r '
 
 The Valley of the 
 Great Shadow
 
 The Valley of the 
 Great Shadow 
 
 ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH 
 
 
 (MRS. LEE-HAMILTON^ 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE & COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO fef NEW YORK 
 
 MDCCCC
 
 V 
 
 COPYRIGHT igOO BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. DOCTOR ENGEL - - i 
 
 II. PHILIPPA ALCESTIS - 27 
 
 III. SONNIE ..... 44 
 
 IV. BABETTE - - 62 
 V. MERRIDEW - 84 
 
 VI. THE PROFESSOR 102 
 
 VII. Miss BLAKE - - 124 
 
 VIII. MR. JERNINGHAM ... i^j 
 
 IX. SIMPLICITY - 166 
 
 X. MARIE - 186 
 
 XI. THE ROYSTONS ... 2 gj 
 
 XII. Miss BUSYBODY 236
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DOCTOR ENGEL 
 
 "Good-bye, Philippa. I leave you to the care 
 of the good Doctor." The whip cracked again. 
 Colonel Joy smiled from the diligence window. 
 The girl on the road made a movement of 
 disdain. 
 
 "The good Doctor! A horrid German icicle in 
 spectacles! If that is all my consolation, I will 
 go to England with you.'' Her foot was on the 
 step, but her father shook his head. 
 
 "No, no; you must stay here and grow strong. 
 I shall be lonely enough a whole month with- 
 out my girl " His voice failed. Philippa 
 stepped back and blazed up at him. 
 
 "Lonely?" she cried, passionately. "And 
 what will it be for me, left alone with nothing 
 but snow and pines" she gulped down her 
 tears "and a doctor of ice?" 
 
 "Snow and pines?" said her father, cheerfully.
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Don't you remember that Miss Blake said they 
 meant death and immortality? The ice will melt 
 in the sun. Be patient." 
 
 The driver cracked his whip for the last time. 
 Philippa shook herself determinedly, and called 
 back the light to her face. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear," she smiled. "Don't worry 
 about me; I will console myself with the good 
 Doctor." 
 
 She kissed her hand, and her father bright- 
 ened. This little girl of his had courage enough 
 to face more than loneliness, he knew. 
 
 He was smiling still when the sleigh dipped 
 round the curve. Philippa's eyes showed con- 
 flicting lights remorse, petulance, spirit. 
 
 "Poor dear," she thought; "I didn't mean to 
 let him see how I hate to be left in this doleful 
 place sick people, perpetual snow, gloomy 
 pines, and a doctor as silent as the grave, and as 
 cheerful. It's a brilliant prospect." 
 
 She dwelt resentfully on the thought, and 
 tilted her head, repeating, "Good Doctor!" 
 
 "That is the man in a phrase," she said to 
 herself. "How unspeakably dull it sounds! as 
 dull as himself." 
 
 She thought of Dr. Engel's stoop, for he car- 
 ried his height awkwardly, his brown hair, the 
 blonde beard and moustache hiding his large 
 mouth, the hands that touched so lightly, the 
 shabby clothes always well brushed. The por-
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 trait contrasted unfavourably with that of her 
 London doctor. 
 
 She walked back to the Hotel Royal, between 
 the ranges of pine-covered hills that bounded the 
 Alpine valley. 
 
 The snow was blossoming into crimson, and 
 where it met the sky a delicate tracery of pines 
 laid a crown upon it. At sunrise and at sunset 
 an individual life came into the trees, so that 
 each needled point pricked solitary against the 
 glow. When the light passed they closed 
 together again and wreathed the summits with a 
 heavy chaplet. From the Catholic chapel came 
 the sound of the Angelus. The sunset burnt red 
 on the chalet windows, and flashed on the panes 
 of the hotels, but Philippa did not notice it. 
 Her face was gloomy ; her eyes protested against 
 the month's desertion. 
 
 She turned into the Royal, and walked on to 
 the balcony. It would be empty at this hour, 
 when the invalids always went to their rooms. 
 To-day it was not empty. She met the Pro- 
 fessor, shuffling along in his snow-shoes, his 
 bear-skin over his shoulder, his eyes peeping 
 from a fur cap. 
 
 "Met Dr. Engel on the road?" he asked Phil- 
 ippa. 
 
 "I have not," she answered, shortly. "I 
 don't concern myself with Dr. Engel's move- 
 ments."
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Might do worse," he grunted. "Engel could 
 tell you more about everything than any man 
 you ever met." 
 
