difficult, and it needed all his tenacity to
enable him to endure it. The difficulty became very
evident one afternoon early in August, and the after-
noon was, moveover, remarkable in that Garratt
Skinner was betrayed into a revelation of himself
which was to bear consequences of gravity in a future
which he could not foresee. Chayne rode over upon
that afternoon, and found Garratt Skinner alone and,
according to his habit, stretched at full-length in his
hammock with a cigar between his lips. He received
Captain Chayne with the utmost geniality. He had
long since laid aside his ineffectual vulgarity of man-
ner.
"You must put up with me, Captain Chayne," he
said. "My daughter is out. However, she—I ought
more properly to say, they—will be back no doubt
before long."
"They being—"
"Sylvia and Walter Hine."
Chayne nodded his head. He had known very
well who "they" must be, but he had not been able
to refrain from the question. Jealousy had hold of
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OLD PASSION BETRAYS NEW SECRET
him. He knew nothing of Sylvia's determination to
acquire a power greater than her father's over the
vain and defenceless youth. The words with which
she had hinted her plan to him had been too obscure
to convey their meaning. He was simply aware that
Sylvia more and more avoided him, more and more
sought the companionship of Walter Hine; and such
experience as he had, taught him that women were as
apt to be blind in their judgment of men as men in
their estimation of women.
He sought now to enlist Garratt Skinner on his
side, and drawing a chair nearer to the hammock he
sat down.
"Mr. Skinner," he said, speaking upon an impulse,
"you have no doubt in your mind, I suppose, as to
why I come here so often."
Garratt Skinner smiled.
"I make a guess, I admit."
"I should be very glad if your daughter would
marry me," Chayne continued, "and I want you to
give me your help. I am not a poor man, Mr. Skin-
ner, and I should certainly be willing to recognize that
in taking her away from you I laid myself under con-
siderable obligations."
Chayne spoke with some natural hesitation, but
Garratt Skinner was not in the least offended.
"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," he re-
plied. "Indeed, I like your frankness. Please take
what I say in the same spirit. I cannot give you any
help, Captain Chayne."
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"Why?"
Garratt Skinner raised himself upon his elbow, and
fixing his eyes upon his companion's face, said dis-
tinctly and significantly:
"Because Sylvia has her work to do here."
Chayne in his turn made no pretence to misunder-
stand. He was being told clearly that Sylvia was in
league with her father and Captain Barstow to pluck
Walter Hine. But he was anxious to discover how
far Garratt Skinner's cynicism would carry him.
"Will you define the work?" he asked.
"If you wish it," replied Garratt Skinner, falling
back in his hammock. "I should have thought it un-
necessary myself. The work is the reclaiming of
Wallie Hine from the very undesirable company in
which he has mixed. Do you understand?"
"Quite," said Chayne. He understood very well.
He had been told first the real design—to pluck Wal-
ter Hine—and then the excuse which was to cloak it.
He understood, too, the reason why this information
had been given to him with so cynical a frankness.
He, Chayne, was in the way. Declare the swindle and
persuade him that Sylvia was a party to it—what more
likely way could be discovered for getting rid of Cap-
tain Chayne? He looked at his smiling companion,
took note of his strong aquiline face, his clear and
steady eyes. He recognized a redoubtable antagonist,
but he leaned forward and said with a quiet emphasis:
"Mr. Skinner, I have, nevertheless, not lost heart."
Garratt Skinner laughed in a friendly way.
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RUNNING WATER
"Come as often as you please!" consequently said
Garratt Skinner from his hammock. "And now let
us talk of something else."
He talked of nothing for a while. But it was plain
that he had a subject in his thoughts. For twice he
turned to Chayne and was on the point of speaking;
but each time he thought silence the better part and
lay back again. Chayne waited and at last the sub-
ject was broached, but in a queer, hesitating, diffident
way, as though Garratt Skinner spoke rather under a
compulsion of which he disapproved.
"Tell me!" he said. "I am rather interested. A
craze, an infatuation which so masters people must be
interesting even to the stay-at-homes like myself. But
I am wrong to call it a craze. From merely reading
books I think it a passion which is easily intelligible.
You are wondering what I am talking about. My
daughter tells me that you are a famous climber. The
Aiguille d'Argentiere, I suppose, up which you were
kind enough to accompany her, is not a very difficult
mountain."
"It depends upon the day," said Chayne, "and the
state of the snow."
"Yes, that is what I have gathered from the books.
Every mountain may become dangerous."
"Yes."
"Each mountain," said Garratt Skinner, thought-
fully, "may reward its conquerors with death"; and
for a little while he lay looking up to the green
branches interlaced above his head. "Thus each
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RUNNING WATER
the real dangers were passed. That seems to happen
at times.”
Chayne looked at Garratt Skinner in surprise.
“It is strange that you should have mentioned John
Lattery's death,” he said, slowly.
"Why?” asked Garratt Skinner, turning quietly
toward his companion. "I read of it in 'The Times.'"
"Oh, yes. No doubt it was described. What I
meant was this. John Lattery was my great friend,
and he was a distant kind of cousin to your friend
Walter Hine, and indeed co-heir with him to Joseph
Hine's great fortune. His death, I suppose, has
doubled your friend's inheritance."
Garratt Skinner raised himself up on his elbow.
The announcement was really news to him.
“Is that so?” he asked. “It is true, then. The
mountains hold death too in their recesses-even on
the clearest day-yes, they hold death too!” And let-
ting himself fall gently back upon his cushions, he re-
mained for a while with a very thoughtful look upon
his face. Twice Chayne spoke to him, and twice he
did not hear. He lay absorbed. It seemed that a new
and engrossing idea had taken possession of his mind,
and when he turned his eyes again to Chayne and
spoke, he appeared to be speaking with reference to
that idea rather than to any remarks of his com-
panion.
"Did you ever ascend Mont Blanc by the Brenva
route?” he asked. “There's a thin ridge of ice—I
read an account in Moore's 'Journal'—you have to
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OLD PASSION BETRAYS NEW SECRET
straddle across the ridge with a leg hanging down
either precipice."
Chayne shook his head.
"Lattery and I meant to try it this summer. The
Dent du Requin as well."
"Ah, that is one of the modern rock scrambles, is n't
it? The last two or three hundred feet are the trou-
ble, I believe."
And so the talk went on and the comradeship grew.
But Chayne noticed that always Garratt Skinner came
back to the great climbs of the earlier mountaineers,
the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc, the Col Dolent, the
two points of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille
Verte.
"But you, too, have climbed," Chayne cried at
length.
"On winter nights by my fireside," replied Garratt
Skinner, with a smile. "I have a lame leg which
would hinder me."
"Nevertheless, you left Miss Sylvia and myself be-
hind when you led us over the hills to Dorchester."
It was Walter Hine who interrupted. He had come
across the grass from behind, and neither of the two
men had noticed his approach. But the moment when
he did interrupt marked a change in their demeanor.
The comradeship which had so quickly bloomed as
quickly faded. It was the flower of an idle moment.
Antagonism preceded and followed it. Thus, one
might imagine, might sentries at the outposts of op-
posing armies pile their arms for half an hour and
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RUNNING WATER
gossip of their homes or their children, or of some-
thing dear to both of them and separate at the bugle
sound. Garratt Skinner swung himself out of his
hammock.
"Where 's Sylvia, Wallie?"
"She went up to her room."
Chayne waited for ten minutes, and for another
ten, and still Sylvia did not appear. She was avoid-
ing him. She could spend the afternoon with Walter
Hine, but she must run to her room when he came
upon the scene. Jealousy flamed up in him. Every
now and then a whimsical smile of amusement showed
upon Garratt Skinner's face and broadened into a grin.
Chayne was looking a fool, and was quite conscious
of it. He rose abruptly from his chair.
"I must be going," he said, over loudly, and Garratt
Skinner smiled.
"I 'm afraid she won't hear that," he said softlv,
measuring with his eyes the distance between the group
and the house. "But come again, Captain Chayne,
and sit it out."
Chayne flushed with anger. He said, "Thank you,"
and tried to say it jauntily and failed. He took his
leave and walked across the lawn to the garden, try-
ing to assume a carriage of indifference and dignity.
But every moment he expected to hear the two whom
he had left laughing at his discomfiture. Neither,
however, did laugh. Walter Hine was, indeed, indig-
nant.
"Why did you ask him to come again?" he asked,
angrily, as the garden door closed upon Chayne.
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OLD PASSION BETRAYS NEW SECRET
Garratt Skinner laid his hand on Walter Hine's
arm.
“Don't you worry, Wallie,” he said, confidentially.
"Every time Chayne comes here he loses ten marks.
Give him rope! He does not, after all, know a great
deal of geography."


CHAPTER XV
KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
CHAYNE returned to London on the following
day, restless and troubled. Jealousy, he knew,
was the natural lot of the lover. But that he should
have to be jealous of a Walter Hine—there was the
sting. He asked the old question over and over again,
the old futile question which the unrewarded suitor
puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the
ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in
the world can she see in the fellow?" However, he
did not lose heart. It was not in his nature to let go
once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular
goal. Sooner or later, people and things would adjust
themselves to their proper proportions in Sylvia's eyes.
Meanwhile there was something to be done—a doubt
to be set at rest, perhaps a discovery to be made.
His conversation with Garratt Skinner, the subject
which Garratt Skinner had chosen, and the knowledge
with which he had spoken, had seemed to Chayne
rather curious. A man might sit by his fireside and
follow with interest, nay almost with the passion of
the mountaineer, the history of Alpine exploration
and adventure. That had happened before now.
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KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
And very likely Chayne would have troubled himself
no more about Garratt Skinner's introduction of the
theme but for one or two circumstances which the
more he reflected upon them became the more signifi-
cant. For instance: Garratt Skinner had spoken and
had asked questions about the new ascents made, the
new passes crossed within the last twenty years, just
as a man would ask who had obtained his knowledge
out of books. But of the earlier ascents he had
spoken differently, though the difference was subtle
and hard to define. He seemed to be upon more
familiar ground. He left in Chayne's mind a definite
suspicion that he was speaking no longer out of books,
but from an intimate personal knowledge, the know-
ledge of actual experience. The suspicion had grown
up gradually, but it had strengthened almost into a«
conviction.
It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's con-
versation perpetually recurred—the Aiguille Verte,
the Grand and the Petit Dru and the traverse between
them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the
Brenva route—yes, above all, the Brenva route up
Mont Blanc. Moreover, how in the world should
he know that those slabs of black granite on the* top
of the Grepon were veined with red—splashed with red
as he described them? Unless he had ascended them,
or the Aiguille des Charmoz opposite—how should
he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel Revail-
loud flashed across Chayne's mind. "One needs
some one with whom to exchange one's memories."
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RUNNING WATER
Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with
so much compulsion that he must satisfy it in spite
of himself? Yet why should he practise conceal-
ment at all? There certainly had been conceal-
ment. Chayne remembered how more than once
Garratt Skinner had checked himself before at last
he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he
had spoken. And then suddenly as the train drew up
at Vauxhall Station for the tickets to be collected,
Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of the
Argentiere, beside the great gully, as they descended
to the glacier, Sylvia's guide had spoken words which
came flying back into Chayne's thoughts. She had
climbed that day, though it was her first mountain,
as if knowledge of the craft had been born in her.
How to stand upon an ice-slope, how to hold her ax—
she had known. On the rocks, too! Which foot to
advance, with which hand to grasp the hold—she
had known. Suppose that knowledge had been born
in her! Why, then those words of her guide began
to acquire significance. She had reminded him of
some one—some one whose name he could not re-
member—but some one with whom years ago he had
climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance
movement of Sylvia's, some way in which she moved
from ledge to ledge, had revealed to him the name—
Gabriel Strood.
Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark
thing was there in the record of Strood's life that he
must change his name, disappear from the world, and
190


KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and
storm on the high rock-ledges and the ice-slope?
Chayne was minded to find an answer to that ques-
tion. Sylvia was in trouble; that house under the
downs was no place for her. He himself was afraid of
what was being planned there. It might help him if he
knew something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew
at present. And it seemed to him that there was just
a chance of acquiring that knowledge.
He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up
St. James' Street. The street was empty. It was
a hot starlit night of the first week in August, and
there came upon him a swift homesickness for the
world above the snow-line. How many of his friends
were sleeping that night in mountain huts high up on
the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs open
to the stars with a rock-cliff at their backs and a fire
of pine wood blazing at their feet. Most likely
amongst those friends was the one he sought to-night.
"Still there 's a chance that I may find him," he
pleaded, and crossing Piccadilly passed into Dover
Street. Half way along the street of milliners, he
stopped before a house where a famous scholar had
his lodging.
"Is Mr. Kenyon in London?" he asked, and the
man-servant replied to his great relief:
"Yes, sir, but he is not yet at home."
"I will wait for him," said Chayne.
He was shown into the study and left there with
a lighted lamp. The room was lined with books from
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RUNNING WATER
floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a ladder and took
down from a high corner some volumes bound simply
in brown cloth. They were volumes of the "Alpine
Journal." He had chosen those which dated back
from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He
drew a chair up beside the lamp and began eagerly
to turn over the pages. Often he stopped, for the
name of which he was in search often leaped to his
eyes from the pages. Chayne read of the exploits
in the Alps of Gabriel Strood. More than one new
expedition was described, many variations of old
ascents, many climbs already familiar. It was clear
that the man was of the true brotherhood. A new
climb was very well, but the old were as good to
Gabriel Strood, and the climb which he had once made
he had the longing to repeat with new companions.
None of the descriptions were written by Strood
himself but all by companions whom he had led, and
most of them bore testimony to an unusual endur-
ance, an unusual courage, as though Strood triumphed
perpetually over a difficulty which his companions did
not share and of which only vague hints were given.
At last Chayne came to that very narrative which
Sylvia had been reading on her way to Chamonix—
and there the truth was bluntly told for the first
time.
Chayne started up in that dim and quiet room,
thrilled. He had the proof now, under his finger—the
indisputable proof. Gabriel Strood suffered from an
affection of the muscles in his right thigh, and yet
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KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
managed to out-distance all his rivals. Hine's words
drummed in Chayne's ears:
"Nevertheless he left us all behind."
Garratt Skinner: Gabriel Strood. Surely, surely!
He replaced the volumes and took others down. In
the first which he opened—it was the autumn number
of nineteen years ago—there was again mention of
the man; and the climb described was the ascent of
Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier. Chayne leaned
back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation.
It was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had
continually harked back. The Aiguille Verte, the
Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the Blaitiere—yes,
he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back,
with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-
arete of the Brenva route. Chayne searched on
through the pages. But there was nowhere in any
volume on which he laid his hands any further record
of his exploits. Others who followed in his steps men-
tioned his name, but of the man himself there was no
word more. No one had climbed with him, no one
had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For
five or six seasons he had flashed through the Alps.
Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the Concordia hut—
all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just
under twenty years ago he had come no more.
Chayne put back the volumes in their places on
the shelf, and sat down again in the arm-chair before
the empty grate. It was a strange and a haunting
story which he was gradually piecing together m his
« 193


