The steamer was under way again, skimming merrily over the sapphire surface. The chit-chat and laughter of the other pa.s.sengers rose gleefully upon the air, and in the saloon the pop of corks, the clink of knives and forks. There is solitude in a crowd--stillness in noise.
"Where are you going to now, Philip?" she said.
"Oh, I don"t quite know! I"ve booked to Territet. Perhaps I"ll walk up and put in a few days at the old shop--perhaps I"ll go on to Saas or the Bel Alp and do some climbing. Can"t tell till I get there."
She made no answer. This was not the easy, light-hearted talk of the old times. There was a bitter, reckless ring about it that was unmistakable. The speaker literally did not care where he went or what he did. Still she did not leave him.
"I wonder if it has ever occurred to you all this time Alma," he went on in a softer tone, "that it was here--on board this very ship--we first met? Not exactly that perhaps, but first saw each other, which amounts to the same thing."
"Yes, it has."
"It has? Well, it seems a strange chance, a strange stroke of Fate, that we should meet here again--here of all places. How long ago was it? Ten years--twenty?"
"No; only three."
"Well, it is like twenty to me. I tell you I feel as if I had come to the end of my life."
"You must not say that--believe me you must not. Time will do wonders for you. You have a long life before you yet, and great opportunities."
But although she spoke bravely she could hardly succeed in steadying her voice. All the old feeling, all the feeling which had lain dormant within her since that stray glimpse on the river, was surging into activity. Philip Orlebar, crushed, saddened, all the elasticity burned out of his young life by the searing irons of sorrow, reigned king in her heart, as Philip Orlebar, sanguine, buoyant, light-hearted, could never have done. And the change, sad, infinitely deplorable as it was, had solidified and stamped his character, not altogether to the disadvantage of that possession. But for that one tremendous impediment, in all human probability lifelong, Alma would have needed no pressure to have returned love for love in full and abundant measure.
"Great opportunities?" he echoed. "Yes, I may have had once--before you condemned me unheard. Great Heaven! you had no pity--no consideration for me then, and now it is too late."
It was cruel. The tears which she had striven so heroically to repress brimmed, overflowed. They fell, each shining drop burning into the heart of the spectator as a drop of molten lead. And upon the blue radiant lake the measured paddle-stroke of the steamer beat strong and joyous, the laughter and chat of the holiday-seekers rang out light and cheery.
"Darling love--love of my life--my only love!" he uttered, in heartbroken tones, "what am I to say? Why--why were you so hasty? And now it is too late."
"Yes, I was hasty; I know it now," she replied. "But I tried to make amends. Oh, Philip! why did you not answer--take some notice of my letter?"
"Your--what?"
His face had turned deathly white. Already he saw that some horrible _contretemps_ had served to divert from him a life"s happiness.
"My letter? I wrote to you at Zermatt directly I heard of your accident. You took no notice, so I concluded you did not want to hear of me any more."
"Alma, as sure as I stand here a living man, I have never received a line of your writing in my life."
It was her turn to grow pale now.
"But I did write. I directed to your hotel at Zermatt. What can it mean? You never received it?"
He burst into a harsh laugh--a laugh infinitely more moving than tears.
"What can it mean?" he repeated. "It means this: it is part of the whole h.e.l.lish plot. That letter was intercepted by the hand that for its owner"s vile purposes lured me to my ruin. But that hand is _burning_ now for that act of wickedness--that one act alone--that act which ruined my life. It is burning in another world--if there be another world--for the woman, its owner, is dead."
"I begin to see," she said, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love and pity. "Yes, I can see it all now."
The bell rang again, and the paddles slackened. The _Mont Blanc_ was sweeping up to the _debarcadere_ at Morges. The next stoppage would be Ouchy, and there they must part.
