High Noon.
by Anonymous.
_FOREWORD_
I must make a confession.
It will not be needed by the many thousands who have lived with me the wonderful sunrise of Paul"s love, and the sad gray morning of his bereavement. To these friends who, with Paul, loved and mourned his beautiful Queen and their dear son, the calm peace and serenity of the high noon of Paul"s life will seem but well-deserved happiness.
It is to the others I speak.
In life it is rarely given us to learn the end as well as the beginning. To tell the whole story is only an author"s privilege.
Of the events which made Paul"s love-idyl possible, but a mere hint has been given. If at some future time it seems best, I may tell you more of them. As far as Paul himself is concerned, you have had but the first two chapters of his story. Here is the third of the trilogy, his high noon. And with the sun once more breaking through the clouds in Paul"s heart, we will leave him.
You need not read any more of this book than you wish, since I claim the privilege of not writing any more than I choose. But if you do read it through, you will feel with me that the great law of compensation is once more justified. As sorrow is the fruit of our mistakes, so everlasting peace should be the reward of our heart"s best endeavor.
Sadness is past; joy comes with High Noon.
"The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!"
THE AUTHOR.
HIGH NOON
CHAPTER I
It was Springtime in Switzerland! Once more the snow-capped mountains mirrored their proud heads in sapphire lakes; and on the beeches by the banks of Lake Lucerne green buds were bursting into leaves.
Everywhere were bright signs of the earth"s awakening. _Springtime in Switzerland!_ And _that_, you know--you young hearts to whom the G.o.ds are kind--is only another way of saying _Paradise_!
Towards Paradise, then, thundered the afternoon express from Paris, bearing the advance guard of the summer seekers after happiness. But if the c.u.mbrous coaches carried swiftly onward some gay hearts, some young lovers to never-to-be-forgotten scenes, one there was among the throng to whom the world was gray--an English gentleman this, who gazed indifferently upon the bright vistas flitting past his window.
The _London Times_ reposed unopened by his side; _Punch_, _Le Figaro_, _Jugend_ had pleased him not and tumbled to the floor unnoticed.
There seemed scant reason for such deep abstraction in one who bore the outward signs of so vigorous a manhood. Tall, well-formed, muscular as his faultless clothes half revealed, half hid, his bronzed face bearing the clear eyes and steady lips of a man much out of doors, this thoughtful Englishman was indeed a man to catch and hold attention. No callow youth, was he, but in the prime of life--strong, clean, distinguished in appearance, with hair slightly silvered at the temples; a man who had lived fully, women would have said, but who was now a bit weary of the world.
Small wonder that the smart American girl sitting opposite in the compartment stared at him with frank interest, or an elegantly gowned Parisienne _demi-mondaine_ (travelling _incognito_ as the Comtesse de Boistelle) eyed him tentatively through her lorgnette.
So Sir Paul Verdayne sat that afternoon in a compartment of the through express, all unconscious of the scrutiny of his fellow travellers; his heart filled with the dogged determination to face the future and make the best of it like a true Englishman; somewhat saddened--yes--but still unbroken in spirit by the sorrows that had been his.
Many years ago it was, since he had vowed to revisit the Springplace of his youth, Lucerne, a spot so replete with tender memories, and each succeeding year had found him making anew his pilgrimage, though a sombre warp of sorrow was now interwoven in the golden woof of his young happiness.
This year he had decided should be the last. Not that his devotion to his beloved Queen had lessened--far from that--but the latent spirit of action, so innate to true British blood was slowly rea.s.serting itself. For Paul romance might still remain, but as a thing now past.
He was frank with himself in this respect, and he would be frank with Isabella Waring too.
One more visit he would pay to the scenes of his love-idyl, to the place where his beloved _Imperatorskoye_ had come into his life, there to commune again with her in spirit, there to feel her regal presence, to seek from her that final supreme consolation which his wounded heart craved--this was Paul"s quest. And then he would return to England--and Isabella.
It was the consideration of this resolution which shut the flying scenery from his gaze, which drew fine lines about the corners of his firm lips, and set his face to such a look of dominant strength as made the high spirited American girl muse thoughtfully and brought a touch of colour to the face of the pseudo Countess which was not due to the artifice of her maid.
