Read Ebook: The Silent Barrier by Tracy Louis McFall J V Illustrator Parsons A W Illustrator

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Ebook has 411 lines and 25208 words, and 9 pages

Bower approached, with a slow, dragging movement. Without a word of protest, he sank to his knees. The snow in his hair began to melt. He passed his hands over his face as though shutting out some horrific vision.

Stampa produced from his pocket a frayed and tattered prayer book--an Italian edition of the Paroissien Romain. He opened it at a marked page, and began to read the marriage ritual. Though the words were Latin, and he was no better educated than any other peasant in the district, he pronounced the sonorous phrases with extraordinary accuracy. Of course, he was an Italian, and Latin was not such an incomprehensible tongue to him as it would prove to a German or Englishman of his class. Moreover, the liturgy of the Church of Rome is familiar to its people, no matter what their race. Bower, stupefied and benumbed, though the sun was shining brilliantly, and a constant dripping from the pine branches gave proof of a rapid thaw, listened like one in a trance. He understood scattered sentences, brokenly, yet with sufficient comprehension.

It was quite easy to follow their general drift. Anyone who had ever recited the Lord's Prayer in any language would realize that he was asking the Deity to forgive him his trespasses as he forgave those who trespassed against him. And there came to the kneeling man a thrilling consciousness that Stampa was appealing for him in the name of the dead girl, the once blushing and timid maid whose bones were crumbling into dust beneath that coverlet of earth and herbage. There could be no doubting the grim earnestness of the reader. It mattered not a jot to Stampa that he was usurping the functions of the Church in an outlandish travesty of her ritual. He was sustained by a fixed belief that the daughter so heartlessly reft from him was present in spirit, nay, more, that she was profoundly grateful for this belated sanctifying of an unhallowed love. Bower's feelings or convictions were not of the slightest consequence. He owed it to Etta to make reparation, and the duty must be fulfilled to the utmost letter.

Strong man as he was, Bower nearly fainted. He scarce had the faculty of speech when Stampa bade him make the necessary responses in Italian. But he obeyed. All the time the devilish conviction grew that if he persisted in this flummery he might emerge scatheless from a ghastly ordeal. The punishment of publicity was the one thing he dreaded, and that might be avoided--for Etta's sake. So he obeyed, with cunning pretense of grief, trying to veil the malevolence in his heart.

"Now, Marcus Bauer," he said, "I have done with you. See to it that you do not again break your plighted vows to my daughter! She is your wife. You are her husband. Not even death can divide you. Go!"

His strong, splendidly molded face, massive and dignified, cast in lines that would have appealed to a sculptor who wished to limn the features of a patriarch of old, wore an aspect of settled calm. He was at peace with all the world. He had forgiven his enemy.

Bower rose again stiffly. He would have spoken; but Stampa now fell on his knees and began to pray silently. So the millionaire, humbled again and terror stricken by the sinister significance of those concluding words, yet not daring to question them, crept out of the place of the dead. As he staggered down the hillside he looked back once. He had eyes only for the little iron gate, but Stampa came not.

Then he essayed to brush some of the clinging snow off his clothes. He shook himself like a dog after a plunge into water. In the distance he saw the hotel, with its promise of luxury and forgetfulness. And he cursed Stampa with a bitter fury of emphasis, trying vainly to persuade himself that he had been the victim of a maniac's delusion.

WHEREIN MILLICENT ARMS FOR THE FRAY

Millicent was wondering how she would fare in the deep snow in boots that were never built for such a test. She was standing on the swept roadway between the hotel and the stables, and the tracks of her quarry were plainly visible. But the hope of discovering some explanation of Bower's queer behavior was more powerful than her dread of wet feet. She was gathering her skirts daintily before taking the next step, when the two men suddenly reappeared.

They had left the village and were crossing the line of the path. Shrinking back under cover of an empty wagon, she watched them. Apparently they were heading for the Orlegna Gorge, and she scanned the ground eagerly to learn how she could manage to spy on them without being seen almost immediately. Then she fell into the same error as Helen in believing that the winding carriage road to the church offered the nearest way to the clump of firs and azaleas by which Bower and Stampa would soon be hidden.

Three minutes' sharp walking brought her to the church, but there the highway turned abruptly toward the village. As one side of the small ravine faced south, the sun's rays were beginning to have effect, and a narrow track, seemingly leading to the hill, was almost laid bare. In any event, it must bring her near the point where the men vanished, so she went on breathlessly. Crossing the rivulet, already swollen with melting snow, she mounted the steps cut in the hillside. It was heavy going in that thin air; but she held to it determinedly.