RUNNING WATER
thoughts. Men like Gabriel Strood always come
back to the Alps. They sleep too restlessly at nights,
they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed
away. There must have been some great impedi-
ment. He fell into another train of thought. Sylvia
was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel Strood
married just after that last season when he climbed
from the Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was
still not unraveled, and while he perplexed his fancies
over the unraveling, the door opened, and a tall, thin
man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold.
He was a man of fifty years; his shoulders were just
learning how to stoop; and his face, fine and delicate,
yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an aspect of
melancholy, as though he lived much alone—until
he smiled. And in the smile there was much com-
panionship and love. He smiled now as he stretched
out his long, finely-molded hand.
"I am very glad to see you, Chayne," he said, in a
voice remarkable for its gentleness, "although in an-
other way I am sorry. I am sorry because, of course,
I know why you are in England and not among the
Alps."
Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid
a hand upon his shoulder and forced him down again
with a friendly pressure. "I read of Lattery's death.
I am grieved about it—for you as much as for Lat-
tery. I know just what that kind of loss means. It
means very much," said he, letting his deep-set eyes
rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man.
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KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
Kenyon put a whisky and soda by Chayne's elbow, and
setting the tobacco jar on a little table between them,
sat down and lighted his pipe.
"You came back at once?" he asked.
"I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into
Italy," replied Chayne.
"Yes, yes," said Kenyon, nodding his head. "But
you will go back next year, or the year after."
"Perhaps," said Chayne; and for a little while they
smoked their pipes in silence. Then Chayne came
to the object of his visit.
"Kenyon," he asked, "have you any photographs of
the people who went climbing twenty to twenty-five
years ago? I thought perhaps you might have some
groups taken in Switzerland in those days. If you
have, I should like to see them."
"Yes, I think I have," said Kenyon. He went
to his writing-desk and opening a drawer took out
a number of photographs. He brought them back,
and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light
fell clear and strong upon the little table, laid them
down.
Chayne bent over them with a beating heart. Was
his suspicion to be confirmed or disproved?
One by one he took the photographs, closely exam-
ined them, and laid them aside while Kenyon stood
upright on the other side of the table. He had turned
over a dozen before he stopped. He held in his hand
the picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open space before
the door. In the open space men were gathered. They
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RUNNING WATER
were talking in groups; some of them leaned upon ice-
axes, some carried Rucksacks upon their backs, as
though upon the point of starting for the hills. As he
held the photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and
bent his head a little lower, Kenyon made a slight un-
easy movement. But Chayne did not notice. He sat
very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph.
On the outskirts of the group stood Sylvia's father.
Younger, slighter of build, with a face unlined and a
boyish grace which had long since gone—but un-
doubtedly Sylvia's father.
The contours of the mountains told Chayne clearly
enough in what valley the hotel stood.
"This is Zermatt," he said, without lifting his eyes.
"Yes," replied Kenyon, quietly, "a Zermatt you
are too young to know," and then Chayne's forefinger
dropped upon the figure of Sylvia's father.
"Who is this?" he asked.
Kenyon made no answer.
"It is Gabriel Strood," Chayne continued.
There was a pause, and then Kenyon confirmed the
guess.
"Yes," he said, and some hint of emotion in his
voice made Chayne lift his eyes. The light striking
upward through the green shade gave to Kenyon's
face an extraordinary pallor. But it seemed to
Chayne that not all the pallor was due to the lamp.
"For six seasons," Chayne said, "Gabriel Strood
came to the Alps. In his first season he made a great
name."
196


KENYON'S JOHN LATTERY
"He was the best climber I have ever seen," replied
Kenyon.
"He had a passion for the mountains. Yet after
six years he came back no more. He disappeared.
Why?"
Kenyon stood absolutely silent, absolutely still.
Perhaps the trouble deepened a little on his face; but
that was all. Chayne, however, was bent upon an
answer. For Sylvia's sake alone he must have it, he
must know the father into whose clutches she had
come.
"You knew Gabriel Strood. Why?"
Kenyon leaned forward and gently took the photo-
graph out of Chayne's hand. He mixed it with the
others, not giving to it a single glance himself, and
then replaced them all in the drawer from which he
had taken them. He came back to the table and at
last answered Chayne:
"John Lattery was your friend. Some of the best
hours of your life were passed in his company. You
know that now. But you will know it still more
surely when you come to my age, whatever happiness
may come to you between now and then. The camp-
fire, the rock-slab for your floor and the black night
about you for walls, the hours of talk, the ridge and
the ice-slope, the bad times in storm and mist, the
good times in the sunshine, the cold nights of hunger
when you were caught by the darkness, the off-days
when you lounged at your ease. You won't forget
John Lattery."
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RUNNING WATER
Kenyon spoke very quietly but with a conviction,
and, indeed, a certain solemnity, which impressed his
companion.
"No," said Chayne, gently, "I shall not forget John
Lattery." But his question was still unanswered, and
by nature he was tenacious. His eyes were still upon
Kenyon's face and he added: "What then?"
"Only this," said Kenyon. "Gabriel Strood was
my John Lattery," and moving round the table he
dropped his hand upon Chayne's shoulder. "You
will ask me no more questions," he said, with a smile.
"I beg your pardon," said Chayne.
He had his answer. He knew now that there was
something to conceal, that there was a definite reason
why Gabriel Strood disappeared.
"Good-night," he said; and as he left the room
he saw Kenyon sink down into his arm-chair. There
seemed something sad and very lonely in the attitude
of the older man. Once more Michel Revailloud's
warning rose up within his mind.
"When it is all over, and you go home, take care
that there is a lighted lamp in the room and the room
not empty. Have some one to share your memories
when life is nothing but memories."
At every turn the simple philosophy of Michel
Revailloud seemed to obtain an instance and a con-
firmation. Was that to be his own fate too? Just
for a moment he was daunted. He closed the door
noiselessly, and going down the stairs let himself out
into the street. The night was clear above his head.
198


KENYON’S JOHN LATTERY
How was it above the Downs of Dorsetshire, he won-
dered. He walked along the street very slowly.
Garratt Skinner was Gabriel Strood. There was
clearly a dark reason for the metamorphosis. It re-
mained for Chayne to discover that reason. But he
did not ponder any more upon that problem to-night.
He was merely thinking as he walked along the street
that Michel Revailloud was a very wise man.
199


CHAPTER XVI
AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
BETWEEN gentlemen," said Wallie Hine. "Yes,
between gentlemen."
He was quoting from a letter which he held in his
hand, as he sat at the breakfast table, and, in his agita-
tion, he had quoted aloud. Garratt Skinner looked up
from his plate and said:
"Can I help you, Wallie?"
Hine flushed red and stammered out: "No, thank
you. I must run up to town this morning—that 's
all."
"Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-
cart after breakfast," said Garratt Skinner, and he
made no further reference to the journey. But he
glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with
some perplexity at Walter Hine. "You will be back
this evening, I suppose?"
"Rather," said Walter Hine, with a smile across
the table at Sylvia; but his agitation got the better
of his gallantry, and as she drove him into Wey-
mouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for
protection. "I don't want to go one little bit, Miss
200


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
Sylvia. But between gentlemen. Yes, I must n't for-
get that. Between gentlemen." He clung to the
phrase, finding some comfort in its reiteration.
"You have given me your promise," said Sylvia.
"There will be no cards, no bets."
Walter Hine laughed bitterly.
"I shan't break it. I have had my lesson. By
Jove, I have."
Walter Hine traveled to Waterloo and drove
straight to the office of Mr. Jarvice.
"I owe some money," he began, bleating the words
out the moment he was ushered into the inner office.
Mr. Jarvice grinned.
"This interview is concluded," he said. "There 's
the door."
"I owe it to a friend, Captain Barstow," Hine con-
tinued, in desperation. "A thousand pounds. He
has written for it. He says that debts of honor be-
tween gentlemen—" But he got no further, for Mr.
Jarvice broke in upon his faltering explanations with
a snarl of contempt.
"Barstow! You poor little innocent. I have
something else to do with my money than to pour it
into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send
him to me to-morrow, and I 'll talk to him—as be-
tween gentlemen."
Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed
to deference and flatteries in the household of Garratt
Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr. Jarvice
stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong ele-
201


RUNNING WATER
ment of his character. He was in the mind hotly to
defend Captain Barstow from Mr. Jarvice's insinua-
tions, but he refrained.
"Then Barstow will know that I draw my allow-
ance from you, and not from my grandfather," he
stammered. There was the trouble for Walter Hine.
If Barstow knew, Garratt Skinner would come to
know. There would be an end to the deference and
the flatteries. He would no longer be able to pose as
the favorite of the great millionaire, Joseph Hine. He
would sink in Sylvia's eyes. At the cost of any humil-
iation that downfall must be avoided.
His words, however, had an immediate effect upon
Mr. Jarvice, though for quite other reasons.
"Why, that 's true," said Mr. Jarvice, slowly, and
in a voice suddenly grown smooth. "Yes, yes, we
don't want to mix up my name in the affair at all.
Sit down, Mr. Hine, and take a cigar. The box is at
your elbow. Young men of spirit must have some
extra license allowed to them for the sake of the prom-
ise of their riper years. I was forgetting that.
No, we don't want my name to appear at all, do
we?"
Publicity had no charms for Mr. Jarvice. Indeed,
on more than one occasion he had found it quite a
hindrance to the development of his little plans. To
go his own quiet way, unheralded by the press and
unacclaimed of men—that was the modest ambition
of Mr. Jarvice.
"However, I don't look forward to handing over
202


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
a thousand pounds to Captain Barstow," he continued,
softly. "No, indeed. Did you lose any of your
first quarter's allowance to him besides the thou-
sand?"
Walter Hine lit his cigar and answered reluct-
antly:
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Oh no, no, not all of it."
Jarvice did not press for the exact amount. He
walked to the window and stood there with his hands
in his pockets and his back toward his visitor. Walter
Hine watched his shoulders in suspense and appre-
hension. He would have been greatly surprised if he
could have caught a glimpse at this moment of Mr.
Jarvice's face. There was no anger, no contempt,
expressed in it at all. On the contrary, a quiet smile
of satisfaction gave to it almost a merry look. Mr.
Jarvice had certain plans for Walter Hine's future—
so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of
the phrase—and fate seemed to be helping toward
their fulfilment.
"I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said
Jarvice, turning back to his table. "The means I
must think over, but I can do it. Only there 's a con-
dition. You need not be alarmed. A little condition
which a loving father might impose upon his only
son," and Mr. Jarvice beamed paternally as he re-
sumed his seat.
"What is the condition?" asked Walter Hine.
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RUNNING WATER
"That you travel for a year, broaden your mind by
visiting the great countries and capitals of Europe,
take a little trip perhaps into the East and return a
cultured gentleman well equipped to occupy the high
position which will be yours when your grandfather
is in due time translated to a better sphere."
Mr. Jarvice leaned back in his chair, and with a
confident wave of his desk ruler had the air of produc-
ing the startling metamorphosis like some heavy but
benevolent fairy. Walter Hine, however, was not at-
tracted by the prospect.
"But—" he began, and at once Mr. Jarvice inter-
rupted him.
"I anticipate you," he said, with a smile. "Stand-
ing at the window there, I foresaw your objection.
But—it would be lonely. Quite true. Why should
you be lonely? And so I am going to lay my hands
on some pleasant and companionable young fellow
who will go with you for his expenses. An Oxford
man, eh? Fresh from Alma Mater with a taste for
pictures and statuettes and that sort of thing! Upon
my word, I envy you, Mr. Hine. If I were young,
bless me, if I would n't throw my bonnet over the mill,
as after a few weeks in La Ville Lumiere you will be
saying, and go with you. You will taste life—yes,
life."
And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died
suddenly out of the face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his
eyes somberly upon his visitor and a queer inscrutable
smile played about his lips. But Walter Hine had
204



She is the daughter of a great friend of mine '"


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
no eyes for Mr. Jarvice. He was nerving himself to
refuse the proposal.
"I can't go,” he blurted out, with the ungracious
stubbornness of a weak mind which fears to be over-
persuaded. Afraid lest he should consent, he refused
aggressively and rudely.
Mr. Jarvice repressed an exclamation of anger.
"And why?” he asked, leaning forward on his elbows
and fixing his bright, sharp eyes on Walter Hine's
face.
Walter Hine shifted uncomfortably in his chair but
did not answer.
“And why can't you go?” he repeated.
"I can't tell you."
“Oh, surely,” said Mr. Jarvice, with a scarcely per-
ceptible sneer. “Come now! Between gentlemen!
Well?”
Walter Hine yielded to Jarvice's insistence.
“There 's a girl," he said, with a coy and odious
smile.
Mr. Jarvice beat upon his desk with his fists in a
savage anger. His carefully calculated plan was to
be thwarted by a girl.
"She 's a dear,” cried Walter Hine. Having
made the admission, he let himself go. His vanity
pricked him to lyrical flights. "She 's a dear, she 's
a sob, she would never let me go, she 's my little
girl."
Such was Sylvia's reward for engaging in a strug-
gle which she loathed for the salvation of Walter
205


RUNNING WATER
Hine. She was jubilantly claimed by him as his little
girl in a money-lender's office. Mr. Jarvice swore
aloud.
"Who is she?" he asked, sternly.
A faint sense of shame came over Walter Hine. He
dimly imagined what Sylvia would have thought and
said, and what contempt her looks would have be-
trayed, had she heard him thus boast of her good-
will.
"You are asking too much, Mr. Jarvice," he said.
Mr. Jarvice waved the objection aside.
"Of course I ask it as between gentlemen," he said,
with an ironical politeness.
"Well, then, as between gentlemen," returned
Walter Hine, seriously. "She is the daughter of a
great friend of mine, Mr. Garratt Skinner. What 's
the matter?" he cried; and there was reason for his
cry.
It had been an afternoon of surprises for Mr. Jar-
vice, but this simple mention of the name of Garratt
Skinner was more than a surprise. Mr. Jarvice was
positively startled. He leaned back in his chair with
his mouth open and his eyes staring at Walter Hine.
The high color paled in his face and his cheeks grew
mottled. It seemed that fear as well as surprise came
to him in the knowledge that Garratt Skinner was a
friend of Walter Hine.
"What is the matter?" repeated Hine.
"It 's nothing," replied Mr. Jarvice, hastily. "The
heat, that is all." He crossed the room, and throwing
206


RUNNING WATER
nothing in the story as Jarvice understood it. He
was the mere creature, the servant. Garratt Skinner,
who was always in the background, prepared the
swindle and pocketed the profits.
"You are staying at the quiet house in Dorsetshire
now, I suppose. Just you and Garratt Skinner and
the pretty daughter, with occasional visits from Bar-
stow?"
"Yes," answered Hine. "Garratt Skinner does not
care to see much company."
Once more the smile of amusement played upon
Mr. Jarvice's face.
"No, I suppose not," he said, quietly. There were
certain definite reasons of which he was aware, to ac-
count for Garratt Skinner's reluctance to appear in
a general company. He turned back from the window
and returned to his table. He had taken his part.
There was no longer either unsteadiness or anger in
his voice.
"I quite understand your reluctance to leave your
new friends," he said, with the utmost friendliness.
"I recognize that the tour abroad on which I had
rather set my heart must be abandoned. But I have
no regrets. For I think it possible that the very ob-
ject which I had in mind when proposing that tour
may be quite as easily effected.in the charming country
house of Garratt Skinner."
He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, looking
benevolently at his visitor. If the words were capa-
ble of another and a more sinister meaning than they
208


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
appeared to convey, Walter Hine did not suspect it.
He took them in their obvious sense.
"Yes, I shall gain as much culture in Garratt Skin-
ner's house as I should by seeing picture-galleries
abroad," he said eagerly, and then Mr. Jarvice smiled.
"I think that very likely," he said. "Meanwhile,
as to Barstow and his thousand pounds. I must think
the matter over. Barstow will not press you for a day
or two. Just leave me your address—the address in
Dorsetshire."
He dipped a pen in the ink and handed it to Hine.
Hine took it and drew a sheet of paper toward him.
But he did not set the pen to the paper. He looked
suddenly up at Jarvice, who stood over against him at
the other side of the table.
"Garratt Skinner's address?" he said, with one of
his flashes of cunning.
"Yes, since you are staying there. I shall want to
write to you."
Walter Hine still hesitated.
"You won't peach to Garratt Skinner about the al-
lowance, eh?"
"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Jarvice. He was more
hurt than offended. "To put it on the lowest ground,
what could I gain?"
Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once
the clerk appeared at the door and handed Jarvice a
card.
"I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine:
"Our business is over, I think."


