FROM CHAMOUNI TO GENEVA
One morning in September, a month after all this,
three persons, a lady and two gentlemen, stood on
the upper step of the Couronne hotel, waving farewell
with their handkerchiefs to a carriage which had just
started from the door and was gayly taking the road
to St. Gervais-les-Bains, on the way to Geneva.
A cool purple light stretched along the valley and
reached up the mountain side to where the eternal
snows begin. The crown of Mont Blanc, muffled
in its scarf of cloud, was invisible. The old
monarch was in that disdainful mood which sometimes
lasts him for months together. From those perilous
heights came down a breath that chilled the air and
tempered the sunshine falling upon Chamouni, now silent
and deserted, for the season was well-nigh over.
With the birds, their brothers, the summer tourists
had flown southward at the rustling of the first autumnal
leaf. Here and there a guide leaned idly against
a post in front of one of the empty hotels. There
was no other indication of life in the main street
save the little group we have mentioned watching the
departing carriage.
This carriage, a maroon body set upon red and black
wheels, was drawn by four white horses and driven
by the marquis. The doctor had prescribed white
horses, and he took great credit to himself that morning
as he stood on the hotel steps beside Mr. and Mrs.
Denham, who followed the retreating vehicle rather
thoughtfully with their eyes until it turned a corner
of the narrow street and was lost to them.
As the horses slackened their speed at an ascending
piece of ground outside the town, Lynde took Ruth’s
hand. The color of health had reasserted itself
in her cheeks, but her eyes had not lost a certain
depth of lustre which they had learned during her illness.
The happy light in them illumined her face as she
turned towards him.
“I don’t believe a word of it!”
cried Lynde. “It is just a dream, a cheating
page out of a fairy-book. These horses are simply
four white mice transformed. An hour ago, perhaps,
this carriage was a pumpkin lying on the hearth of
the hotel kitchen. The coachman is a good fairy
in thin disguise of overcoat and false mustache.
I am doubtful of even you. The whole thing is
a delusion. It won’t last, it can’t
last! Presently the wicked gnome that must needs
dwell in a stalactite cavern somewhere hereabouts
will start up and break the enchantment.”
“It will never be broken so long as you love
me,” said Ruth softly. She smiled at Lynde’s
fancy, though his words had by no means badly expressed
her own sense of doubt in respect to the reality of
it all.
Here the driver leaned forward, skilfully touching
the ear of the off-leader with the tip of his lash,
and the carriage rolled away in the blue September
weather. And here our story ends—at
the very point, if we understand it, where life began
for those two.