Then she heard men's voices raised in anger. She recognized one. Bower was speaking German, Stampa a mixture of German and Italian. Millicent had a vague acquaintance with both languages; but it was of the Ollendorf order, and did not avail her in understanding their rapid, excited words. Soon there were other sounds, the animal cries, the sobs, the labored grunts of men engaged in deadly struggle. Thoroughly alarmed, more willing to retreat than advance, she still clambered on, impelled by irresistible desire to find out what strange thing was happening.

At last, partly concealed by a dwarf fir, she could peer over a wall into the tiny cemetery. She was too late to witness the actual fight; but she saw Stampa spring upright, leaving his prostrate opponent apparently lifeless. She was utterly frightened. Fear rendered her mute. To her startled eyes it seemed that Bower had been killed by the crippled man. Soon that quite natural impression yielded to one of sustained astonishment. Bower rose slowly, a sorry spectacle. To her woman's mind, unfamiliar with scenes of violence, it was surprising that he did not begin at once to beat the life out of the lame old peasant who had attacked him so viciously. When Stampa closed the gate and motioned Bower to kneel, when the tall, powerfully built man knelt without protest, when the reading of the Latin service began,--well, Millicent could never afterward find words to express her conflicting emotions.

But she did not move. Crouching behind her protecting tree, guarding her very breath lest some involuntary cry should betray her presence, she watched the whole of the weird ceremonial. She racked her brains to guess its meaning, strained her ears to catch a sentence that might be identified hereafter; but she failed in both respects. Of course, it was evident that someone was buried there, someone whose memory the wild looking villager held dear, someone whose grave he had forced Bower to visit, someone for whose sake he was ready to murder Bower if the occasion demanded. So much was clear; but the rest was blurred, a medley of incoherences, a waking nightmare.

Oddly enough, it never occurred to her that a woman might be lying in that dreary tenement. Her first vague imagining suggested that Bower had committed a crime, killed a man, and that an avenger had dragged him to his victim's last resting place. That Stampa was laboriously plodding through the marriage ritual was a fantastic conceit of which she received no hint. There was nothing to dissolve the mist in her mind. She could only wait, and marvel.

As the strange scene drew to its close, she became calmer. She reflected that some sort of registry would be kept of the graves. A few dismal monuments, and two rows of little black wooden crosses that stuck up mournfully out of the snow, gave proof positive of that. She counted the crosses. Stampa was standing near the seventh from a tomb easily recognizable at some future time. Bower faced it on his knees. She could not see him distinctly, as he was hidden by the other man's broad shoulders; but she did not regret it, because the warm brown tints of her furs against the background of snow and foliage might warn him of her presence. She thanked the kindly stars that brought her here. No matter what turn events took now, she hoped to hold the whip hand over Bower. There was a mystery to be cleared, of course; but with such materials she could hardly fail to discover its true bearings.

So she watched, in tremulous patience, quick to note each movement of the actors in a drama the like to which she had never seen on the stage.

At last Bower slunk away. She heard the crunching of his feet on the snow, and, when Stampa ceased his silent prayer, she expected that he would depart by the same path. To her overwhelming dismay, he wheeled round and looked straight at her. In reality his eyes were fixed on the hills behind her. He was thinking of his unhappy daughter. The giant mass of Corvatsch was associated in his mind with the girl's last glimpse of her beloved Switzerland, while on that same memorable day it threw its deep shadow over his own life. He turned to the mountain to seek its testimony,--as it were, to the consummation of a tragedy.

But Millicent could not know that. Losing all command of herself, she shrieked in terror, and ran wildly among the trees. She stumbled and fell before she had gone five yards over the rough ground. Quite in a panic, confused and blinded with snow, she rose and ran again, only to find herself speeding back to the burial ground. Then, in a very agony of distress, she stood still. Stampa was looking at her, with mild surprise displayed in every line of his expressive features.

She half understood, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Her terror was manifest, and he pitied her.

He repeated his question in German. A child might have recognized that this man of the benignant face and kindly, sorrow laden eyes intended no evil.

"I am sorry. I beg your pardon, Herr Stampa," she managed to stammer.

"There is nothing to interest you here, madam, and still less to cause fear. But it is a sad place, at the best. Follow that path. It will lead you to the village or the hotel."