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
estate, had been steered into this inner office by the
careful pilotage of Garratt Skinner. In all the army
of the men who live by their wits, there was not one
to Jarvice's knowledge who was so alert as Garratt
Skinner to lay hands upon the new victim or so suc-
cessful in lulling his suspicions. He might have fore-
seen that Garratt Skinner would throw his net over
Walter Hine. But he had not, and the harm was
done.
Mr. Jarvice took the insurance policy from his safe
and shook his head over it sadly. He had seen his
way to making in his quiet fashion, and at compara-
tively little cost, a tidy little sum of one hundred thou-
sand pounds. Now he must take a partner, so that he
might not have an enemy. Garratt Skinner with Bar-
stow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for his
decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded.
Jarvice must share with Garratt Skinner—unless he
preferred to abandon his scheme altogether; and that
Mr. Jarvice would not do.
There was no other way. Jarvice knew well that
he could weaken Garratt Skinner's influence over
Walter Hine by revealing to the youth certain episodes
in the new friend's life. He might even break the
acquaintanceship altogether. But Garratt Skinner
would surely discover who had been at work. And
then? Why, then, Mr. Jarvice would have upon his
heels a shrewd and watchful enemy; and in this par-
ticular business, such an enemy Mr. Jarvice could not
afford to have. Jarvice was not an impressionable
211


AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
pushed his head forward and peered through the
shadows to make sure that it was his master who spoke.
Two days afterward Garratt Skinner paid a long
visit to Mr. Jarvice, and that some agreement was
reached between the two men shortly became evident.
For Walter Hine received a letter from Captain Bar-
stow which greatly relieved him.
"Garratt Skinner has written to me," wrote the 'red-
hot' Captain, "that he has discovered that the gardener,
whom he engaged for a particular job, is notorious
as a poacher and a first-class shot. Under these cir-
cumstances, my dear old fellow, the red-hot one can-
not pouch your pennies. As between gentlemen, the
bet must be considered o-p-h."
213


CHAPTER XVII
SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
HILARY CHAYNE stayed away from Dorsetshire
for ten complete days; and though the hours
crept by, dilatory as idlers at a street corner, he ob-
tained some poor compensation by reflecting upon his
fine diplomacy. In less than a week he would surely
be missed; by the time that ten days had passed the
sensation might have become simply poignant . So
for ten days he wandered about the Downs of Sussex
with an aching heart, saying the while, "It serves her
right." On the morning of the eleventh he received
a letter from the War Office, bidding him call on the
following afternoon.
"That will just do," he said. "I will go down to
Weymouth to-day, and I will return to London to-
morrow." And with an unusual lightness of spirit,
which he ascribed purely to his satisfaction that he
need punish Sylvia no longer, he started off upon his
long journey. He reached the house of the Running
Water by six o'clock in the evening; and at the outset
it seemed that his diplomacy had been sagacious.
He was shown into the library, and opposite to him
by the window Sylvia stood alone. She turned to him
214


SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
a white terror-haunted face, gazed at him for a second
like one dazed, and then with a low cry of welcome
came quickly toward him. Chayne caught her out-
stretched hands and all his joy at her welcome lay dead
at the sight of her distress. "Sylvia!" he exclaimed
in distress. He was hurt by it as he had never thought
to be hurt.
"I am afraid!" she said, in a trembling whisper.
He drew her toward him and she yielded. She stood
close to him and very still, touching him, leaning to
him like a frightened child. "Oh, I am afraid," she
repeated; and her voice appealed piteously for sym-
pathy and a little kindness.
In Chayne's mind there was suddenly painted a
picture of the ice-slope on the Aiguille d'Argentiere.
A girl had moved from step to step, across that slope,
looking down its steep glittering incline without a
tremor. It was the same girl who now leaned to him
and with shaking lips and eyes tortured with fear cried,
"I am afraid." By his recollection of that day upon
the heights Chayne measured the greatness of her
present trouble.
"Why, Sylvia? Why are you afraid?"
For answer she looked toward the open window.
Chayne followed her glance and this was what he saw:
The level stretch of emerald lawn, the stream running
through it and catching in its brown water the red
light of the evening sun, the great beech trees casting
their broad shadows, the high garden walls with the
dusky red of their bricks glowing amongst fruit trees,
215


RUNNING WATER
and within that enclosure pacing up and down, in and
out among the shadows of the trees, Garratt Skinner
and Walter Hine. Yet that sight she must needs have
seen before. Why should it terrify her beyond reason
now?
"Do you see?" Sylvia said in a low troubled voice.
For once distress had mastered her and she spoke
without her usual reticence. "There can be no friend-
ship between those two. No real friendship! You
have but to see them side by side to be sure of it . It
is pretence."
Yet that too she must have known before. Why
then should the pretence now so greatly trouble her?
Chayne watched the two men pacing in the garden.
Certainly he had never seen them in so intimate a
comradeship. Garratt Skinner had passed his arm
through Walter Hine's and held him so, plying him
with stories, bending down his keen furrowed aquiline
face toward him as though he had no thought in the
world but to make him his friend and bind him with
affection; and Walter Hine looked up and listened
and laughed, a vain, weak wisp of a creature, flattered
to the skies and defenceless as a rabbit
.
"Why the pretence?" said Sylvia. "Why the
linked arms? The pretence has grown during these
last days. What new thing is intended?" Her eyes
were on the garden, and as she looked it seemed that
her terror grew. "My father went away a week ago.
Since he has returned the pretence has increased. I am
afraid! I am afraid!"
216


SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
Garratt Skinner turned in his walk and led Walter
Hine back toward the house. Sylvia shrank from
his approach as from something devilish. When he
turned again, she drew her breath like one escaped
from sudden peril.
"Sylvia! Of what are you afraid?"
"I don't know !" she cried. “That's just the
trouble. I don't know !” She clenched her hands
together at her breast. Chayne caught them in his
and was aware that in one shut palm she held some-
thing which she concealed. Her clasp tightened upon
it as his hands touched hers. Sylvia had more reason
for her fears than she had disclosed. Barstow came
no more. There were no more cards, no more bets;
and this change taken together with Garratt Skinner's
increased friendship added to her apprehensions. She
dreaded some new plot more sinister, more terrible
than that one of which she was aware.
“If only I knew," she cried. “Oh, if only I knew !"
Archie Parminter had paid one visit to the house,
had stayed for one night; and he and Garratt Skinner
and Walter Hine had sat up till morning, talking
together in the library. Sylvia waking up from a fitful
sleep, had heard their voices again and again through
the dark hours; and when the dawn was gray, she had
heard them coming up to bed as on the first night of
her return; and as on that night there was one who
stumbled heavily. It was since that night that terror
had distracted her.
“I have no longer any power," she said. “Some-
217


SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
whole eyeball. Can you think why?" and even as
she asked, she looked at that clenched hand of hers
as though the answer to that question as well lay
hidden there. "I am afraid," she said once more;
and upon that Chayne committed the worst of the
many indiscretions which had signalized his courtship.
"You are afraid? Sylvia! Then let me take you
away!"
At once Sylvia drew back. Had Chayne not spoken,
she would have told him all that there was to tell.
She was in the mood at this unguarded moment. She
would have told him that during these last days
Walter Hine had taken to drink once more. She
would have opened that clenched fist and showed the
thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her
father beyond all hope of exculpation. But Chayne
had checked her as surely as though he had laid the
palm of his hand upon her lips. He would talk of
love and flight, and of neither had she any wish to
hear. She craved with a great yearning for sympathy
and a little kindness. But Chayne was not content
to offer what she needed. He would add more, and
what he added marred the whole gift for Sylvia.
She shook her head, and looking at him with a sad and
gentle smile, said:
"Love is for the happy people."
"That is a hard saying, Sylvia," Chayne returned,
"and not a true one.'
"True to me," said Sylvia, with a deep conviction,
and as he advanced to her she raised her hand to keep
219


RUNNING WATER
him off. "No, no," she cried, and had he listened,
he might have heard a hint of exasperation in her
voice. But he would not be warned.
"You can't go on, living here, without sympathy,
without love, without even kindness. Already it is
evident. You are ill, and tired. And you think to
go on all your life or all your father's life. Sylvia, let
me take you away!"
And each unwise word set him further and further
from his aim. It seemed to her that there was no help
anywhere. Chayne in front of her seemed to her
almost as much her enemy as her father, who paced
the lawn behind her arm in arm with Walter Hine.
She clasped her hands together with a quick sharp
movement.
"I will not let you take me away," she cried. "For
I do not love you"; and her voice had lost its gentle-
ness and grown cold and hard. Chayne began again,
but whether it was with a renewal of his plea, she did
not hear. For she broke in upon him quickly:
"Please, let me finish. I am, as you said, a little
over-wrought! Just hear me out and leave me to
bear my troubles by myself. You will make it easier
for me"; she saw that the words hurt her lover.
But she did not modify them. She was in the mood
to hurt. She had been betrayed by her need of sym-
pathy into speaking words which she would gladly
have recalled; she had been caught off her guard and
almost unawares; and she resented it. Chayne had
told her that she looked ill and tired; and she resented
390


RUNNING WATER
in his voice. He had consented to listen, because
she wished it. Now he listened with a keen attention.
For a strange thought had crept into his mind.
“We drove up the hill toward the plateau at the
top of the island, but as we passed through the village
- Fortune's Well I think they call it-my father
stopped the carriage at a tobacconist's, and went
into the shop. He came out again with some
plugs of tobacco a good many—and got into the
carriage. You won't guess why he bought them. I
did n't.”
"Well?” said Chayne, and now he spoke with sus-
pense. Suspense, too, was visible in his quiet atti-
tude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's sake
he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now
call himself Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery.
But he must unravel it without doing any hurt to
Sylvia. He could not go too warily—of that he had
been sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak
of it. There might be some hidden thing which for
Sylvia's sake must not be brought to light. There-
fore he must find out the truth without help from
any one. He wondered whether unconsciously Sylvia
herself was going to give him the clue. Was she to
tell him what she did not know herself-why Gabriel
Strood was now Garratt Skinner? “Well?” he re-
peated.
"As we continued up the hill,” she resumed, “my
father cut up the tobacco into small pieces with his
pocket knife. “Why are you doing that?" I asked,
222


SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
and he laughed and said, "Wait, you will see." At
the top of the hill we got out of the carriage and
walked across the open plateau. In front of us, rising
high above a little village, stood out a hideous white
building. My father asked if I knew what it was.
I said I guessed."
"It was the prison," Chayne interrupted, quickly.
"Yes."
"You went to it?"
Upon the answer to the question depended whether
or no Chayne was to unravel his mystery to-day.
"No," replied Sylvia, and Chayne drew a breath.
Had she answered "Yes," the suspicion which had
formed within his mind must needs be set aside, as
clearly and finally disproved. Since she answered
"No," the suspicion gathered strength. "We went,
however, near to it. We went as close to it as the
quarries. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and
as we came to the corner of the wall which surrounds
the quarries, my father said, 'They have stopped work
now.'"
"He knew that?" asked Chayne.
"Yes. We turned into a street which runs down
toward the prison. On one side are small houses,
on the other the long wall of the Government quarries.
The street was empty; only now and then—very sel-
dom—some one passed along it. On the top of the
wall, there were sentry-boxes built at intervals, for
the warders to overlook the convicts. But these were
empty too. The wall is not high; I suppose—in fact
22.-?


RUNNING WATER
my father said—the quarry was deep on the other
side."
"Yes," said Chayne, quietly. "And then?"
"Then we walked slowly along the street, and when-
ever there was no one near", my father threw some
tobacco over the wall. 'I don't suppose they have a
very enjoyable time,' he said. 'They will be glad to
find the tobacco there to-morrow.' We walked up
the street and turned and came back, and when we
reached the corner he said with a laugh, 'That 's all,
Sylvia. My pockets are empty.' We walked back to
the carriage and drove home again to Weymouth."
Sylvia had finished her story, and the mystery was
clear to Chayne. She had told him the secret which
she did not know herself. He was sure now why
Gabriel Strood had changed his name; he knew now
why Gabriel Strood no longer climbed the Alps; and
why Kenyon would answer no question as to the dis-
appearance of his friend.
"I have told you this," said Sylvia, "because you
accused my father of unkindness and want of thought.
Would you have thought of those poor prisoners over
ther© in the quarries? If you had, would you have
taken so much trouble just to give them a small luxury?
I think they must have blessed the unknown man who
thought for them and showed them what so many
want—a little sympathy and a little kindness."
Chayne bowed his head.
"Yes," he said, gently. "I was unjust."
Indeed even to himself he acknowledged that Gar-
224


SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
ratt Skinner had shown an unexpected kindness,
although he was sure of the reason for the act. He
had no doubt that Garratt Skinner had labored in
those quarries himself, and perhaps had himself picked
up in bygone days, as he stooped over his work, to-
bacco thrown over the walls by some more fortunate
man.
. "I am glad you acknowledge that," said Sylvia, but
her voice did not relent from its hostility. She stood
without further word, expecting him to take his leave.
Chayne recollected with how hopeful a spirit he had
traveled down from London. His fine diplomacy had
after all availed him little. He had gained certainly
some unexpected knowledge which convinced him still
more thoroughly that the sooner he took Sylvia away
from her father and his friends the better it would be.
But he was no nearer to his desire. It might be that
he was further off than ever.
"You are returning to London?" she asked.
"Yes. I have to call at the War Office to-morrow."
Sylvia had no curiosity as to that visit. She took no
interest in it whatever, he noticed with a pang.
"And then?" she asked slowly, as she crossed the
hall with him to the door. "You will go home?"
Chayne smiled rather bitterly.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Into Sussex?"
"Yes."
She opened the door, and as he came out on to the
steps she looked at him with a thoughtful scrutiny
15 225


RUNNING WATER
for a few moments. But whether her thoughts por-
tended good or ill for him, he could not tell.
"When I was a boy," he said abruptly, "I used
to see from the garden of my house, far away in a
dip of the downs, a dark high wall standing up against
the sky. I never troubled myself as to how it came
to have been built there. But I used to wonder, being
a boy, whether it could be scaled or no. One after-
noon I rode my pony over to find out, and I discov-
ered—What do you think?—that my wall was a mere
hedge just three feet high, no more."
"Well!" said Sylvia.
"Well, I have not forgotten—that's all," he replied.
"Good-by," she said, and he learned no more from
her voice than he had done from her looks. He walked
away down the lane, and having gone a few yards he
looked back. Sylvia was still standing in the door-
way, watching him with grave and thoughtful eyes.
But there was no invitation to him to return, and
turning away again he walked on.
Sylvia went up-stairs to her room. She unclenched
her hand at last. In its palm there lay a little phial
containing a colorless solution. But there was a label
upon the phial, and on the label was written "co-
caine." It was that which had struck at her influ-
ence over Walter Hine. It was to introduce this drug
that Archie Parminter had been brought down from
London and the West End clubs.
"It's drunk a good deal in a quiet way," Archie had
said, as he made a pretence himself to drink it.
226


CHAPTER XVIII
BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
CHAYNE'S house stood high upon a slope of the
Sussex Downs. Built of stone two centuries ago,
it seemed gradually to have taken on the brown color
of the hill behind it, subduing itself to the general
scheme, even as birds and animals will do; so that
strangers who searched for it in the valley discovered
it by the upward swirl of smoke from its wide chim-
neys. On its western side and just beneath the house,
there was a cleft in the downs through which the
high road ran and in the cleft the houses of a tiny
village clustered even as at the foot of some old castle
in Picardy. On the east the great ridge with its
shadow-holding hollows, its rounded gorse-strewn
slopes of grass, rolled away for ten miles and then
dipped suddenly to the banks of the River Aran. The
house faced the south, and from its high-terraced gar-
den, a great stretch of park and forest land was
visible, where amidst the green and russet of elm and
beach, a cluster of yews set here and there gave the
illusion of a black and empty space. Beyond the forest
land a lower ridge of hills rose up, and over that ridge
228


BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
one saw the spires of Chichester and the level flats of
Selsea reaching to the sea.
Into this garden Chayne came on the next after-
noon, and as he walked along its paths alone he could
almost fancy that his dead father paced with the
help of his stick at his side, talking, as had been his
wont, of this or that improvement needed by the
farms, pointing out to him a meadow in the hollow
beneath which might soon be coming into the market,
and always ending up with the same plea.
"Is n't it time, Hilary, that you married and came
home to look after it all yourself?"
Chayne had turned a deaf ear to that plea, but it
made its appeal to him to-night. Wherever his eyes
rested, he recaptured something of his boyhood;
the country-side was alive with memories. He looked
south, and remembered how the perished cities of
history had acquired reality for him by taking on
the aspect of Chichester lying low there on the flats;
and how the spires of the fabled towns of his story-
books had caught the light of the setting sun, just
as did now the towers of the cathedral. Eastward,
in the dip between the shoulder of the downs, and
the trees of Arundel Park, a long black hedge stood
out with a remarkable definition against the sky—
the hedge of which he had spoken to Sylvia—the
great dark wall of brambles guarding the precincts of
the Sleeping Beauty. He recalled the adventurous
day when he had first ridden alone upon his pony
along the great back of the downs and had come
229