 "Well, he ought to," she said, disdainfully. 
 "He has been buried in books all his life." 
 
 "But you might have been buried in a library 
 for a century, and still you would know noth- 
 ing," said the Professor, blandly. 
 
 "I know that you are very rude," said Phil- 
 ippa, pouting. She liked the Professor. He 
 was the only man of her acquaintance who did 
 not pay her compliments. 
 
 "Engel's a clever man," the Professor went 
 on; "but even he could not put any sense into 
 your small head. Didn't I hear you calling him 
 a fossil?" 
 
 "Very probably," said Philippa, yawning. 
 "And it is likely you will hear me call him a 
 fossil again. He is hard enough to belong to the 
 stone age." 
 
 "Engel hard?" shouted the Professor. 
 "Engel? Engel, of all men?" He looked 
 fiercely at Philippa. "Didn't I say you had no 
 sense, you little empty-headed firefly?" 
 
 "You did, Professor. But a woman needn't 
 be foolish because she is pretty." 
 
 "Fiddles!" said the Professor. "Pretty or 
 plain, she always is foolish. Engel hard? Bless 
 my soul! I've known him all my life. He's a 
 friend of mine, Miss Butterfly." 
 4
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 "Two crusty old bachelors! You have to be 
 friends with each other, because no woman will 
 be friends with you." 
 
 "Eh, eh? What do you say, you shrimp? 
 Isn't Miss Blake a friend of mine? And aren't 
 all the women in love with Engel? 'The dear 
 Doctor, the charming Doctor, the angelic Doc- 
 tor' haven't you heard them?" 
 
 It restored the Professor's good humour to 
 mince over the feminine accents. 
 
 "He would be good-looking if he didn't look 
 so good," said Philippa. "He is something like 
 the pictures one sees of Christ." 
 
 "Yet a minute ago you said he was hard:" 
 She covered her ears with her hands. 
 
 "I am heartily tired of hearing that man's 
 name," she cried. "It is enough that he is 
 nothing to me, and hideous. Let us talk of 
 something pretty." 
 
 "I knew you wanted to talk of yourself," 
 chuckled the Professor. Suddenly she threw out 
 her hand appealingly. 
 
 "Ah, don't, Professor! I'm really very miser- 
 able. Daddy has just gone, and I am here all 
 alone." 
 
 She looked as if sh'e were going to cry. The 
 Professor edged away nervously. 
 
 "And I am here all alone, too," he said. 
 
 Philippa turned away and pretended to look at 
 the sunset. "Bless my soul! God bless my soul!" 
 5
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He shuffled after her, and pressed a large yel- 
 low bandana into her hand. 
 
 "Haven't you a handkerchief, child?" he 
 said, testily. "Here, take this; I hate to see a 
 woman cry untidily." 
 
 She looked at the gaudy square, and laughed. 
 "Oh, Professor, how absurd! I don't want 
 your handkerchief." 
 
 She dashed her own across her eyes, and 
 looked defiantly at him. "If you dare to tell 
 any one you saw me crying " 
 
 The Professor's eyes had traveled from the 
 balcony to the road. Philippa's followed them, 
 and saw Dr. Engel coming towards the hotel. 
 
 "I am going in, Professor. It's dangerous 
 to stay out after sunset," she cried, and left 
 him. 
 
 The Professor hurried away to his interview 
 with the Doctor. It was not strictly professional. 
 The two men sat talking of "Men and Women" 
 and other books. Before they parted, Dr. Engel 
 knew that Miss Joy, one of his most charming 
 patients, thought him a hard old fossil. 
 
 On the balcony of her private sitting-room 
 Philippa stood, her face pinched and grey, gaz- 
 ing out at the white valley and the white hills, 
 and the night of the pine wood. Overhead a 
 single star hung against the blue, and from the 
 valley came up the sound of the Grunwasser. 
 
 The river moaned under the weight of the ice 
 6
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 that edged its banks, and the note caught the 
 girl's mood. It seemed to be the one living 
 thing in the silence, and it gave a voice to the 
 pain and despair and hope that under the weight 
 of death flowed in a human stream through the 
 valley of the Mittenthal. 
 
 Philippa had been long enough at Mittenplatz 
 to know it. "A winter health-resort" was a 
 baldly humourous description of the place where 
 Death and Life waited together for the bodies 
 of men. 
 