Her fright was subsiding rapidly. She deemed the opportunity too good to be lost. If she could win his confidence, what an immense advantage it would be in her struggle against Bower! Summoning all her energies, and trying to remember some of the German sentences learned in her school days, she smiled wistfully.

"You are in great trouble," she murmured. "I suppose Herr Bower has injured you?"

Stampa glanced at her keenly. He had the experience of sixty years of a busy life to help him in summing up those with whom he came in contact, and this beautiful, richly dressed woman did not appeal to his simple nature as did Helen when she surprised his grief on a morning not so long ago. Moreover, the elegant stranger was little better than a spy, for none but a spy would have wandered among the rocks and shrubs in such weather, and he was in no mood to suffer her inquiries.

"I am in no trouble," he said, "and Herr Bauer has not injured me."

"But you fought," she persisted. "I thought you had killed him. I almost wish you had. I hate him!"

"It is a bad thing to hate anyone. I am three times your age; so you may, or may not, regard my advice as excellent. Come round by the corner of the wall, and you will reach the path without walking in the deep snow. Good morning, madam."

He bowed with an ease that would have proclaimed his nationality if he had not been an Italian mountaineer in every poise and gesture. Stooping to recover his Alpine hat, which was lying near the cross at the head of the grave, he passed out through the gate before Millicent was clear of the wall. He made off with long, uneven, but rapid strides, leaving her hot with annoyance that a mere peasant should treat her so cavalierly. Though she did not understand all he said, she grasped its purport. But her soreness soon passed. The great fact remained that she shared some secret with him and Bower, a secret of an importance she could not yet measure. She was tempted to go inside the cemetery, and might have yielded to the impulse had not a load of snow suddenly tumbled off the broad fronds of a pine. The incident set her heart beating furiously again. How lonely was this remote hilltop! Even the glorious sunshine did not relieve its brooding silence.

Thus it came about that these three people went down into the valley, each within a short distance of the others, and Spencer saw them all from the high road, where he was questioning an official of the federal postoffice as to the method of booking seats in the banquette of the diligence from Vicosoprano.

That he was bewildered by the procession goes without saying. Where had they been, and how in the name of wonder could the woman's presence be accounted for? The polite postmaster must have thought that the Englishman was very dense that morning. Several times he explained fully that the two desired seats in the diligence must be reserved from Chiavenna. As many times did Spencer repeat the information without in the least seeming to comprehend it. He spoke with the detached air of a boy in the first form reciting the fifth proposition in Euclid. At last the postmaster gave it up in despair.

"You see that man there?" he said to a keenly interested policeman when Spencer strolled away in the direction of the village. "He is of the most peculiar. He talks German like a parrot. He must be a rich American. Perhaps he wants to buy a diligence."

And, indeed, through Spencer's brain was running a Bedlamite jingle, a triolet of which the dominant line was Bower, Stampa, and Millicent Jaques. The meeting of Bower and Stampa was easy of explanation. After the guide's story of the previous evening, nothing but Stampa's death or Bower's flight could prevent it. But the woman from the Wellington Theater, how had she come to know of their feud? He was almost tempted to quote the only line of Moli?re ever heard beyond the shores of France.

Like every visitor to the Maloja, he was acquainted with each of its roads and footpaths except the identical one that these three descended. Where did it lead to? Before he quite realized what he was doing, he was walking up the hill. In places where the sun had not yet caught the snow there was a significant trail. Bower had come and gone once, Stampa, or some man wearing village-made boots, twice; but the single track left by Millicent's smart footwear added another perplexing item to the puzzle. So he pressed on, and soon was gazing at the forlorn cemetery, with its signs of a furious struggle between the gateposts, the uncovered grave space, and Millicent's track round two corners of the square built wall.

It was part of his life's training to read signs. The mining engineer who would hit on a six-inch lode in a mountain of granite must combine imagination with knowledge, and Spencer quickly made out something of the silent story,--something, not all, but enough to send him in haste to the hotel by the way Millicent had arrived on the scene.

"Guess there's going to be a heap of trouble round here," he said to himself. "Helen must be recalled to London. It's up to me to make the cable hot to Mackenzie."

"Are the wires down beyond St. Moritz?" asked Spencer.

"I cannot give an assurance," said the clerk; "but these southwest gales usually do not affect the Albula Pass. The road to St. Moritz is practicable, as this morning's mail was only forty minutes behind time."

Spencer ordered a carriage, wrote a telegram, and gave it to the driver, with orders to forward it from St. Moritz if possible. And this was the text:

"MACKENZIE, 'FIREFLY' OFFICE, FLEET-ST., LONDON. Wire Miss Wynton positive instructions to return to England immediately. Say she is wanted at office. I shall arrange matters before she arrives. This is urgent. SPENCER."

