Secretly, behind this mask of convention, were they both thinking of him? A girl’s thoughts are never far from her lover; and Julie was conscious, this afternoon, of a strange and mysterious preoccupation, whereof Warkworth was the centre.
Gradually the great mountains at the head of the lake freed themselves from the last wandering cloud-wreaths. On the rock faces of the Rochers de Naye the hanging pinewoods, brushed with snow, came into sight. The white walls of Glion shone faintly out, and a pearly gold, which was but a pallid reflection of the Italian glory, diffused itself over mountain and lake. The sun was grudging; there was no caress in the air. Aileen shivered a little in her shawls, and when Julie spoke of Italy the girl’s enthusiasm and longing sprang, as it were, to meet her, and both were conscious of another slight link between them.
Suddenly a sound of steps came to them from below.
“My husband,” said Julie, rising, and, going to the balustrade, she waved to Delafield, who had come up from Montreux by one of the steep vineyard paths. “I will tell him you are here,” she added, with what might have been taken for the shyness of the young wife.
She ran down the steps leading from the terrace to the lower garden. Aileen looked at her mother.
“Isn’t she wonderful?” she said, in an ardent whisper. “I could watch her forever. She is the most graceful person I ever saw. Mother, is she like Aunt Rose?”
Lady Blanche shook her head.
“Not in the least,” she said, shortly. “She has too much manner for me.”
“Oh, mother!” And the girl caught her mother’s hand in caressing remonstrance, as though to say: “Dear little mother, you must like her, because I do; and you mustn’t think of Aunt Rose, and all those terrible things, except for pity.”
“Hush!” said Lady Blanche, smiling at her a little excitedly. “Hush; they’re coming!”
Delafield and Julie emerged from the iron staircase. Lady Blanche turned and looked at the tall, distinguished pair, her ugly lower lip hardening ungraciously. But she and Delafield had a slight previous acquaintance, and she noticed instantly the charming and solicitous kindness with which he greeted her daughter.
“Julie tells me Miss Moffatt is still far from strong,” he said, returning to the mother.
Lady Blanche only sighed for answer. He drew a chair beside her, and they fell into the natural talk of people who belong to the same social world, and are travelling in the same scenes.
Meanwhile Julie was sitting beside the heiress. Not much was said, but each was conscious of a lively interest in the other, and every now and then Julie would put out a careful hand and draw the shawls closer about the girl’s frail form. The strain of guilty compunction that entered into Julie’s feeling did but make it the more sensitive. She said to herself in a vague haste that now she would make amends. If only Lady Blanche were willing—
But she should be willing! Julie felt the stirrings of the old self-confidence, the old trust in a social ingenuity which had, in truth, rarely failed her. Her intriguing, managing instinct made itself felt—the mood of Lady Henry’s companion.
Presently, as they were talking, Aileen caught sight of an English newspaper which Delafield had brought up from Montreux. It lay still unopened on one of the tables of the terrace.
“Please give it me,” said the girl, stretching out an eager hand. “It will have Tiny’s marriage, mamma! A cousin of mine,” she explained to Julie, who rose to hand it to her. “A very favorite cousin. Oh, thank you.”
She opened the paper. Julie turned away, that she might relieve Lady Blanche of her teacup.
Suddenly a cry rang out—a cry of mortal anguish. Two ladies who had just stepped out upon the terrace from the hotel drawing-room turned in terror; the gardener who was watering the flower-boxes at the farther end stood arrested.
“Aileen!” shrieked Lady Blanche, running to her. “What—what is it?”
The paper had dropped to the floor, but the child still pointed to it, gasping.
“Mother—mother!”
Some intuition woke in Julie. She stood dead-white and dumb, while Lady Blanche threw herself on her daughter.
“Aileen, darling, what is it?”
The girl, in her agony, threw her arms frantically round her mother, and dragged herself to her feet. She stood tottering, her hand over her eyes.
“He’s dead, mother! He’s—dead!”
The last word sank into a sound more horrible even than the first cry. Then she swayed out of her mother’s arms. It was Julie who caught her, who laid her once more on the deck-chair—a broken, shrunken form, in whom all the threads and connections of life had suddenly, as it were, fallen to ruin. Lady Blanche hung over her, pushing Julie away, gathering the unconscious girl madly in her arms. Delafield rushed for water-and-brandy. Julie snatched the paper and looked at the telegrams.
High up in the first column was the one she sought.
“Cairo, June 12.—Great regret is felt here at the sudden and tragic news of Major Warkworth’s death from fever, which seems to have occurred at a spot some three weeks’ distance from the coast, on or about May 25. Letters from the officer who has succeeded him in the command of the Mokembe expedition have now reached Denga. A fortnight after leaving the coast Major Warkworth was attacked with fever; he made a brave struggle against it, but it was of a deadly type, and in less than a week he succumbed. The messenger brought also his private papers and diaries, which have