 Death and Life stood sentinel at every door in 
 the village; they were the lacqueys that served 
 at the dances and dinners; and Death waited on 
 this one, and Life on that. They sat in every 
 sleigh as it jangled gaily over the snow, and 
 sometimes Death drove, and sometimes Life. 
 And no one saw that the men who swept the lake 
 for the skating were Death and Life, or knew 
 that Death froze the toboggan-run down which 
 Life swung into the valley. 
 
 When the snow flashed in the sun like silver, 
 and the jodels rang cheerily across the silence, 
 people forgot the sadness of the Mittenthal. 
 But at night they remembered; for then Life 
 slept and only Death watched. And then the 
 cold was a naked sword hanging over the valley, 
 and the snow was a shroud on the fields, and the 
 mountains were the graves of magnificent ambi- 
 tions.
 
 Then those who looked up despairing could 
 see spread out the great wings that threw their 
 great shadow over the valley. 
 
 It was not yet night, but the shadow rested on 
 Philippa. She closed her hand over the balcony 
 rail as if it was the bar of a cage that she would 
 crush. 
 
 "I hate the place!" she said, with a half-sob; 
 "I hate the people, with their hopeful faces and 
 their smiles and their sunburn that looks like 
 health and is not. I hate the ghostliness of the 
 snow, the stealthiness of death when it comes. 
 It is all so pathetic. And the glad sun, and the 
 gaiety, and the music outside the Kurhaus are a 
 horrible mockery. And if you do. forget that 
 people are dying round you, the awful silence of 
 the mountains reminds you of it. There they 
 stand, watching the endless march-past of 
 Death's captives. And yet how beautiful it is. 
 The great solemn white hills teach one to be 
 calm and patient." 
 
 She leaned her head on her hand and listened 
 to the moan of the river and to the jodelling of 
 a peasant going home after work. 
 
 "Yes, it is beautiful," she said; "but I shall 
 be glad when spring comes, and I can go away. 
 This is a place for people who have lived their 
 lives, or for creatures like the Professor and the 
 Doctor, who have no life to live who don't 
 know what it is to laugh and be glad." 
 8
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 Then her tone changed. "Poor soul!" she 
 went on; "he has been here for ten years, buried 
 in snow. No wonder he belongs to the ice age. 
 And he never has any pleasure but the pleasure 
 of seeing his patients recover sometimes. And 
 he is always cheerful, and always gentle, and 
 always patient, even when he is in a rage. How 
 many men would live his life and not grow crusty 
 and selfish? Ten years! And I hate the thought 
 of a few weeks!" 
 
 She turned from the dusky pines and from the 
 warning note of the Griinwasser, and went into 
 the room. 
 
 The blaze and crackle of firelogs welcomed 
 her. The electric light showed the rugs and 
 curtains, the pictures and books and piano, with 
 which her father had made her sitting-room 
 cozy. 
 
 No one in the hotel had such luxurious rooms. 
 It was as much as most people could afford to 
 have a south room and a balcony. Philippa had 
 two sunny rooms and two balconies, though she 
 was not really an invalid. But she gazed at the 
 comfort in the room as a prisoner might have 
 gazed on the stones of his cell. 
 
 She might have amused herself even at Mitten- 
 platz, for the life had plenty of colour and move- 
 ment, and there were gay strains in the music to 
 which the invalids stepped. There were people 
 who were recovering, or had recovered, and their
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 friends, and the roads were always cheerful with 
 sleighs and toboggans. 
 
 There were balls and tournaments and dinners 
 in the hotels. In the Mittenthal, Death wore the 
 livery of Life, the master masquerading as the 
 servant. But Philippa had seen the face under 
 the mask, and she chose to be quiet, and to have 
 only the delight of nature in the air that intoxi- 
 cated like wine. She had promised her father 
 to make the best use of the curative influences 
 of the place. He was over-anxious for her in 
 his dread of the disease to which her mother 
 had been sacrificed, and Philippa was not 
 robust. 
 
 Sitting alone in her room that night after din- 
 ner, she began to realize her loneliness without 
 her father. And he would be lonely, too. She 
 knew what it had cost him to leave her, and a 
 strong desire for life, for his sake, filled her 
 thoughts. 
 
 "I would rather suffer anything than see him 
 suffer," she said to herself. "I could bear any 
 loneliness myself rather than leave him lonely 
 forever." 
 