"Do you remember that day we were crossing over to Bouveret on this very boat?" he went on. "Do you remember our conversation as we pa.s.sed Chillon Castle? You remarked then, _a propos_ of all its mediaeval horrors, instruments of torture, and so forth--that there seemed a time when the world must have been under Satanic rule instead of under that of a good Providence. Do you remember that?"
"Yes, I do."
"Well, the same thing holds good now. What have I done that those whom I have never harmed should lay themselves out to ruin my life--to render my days a h.e.l.l and a curse to me? For it is a curse--a lifelong curse."
"Not that--not that, G.o.d grant. Philip, be brave; you are young yet.
Better days will dawn, dear."
"But they will not bring me--you. No, something tells me it is not so-- it never will be so. Nothing better will dawn for me but the grave. I told you before; I tell you again. I feel as if I had come to the end of my life."
"Hush--hush," she said, soothingly. "Your life is still your own; you are your own master. You must make an object in life for yourself.
That is the only remedy."
But he shook his head.
"No, no. The Satanic influence is everywhere. Was it not abroad that day on the river when one glimpse of you would have saved me? Had your parasol been held but a few inches higher I should have seen you, and the sight of you would have brought me back to you, back to myself, in time. Yet it was not to be."
Again the bell rang, again the paddles slowed down. The ma.s.sive red-tiled tower of Ouchy drew nearer and nearer. The _Mont Blanc_ glided proudly up to the pier.
"Alma, darling--my lost love--we may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not. Give me--one kiss."
His hands were holding hers. His sad eyes were full upon hers. And she loved him. What could she do?
"Would it be right?" she said, hesitatingly.
"Right or wrong, give it me. You will never regret it."
Her lips met his, in one sweet, warm, clinging kiss. Then with a murmured, "G.o.d bless you, Philip, dear!" she had torn herself away, and was gone.
There was the usual stir and bustle of landing. Then as they were wending their way from the _debarcadere_ in the wake of their luggage, which an hotel porter was hauling before them on a truck, one of Alma"s friends said--
"Who was the other party to the _tete-a-tete_, Alma? I declare your behaviour is positively scandalous, my dear girl. Do you know you were rather more than a whole hour hobn.o.bbing with him? Come, who was he?"
"An old friend of mine," she answered, trying to do so lightly, but of course failing abjectly.
"Why don"t you say a _dear_ friend?" said another of the girls, maliciously. "Why, he was standing there on the lower deck as we landed, simply devouring the last of you with his eyes. And they _were_ eyes, too. Come, now, his name? You are not going to get out of that, don"t think it. Who was he?"
"Sir Philip Orlebar."
"Sir Philip Orlebar?" repeated the last who had spoken and who was by way of being the wag of the party. "And you did not bring him up and introduce him. A whole, real, live baronet--and such a good-looking one, too! Oh, Alma, I should never have thought it of--Gracious goodness!"
The last words were little better than a shriek. For a frightful sound had drowned the speaker"s utterance--a loud, vibrating, strident roar, and a crash as of a heavy missile tearing through planks and rafters.
Turning towards it, the faces of the girls blanched with terror and their knees trembled under them, so that they could hardly stand. Those around behaved variously, but all were in a state of the wildest consternation and dismay.
"_Mais il eclate--le bateau-a-vapeur_!" cried one of the bystanders.
The _Mont Blanc_ was still at the jetty. At first it was difficult to make out what had happened. Then dense ma.s.ses of steam were seen to be issuing from the centre of the ship, and from the whole outside of the saloon spurted white, hissing jets.
The upper deck was the scene of a wild and frenzied panic. A mob of terror-stricken pa.s.sengers surged to the gangway, fighting, shouting, swarming over each other and everything, at imminent peril of being precipitated into the water. And over and above this chaos, this rout and tumult, there arose a succession of the most appalling screams that ever human ear was condemned to listen to, for they issued from the throats of so many human beings shut up within the death-trap below--so many human beings, for whom all escape was cut off, and who were being literally parboiled alive.