“No,” is the reasonable answer to all this. You firmly resolve to hide your folly from all eyes, and strive to forget it when he is gone. He will be gone in a few days; you are almost thankful for that.
*****
Charles Westby has gone! Time seems to have stopped at those last two days he was at Interlachen—at that walk which you, and he, and your brother took up the Harder mountains for a farewell look on the meadow level of Unterseen. You are silent, but your brother’s spirits are high, and he pledges Westby to such another Swiss tour on his return from India; and then he falls to lightly bantering Westby’s hopes and ambitions, predicting this and that legal honour, and the crowning honour, the House of Lords. These light words touch you seriously, and you echo them again, but from the depth of your heart and hope, whence they spring like convictions; so you take comfort in the future. “‘One day, who knows? I shall be better worthy of him, then,’” and your old spirits remount, and you are yourself again; but your words are heartfelt though spoken in a light tone.
The whole party rest awhile to look upon the view below, tiny Unterseen and Interlachen in their green meadows half-islanded by the two lakes Thun and Brienz, the opposite distance shut in with granite masses, surfaced with black desolation, or dark green pine, the stepping-stones to the mighty range of Oberland Alps cresting the horizon with their snow-ridges against the cloudless blue. But there is too much inner feeling for you to care for landscape views. And now down hill by zig-zag path, your accustomed laughing challenge is given to your brother and Westby. “Who’ll be down first?” It is a rare thing to descend, alpenstock in hand, touching lightly on each broken rock step, governing speed with the pole; it is positive fascination to you now, wearied as you are with much thought. You are a short way a-head, the path winds in the descent, a smooth bank of grass meets the path below, descending by that grass would save half the distance.
“Don’t go on the grass for Heaven’s sake,” shouts your brother from above. But it’s too late to stop. It’s delicious gliding down, resting on the alpenstock! The grass stealthily shelves up against the path, and in the speed of your descent turns your course, never mind! you will meet the path again at a lower turn, and be down ever so much before your companions. Good God! there is no path below you, nothing but this steep bank of grass, and the valley hundreds of feet below; you strive to stop, to catch at the grass, but the grass is quite short and burnt to the slipperiness of ice. You strive and strive, you would scream for help, but your voice is lost in your frantic efforts to clutch at something; the friction burns through your leather gloves, your head whirls with these desperate efforts. You have stopped at last! it is the valley which is rushing up to you!
Little by little you struggle back to consciousness. Where are you? Is it some terrible dream? That fearful valley!—you see it lying rigidly still below you. You are caught in some young pine-stems grown to a foot above the ground. An arm clasps your waist, it is Westby’s; his other hand holds to one of the pine-stems which has served to break your fall. The shelving grass suddenly ends at those pine stems, and, from that point to the valley below, there is nothing but precipitous rock. Charles Westby, who was a-head of your brother, saw that those pine-stems were your only salvation, and he saw, too, in the direction you were gliding, that you would shoot past them to certain death; he threw his life into your dangerous path, and just succeeded in turning your course at the last moment. You and Charles Westby were hanging over that rocky gulf, it might have been minutes or hours for what you knew of time. Ah, Lilian, what did you say to Charles Westby, then? “Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh;” and the feeble pine-stems might have given way before help came, and there would be an end of life and feeling on the rocks below. The peasants with iron crampions on their shoes, make shift to carry you up to sure ground, and then you faint in your brother’s arms. More or less of insensibility to the end of the day, and a night of fitful dreams, the valley rushing up to you with fearful speed, and your sleep broken with cries to Karlo Magno to save you. Sounder sleep towards morning, and you arose refreshed; a few bruises and scratches were the sole physical harm you had received from the accident; but you were still utterly unnerved.
It troubled you most that you could only recollect detached portions of the events of yesterday; some things were very clear, then came complete blanks; and as you sat on the sofa trying to puzzle matters out Westby entered the room.
“I am come to say farewell to Miss Temple.”
“Lilian, Lilian! not Miss Temple,” you replied.
“Be it Lilian, then,—playmate Lilian,” he answered with emphasis on the word playmate.
“Oh, Karlo Magno! I hope they have thanked you for me—papa and mamma, and Fred,—how can I ever say what I feel? Your valuable life almost lost for my wilful careless folly.”
But gently turning aside your eager words of gratitude, Charles Westby continues in a low voice, “My time is short, and I have something very particular to say. I feel, Lilian, it had been better I had left here long ago.”
“Why, why, Karlo Magno?” You tremble with a vague fear.
“My dear girl, in the midst of that chance of life and death, you said that you loved me.”
“What, Mr. Westby!” Every vein in your body seems to burn.
“You remember your own words, Lilian.”
“That I loved you! You repeat his words mechanically, and are silent awhile. Great marvel and shame that your own lips should unwittingly have revealed the secret of your heart. Yet what matter? If he did love you, that shame would have been lost in bewildering joy, that in any manner he had learnt the truth. Then, by degrees, a cold assurance steals through you that Charles Westby does not reciprocate your love, and gradually you are frozen into self-possession.
