"Is there a doctor staying in the house, Alphonse? The lady seems to be rather unwell. And--I say, Alphonse," he added, "is Mr Wentworth still in the dining-room? I"ve been waiting for him ever so long."
"Here I am, Fordham," answered a voice behind him. "Why, man, I"ve been out for at least ten minutes. But what"s the row?"
Meanwhile the sufferer was being cared for by several of her own s.e.x.
As it happened, too, there was an English doctor staying in the house, who now appeared on the scene.
"Stand back, please," he ordered, authoritatively. "She"ll soon come round. But give her some air at any rate. What caused it?" he added to the sobbing, frightened girl. "She has had a shock of some sort."
"She couldn"t have," was the answer. "She--she--screamed and fell down.
There was n-n-nothing to startle her--in fact, there was a strange gentleman standing there as if waiting for somebody. But he was a perfect stranger."
All this Fordham--who had drawn out of the crowd and was out of sight, but not of hearing--caught. The doctor made no direct reply to the statement, though on the point of the utter unfamiliarity of the stranger"s appearance it is highly probable that he formed his own opinion.
"Let"s go and look at the visitors" book," suggested Wentworth. "I want to see if there"s any one I know."
They strolled into the bureau and the book was produced. While Wentworth ran his eye attentively down the list of names, Fordham, standing behind him, hardly seemed to look at it. Anyhow, he evinced no interest whatever in the ident.i.ty of anybody. But in reality the fact was the other way.
"The same name," he said to himself. "The same name! That simplifies matters all round. Now I see daylight. At last--at last!"
Half an hour later Fordham strolled round to the village post-office and mailed a batch of letters. This was not in itself an extraordinary circ.u.mstance. But in the midst of that batch was one addressed to "_Mrs Daventer_," and he knew it would be delivered that same afternoon.
"What sort of a crowd at lunch, Fordham?" said Philip, as the door of his room opened to admit that worthy. "Any one new? Hullo, Wentworth!
Where have you dropped from?"
"Oh, I"ve been around here about a week. But I say, Orlebar, it"s rather hard lines getting yourself knocked out of time this way."
"Hard lines isn"t the word for it. And--what do you think? That confounded a.s.s of a doctor says I sha"n"t be able to do any climbing this season. But he"s only a Swiss," he added, with the youthful John Bull"s lordly contempt for talent or attainments encased in other than an Anglo-Saxon skull.
"You may depend upon it he knows his business," responded Wentworth.
"But you do as he tells you and keep your hoof up, old man, or you may be pinned up in this lively chamber for a month."
"I suppose you"ve been doing some big climbs?" said Philip, wistfully.
"Not yet. Been taking it easy. I started to do the Deut Blanche the day after I came here, but the weather worked up bad and we had to turn back. I say, Orlebar, you"d better look sharp and get right. There was a deuced pretty girl at _table d"hote_. Her mother fainted in the pa.s.sage directly after, and there was a devil of an uproar. I believe Fordham made faces at her and scared her into a fit. He was the only person there at the time--"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Philip. "Scowled at her "like a devil," as Peter would say. Eh, Fordham?"
But the latter, who was lighting a cigar, made no reply.
"By the way, Orlebar," said Wentworth. "Seen anything more of that girl you were so gone on at Les Avants, Miss--Miss--"
The speaker broke off with a start that was comical, for Fordham, while endeavouring to convey a mild and warning kick unseen of the third party--a thing which n.o.body ever succeeded in doing yet, and in all probability never will--had brought his hoof in contact with a corn, imparting to poor Wentworth the sensation as of a red-hot needle suddenly driven into his toe. In a measure it served him right, for his blundering had touched poor Philip on a very sore place. Lying there all the morning--with the prospect of a good many mornings and afternoons too, destined to be similarly spent--the poor fellow had found ample time for thought.
"What a chap you are, Wentworth!" he retorted, irritably. "Here is a poor devil tied by the leg in an infernal room for Heaven knows how long, and you can find nothing better to liven him up with than a lot of feeble and second-hand chaff. Let"s have something a little more amusing. Tell us some mountaineering lies for instance."