RUNNING WATER
down to it through a sylvan country of silence and
ferns and open spaces; and had discovered it to be no
more than a hedge waist-high. The dusk came upon
him as he loitered in that solitary garden; the lights
shone out in cottage and farm-house; and more
closely still his memories crowded about him weaving
spells. Some one to share them with! Chayne had
no need to wait for old age before he learnt the wisdom
of Michel Revailloud. For his heart leaped now, as
he dreamed of exploring once more with Sylvia at his
side the enchanted country of his boyhood; gallops
in the quiet summer mornings along that still visible
track across the downs, by which the Roman legions
had marched in the old days from London straight
as a die to Chichester; winter days with the hounds;
a rush on windy afternoons in a sloop-rigged boat
down the Arun to Littlehampton. Chayne's heart
leaped with a passionate longing as he dreamed, and
sank as he turned again to the blank windows of the
empty house.
He dined alone, and while he dined evoked Sylvia's
presence at the table, setting her, not at the far end,
but at the side and close, so that a hand might now
and then touch hers; calling up into her face her
slow hesitating smile; seeing her still gray eyes grow
tender; in a word watching the Madonna change into
the woman. He went into the library where, since
the night had grown chilly, a fire was lit. It was a
place of comfort, with high bookshelves, deep-cushioned
chairs, and dark curtains. But, no less than the
230


BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
dining-room it needed another presence, and lacking
that lacked everything. It needed the girl with the
tired and terror-haunted face. Here, surely the fear
would die out of her soul, the eyes would lose their
shadows, the feet regain the lightness of their step.
Chayne took down his favorite books, but they
failed him. Between the pages and his eyes one face
would shape itself. He looked into the fire and sought
as of old to picture in the flames some mountain on
which his hopes were set and to discover the right
line for its ascent. But even that pastime brought
no solace for his discontent. The house oppressed
him. It was empty, it was silent. He drew aside
the curtains and looking down into the valley through
the clear night air watched the lights in cottage and
farm with the envy born of his loneliness.
In spite of the brave words he had used, he won-
dered to-night whether the three-foot hedge was not
after all to prove the unassailable wall. And it was
important that he should know. For if it were so,
why then he had not called at the War Office in vain.
A proposal had been made to him—that he should
join a commission for the delimitation of a distant
frontier. A year's work and an immediate departure
—those were the conditions. Within two days he
must make up his mind—within ten days he must
leave England.
Chayne pondered over the decision which he must
make. If he had lost Sylvia, here was the mission
to accept. For it meant complete severance, a separa-
231


BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
two days, however, Sylvia persevered, and on the third
her lightness of spirit unaccountably deserted her.
She drove with Walter Hine that morning, and
something of his own irritability seemed to have passed
into her; so that he turned to her and asked:
"What have I done? Are n't you pleased with me?
Why are you angry?"
"I am not angry," she replied, turning her great
gray eyes upon him. "But if you wish to know, I
miss something."
So much she owned. She missed something, and
she knew very well what it was that she missed.
Even as Chayne in his Sussex home had ached to
know that the house lacked a particular presence,
so it began to be with Sylvia in Dorsetshire.
"Yet he has been absent for a longer time," she
argued with herself, "and I have not missed him.
Indeed, I have been glad of his absence." And the
answer came quickly from her thoughts.
"At any time you could have called him to your
side, and you knew it. Now you have sent him away
for always."
During the week the sense of loss, the feeling that
everything was unbearably incomplete, grew stronger
and stronger within her. She had no heart for the
losing battle in which she was engaged. A dangerous
question began to force itself forward in her mind
whenever her eyes rested upon Walter Hine. "Was
he worth while?" she asked herself: though as yet
she did not define all that the "while" connoted.
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RUNNING WATER
The question was most prominent in her mind on
the seventh day after the letter had been sent. She
had persuaded Walter Hine to mount with her on
to the down behind the house; they came to the
great White Horse, and Hine, pleading fatigue, a plea
which during these last days had been ever on his
lips, flung himself down upon the grass. For a little
time Sylvia sat idly watching the great battle ships
at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an afternoon
of August; a light haze hung in the still air soften-
ing the distant promontories; and on the waveless
sparkling sea the great ships, coal-black to the eye,
circled about the targets, with now and then a roar
of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous
engines of heat—heat stifling and oppressive. By
sheer contrast, Sylvia began to dream of the cool
glaciers; and the Chalet de Lognan suddenly stood
visible before her eyes. She watched the sunlight
die off the red rocks of the Chardonnet, the evening
come with silent feet across the snow, and the star-
lit night follow close upon its heels; night fled as she
dreamed. She saw the ice-slope on the Aiguille
d'Argentiere, she could almost hear the chip-chip of
the axes as the steps were cut and the perpetual hiss as
the ice-fragments streamed down the slope. Then
she looked toward Walter Hine with the speculative
inquiry which had come so often into her eyes of late.
And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from
a pocket a tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into
his mouth-
234


BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
"How long have you been taking cocaine?" she
asked, suddenly.
Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with
a shrinking look.
"I don't," he stammered.
"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found
it."
N "That was not mine," said he, still more confused.
"That was Archie Parminter's. He left it behind."
"Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion con-
firmed. "But he left it for you?"
"And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably
to her, "what can it matter to you? I believe that what
your father says is true."
"What does he say?"
"That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it 's
no use for any one else to think of you."
Sylvia started.
"Oh, he says that!"
She understood now one of the methods of the new
intrigue. Sylvia was in love with Chayne; there-
fore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine.
It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it. Oh, no!
But Archie Parminter is invited for the night, takes
the drug himself, or pretends to take it, praises it, de-
scribes how the use of it has grown in the West End
and amongst the clubs, and then conveniently leaves
the drug behind, and no doubt supplies it as it is
required.
Sylvia began to dilate upon its ill-effec.ts, and sud-
235


RUNNING WATER
denly broke off. A great disgust was within her and
stopped her speech. She got to her feet. “Let us
go home,” she said, and she went very quickly down
the hill. When she came to the house she ran up-stairs
to her room, locked the door and flung herself upon
her bed. Walter Hine, her father, their plots and
intrigues, were swept clean from her mind as of no
account. Her struggle for the mastery became unim-
portant in her thoughts-a folly, a waste. For what
her father had said was true; she cared for Chayne.
And what she herself had said to Chayne when first
he came to the House of the Running Water was no
less true. "If I loved, I think nothing else would
count at all except that I loved.”
She had judged herself aright. She knew that,
as she lay prone upon her bed, plunged in misery,
while the birds called upon the boughs in the garden
and the mill stream filled the room with its leaping
music. In a few minutes a servant knocked upon
the door and told her that tea was ready in the library;
but she returned no answer. And in a few minutes
more-or so it seemed, but meanwhile the dusk had
come—there came another knock and she was told
that dinner had been served. But to that message
again she returned no answer. The noises, of the
busy day ceased in the fields, the birds were hushed
upon the branches, quiet and darkness took and re-
freshed the world. Only the throbbing music of the
stream beat upon the ears, and beat with a louder sig-
nificance, since all else was still. Sylvia lay staring
236


BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
wide-eyed into the darkness. To the murmur of this
music, in perhaps this very room, she had been born.
"Why," she asked piteously, "why?" Of what use
was it that she must suffer?
Of all the bad hours of her life, these were the
worst. For the yearning for happiness and love
throbbed and cried at her heart, louder and louder,
just as the music of the stream swelled to importance
with the coming of the night. And she learned that
she had had both love and happiness within her grasp
and that she had thrown them away for a shadow.
She thought of the letter which she had written,
recalling its phrases with a sinking heart.
"No man could forgive them. I must have been
mad," she said, and she huddled herself upon her bed
and wept aloud.
She ran over in her mind the conversations which
she and Hilary Chayne had exchanged, and each
recollection accused her of impatience and paid a
tribute to his gentleness. On the very first day he
had asked her to go with him and her heart cried out
now:
"Why did n't I go?"
He had been faithful and loyal ever since, and she
had called his faithfulness importunity and his loyalty
a humiliation. She struck a match and looked at her
watch and by habit wound it up. And she drearily
wondered on how many, many nights she would have
to wind it up and speculate in ignorance what he, her
lover, was doing and in what corner of the world,
237


CHAPTER XIX
THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM
SYLVIA raised her hand suddenly, enjoining silence,
and turned back into the room. She had heard a
door slam violently within the house; and now from
the hall voices rose. Her father and Walter Hine were
coming up early to-night from the library, and it
seemed in anger. At all events Walter Hine was
angry. His voice rang up the stairway shrill and
violent.
"Why do you keep it from me? I will have it, I
tell you. I am not a child," and an oath or two
garnished the sentences.
Sylvia heard her father reply with the patronage
which never failed to sting the vanity of his com-
panion, which was the surest means to provoke a
quarrel, if a quarrel he desired.
"Go to bed, Wallie! Leave such things to Archie
Parminter! You are too young."
His voice was friendly, but a little louder than he
generally used, so that Sylvia clearly distinguished
every word; so clearly indeed, that had he wished her
to hear, thus he would have spoken. She heard the
239


THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM
"Were you afraid that I would n't come, Sylvia?"
he asked, with a low, quiet laugh.
She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he
saw at once the tears bright in her eyes and the smile
trembling upon her lips.
"No," she said, "I rather thought that you would
come," and she laughed as she spoke. Or did she
sob? He could hardly tell, so near she was to both.
"Oh, but I could not be sure! I wrote with so
much unkindness," and her eyes dropped from his in
shame.
"Hush!" he said, and he held her close.
"Have you forgiven me? Oh, please forgive me!"
"Long since," said he.
But Sylvia was not reassured.
"Ah, but you won't forget," she said, ruefully.
"One can forgive, but one can't forget what one for-
gives," and then since, even in her remorse, hope was
uppermost with her that night, she cried, "Oh, Hilary,
do you think you ever will forget what I wrote to
you?"
And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears.
"What does it matter what you wrote a week ago,
since to-night we are here, you and I—together, in
the moonlight, for all the world to see that we are
lovers."
She drew him quickly aside into the shadow of the
wall.
"Are you afraid we should be seen?" he asked.
"No, but afraid we may be interrupted," she re-
16 241


THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM
"Do you see?” he cried, in a low, quick voice.
"Sylvia, do you see?”
"What?"
"The door. Look! Behind him! The door!”
And Sylvia, looking as he bade her, started, and barely
stifled the cry which rose to her lips. For behind
Walter Hine, the door in the far corner of the room
was opening-very slowly, very stealthily, as though
the hand which opened it feared to be detected. So
noiselessly had the latch been loosed that Walter
Hine did not so much as turn his head. Nor did he
turn it now. He heard nothing. He leaned from
the window with his elbows on the sill, and behind
him the gap between the door and the wall grew
wider and wider. The door opened into the room
and toward the window, so that the two people in
the shadow below could see nothing of the intruder.
But the secrecy of his coming had something sinister
and most alarming. Sylvia joined her hands above
her lover's arm, holding her breath.
"Shout to him!” she whispered. "Cry out that
there's danger."
"Not yet !” said Chayne, with his eyes fixed upon
the lighted room; and then, in spite of herself, a low
and startled cry broke from Sylvia's lips. A great.
shadow had been suddenly flung upon the ceiling of
the room, the shadow of a man, bloated and made
monstrous by the light. The intruder had entered the
room; and with so much stealth that his presence
was only noticed by the two who watched in the
road below. But even they could not see who the
243


RUNNING WATER
intruder was, they only saw the shadow on the
ceiling.
Walter Hine, however, heard Sylvia's cry, faint
though it was. He leaned forward from the window
and peered down.
"Now!" said Sylvia. "Now!"
But Chayne did not answer. He was watching
with an extraordinary suspense. He seemed not to
hear. And on the ceiling the shadow moved, and
changed its shape, now dwindling, now growing larger
again, now disappearing altogether as though the
intruder stooped below the level of the lamp; and
once there was flung on the white plaster the huge
image of an arm which had something in its hand.
Was the arm poised above- the lamp, on the point of
smashing it with the thing it held? Chayne waited,
with a cry upon his lips, expecting each moment that
the room would be plunged in darkness. But the cry
was not uttered, the arm was withdrawn. It had
not been raised to smash the lamp, the thing which
the hand held was for some other purpose. And once
more the shadow appeared moving and changing as
the intruder crept nearer to the window. Sylvia
stood motionless. She had thought to cry out, now
she was fascinated. A spell of terror constrained her
to silence. And then, suddenly, behind Walter Hine
there stood out clearly in the light the head and shoul-
ders of Garratt Skinner.
"My father," said Sylvia, in relief. Her clasp upon
Chayne's arm relaxed; her terror passed from her.
244


THE SHADOW IN THE ROOM
In the revulsion of her feelings she laughed quietly at
her past fear. Chayne looked quickly and curiously
at her. Then as quickly he looked again to the win-
dow. Both men in the room were now lit up by
the yellow light; their attitudes, their figures were
very clear but small, like marionettes upon the stage
of some tiny theater. Chayne watched them with
no less suspense now that he knew who the intruder
was. Unlike Sylvia he had betrayed no surprise when
he had seen Garratt Skinner's head and shoulders rise
into view behind Walter Hine; and unlike Sylvia, he
did not relax his vigilance. Suddenly Garratt Skinner
stepped forward, very quickly, very silently. With
one step he was close behind his friend; and then just
as he was about to move again—it seemed to Sylvia
that he was' raising his arm, perhaps to touch his
friend upon the shoulder—Chayne whistled—whistled
sharply, shrilly and with a kind of urgency which
Sylvia did not understand.
Walter Hine leaned forward out of the window.
That was quite natural. But on the other hand
Garratt Skinner did nothing of the kind. To Syl-
via's surprise he stepped back, and almost out of
sight. Very likely he thought that he was out of
sight. But to the watchers in the road his head was
just visible. He was peering over Walter Hine's
shoulder.
Again Chayne whistled and, not content with
whistling, he cried out in a feigned bucolic accent:
"I see you."
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RUNNING WATER
At once Garratt Skinner's head disappeared alto-
gether.
Walter Hine peered down into the darkness whence
the whistle came, curving his hands above his forehead
to shut out the light behind him; and behind him
once more the shadow appeared upon the ceiling and
the wall. A third time Chayne whistled; and Walter
Hine cried out:
"'What is it?"
And behind him the shadow vanished from the
ceiling and the door began to close, softly and
stealthily, just as softly and stealthily as it had been
opened.
Again Hine cried out:
"Who 's there? What is it?"
And Chayne laughed aloud derisively, as though
he were some yokel practising a joke. Hine turned
back into the room. The room was empty, but the
door was unlatched. He disappeared from the win-
dow, and the watchers below saw the door slammed to,
heard the sound of the slamming and then another
sound, the sound of a key turning in the lock.
It seemed almost that Chayne had been listening
for that sound. For he turned at once to Sylvia.
"We puzzled them fairly, did n't we?" he said, with
a smile. But the smile somehow seemed hardly real,
and his face was very white.
"It 's the moonlight," he explained. "Come!"
They walked quietly through the silent village where
the thick eaves of the cottages threw their black
246


CHAPTER XX
ON THE DOWN
SYLVIA led the way to a little hollow just beneath
the ridge of the downs, a sheltered spot open to
the sea. On the three other sides bushes grew about it
and dry branches and leaves deeply carpeted the floor.
Here they rested and were silent. Upon Sylvia's
troubled heart there had fallen a mantle of deep peace.
The strife, the fears, the torturing questions had be-
come dim like the small griefs of childhood. Even
the incident of the lighted window vexed her not at all.
"Hilary," she said softly, lingering on the name,
since to frame it and utter it and hear her lips speaking
it greatly pleased her, "Hilary," and her hand sought
his, and finding it she was content.
It was a warm night of August. Overhead the moon
sailed in a cloudless summer sky, drowning the stars.
To the right, far below, the lamps of Weymouth curved
about the shore; and in front the great bay shimmered
like a jewel. Seven miles across it the massive bluff
of Portland pushed into the sea; and even those rugged
cliffs were subdued to the beauty of the night. Be-
neath them the riding-lights shone steady upon the
248