Such men are masters of their own.
Paul Verdayne was not a man to shirk responsibilities. It is true, dark days had come to him, when a crushing burden had well-nigh smothered him, and a bullet to still his fevered brain had seemed far sweeter to Paul than all else life might hold for him. But Paul was strong and young. He learned his lesson well--that Time cures all and that the scars of sorrow, though they form but slowly, still will heal with the pa.s.sing of the years.
Paul was still young and he had much to live for, as the world reckons. He was rich (a thing not to be lightly held), one of the most popular M. P."s in England, and the possessor of a fine old name. It would be a coward"s part, surely, to spend the rest of his life in bemoaning the dead past. He would take up the duties that lay near at hand, become the true successor of his respected father, old Sir Charles, and delight the heart of his fond mother, the Lady Henrietta, by marrying Isabella Waring, the sweetheart of his boyhood days.
So Paul sat communing with himself as the train rushed noisily on, sat and settled, as men will, the future which they know not of. Alas for resolves! Alas for the Lady Henrietta! Alas for Isabella! For Paul, as for all of us, the mutability of human affairs still existed.
Were it not so, this record never would have been written.
CHAPTER II
With much grinding of brakes and hiss of escaping steam, the express at last stopped slowly in the little station and the door of Paul"s compartment was swung open by the officious guard with a "Lucerne, your Lordship," which effectually aroused him from his reverie.
Paul quietly stepped out of the car, and waited with the air of one among familiar scenes, while his man Baxter collected the luggage and dexterously convoyed it through the hostile army of customs men to a _fiacre_. In the midst of the bustle and confusion, as Paul stood there on the platform, his straight manly form was the cynosure of all eyes. A fond mamma with a marriageable daughter half unconsciously sighed aloud at the thought of such a son-in-law. A pair of slender French dandies outwardly scorned, but inwardly admired his athletic figure, so visibly powerful, even in repose.
But all oblivious to the attention he was attracting, Paul waited with pa.s.sive patience for the survey of his luggage. For was not all this an old, old story to him, a trifling disturbance on the path of his pilgrimage? When one travels to travel, each station is an incident; not so to him who journeys to an end.
But Paul was not destined to remain wholly uninterrupted. As the other travellers descended from the carriage and formed a little knot upon the platform, the Comtesse de Boistelle, now occupied with a betufted poodle frisking at the end of a leash, strolled by him. As she pa.s.sed Paul she dropped a jewelled reticule, which he promptly recovered for her, offering it with a grave face and a murmured "_Permettez moi, Madame_."
The Comtesse gently breathed a thousand thanks, allowing her carefully gloved hand to brush Paul"s arm.
"Monsieur is wearied with the journey, perhaps?" she said in a low voice. And her eyes added more than solicitude.
Paul did not deny it. Instead, he raised his green Alpine hat formally and turned impa.s.sively to meet his man, who had by then stowed away the boxes in the Waiting _fiacre_.
In the group of Paul"s late companions stood the American girl who had sat facing him all the way from Paris. He was no sooner out of earshot than--
"Did you see, Mamma?" she whispered to the matron beside her.
"See what, Daisy?"
"That French creature--she tried to talk to my big Englishman, but he snubbed her. What a fine chap he must be! I knew he had a t.i.tle, and I"m just dying to meet him. Do you suppose he"ll stay at our hotel? If he does, I"ll find somebody who knows all about him. Now I understand why so many American girls marry t.i.tled Englishmen. If they"re all as nice as this one, I don"t blame them, do you?"
"Hush, child, hush!" her mother reproved. "How can you run on so about a total stranger?"
But the girl merely smiled softly to herself in answer, as she watched Paul"s straight back receding down the platform.
Overwhelmed with a rush of memories, Paul climbed into the carriage.
It was a fine afternoon, but he did not see the giant mountains rearing their heads for him as proudly in the sunshine as ever they had held them since the world was new.
For Paul just now was lost in the infinite stretches of the past, those immeasurable fields through which the young wander blithely, all unconscious of aught but the beautiful flowers so ruthlessly trampled on, the luscious fruits so wantonly plucked, the limpid streams drunk from so greedily, and the cool shades in which to sink into untroubled sleep.