And Wentworth spent the best part of the afternoon telling him some.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
FORGING THE LINK.
A pile of rocks overgrown with stunted rhododendron bushes and s.h.a.ggy, weather-beaten pines, also stunted. Among these a foaming mountain torrent cleft its way, dashing through the deep, narrow chasm which walled it in some fifty feet below. A seldom-frequented path wound around the base of the rocks, pa.s.sing over a crazy wooden bridge.
On the morning subsequent to the events just detailed Richard Fordham sat among the rocks aforesaid, smoking a cigar. He had lighted it on first arriving at this sequestered spot, and now the glowing end was almost burning his fingers. This showed that he had been waiting there for some time--half an hour at least.
Waiting? That was just what he was doing. But there was no impatience attendant on the process. His gaze had scarcely wandered from the stretch of open meadowland lying between his position and the brown roofs of Zermatt nearly a mile away--yet in it there was no concern, no anxiety.
An object was approaching along the path--a grey sunshade. Beneath this was a human figure--a female figure. Watching its approach, the expression of his countenance underwent a change; but in it there was still no impatience. The expression of that dark, saturnine countenance was one of exultant ferocity, such as might animate that of the concealed leopard as it watches the unsuspecting antelope advance step by step within easy springing distance of its lurking-place.
The new arrival continued to advance slowly until she had reached the rickety wooden bridge. There she paused and looked around as though puzzled.
At the sound of a cough above she started and changed colour, then catching sight of another path, began to ascend to where he stood. This was a platform of rock on the edge of the chasm. It was shut in by the trees in such fashion that any one standing there would be scarcely discernible from without, while commanding the approaches from the quarter whence any one would be in the least likely to advance.
The new-comer was an extremely well-preserved woman of middle age. She was slightly above the medium height, and her dark, flashing eyes and strongly marked brows gave her an imperious look which it needed not the firm jaw and erect figure to confirm. But the expression stamped upon her pale features at that moment was not that of power, rather it was one of apprehension--of undisguisable dread, dashed with strong abhorrence. As she stood there, panting with the exertion of the ascent, or agitation, or both, a chance observer might have discovered in her countenance a curious likeness to that of Fordham himself.
The latter made no gesture, uttered no word of greeting. The evil expression in his face was qualified by a thin, cold sneer. Thus they confronted each other--the one pale, apprehensive, yet with strong aversion and defiance in her eyes; the other self-possessed, thoroughly conscious of power, and returning hate for hate in fullest measure.
"Well?" broke from her at last, to the accompaniment of a half-checked stamp of the foot.
"Well?"
"What have you got to say to me?" she said curtly; adding, in a repressed volcano-storm of wrath and bitterness. "I have obeyed orders, you see."
"You could not have done otherwise. Even you have the sense thoroughly to realise that."
"But I didn"t know _you_ were here," she went on; "not yet, anyhow.
When I saw you I got something of a shock, for my system is not what it was. You quite took me by surprise."
"I believe you--for once. Finished actress as you are, even you could hardly have counterfeited the tragic effect produced by my unexpected appearance yesterday. The devil himself could hardly have scared you more."
"Of the two it is the devil himself that I should have preferred to see."
"Undoubtedly. But the malevolent powers commonly attributed to that functionary are nothing to those I shall bring to bear on you if you neglect to carry out my instructions implicitly. On you and yours, I should have said."
Was it there that the secret of his power lay? An involuntary spasm pa.s.sed through her frame as if she had received a stab.
"Perhaps, then, you will oblige me by communicating them," she hastened to reply. "For it happens I have made arrangements to leave here this very day--or to-morrow at latest."
"Those arrangements you will have the trouble of cancelling, then."
"Indeed! And may I ask why?"
"Certainly. Your appearance here yesterday is going to supply the weapon I have been working to forge for years. Nothing is now wanting to complete the chain. Yours is the hand that shall do so. To that end you will remain here--as long as I require your presence."
"That is a very odd turn for events to take--that you should require my presence," she said, with a bitter sneer.