ON THE DOWN
masts of the battle ships. Sylvia looked out upon the
scene with an overflowing heart. Often she had gazed
on it before, and she marveled now how quickly she
had turned aside. Her eyes were now susceptible to
beauty as they had never been. There was a glory
upon land and sea, a throbbing tenderness in the warm
air of which she had not known till now. It seemed
to her that she had lived until this night in a prison.
Once the doors had been set ajar for a little while—
just for a night and a day in the quiet of the High
Alps. But only now had they been opened wide.
Only to-night had she passed through and looked forth
with an unhindered vision upon the world; and she
discovered it to be a place of wonders and sweet magic.
"They were true, then," she said, with a smile on
her lips.
"Of what do you speak?" asked Chayne.
"My dreams," Sylvia answered, knowing that she
was justified of them. "Fof I have come awake into
the land of my dreams, and I know it at last to be a
real land, even to the sound of running water."
For from the hollow at her feet the music of the mill
stream rose to her ears through the still night, very
clear and with a murmur of laughter. Sylvia looked
down toward it. She saw it flashing like a riband of
silver in the garden of the dark quiet house. There
was no breath of wind in that garden, and all the great
trees were still. She saw the intricate pattern of their
boughs traced upon the lawn in black and silver.
"In that house I was born," she said softly, "to
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RUNNING WATER
the noise of that stream. I am very glad to know that
in that house, too, my great happiness has come to me."
Chayne leaned forward, and sitting side by side with
Sylvia, gazed down upon it with rapture. Oh, wonder-
ful house where Sylvia was born! How much the
world owed to it!
"It was there!" he said with awe.
"Yes," replied Sylvia. She was not without a
proper opinion of herself, and it seemed rather a won-
derful house to her, too.
"Perhaps on some such night as this," he said, and
at once took the words back. "No! You were born
on a sunny morning of July and the blackbirds on
the branches told the good news to the blackbirds on
the lawn, and the stream took up the message and
rippled it out to the ships upon the sea. There were
no wrecks that day."
Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a
smile, her dark eyes kind and bright.
"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!"
"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And
Sylvia laughed with the clear melodious note of hap-
piness. All her old life was whirled away upon those
notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh
of contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek;
her eyes once more dropped to the still garden and
the dark square house at the down's foot.
"There you asked me to marry you, to go away
with you," she said, and she caught his hand and
held it close against her breast.
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RUNNING WATER
and was silent, looking straight out across the moonlit
sea. Then in a small trembling voice, like a child's,
she pleaded, still holding her face averted:
"Don't go away from me, Hilary! Oh, please!
Don't go away from me now!"
Her voice, her words, went to Chayne's heart. He
knew that pride and a certain reticence were her nat-
ural qualities. That she should throw aside the one,
break through the other, proved to him indeed how
very much she cared, how very much she needed him.
"Sylvia," he cried, "it will only be for a little while";
and again silence followed upon his words.
Since bad news was to be imparted, strength was
needed to bear it; and habit had long since taught
Sylvia that silence was the best nurse of strength.
She did not turn her face toward her lover; but she
drooped her head and clenched her hands tightly
together upon her knees, nerving herself for the blow.
The movement, slight though it was, stirred Chayne
to pity and hurt him with an intolerable pain. It
betrayed so unmistakably the long habit of suffering.
She sat silent, motionless, with the dumb patience of
a wounded animal.
"Oh, Sylvia, why did you not come with me on that
first day?" he cried.
"Tell me your bad news, dear," she replied, gently.
"I cannot help it," he began in broken tones. "Syl-
via, you will see that there is no escape, that I must go.
An appointment was offered to me—by the War Office.
It was offered to me, pressed on me, the day after I
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ON THE DOWN
last came here, the day after we were together in the
library. I did not know what to do. I did not accept
it. But it seemed to me that each time I came to
see you we became more and more estranged. I was
given two days to make up my mind, and within the
two days, my dear, your letter came, telling me you
did not wish to see me any more."
"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered.
"I accepted the appointment at once. There were
reasons why I welcomed it. It would take me abroad!"
"Abroad!" she cried.
"Yes, I welcomed that. To be near you and not
to see you—to be near you and know that others were
talking with you, any one, every one except me—to
be near you and know that you were unhappy and in
trouble, and that I could not even tell you how deeply
I was sorry—I dreaded that, Sylvia. And yet I
dreaded one thing more. Here, in England, at each
turn of the street, I should think to come upon you
suddenly. To pass you as a stranger, or almost as a
stranger. No! I could not do it!"
"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered, and lifting his hand
she laid it against her cheek.
"So for a week I was glad. But this morning I
received your second letter, Sylvia. It came too' late,
my dear. There was no time to obtain a substitute."
Sylvia turned to him with a startled face.
"When do you go?"
"Very soon."
"When?"
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RUNNING WATER
The words had to be spoken.
"To-morrow morning. I catch the first train from
Weymouth to Southampton. We sail from Southamp-
ton at noon."
Habit came again to her assistance. She turned
away from him so that he might not see her face, and
he went on:
"Had there been more time, I could have made
arrangements. Some one else could have gone. As
it is—" He broke off suddenly, and bending toward
her cried: "Sylvia, say that I must go."
But she could not bring herself to that. She was
minded to hold with both hands the good thing which
had come to her this night. She shook her head. He
sought to turn her face to his, but she looked stub-
bornly away.
"And when will you return?" she asked.
"In a few months, Sylvia."
"When?"
"In June." And she counted off the months upon
her fingers.
"So after to-night," she said, in a low voice, "I
shall not see you any more for all these months. The
winter must pass, and the spring, too. Oh, Hilary!"
and she turned to him with a quivering face and
whispered piteously: "Don't go, my dear. Don't
go!"
"Say that I must go!" he insisted, and she laughed
with scorn. Then the laughter ceased and she said:
"There will be danger?"
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RUNNING WATER
lonely, friendless girl to battle through the months
of his absence by herself; and to battle with what?
He was not sure. But he had not taken so lightly
the shadow on the ceiling and the opening door.
"If only you had come with me on that first day,"
he cried.
"I will have to-night to look back upon, my dear,"
she said. "That will be something. Oh, if I had
not asked you to come back! If you had gone away
and said nothing! What would I have done then?
As it is, I will know that you are thinking of me—"
and suddenly she turned to him, and held him away
from her in a spasm of fear while her eyes searched
his face. But in a moment they melted and a smile
made her lips beautiful. "Oh, yes, I can trust you,"
she said, and she nestled against him contentedly like
a child.
For a little while they sat thus, and then her eyes
sought the garden and the house at her feet. It
seemed that the sinister plot was not, after all, to
develop in that place of quiet and old peace without
her for its witness. It seemed that she was to be
kept by some fatality close-fettered to the task, the
hopeless task, which she would now gladly have fore-
gone. And she wondered whether, after all, she was
in some way meant to watch the plot, perhaps, after
all, to hinder it.
"Hilary," she said, "you remember that evening at
the Chalet de Lognan?"
"Do I remember it?"
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RUNNING WATER
"Sylvia," he said, "I had no thought, no wish,
that what I said should stay with you."
"Yet it did," she answered, "and I was thankful. I
am thankful even now. For though I would gladly
give up all the struggle now, if I had you instead;
since I have not you, I am thankful for the law. It
was your voice which spoke it, it came from you. It
will keep you near to me all through the black months
until you come back. Oh, Hilary!" and the brave
argument spoken to enhearten herself and him ended
suddenly in a most wistful cry. Chayne caught her
to him.
"Oh, Sylvia!" and he added: "The life is not yet
saved!"
"Perhaps I am given to the summer," she an-
swered, and then, with a whimsical change of humor,
she laughed tenderly. "Oh, but I wish I was n't.
You will write? Letters will come from you."
"As often as possible, my dear. But they won't
come often."
"Let them be long, then," she whispered, "very
long," and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Lie close, my dear," said he. "Lie close!"
For a while longer they talked in low voices to one
another, the words which lovers know and keep fra-
grant in their memories. The night, warm and clear,
drew on toward morning, and the passage of the
hours was unremarked. For both of them there was
a glory upon the moonlit land and sea which made of
it a new world. And into this new world both walked
for the first time—walked in their youth and hand in
258


CHAPTER XXI
CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
SIX weeks ago I said good-by to the French Com-
mission on the borders of a great lake in Africa.
A month ago I was still walking to the rail head
through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said
Chayne, and he looked about the little restaurant in
King Street, St. James', as though to make sure that
the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the
red benches against the walls, the women in their deli-
cate gowns of lace, and the jingle of harness in the
streets without, made their appeal to one who for the
best part of a year had lived within the dark walls of
a forest. June had come round again, and Sylvia
sat at his side.
"You shall tell me how these months have gone
with you while we dine," said he. "Your letters told
me nothing of your troubles."
"I did not mean them to," replied Sylvia.
"I guessed that, my dear. It was like you. Yet
I would rather have known."
Only a few hours before he had stood upon the deck
of the Channel packet and had seen the bows swing
westward of Dover Castle and head toward the pier.
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RUNNING WATER
"Quite."
Chayne nodded his head.
"I did not understand the reason of the hurry.
And I was perplexed—and also a little alarmed.
Everything which I did not understand frightened
me in those days." She spoke as if "those days"
and all their dark events belonged to some dim period
of which no consequence could reach her now. "Our
departure had almost the look of a flight."
"Yes," said Chayne. For his part he was not sur-
prised at their flight. He had passed more than one
wakeful night during the last few months arguing
and arguing again whether or no he should have dis-
closed to Sylvia the meaning of that softly opening
door and the shadow on the ceiling as he read it. He
might have been wrong; if so, he would have added
to Sylvia's burden of troubles yet another, and one
more terrible than all the rest. He might have been
right; and if so, he might have enabled Sylvia to
avert a tragedy. Thus the argument had revolved
in a circle and left him always in the same doubt.
Now he understood that his explanation of the inci-
dent had been confirmed. The loud whistle from
the darkness of the road, the yokel's cry, which had
driven Garratt Skinner from the room, as noiselessly
as he had entered it, had done more than that—they
had driven him from the neighborhood altogether.
Some one had seen him—had seen him standing just
behind Walter Hine in the lighted room—and on the
next day he had fled!
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RUNNING WATER
no longer counted in his thoughts at all. I was
nothing."
"Yes," said Chayne.
The device was subtle, diabolically subtle. But he
wondered whether it was only to counterbalance and
destroy Sylvia's influence that Garratt Skinner had
introduced cocaine to Hine's notice; whether he had
not had in view some other end, even still more
sinister.
"I saw very little of Mr. Hine after our return to
London," she continued. "He did not come often
to the house, but when he did come, each time I saw
that he had changed. He had grown nervous and
violent of temper. Even before we left Dorsetshire
the violence had become noticeable."
"Oh!" said Chayne, looking quickly at Sylvia. "Be-
fore you left Dorsetshire?"
"Yes; and my father seemed to me to provoke it,
though I could not guess why. For instance—"
"Yes?" said Chayne. "Tell me!"
He spoke quietly enough, but once again there was
audible a certain intensity in his voice. There had
been an occasion when Sylvia had given to him more
news of Garratt Skinner than she had herself. Was
she to do so once more? He leaned forward with his
eyes on hers.
"The night when you came back to me. Do you
remember, Hilary?" and a smile lightened his face.
"I shall forget no moment of that night, sweetheart,
while I live," he whispered; and blushes swept prettily
264


CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
taking cocaine, but who had taught him the habit.
Yes, I did that,” she said simply, answering his look
of astonishment. "It was difficult, my dear, and I
would very much have liked to have had you there to
help me through with it. But since you were not
there, since I was alone, I did it alone. I thought of
you, Hilary, while I was saying what I had to say. I
tried to hear your voice speaking again outside the
Chalet de Lognan. “What you know, that you must
do.' I warned my father that if any harm came to
Walter Hine from taking the drug again, any harm
at all which I traced to my father, I would not keep
silent.”
Chayne leaned back in his seat.
"You said that-to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia !” and
the warmth of pride and admiration in his voice
brought the color to her cheeks and compensated her
for that bad hour. “You stood up alone and braved
him out! My dear, if I had only been there! And
you never wrote to me a word of it!"
"It would only have troubled you,” she answered.
“It would not have helped me to know that you were
troubled !"
"And he-your father ?” he asked. “How did he
receive it?”
Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-
cloth as though she could not for the moment trust
her voice. Then she shuddered and said in a low and
shaking voice—so vivid was still the memory of that
hour:
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CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate charge
against her father. "I used to think that he was—in
the beginning when Captain Barstow won so much
from him. But when the bets ceased and no more
cards were played—I used to puzzle over why they
ceased last year. But I think I have hit upon the
explanation. My father discovered then what I only
found out a few weeks ago. I wrote to Mr. Hine's
grandfather, telling him that his grandson was ill,
and asking him whether he would not send for him. I
thought that would be the best plan."
"Yes, well?"
"Well, the grandfather answered me very shortly
that he did not know his grandson, that he did not
wish to know him, and that they had nothing to do
with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter.
He seemed to think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine,"
and she laughed as she spoke, "and that I was trying
to find out what we should have to live upon. I sup-
pose that it was natural he should think so. And
I am so glad that I wrote. For he told me that al-
though Mr. Hine must eventually have a fortune, it
would not be until he himself died and that he was a
very healthy man. So you see, there could be no
advantage to any one—" and she did not finish the
sentence.
But Chayne could finish it for himself. There could
be no advantage to any one if Walter Hine died. But
then why the cocaine? Why the incident of the
lighted window?
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RUNNING WATER
"Yes," he said, in perplexity, "I can corroborate
that. It happened that my friend John Lattery, who
was killed in Switzerland, was also connected with
Joseph Hine. He also would have inherited; and I
knew from him that the old man did not recognize his
heirs. But—but Walter Hine had money—some
money, at all events. And he earned none. From
whom did he get it?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"I do not know."
"Had he no other relations, no friends?"
"None who would have made him an allowance."
Chayne pondered over that question. For in the
answer to it he was convinced he would find the ex-
planation of the mystery. If money was given to
Walter Hine, who had apparently no rich relations
but his grandfather, and certainly no rich friends, it
would have been given with some object. To discover
the giver and his object—that was the problem.
"Think! Did he never speak of any one?"
Sylvia searched her memories.
"No," she said. "He never spoke of his private
affairs. He always led us to understand that he drew
an allowance from his grandfather."
"But your father found that that was untrue when
you were in Dorsetshire, ten months ago. For the
card-playing and the bets ceased."
"Yes," Sylvia agreed thoughtfully. Then her face
brightened. "I remember a morning when Mr. Hine
was in trouble. Wait a moment! He had a letter.
272


CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
We were at breakfast and the letter came from Captain
Barstow. There was some phrase in the letter which
Mr. Hine repeated. “As between gentlemen'— that
was it! I remember thinking at the time what in the
world Captain Barstow could know about gentlemen;
and wondering why the phrase should trouble Mr.
Hine. And that morning Mr. Hine went to Lon-
don."
“Oh, did he?" cried Chayne. “'As between
gentlemen.' Had Hine been losing money lately to
Captain Barstow?"
"Yes, on the day when you first came.”
“The starlings,” exclaimed Chayne in some excite-
ment. “That 's it— Walter Hine owes money to
Captain Barstow which he can't pay. Barstow writes
for it--a debt of honor between gentlemen-one can
imagine the letter. Hine goes up to London. Well,
what then?”
Sylvia started.
"My father went to London two days afterward."
“Are you sure?"
It seemed to Chayne that they were getting hot in
their search.
“Quite sure. For I remember that after his return
his manner changed. What I thought to be the new
plot was begun. The cards disappeared, the bets
ceased, Mr. Parminter was brought down with the
cocaine. I remember it all clearly. For I always
associated the change with my father's journey to
London. You came one evening-do you remember?
18
273


RUNNING WATER
You found me alone and afraid. My father and Walter
Hine were walking arm-in-arm in the garden. That
was afterward."
"Yes, you were afraid because there was no sin-
cerity in that friendship. Now let me get this right!"
He remained silent for a little while, placing the
events in their due order and interpreting them, one
by the other.
"This is what I make of it," he said at length. "The
man in London who supplies Walter Hine with money
finds that Walter Hine is spending too much. He
therefore puts himself into communication with Gar-
ratt Skinner, of whom he has doubtless heard from
Walter Hine. Garratt Skinner travels to London,
has an interview, and a concerted plan of action is
agreed upon, which Garratt Skinner proceeds to put
in action."
He spoke so gravely that Sylvia turned anxiously
toward him.
"What do you infer, then?" she asked.
"That we are in very deep and troubled waters,
my dear," he replied, but he would not be more ex-
plicit. He had no doubt in his mind that the murder
of Walter Hine had been deliberately agreed upon by
Garratt Skinner and the unknown man in London.
But just as Sylvia had spared him during his months
of absence, so now he was minded to spare Sylvia.
Only, in order that he might spare her, in order that
he might prevent shame and distress greater than she
had known, he must needs go on with his questioning.
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RUNNING WATER
before, in which the chief figures had been a subaltern
and a money-lender. Jarvice was the name of the
money-lender—an unusual name. Just such a man
would be likely to be Garratt Skinner's confederate
and backer. Chayne ran over the story in his mind'
again, by this new light. It certainly strengthened
the argument that the Mr. Jarvice who sent the tele-
gram was Mr. Jarvice, the money-lender. Thus did
Chayne work it out in his thoughts:
"Jarvice, for some reason unknown, pays Walter
Hine an allowance. Walter Hine gives it out that
he receives it from his grandfather, whose heir he
undoubtedly is, and being a vain person much exag-
gerates the amount. He falls into Garratt Skinner's
hands, who, with the help of Barstow and others, pro-
ceeds to pluck him. Walter Hine loses more than he
has and applies to Jarvice for more. Jarvice elicits
the facts, and instead of disclosing who Garratt Skin-
ner is, and the obvious swindle of which Hine is the
victim, takes Garratt Skinner into his confidence.
What happened at the interview between Mr. Jarvice
and Garratt Skinner in London the subsequent facts
make plain. At Jarvice's instigation the plot to
swindle Walter Hine becomes a cold-blooded plan to
murder him. That plan has been twice frustrated,
once by me in Dorsetshire, and a second time by
Sylvia."
So far the story worked out naturally, logically.
But there remained two questions. For what reason
did Mr. Jarvice make Walter Hine an allowance?
276


CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
And how would Walter Hine's death profit him?
Chayne pondered over those two questions and then
the truth flashed upon him. He remembered how
the subaltern had been extracted from his difficulties.
Money had been raised by a life insurance. Again
Chayne ranged his facts in order.
"Walter Hine is the heir to great wealth. But he
has no money now. Mr. Jarvice makes him an allow-
ance, the money to be repaid with a handsome interest
on the grandfather's death. But in order to insure
Jarvice from loss, if Walter Hine should die first,
Walter Hine's life is insured for a large sum. Thus
Mr. Jarvice makes his position tenable should his con-
duct be called in question. Having insured Walter
Hine's life, he arranges with Garratt Skinner to mur-
der him. The attempt failed the first time, the slower
method is then adopted by Garratt Skinner, and as a
result comes the impatient telegram: 'What are you
waiting for? Hurry up!'"
The case was thus so far clear. But anxiety re-
mained. Was the plan abandoned altogether, now
that Sylvia had stood bravely up and warned her
father that she would not keep silent? So certainly
Sylvia thought. But then she did not know all that
Chayne knew. It seemed that she had not understood
the incident of the lighted window. Nor was Chayne
surprised. For she was unaware of what was in
Chayne's eyes the keystone of the whole argument. She
did not know that her father had worked as a convict
in the Portland quarries.
277


CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS
ward and turning to Sylvia, as they sat side by side:
"You have been happy to-night?"
"Very," she answered, and there was a thrill of joy-
ousness in her clear, low voice, as though her heart
sang within her. Her eyes rested on his with pride.
"No man could quite understand," she said.
"Well then, why should we wait longer, Sylvia?"
he said. "We have waited long enough, my dear.
We have after all no one but ourselves to please. I
should like our marriage to take place as soon as pos-
sible."
Sylvia answered him without affectation.
"I, too," she whispered.
"To-morrow then! I 'll get a special license to-
morrow morning, and make the arrangements. We
can go away together at once."
Sylvia smiled, and the smile deepened into a laugh.
"Where shall we go, Hilary?" she cried. "To
some perfect place."
"To Chamonix," he answered. "That was where
we first met. There could be no better place. We can
just go and tell your father what we have done and
then go up into the hills."
It was well done. He spoke without wakening
Sylvia's suspicions. She had never understood the
episode of the lighted window; she did not know that
her father was Gabriel Strood, of whose exploits in
the Alps she had read; she believed that all danger to
Walter Hine was past. Chayne on the other hand
knew that hardly at any time could Hine have stood
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RUNNING WATER
in greater peril. To Chamonix he must go; and to
Chamonix he must take Sylvia too. For by the time
when he could reach Chamonix, he might already be
too late. There might be publicity, inquiries, and for
Garratt Skinner ruin, and worse than ruin. Would
Sylvia let her lover share the dishonor of her name?
He knew very surely she would not. Therefore he
would have the marriage.
"By the way," he said, as he draped her cloak
about her shoulders. “You have that telegram from
Jarvice?"
“Yes.”
“That 's good,” he said. "It might be useful."
280


CHAPTER XXII
REVAILLOUD REVISITED
NEVER had that familiar journey across France
seemed to Chayne so slow. Would he be in
time? Would he arrive too late? The throb of the
wheels beat out the questions in a perpetual rhythm
and gave him no answer. The words of Jarvice's
telegram were ever present in his mind, and grew
more sinister, the more he thought upon them. "What
are you waiting for? Hurry up!" Once, when the
train stopped over long as it seemed to him he mut-
tered the words aloud and then glanced in alarm at
his wife, lest perchance she had overheard them. But
she had not. She was remembering her former jour-
ney along this very road. Then it had been night;
now it was day. Then she had been used to seek
respite from her life in the shelter of her dreams.
Now the dreams were of no use, since what was real
made them by comparison so pale and thin. The
blood ran strong and joyous in her veins to-day; and
looking at her, Chayne sent up his prayers that they
might not arrive in Chamonix too late. To him as
to her Walter Hine was a mere puppet, a thing with-
out importance—so long as he lived. But he must
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RUNNING WATER
live. Dead, he threatened ruin and dishonor, and
since from the beginning Sylvia and he had shared
—for so she would have it—had shared in the effort
to save this life, it would be well for them, he thought
that they should not fail.
The long hot day drew to an end, and at last from
the platform at the end of the electric train they saw
the snow-fields lift toward the soaring peaks, and the
peaks purple with the after glow stand solitary and
beautiful against the evening sky.
"At last!" said Sylvia, with a catch in her breath,
and the clasp of her hand tightened upon her husband's
arm. But Chayne was remembering certain words
once spoken to him in a garden of Dorsetshire, by a
man who lay idly in a hammock and stared up between
the leaves. "On the most sunny day, the mountains
hold in their recesses mystery and death."
"You know where your father is staying?" Chayne
asked.
"He wrote from the Hotel de l'Arve," Sylvia re-
plied.
"We will stay at Couttet's and walk over to see him
this evening," said Chayne, and after dinner they
strolled across the little town. But at the Hotel de
l'Arve they found neither Garratt Skinner nor his
friend, Walter Hine.
"Only the day before yesterday," said the pro-
prietor, "they started for the mountains. Always
they make expeditions."
Chayne drew no satisfaction from that statement.
282


REVAILLOUD REVISITED
Garratt Skinner and his friend would make many
expeditions from which both men would return in
safety. Garratt Skinner was no blunderer. And
when at the last he returned alone with some flawless
story of an accident in which his friend had lost his
life, no one would believe but that here was another
mishap, and another name to be added to the Alpine
death-roll.
"To what mountain have they gone?" Chayne asked.
"To no mountain to-day. They cross the Col du
Geant, monsieur, to Courmayeur. But after that I do
not know."
"Oh, into Italy," said Chayne, in relief. So far
there was no danger. The Col du Geant, that great
pass between France and Italy across the range of
Mont Blanc, was almost a highway. There would
be too many parties abroad amongst its ice seracs
on these days of summer for any deed which needed
solitude and secrecy.
"When do you expect them back?"
"In five days, monsieur; not before." And at this
reply Chayne's fears were all renewed. For clearly
the expedition was not to end with the passage of
the Col du Geant. There was to be a sequel, perhaps
some hazardous ascent, some expedition at all events
which Garratt Skinner had not thought fit to name.
"They took guides, I suppose," he said.
"One guide, monsieur, and a porter. Monsieur
need not fear. For Monsieur Skinner is of an excel-
lence prodigious."
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RUNNING WATER
"My father!" exclaimed Sylvia, in surprise. "I
never knew."
"What guide?" asked Chayne.
"Pierre Delouvain"; and so once again Chayne's
fears were allayed. He turned to Sylvia.
"A good name, sweetheart. I never climbed with
him, but I know him by report. A prudent man, as
prudent as he is skilful. He would run no risks."
The name gave him indeed greater comfort than
even his words expressed. Delouvain's mere presence
would prevent the commission of any crime. His
great strength would not be needed to hinder it. For
he would be there, to bear witness afterward. Chayne
was freed from the dread which during the last two
days had oppressed him. Perhaps after all Sylvia was
right and the plot was definitely abandoned. Chayne
knew very well that Garratt Skinner's passion for the
Alps was a deep and real one. Perhaps it was that
alone which had brought him back to Chamonix.
Perhaps one day in the train, traveling northward
from Italy, he had looked from the window and seen
the slopes of Monte Rosa white in the sun—white
with the look of white velvet—and all the last twenty
years had fallen from him like a cloak, and he had
been drawn back as with chains to the high play-
ground of his youth. Chayne could very well under-
stand that possibility, and eased of his fears he
walked away with Sylvia back to the open square in
the middle of the town. Darkness had come, and
both stopped with one accord and looked upward to
284


REVAILLOUD REVISITED
the massive barrier of hills. The rock peaks stood
sharply up against the clear, dark sky, the snow-slopes
glimmered faintly like a pale mist, and incredibly far,
incredibly high, underneath a bright and dancing star,
shone a dim and rounded whiteness, the snow-cap of
Mont Blanc.
"A year ago," said Sylvia, drawing a breath and
bethinking her of the black shadows which during
those twelve months had lain across her path.
"Yes, a year ago we were here," said Chayne. The
little square was thronged, the hotels and houses were
bright with lights, and from here and from there
music floated out upon the air, the light and lilting
melodies of the day. "Sylvia, you see the cafe down
the street there by the bridge?"
"Yes."
"A year ago, on just such a night as this, I sat with
my guide, Michel Revailloud. I was going to cross
the Col Dolent on the morrow. He had made his last
ascent. We were not very cheerful. And he gave me
as a parting present the one scrap of philosophy his
life had taught him. He said: 'Take care that when
the time comes for you to get old that you have some
one to share your memories. Take care that when
you go home in the end, there shall be some one
waiting in the room and the lamp lit against your
coming.'"
Sylvia pressed against her side the hand which he
had slipped through her arm.
"But he did more than give advice," Chayne con-
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RUNNING WATER
tinued, "for as he went away to his home in the little
village of Les Praz-Conduits, just across the fields, he
passed Couttet's Hotel and saw you under the lamp
talking to a guide he knew. You were making your
arrangements to ascend the Charmoz. But he dis-
suaded you."
"Yes."
"He convinced you that your first mountain should
be the Aiguille d'Argentiere. He gave you no doubt
many reasons, but not the real one which he had in
his thoughts."
Sylvia looked at Chayne in surprise.
"He sent you to the Aiguille d'Argentiere, because
he knew that so you and I would meet at the Pavillon
de Lognan."
"But he had never spoken to me until that night,"
exclaimed Sylvia.
"Yet he had noticed you. When I went up to fetch
down my friend Lattery, you were standing on the
hotel step. You said to me, T am sorry.' Michel
heard you speak, and that evening talked of you. He
had the thought that you and I were matched."
Sylvia looked back to the night before her first
ascent. She pictured to herself the old guide coming
down the narrow street and out of the darkness into
the light of the lamp above the doorway. She recalled
how he had stopped at the sight of her, how cunningly
he had spoken. He had desired that her last step on
to her first summit should bring to her eyes and soul
a revelation which no length of after years could dim.
286


REVAILLOUD REVISITED
That was the argument, and it was just the argument
which would prevail with her.
"So it was his doing," she cried, with a laugh, and
at once grew serious, dwelling, as lovers will, upon
the small accident which had brought them together,
and might so easily never have occurred. An unknown
guide speaks to her in a doorway, and lo! for her the
world is changed, dark years come to an end, the
pathway broadens to a road; she walks not alone.
Whatever the future may hold—she walks not alone.
Suppose there had been no lamp above the doorway!
Suppose there had been a lamp and she not there!
Suppose the guide had passed five minutes sooner or
five minutes later!
"Oh, Hilary!" she cried, and put the thought from
her.
"I was thinking," he said, "that if you were not
tired we might walk across the fields to Michel's house.
He would, I think, be very happy if we did."
A few minutes later they knocked upon Michel's
door. Michel Revailloud opened it himself and stood
for a moment peering at the dim figures in the dark-
ness of the road.
"It is I, Michel," said Chayne, and at the sound of
his voice Michel Revailloud drew him with a cry of
welcome into the house.
"So you have come back to Chamonix, monsieur!
That is good"; and he looked his "monsieur" over
from head to foot and shook him warmly by the hand.
"Ah, you have come back!"
287


REVAILLOUD REVISITED
"I know, Michel," she said.
"And I can say therefore with confidence I am very
glad for your sake too. I am also very glad for mine.
A minute ago I was sitting here alone—now you are
both here and together. Madame, it was a kind
thought which brought you both here to me at once."
"To whom else should we come?" said Sylvia with
a smile, "since it was you, Michel, who would not let
me ascend the Aiguille des Charmoz when I wanted
to."
Michel was taken aback for a moment; then his
wrinkled and weatherbeaten face grew yet more
wrinkled and he broke into a low and very pleasant
laugh.
"Since my diplomacy has been so successful, ma-
dame, I will not deny it. From the first moment
when I heard you with your small and pretty voice
say on the steps of the hotel T am sorry' to my patron
in his great distress, and when I saw your face, too
thoughtful for one so young, I thought it would be a
fine thing if you and he could come together. In youth
to be lonely—what is it? You slip on your hat and
your cloak and you go out. But when you are old,
and your habits are settled, and you do not want to go
out at nights to search for company, then it is as well
to have a companion. And it is well to choose your
companion in your youth, madame, so that you may
have many recollections to talk over together when
the good of life is chiefly recollection."
He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle
of wine and offered them the hospitalities of his house,
19 2S9


RUNNING WATER
easily and naturally, like the true gentleman he was.
It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older,
that he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little
more troubled with his eyes than he had been last
year. But at all events to-night he had the spirit, the
good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits
upon peaks then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's
book, in which his messieurs had written down their
names and the dates of the climbs, and the photo-
graphs which they had sent to him.
"There are many photographs of men grown fa-
mous, madame," he said, proudly, "with whom I had
the good fortune to climb when they and I and the
Alps were all young together. But it is not only the
famous who are interesting. Look, madame! Here
is your husband's friend, Monsieur Lattery—a good
climber but not always very sure on ice."
"You always will say that, Michel," protested
Chayne. "I never knew a man so obstinate."
Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia:
"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say
a word against Monsieur Lattery if you would keep
friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you good
advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old
man. Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a
pretence of secrecy and nodded emphatically: "It is
true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on ice.
And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name
is no doubt known to you in London—Professor
Kenyon."
290


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
***API**.2X AND
T.'nin
t ali NB!
L