A heavy weight gradually lifted off his shoulders as he watched the wheels of the vehicle churning up the brown snow broth along the valley road. Within two hours his message would reach a telegraph office. Two more would bring it to Mackenzie. With reasonable luck, the line repairers would link Maloja to the outer world that afternoon, and Helen would hie homeward in the morning. It was a pity that her holiday and his wooing should be interfered with; but who could have foretold that Millicent Jaques would drop from the sky in that unheralded way? Her probable interference in the quarrel between Stampa and Bower put Mrs. de la Vere's suggestion out of court. A woman bent on requiting a personal slight would never consent to forego such a chance of obtaining ample vengeance as Bower's earlier history provided.

In any case, Spencer was sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the year was much older.

He disliked this secret plotting and contriving. He adopted such methods only because they offered the surest road to success. Were he to consult his own feelings, he would go straight to Helen, tell her how chance had conspired with vagrom fancy to bring them together, and ask her to believe, as all who love are ready to believe, that their union was predestined throughout the ages.

But he could not explain his presence in Switzerland without referring to Bower, and the task was eminently distasteful. In all things concerning the future relations between Helen and himself, he was done with pretense. If he could help it, her first visit to the Alps should not have its record darkened by the few miserable pages torn out of Bower's life. After many years the man's sin had discovered him. That which was then done in secret was now about to be shrieked aloud from the housetops. "Even the gods cannot undo the past," said the old Greeks, and the stern dogma had lost nothing of its truth with the march of the centuries. Indeed, Spencer regretted his rival's threatened exposure. If it lay in his power, he would prevent it: meanwhile, Helen must be snatched from the enduring knowledge of her innocent association with the offender and his pillory. He set his mind on the achievement. To succeed, he must monopolize her company until she quitted the hotel en route for London.

Then he thought of Mrs. de la Vere as a helper. Her seeming shallowness, her glaring affectations, no longer deceived him. The mask lifted for an instant by that backward glance as she convoyed Helen to her room the previous night had proved altogether ineffective since their talk on the veranda. He did not stop to ask himself why such a woman, volatile, fickle, blown this way and that by social zephyrs, should champion the cause of romance. He simply thanked Heaven for it, nor sought other explanation than was given by his unwavering belief in the essential nobility of her sex.

Therein he was right. Had he trusted to her intuition, and told Millicent Jaques at the earliest possible moment exactly how matters stood between Helen and himself, it is only reasonable to suppose that the actress would have changed her plan of campaign. She had no genuine antipathy toward Helen, whose engagement to Spencer would be her strongest weapon against Bower. As matters stood, however, Helen was a stumbling block in her path, and her jealous rage was in process of being fanned to a passionate intensity, when Spencer, searching for Mrs. de la Vere, saw Millicent in the midst of a group composed of the Vavasours, mother and son, the General, and his daughters.

Mrs. de Courcy Vavasour was the evil spirit who brought about this sinister gathering. She was awed by Bower, she would not risk a snubbing from Mrs. de la Vere, and she was exceedingly annoyed to think that Helen might yet topple her from her throne. To one of her type this final consideration was peculiarly galling. And the too susceptible Georgie would be quite safe with the lady from the Wellington Theater. Mrs. Vavasour remembered the malice in Millicent's fine eyes when she refused to quail before Bower's wrath. A hawk in pursuit of a plump pigeon would not turn aside to snap up an insignificant sparrow. So, being well versed in the tactics of these social skirmishes, she sought Millicent's acquaintance.

The younger woman was ready to meet her more than halfway. The hotel gossips were the very persons whose aid she needed. A gracious smile and a pouting complaint against the weather were the preliminaries. In two minutes they were discussing Helen, and General Wragg was drawn into their chat. Georgie and the Misses Wragg, of course, came uninvited. They scented scandal as jackals sniff the feast provided by the mightier beasts.

Millicent, really despising these people, but anxious to hear the story of Bower's love making, made no secret of her own sorrows. "Miss Wynton was my friend," she said with ingenuous pathos. "She never met Mr. Bower until I introduced her to him a few days before she came to Switzerland. You may guess what a shock it gave me when I heard that he had followed her here. Even then, knowing how strangely coincidence works at times, I refused to believe that the man who was my promised husband would abandon me under the spell of a momentary infatuation. For it can be nothing more."

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