CHAPTER XXIII
MICHEL REVAILLOUD's FUHRBUCH
THE book indeed was of far more interest to her
than the portrait of any mountaineer. It had a
romance, a glamour of its own. It was just a little
note-book with blue-lined pages and an old dark-red
soiled leather cover which could fit into the breast
pocket and never be noticed there. But it went back
to the early days of mountaineering when even the
passes were not all discovered and many of them were
still uncrossed, when mythical peaks were still gravely
allotted their positions and approximate heights in the
maps; and when the easy expedition of the young
lady of to-day was the difficult achievement of the
explorer. It was to the early part of the book to
which she turned. Here she found first ascents of
which she had read with her heart in her mouth,
ascents since made famous, simply recorded in the
handwriting of the men who had accomplished them—
the dates, the hours of starting and returning, a word
or two perhaps about the condition of the snow, a
warm tribute to Michel Revailloud and the signatures.
The same names recurred year after year, and often
the same hand recorded year after year attempts on one
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MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FUHRBUCH
of Gabriel Strood." She owed it to him that she had
turned to the Alps as to her heritage, and that she had
brought to them an instinctive knowledge. Her first
feeling was one of sheer pride in her father. Then
the doubts began to thicken. He called himself Gar-
ratt Skinner.
"Why? But why?" she cried, impulsively, and
Chayne, still leaning on her chair, pressed her arm
with his hand and warned her to be silent.
"I will tell you afterward," he said, quietly, and
then he suddenly drew himself upright. The move-
ment was abrupt like the movement of a man thor-
oughly startled—more startled even than she had been
by the unexpected sight of her father's handwriting.
She looked up into his face. He was staring at the
open page of Michel's book. She turned back to it
herself and saw nothing which should so trouble him.
Over Gabriel Strood's signature there were just these
words written in his hand and nothing more:
"Mont Blanc by the Brenva route. July, 1868."
Yet it was just that sentence which had so startled
Hilary. Gabriel Strood had then climbed Mont Blanc
from the Italian side—up from the glacier to the top
of the great rock-buttress, then along the world-fa-
mous ice-arete, thin as a knife edge, and to right and
left precipitous as a wall, and on the far side above
the ice-ridge up the hanging glaciers and the ice-cliffs
to the summit of the Corridor. From the Italian side
of the range of Mont Blanc! And the day before
yesterday Gabriel Strood had crossed with Walter
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RUNNING WATER
Hine to Italy, bound upon some expedition which
would take five days, five days at the least.
It was to the Brenva ascent of Mont Blanc that
Garratt Skinner was leading Walter Hine! The
thought flashed upon Chayne swift as an inspiration
and as convincing. Chayne was sure. The Brenva
route! It was to this climb Garratt Skinner's thoughts
had perpetually recurred during that one summer
afternoon in the garden in Dorsetshire, when he had
forgotten his secrecy and spoken even with his enemy
of the one passion they had in common. Chayne
worked out the dates and they fitted in with his belief.
Two days ago Garratt Skinner started to cross the Col
du Geant. He would sleep very likely in the hut on
the Col, and go down the next morning to Courmayeur
and make his arrangements for the Brenva climb.
On the third day, to-day, he would set out with Walter
Hine and sleep at the gite on the rocks in the bay to
the right of the great ice-fall of the Brenva glacier.
To-morrow he would ascend the buttress, traverse the
ice-ridge with Walter Hine—perhaps— yes, only per-
haps—and at that thought Chayne's heart stood still.
And even if he did, there were the hanging ice-cliffs
above, and yet another day would pass before any
alarm at his absence would be felt. Surely, it would
be the Brenva route!
Garratt Skinner himself would run great risk upon
this hazardous expedition—that was true. But Chayne
knew enough of the man to be assured that he would
not hesitate on that account. The very audacity of
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RUNNING WATER
done before. Did not Pierre live on that very confu-
sion? The answer was not capable of refutation.
Chayne was in despair. Garratt Skinner had started
two days before from Chamonix, was already, now,
at this moment, asleep, with his unconscious vic-
tim at his side, high up on the rocks of the upper
Brenva glacier. There was no way to hinder him—
no way unless God helped. He asked abruptly of
Michel:
"Have you climbed this season, Michel?"
Michel laughed grimly.
"Indeed, yes, to the Montanvert, monsieur. And
beyond—yes, beyond, to the Jardin."
Chayne broke in upon his bitter humor.
"I want the best guide in Chamonix. I want him
at once. I must start by daylight."
Michel glanced up in surprise. But what he saw in
Chayne's face stopped all remonstrance.
"For what ascent, monsieur?" he asked.
"The Brenva route."
"Madame will not go!"
"No, I go alone. I must go quickly. There is very
much at stake. I beg you to help me."
In answer Michel took his hat down from a peg,
and while he did so Chayne turned quickly to his wife.
She had risen from her chair, but she had not inter-
rupted him, she had asked no questions, she had
uttered no prayer. She stood now, waiting upon him
with a quiet and beautiful confidence which deeply
stirred his heart.
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RUNNING WATER
showed her the reason for this expedition to the sum-
mit of Mont Blanc.
She uttered one low cry of horror. "Murder!" she
whispered.
"To think that we are two days behind, that even
now they are sleeping on the rocks, he and Walter
Hine, sleeping quite peacefully and quietly. Oh, it 's
horrible!" he cried, beating his hands upon his forehead
in despair, and then he broke off. He saw that Sylvia
was sitting with her hands covering her face, while
every now and then a shudder shook her and set her
trembling.
"I am so sorry, Sylvia," he cried. "Oh, my dear,
I had so hoped we should be in time. I would have
spared you this knowledge if I could. Who knows?
We may be still in time," and as he spoke Michel
entered the garden with one other man and came
toward him.
"Henri Simond!" said Michel, presenting his com-
panion. "You will know that name. Simond has
just come down from the Grepon, monsieur. He will
start with you at daylight."
Chayne looked at Simond. He was of no more than
the middle height, but broad of shoulder, deep of chest,
and long of arm. His strength was well known in
Chamonix—as well known as his audacity.
"I am very glad that you can come, Simond," said
Chayne. "You are the very man;" and then he
turned to Michel. "But we should have another guide.
I need two men."
"Yes," said Michel. "Three men are needed for
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MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FUHRBUCH
that climb," and Chayne left him to believe that it
was merely for the climb that he needed another guide.
"But there is Andre Droz already at Courmayeur,"
he continued. "His patron was to leave him there
to-day. A telegram can be sent to him to-morrow
bidding him wait. If he has started, we shall meet him
to-morrow on the Col du Geant. And Droz, mon-
sieur, is the man for you. He is quick, as quick as you
and Simond. The three of you together will go well.
As for to-morrow, you will need no one else. But if
you do, monsieur, I will go with you."
"There is no need, Michel," replied Chayne, grate-
fully, and thereupon Sylvia plucked him by the sleeve.
"I must go with you to-morrow, Hilary," she
pleaded, wistfully. "Oh, you won't leave me here.
Let me come with you as far as possible. Let me
cross to Italy. I will go quick. If I get tired, you
shall not know."
"It will be a long day, Sylvia."
"It cannot be so long as the day I should pass
waiting here."
She wrung her hands as she spoke. The light from
a lamp fixed in the hotel wall fell upon her upturned
face. It was white, her lips trembled, and in her eyes
Chayne saw again the look of terror which he had
hoped was gone forever. "Oh, please," she whis-
pered.
"Yes," he replied, and he turned again to Simond.
"At two o'clock then. My wife will go, so bring a
mule. We can leave it at the Montanvert."
The guides tramped from the garden. Chayne led
301


MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FUHRBUCH
"He is very kind," said Sylvia. "He understood
that there was some trouble, and while he led the mule
he sought to comfort me," and then between a laugh
and a sob she added: "You will never guess how.
He offered to give me his little book with all the
signatures—the little book which means so much to
him."
It was the one thing which he had to offer her, as
Sylvia understood, and always thereafter she remem-
bered him with a particular tenderness. He had been
a good friend to her, asking nothing and giving what
he had. She saw him often in the times which were
to come, but when she thought of him, she pictured
him as on that early morning standing on the bluff
of cliff by the Montanvert with the reins of his mule
thrown across his arm, and straining his old eyes to
hold his friends in view.
Later during that day amongst the seracs of the Col
du Geant, Simond uttered a shout, and a party of
guides returning to Chamonix changed their course
toward him. Droz was amongst the number, and con-
senting at once to the expedition which was proposed
to him, he tied himself on to the rope.
"Do you know the Brenva ascent?" Chayne asked
of him.
"Yes, monsieur. I have crossed Mont Blanc once
that way. I shall be very glad to go again. We
shall be the first to cross for two years. If only the
weather holds."
"Do you doubt that?" asked Chayne, anxiously.
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RUNNING WATER
The morning had broken clear, the day was sunny and
cloudless.
"I think there may be wind to-morrow," he replied,
raising his face and judging by signs unappreciable to
other than the trained eyes of a guide. "But we will
try, eh, monsieur?" he cried, recovering his spirits.
"We will try. We will be the first on the Brenva
ridge for two years."
But there Chayne knew him to be wrong. There
was another party somewhere on the great ridge at
this moment. "Had it happened?" he asked himself.
"How was it to happen?" What kind of an accident
was it to be which could take place with a guide how-
ever worthless, and which would leave no suspicion
resting on Garratt Skinner? There would be no cut-
ting of the rope. Of that he felt sure. That method
might do very well for a melodrama, but actually—no!
Garratt Skinner would have a better plan than that.
And indeed he had, a better plan and a simpler one,
a plan which not merely would give to any uttered
suspicion the complexion of malignancy, but must
even bring Mr. Garratt Skinner honor and great praise.
But no idea of the plan occurred either to Sylvia or
to Chayne as all through that long hot day they toiled
up the ice-fall of the Col du Geant and over the
passes. It was evening before they came to the pas-
tures, night before they reached Courmayeur.
There Chayne found full confirmation of his fears.
In spite of effort to dissuade them, Garratt Skinner,
Walter Hine and Pierre Delouvain had started yester-
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MICHEL REVAILLOUD'S FUHRBUCH
day for the Brenva climb. They had taken porters
with them as far as the sleeping-place upon the glacier
rocks. The porters had returned. Chayne sent for
them.
"Yes," they said. "At half past two this morning,
the climbing party descended from the rocks on to
the ice-fall of the glacier. They should be at the hut
at the Grands Mulets now, on the other side of the
mountain, if not already in Chamonix. Perhaps mon-
sieur would wish for porters to-morrow."
"No," said Chayne. "We mean to try the passage
in one day"; and he turned to his guides. "I wish to
start at midnight. It is important. We shall reach
the glacier by five. Will you be ready?"
And at midnight accordingly he set out by the light
of a lantern. Sylvia stood outside the hotel and
watched the flame diminish to a star, dance for a little
while, and then go out. For her, as for all women,
the bad hour had struck when there was nothing to do
but to sit and watch and wait. Perhaps her husband,
after all, was wrong, she said to herself, and repeated
the phrase, hoping that repetition would carry convic-
tion to her heart.
But early on that morning Chayne had sure evidence
that he was right. For as he, Simond and Andre
Droz were marching in single file through the thin
forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd
lad came running down toward them. He was so
excited that he could hardly tell the story with which
he was hurrying to Courmayeur. Only an hour before
so 305


CHAPTER XXIV
THE BRENVA RIDGE
THE peasant was right. He had seen a man wav-
ing a signal of distress on the slopes of Mont
Blanc above the great buttress. And this is how the
signal came to be waved.
An hour before Chayne and Sylvia set out from
Chamonix to cross the Col du Geant, and while it was
yet quite dark, a spark glowed suddenly on an island
of rocks set in the great white waste of the Brenva
glacier. The spark was a fire lit by Pierre Delouvain.
For Garratt Skinner's party had camped upon those
rocks. The morning was cold, and one by one the
porters, Garratt Skinner, and Walter Hine, gathered
about the blaze. Overhead the stars glittered in a
clear, dark sky. It was very still; no sound was heard
at all but the movement in the camp; even on the
glacier a thousand feet below, where all night long the
avalanches had thundered, in the frost of the early
morning there was silence.
Garratt Skinner looked upward.
"We shall have a good day," he said; and then he
looked quickly toward Walter Hine. "How did you
sleep, Wallie?"
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RUNNING WATER
"Very little. The avalanches kept me awake. Be-
sides, I slipped and fell a hundred times at the corner
of the path," he said, with a shiver. "A hundred times
I felt emptiness beneath my feet."
He referred to a mishap of the day before. On the
way to the gite after the chalets and the wood are left
behind, a little path leads along the rocks of the Mont
de la Brenva high above the glacier. There are one or
two awkward corners to pass where rough footsteps
have been hewn in the rock. At one of these corners
Walter Hine had slipped. His side struck the step;
he would have dropped to the glacier, but Garratt
Skinner had suddenly reached out a hand and saved
him.
Garratt Skinner's face changed.
"You are not afraid," he said.
"You think we can do it?" asked Hine, nervously,
and Garratt Skinner laughed.
"Ask Pierre Delouvain!" he said, and himself put
the question. Pierre laughed in his turn.
"Bah! I snap my fingers at the Brenva climb," said
he. "We shall be in Chamonix to-night"; and Garratt
Skinner translated the words to Walter Hine.
Breakfast was prepared and eaten. Walter Hine
was silent through the meal. He had not the courage
to say that he was afraid; and Garratt Skinner played
upon his vanity.
"We shall be in Chamonix to-night. It will be a
fine feather in your cap, Wallie. One of the historic
climbs!"
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THE BRENVA RIDGE
Walter Hine drew a deep breath. If only the day
were over, and the party safe on the rough path
through the woods on the other side of the mountain!
But he held his tongue. Moreover, he had great faith
in his idol and master, Garratt Skinner.
"You saved my life yesterday," he said; and upon
Garratt Skinner's face there came a curious smile.
He looked steadily into the blaze of the fire and spoke
almost as though he made an apology to himself.
"I saw a man falling. I saw that I could save
him. I did not think. My hand had already caught
him."
He looked up with a start. In the east the day
was breaking, pale and desolate; the lower glacier
glimmered into view beneath them; the gigantic am-
phitheater of hills which girt them in on three sides
loomed out of the mists from aerial heights and took
solidity and shape, westward the black and rugged
Peuteret ridge, eastward the cliffs of Mont Maudit,
and northward sweeping around the head of the
glacier, the great ice-wall of Mont Blanc with its
ruined terraces and inaccessible cliffs.
"Time, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, and he rose
to his feet and called to Pierre Delouvain. "There
are only three of us. We shall have to go quickly.
We do not want to carry more food than we shall need.
The rest we can send back with our blankets by the
porters."
Pierre Delouvain justified at once the ill words which
had been spoken of him by Michel Revailloud. He
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RUNNING WATER
thought only Of the burden which through this long
day he would have to carry on his back.
"Yes, that is right," he said. "We will take what
we need for the day. To-night we shall be in Cha-
monix."
And thus the party set off with no provision against
that most probable of all mishaps—the chance that
sunset might find them still upon the mountain side.
Pierre Delouvain, being lazy and a worthless fellow,
as Revailloud had said, agreed. But the suggestion
had been made by Garratt Skinner. And Garratt
Skinner was Gabriel Strood, who knew—none better—
the folly of such light traveling.
The rope was put on; Pierre Delouvain led the way,
Walter Hine as the weakest of the party was placed
in the middle, Garratt Skinner came last; the three
men mounted by a snow-slope and a gully to the top
of the rocks which supported the upper Brenva glacier.
"That 's our road, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner.
He pointed to a great buttress of rock overlain here
and there with fields of snow, which jutted out from
the ice-wall of the mountain, descended steeply, bent
to the west in a curve, and then pushed far out into
the glacier as some great promontory pushes out into
the sea. "Do you see a hump above the buttress, on
the crest of the ridge and a little to the right? And
to the right of the hump, a depression in the ridge?
That's what they call the Corridor. Once we are there
our troubles are over."
But between the party and the buttress stretched
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RUNNING WATER
stood upon insecure ledges and supported Delouvain
upon his shoulders, and pushed him up with his ice-ax
into positions which only involved the party in further
difficulties. He took his life in his hands and risked
it, knowing the better way. Yet all the while the light
broadened, the great violet shadows crept down the
slopes and huddled at the bases of the peaks. Then
the peaks took fire, and suddenly along the dull white
slopes of ice in front of them the fingers of the morn-
ing flashed in gold. Over the eastern rocks the sun had
leaped into the sky. For a little while longer they
advanced deeper into the entanglement, and when they
were about half way across they came to a stop. They
were on a tongue of ice which narrowed to a point;
the point abutted against a perpendicular ice-wall thirty
feet high. Nowhere was there any break in that wall,
and at each side of the tongue the ice gaped in chasms.
"We must go back," said Pierre. "I have forgot-
ten the way."
He had never known it. Seduced by a treble fee,
he had assumed an experience which he did not possess.
Garratt Skinner looked at his watch, and turning about
led the party back for a little while. Then he turned
to his right and said:
"I think it might go in this direction," and lo!
making steadily across some difficult ground, no longer
in a straight line northward to Mont Blanc, but west-
ward toward the cliffs of the Peuteret ridge under
Garratt Skinner's lead, they saw a broad causeway
of ice open before them. The causeway led them to
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THE BRENVA RIDGE
steep slopes of snow, up which it was just possible to
kick steps, and then working back again to the east
they reached the foot of the great buttress on its
western side just where it forms a right angle with the
face of the mountain. Garratt Skinner once more
looked at his watch. It had been half-past two when
they had put on the rope, it was now close upon half-
past six. They had taken four hours to traverse the
ice-fall, and they should have taken only two and a
half. Garratt Skinner, however, expressed no anxiety.
On the contrary, one might have thought that he
wished to lose time.
"There 's one of the difficulties disposed of," he said,
cheerily. "You did very well, Wallie—very well.
It was not altogether nice, was it? But you won't
have to go back."
Walter Hine had indeed crossed the glacier without
complaint. There had been times when he had shiv-
ered, times when his heart within him had swelled with
a longing to cry out, "Let us go back!" But he had
not dared. He had been steadied across the narrow
bridge with the rope, hauled up the ice-walls and let
down again on the other side. But he had come
through. He took some pride in the exploit as he
gazed back from the top of the snow-slope across the
tumult of ice to the rocks on which he had slipped.
He had come through safely, and he was encouraged
to go on.
"We won't stop here, I think," said Garratt Skinner.
They had already halted upon the glacier for a second
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THE BRENVA RIDGE
fatigue aloof. They rested just below the crest of the
ridge and took another meal.
"Eat often and little. That 's the golden rule,"
said Garratt Skinner. "No brandy, Wallie. Keep
that in your flask!"
Pierre Delouvain, however, followed a practice not
unknown amongst Chamonix guides.
"Absinthe is good on the mountains," said he.
When they rose, the order of going was changed.
Pierre Delouvain, who had led all the morning, now
went last, and Garratt Skinner led. He led quickly
and with great judgment or knowledge—Pierre De-
louvain at the end of the rope wondered whether it
was judgment or knowledge—and suddenly Walter
Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt
Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a gla-
cier far below, which flows from the Mur de la Cote
on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the Brenva
glacier.
"That 's famous," cried Garratt Skinner, looking
once more at his watch. He did not say that they had
lost yet another hour upon the face of the buttress.
It was now half past nine in the morning. "We are
twelve thousand feet up, Wallie," and he swung to
his left, and led the party up the ridge of the buttress.
As they went along this ridge, Wallie Hine's cour-
age rose. It was narrow but not steep, nor was it ice.
It was either rock or snow in which steps could be
kicked. He stepped out with a greater confidence.
If this were all, the Brenva climb was a fraud, he
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RUNNING WATER
he might have done, Garratt Skinner was prepared.
He would have jumped down the opposite side of the
ice-arete, though how either he or Walter Hine could
have regained the ridge he could not tell. Would
any one of the party live to return to Courmayeur
and tell the tale? But Garratt Skinner knew the risk
he took, had counted it up long before ever he brought
Walter Hine to Chamonix, and thought it worth while.
He did not falter now. All through the morning, in-
deed, he had been taking risks, risks of which Walter
Hine did not dream; with so firm and yet so delicate
a step he had moved from crack to crack, from ice-
step up to ice-step; with so obedient a response of his
muscles, he had drawn himself up over the rounded
rocks from ledge to ledge. He shouted again to Pierre
Delouvain, and at the same moment began carefully
to work backward along the ice-arete. Pierre, how-
ever, hurried; Walter Hine heard the guide's voice
behind him, felt himself steadied by his hands. He
stooped slowly down, knelt upon the wall, then be-
strode it.
"Now, forward," cried Skinner, and he pulled in
the rope. "Forward. We cannot go back!"
Hine clung to the ridge; behind him Pierre Delou-
vain sat down and held him about the waist. Slowly
they worked themselves forward, while Garratt Skin-
ner gathered in the rope in front. The wall narrowed
as they advanced, became the merest edge which cut
their hands as they clasped it. Hine closed his eyes,
his head whirled, he was giddy, he felt sick. He
318


THE BRENVA RIDGE
stopped gripping the slope on both sides with his
knees, clutching the sharp edge with the palms of his
hands.
"I can't go on! I can't," he cried, and he reeled
like a novice on the back of a horse.
Garratt Skinner worked back to him.
"Put your arms about my waist, Wallie! Keep
your eyes shut! You sha'n't fall."
Walter Hine clung to him convulsively, Pierre
Delouvain steadied Hine from behind, and thus they
went slowly forward for a long while. Garratt Skin-
ner gripped the edge with the palms of his hands—so
narrow was the ridge—the fingers of one hand pointed
down one slope, the fingers of the other down the
opposite wall. Their legs dangled.
At last Walter Hine felt Garratt Skinner loosening
his clasped fingers from about his waist. Garratt
Skinner stood up, uncoiled the rope, chipped a step
or two in the ice and went boldly forward. For a
yard or two further Walter Hine straddled on, and
then Garratt Skinner cried to him:
"Look up, Wallie. It's all over."
Hine looked and saw Garratt Skinner standing upon
a level space of snow in the side of the mountain. A
moment later he himself was lying in the sun upon
the level space. The famous ice-arete was behind
them. Walter Hine looked back along it and shud-
dered. The thin edge of ice curving slightly down-
ward, stretched away to the black rock-tower, in the
bright sunlight a thing most beautiful, but most menac-
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RUNNING WATER
ing and terrible. He seemed cut off by it from the
world. They had a meal upon that level space, and
while Hine rested, Pierre Delouvain cast off the rope
and went ahead. He came back in a little while with a
serious face.
"Will it go?" asked Garratt Skinner.
"It must," said Delouvain. "For we can never
go back"; and suddenly alarmed lest the way should
be barred in front as well as behind, Walter Hine
turned and looked above him. His nerves were al-
ready shaken; at the sight of what lay ahead of him,
he uttered a cry of despair.
"It 's no use," he cried. "We can never get up,"
and he flung himself upon the snow and buried his
face in his arms. Garratt Skinner stood over him.
"We must," he said. "Come! Look!"
Walter Hine looked up and saw his companion
dangling the face of his watch before his eyes.
"We are late. It is now twelve o'clock. We should
have left this spot two hours ago and more," he said,
very gravely; and Pierre Delouvain exclaimed ex-
citedly:
"Certainly, monsieur, we must go on. It will not
do to loiter now," and stooping down, he dragged
rather than helped Walter Hine to his feet. The quiet
gravity of Garratt Skinner and the excitement of
Delouvain frightened Walter Hine equally. Some
sense of his own insufficiency broke in at last upon
him. His vanity peeled off from him, just at the
moment when it would most have been of use. He
320


THE BRENVA RIDGE
had a glimpse of what he was—a poor, weak, ineffi-
cient thing.
Above them the slopes stretched upward to a great
line of towering ice-cliffs. Through and up those ice-
cliffs a way had to be found. And at any moment,
loosened by the sun, huge blocks and pinnacles might
break from them and come thundering down. As
it was, upon their right hand where the snow-fields
fell steeply in a huge ice gully, between a line of rocks
and the cliffs of Mont Maudit, the avalanches plunged
and reverberated down to the Brenva glacier. Pierre
Delouvain took the lead again, and keeping by the
line of rocks the party ascended the steep snow-slopes
straight toward the wall of cliffs. But in a while
the snow thinned, and the ax was brought into play
again. Through the thin crust of snow, steps had
to be cut into the ice beneath, and since there were
still many hundreds of feet to be ascended, the steps
were cut wide apart. With the sun burning upon his
face, and his feet freezing in the ice-steps, Walter
Hine stood and moved, and stood again all through
that afternoon. Fatigue gained upon him, and fear
did not let him go. "If only I get off this mountain,"
he said to himself with heartfelt longing, "never
again!" When near to the cliffs Pierre Delouvain
stopped. In front of him the wall was plainly inacces-
sible. Far away to the left there was a depression up
which possibly a way might be forced.
"I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said
Pierre.
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RUNNING WATER
"But you should know," said Garratt Skinner.
"It is some time since I was here. I have for-
gotten;" and Pierre began to traverse the ice-slope to
the left. Garratt Skinner followed without a word.
But he knew that when he had ascended Mont Blanc
by the Brenva route twenty-three years before, he
had kept to the right along the rocks to a point where
that ice-wall was crevassed, and through that crevasse
had found his path. They passed quickly beneath
an overhanging rib of ice which jutted out from the
wall, and reached the angle then formed at four o'clock
in the afternoon.
"Our last difficulty, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner,
as he cut a large step in which Hine might stand.
"Once up that wall, our troubles are over."
Walter Hine looked at the wall. It was not smooth
ice, it was true; blocks had broken loose from it, and
had left it bulging out here, there, and in places fis-
sured. But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees. It
seemed impossible that any one should ascend it. He
looked down the slope up which they had climbed—it
seemed equally impossible that any one should return.
Moreover, the sun was already in the West, and the ice
promontory under which they stood shut its warmth
from them. Walter Hine was in the shadow, and he
shivered with cold as much as with fear. For half
an hour Pierre Delouvain tried desperately to work
his way up that ice wall, and failed.
"It is too late," he said. "We shall not get up to-
night."
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RUNNING WATER
Along the ice-ridge the party moved slowly and
safely, carrying Hine between them. As they passed
behind the great rock tower at the lower end, the
threatened snow began to fall in light flakes.
"Quickly," said Chayne. "We must reach the cha-
lets to-night."
They raced along the snow-slopes on the crest of the
buttress and turned to the right down the gullies and
the ledges on the face of the rock. In desperate haste
they descended lowering Walter Hine from man to
man, they crawled down the slabs, dropped from shelf
to shelf, wound themselves down the gullies of ice.
Somehow without injury the snow-slopes at the foot
of the rocks were reached. The snow still held off;
only now and then a few flakes fell. But over the
mountain the wind was rising, it swept down in fierce
swift eddies, and drew back with a roar like the sea
upon shingle.
"We must get off the glacier before night comes,"
cried Chayne, and led by Simond the rescue party went
down into the ice-fall. They stopped at the first glacier
pool and made Hine wash his hands and feet in the
water, to save himself from frost-bite; and thereafter
for a little time they rested. They went on again,
but they were tired men, and before the rocks were
reached upon which two nights before Garratt Skinner
had bivouacked, darkness had come. Then Simond
justified the praise of Michel Revailloud. With the
help of a folding lantern which Chayne had carried in
his pocket, he led the way through that bewildering
336


A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE
labyrinth with unerring judgment. Great seracs
loomed up through the darkness, magnified in size and
distorted in shape. Simond went over and round them
and under them, steadily, and the rescue party fol-
lowed. Now he disappeared over the edge of a cliff
into space, and in a few seconds his voice rang upward
cheerily.
"Follow! It is safe."
And his ice-ax rang with no less cheeriness. He
led them boldly to the brink of abysses which were
merely channels in the ice, and amid towering pin-
nacles which seen, close at hand, were mere blocks
shoulder high. And at last the guide at the tail of the
rope heard from far away ahead Simond's voice raised
in a triumphant shout.
"The rocks! The rocks!"
With one accord they flung themselves, tired and
panting, on the sheltered level of the bivouac. Some
sticks were found, a fire was lighted, tea was once more
made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as the
flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouch-
ing, kneeling, sitting, and the rocks resounded with
their laughter.
"Only a little further, Wallie!" said Garratt Skin-
ner, still true to his part.
They descended from the rocks, crossed a level field
of ice and struck the rock path along the slope of the
Mont de la Brenva.
"Keep on the rope," said Garratt Skinner. "Hine
slipped at a corner as we came up"; and Chayne
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RUNNING WATER
glanced quickly at him. There were one or two awk-
ward corners above the lower glacier where rough foot-
steps had been hewn. On one of these Walter Hine had
slipped, and Garratt Skinner had saved him—had un-
doubtedly saved him. At the very beginning of the
climb, the object for which it was undertaken was al-
most fulfilled, and would have been fulfilled but that
instinct overpowered Garratt Skinner, and since the
accident was unexpected, before he had had time to
think he had reached out his hand and saved the life
which he intended to destroy.
Along that path Hine was carefully brought to the
chalets of La Brenva. The peasants made him as com-
fortable as they could.
"He will recover," said Simond. "Oh yes, he will
recover. Two of us will stay with him."
"No need for that," replied Garratt Skinner.
"Thank you very much, but that is my duty since Hine
is my friend."
"I think not," said Chayne, standing quietly
in front of Garratt Skinner. "Walter Hine will
be safe enough in Simond's hands. I want you to
return with me to Courmayeur. My wife is there
and anxious."
"Your wife?"
"Yes, Sylvia."
Garratt Skinner nodded his head.
"I see," he said, slowly. "Yes."
He looked round the hut. Simond was going to
watch by Hine's side. He was defeated utterly, and
338


CHAPTER XXVI
RUNNING WATER
IN two days' time Walter Hine was sufficiently re-
covered to be carried down to Courmayeur. He
had been very near to death upon the Brenva ridge;
certainly the second night upon which Garratt Skinner
had counted would have ended his life; he was frost-
bitten; and for a long while the shock and the ex-
posure left him weak. But he gained strength with
each day, and Chayne had opportunities to admire the
audacity and the subtle skill with which Garratt Skin-
ner had sought his end. For Walter Hine was loud
in his praises of his friend's self-sacrifice. Skinner
had denied himself his own share of food, had bared
his breast to the wind that he might give the warmth
of his own body to keep his friend alive—these in-
stances lost nothing in the telling. And they were
true! Chayne could not deny to Garratt Skinner a
certain criminal grandeur. He had placed Hine in no
peril which he had net shared himself; he had taken
him, a man fitted in neither experience nor health, on
an expedition where inexperience or weakness on the
part of one was likely to prove fatal to all. There was,
moreover, one incident, not contemplated by Garratt
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RUNNING WATER
Skinner in his plan, which made his position absolutely
secure. He had actually saved Walter Hine's life on
the rocky path of the Mont de la Brenva. There was
no doubt of it. He had reached out his hand and
saved him. Chayne made much of this incident to his
wife.
"I was wrong you see, Sylvia," he argued. "For
your father could have let him fall, and did not. I
have been unjust to him, and to you, for you have
been troubled."
But Sylvia shook her head.
"You were not wrong," she answered. "It is only
because you are very kind that you want me to be-
lieve it. But I see the truth quite clearly"; and she
smiled at him. "If you wanted me to believe, you
should never have told me of the law, a year ago in
the Chalet de Lognan. My father obeyed the law—
that was all. You know it as well as I. He had no
time to think; he acted upon the instinct of the
moment; he could not do otherwise. Had there been
time to think, would he have reached out his hand?
We both know that he would not. But he obeyed the
law. What he knew, that he did, obeying the law
upon the moment. He could save, and knowing it he
did save, even against his will."
Chayne did not argue the point. Sylvia saw the
truth too clearly.
"Walter Hine is getting well," he said. "Your
father is still at another hotel in Courmayeur. There 's
the future to be considered."
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RUNNING WATER
"Yes," she said, and she waited.
"I have asked your father to come over to-night
after dinner," said Chayne.
And into their private sitting-room Garratt Skinner
entered at eight o'clock that evening. It was the
first time that Sylvia had seen him since she had
learned the whole truth, and she found the occasion
one of trial. But Garratt Skinner carried it off.
There was nothing of the penitent in his manner,
but on the other hand he no longer affected the manner
of a pained and loving parent. He greeted her from
the door, and congratulated her quietly and simply
upon her marriage. Then he turned to Chayne.
"You wished to speak to me? I am at your
service."
"Yes," replied Chayne. "We—and I speak for
Sylvia—we wish to suggest to you that your acquaint-
anceship with Walter Hine should end altogether—
that it should already have ended."
"Really!" said Garratt Skinner, with an air of
surprise. "Captain Chayne, the laws of England,
revolutionary as they have no doubt become to old-
fashioned people like myself, have not yet placed
fathers under the guardianship of their sons-in-law.
I cannot accept your suggestion."
"We insist upon its acceptance," said Chayne,
quietly.
Garratt Skinner smiled.
"Insist perhaps! But how enforce it, my friend?
That 's another matter."
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RUNNING WATER
"I don't think you understand, Hilary," she said,
quickly. She turned to her father and looked straight
at him with an eager interest.
"I wonder whether we are both thinking of the
same thing," she said, curiously.
"Perhaps," replied her father. "All your life you
have dreamed of running water."
And Sylvia nodded her head.
"Yes, yes," she said, with a peculiar intentness.
"The dream is part of you, part of your life. For
all you know, it may have modified your character."
"Yes," said Sylvia.
"It is a part of you of which you could not rid
yourself if you tried. When you are asleep, this
dream comes to you. It is as much a part of you as
a limb."
And again Sylvia answered: "Yes."
"Well, you are not responsible for it," and Sylvia
leaned forward.
"Ah!" she said. She had been wondering whether
it was to this point that he was coming.
"You know now why you hear it, why it 's part
of you. You were born to the sound of running
water in that old house in Dorsetshire. Before you
were born, in the daytime and in the stillness of the
night your mother heard it week after week. Perhaps
even when she was asleep the sound rippled through
her dreams. Thus you came by it. It was born in
you."
"Yes," she answered, following his argument step
by step very carefully, but without a sign of the per-
347


RUNNING WATER
Dimly they could be seen under the sickle of a new
moon. "In fact, I propose to-morrow to take your
friend Simond and cross on the high-level to Zermatt."
"But afterward?" asked Chayne.
Garratt Skinner laughed and laughed like a boy.
There was a rich anticipation of enjoyment in the
sound.
"Afterward? I shall have a great time. I shall
squeeze Mr. Jarvice. It's what they call in America a
cinch."
And with a cheery good-night Garratt Skinner be-
took himself down the road.
352