 Then she lifted herself and laughed a strenu- 
 ous little laugh. "But I am not going to die; I 
 feel the life in me strong, strong, overcoming 
 death. I am not patient and bright and gen- 
 tle, like the people who can't recover; I don't 
 love the valley as an earthly paradise, as the 
 10
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 poor souls do who are not eager for the heav- 
 enly I hate it. When I leave it I shall go into 
 lovely places to make up for the exile I have 
 suffered here." 
 
 She bent forward and looked deep into the fire, 
 and a smile broke across the determinedness of 
 her mouth. What should she do when she left 
 the Mittenthal? What should she do? Live, of 
 course; live royally, pressing out the wine of 
 life from her vineyard. She would walk there 
 with the gods. Yellow sun and green vine and 
 brown earth should borrow the richer colours of 
 the past. The love given to Laura and Beatrice 
 should sweeten her grapes; the wisdom of 
 Hypatia should flavour her cup; the songs of 
 Sappho should echo in the shouts of the vintage. 
 At dawn the dreams of the saints, of Catherine 
 and Cecilia, would shine among the misty vines. 
 She would do brave deeds, fight with Joan of 
 Arc, be martyred. She would taste the passion- 
 ate innocence of the Cenci. Her vineyard should 
 yield purple grapes. 
 
 She did not see the knots on which the clusters 
 hung, the misshapen roots from which trailed 
 delicate leaf and tendril. She demanded the 
 glory and beauty of life, the pomp of passion. 
 And they belonged to the knotted strength of 
 defeat and the blank days of loss. 
 
 She frowned as a knock at the door made the 
 vision vanish. Dr. Engel came in and stood
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 before her, crushing his felt hat in his hands, a 
 new nervousness in his manner. 
 
 He did not speak at once. Philippa looked at 
 him wonderingly. Her eyes were still the wide, 
 deeply lighted eyes of one who has just seen a 
 vision, and the intensity gave force to her face. 
 Was she the spoiled child he had known, mirth- 
 ful and provocative, weeping stormily on the 
 hotel balcony? 
 
 His surmise flashed vividly against the cold 
 steel of the news he carried. 
 
 "I have bad news for you," he said in English, 
 which he spoke as well as he spoke German. 
 Philippa started up, her breath arrested. 
 
 "Daddy?" she cried. 
 
 "Yes. I have to tell you there has been an 
 accident they have telephoned " 
 
 "Dead?" she whispered, shrinking from his 
 pity. 
 
 "No; but hurt." 
 
 "How dare you frighten me?" she gasped. 
 She drew a long, shuddering breath, and the red 
 surged back to her face. 
 
 "I thought he was dead!" she laughed, 
 nervously. "Hurt? My poor darling! Where 
 is he? I'll go at once." She caught up a 
 shawl and twisted it round her. "Is he much 
 hurt?" 
 
 "Not so fast. He is at Lansing. You must 
 wait till morning for the diligence." 
 
 12
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 She paused at the door, turning her head. 
 "No; I'll have a sleigh. Come please come " 
 
 "No, no!" the Doctor cried, quickly; "the 
 road is impossible at night dangerous. One 
 can't drive." 
 
 "Then we must walk. Oh! what are you 
 doing, wasting time?" she went on. "Don't 
 you know how he will want me? And you, too; 
 he must have the best doctor come." Her 
 figure was tense in command. 
 
 "You can't go," Engel said. "A strong man 
 might make the walk through the snow, but not 
 you twenty miles and the cold " 
 
 "You will come with me," said Philippa. She 
 threw her head back, the gesture of a person 
 suffocating, and went up to him. "Please come 
 with me." 
 
 "Ach was?" He put his hands behind him 
 and fell back from her pleading. 
 
 Her surprise at the movement accused him of 
 cowardice. He was a coward, he knew; he might 
 yield because she had called him a hard man. He 
 steeled himself, and his silence repulsed her. 
 
 "Very well; I'll go alone." 
 
 She walked to the door, and he hesitated. 
 After all, her father would scarcely live through 
 the night. He stopped her at the door. 
 
 "Look then; I will drive you. It is no doubt 
 madness. What then?" He shrugged his 
 shoulders and looked doubtfully at her. 
 13
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Yes, yes! Oh, Dr. Engel, don't waste time. 
 Get the sleigh. Let us start " 
 
 "Patience," he said, gravely. "In ten 
 minutes I will come. Change your gown put on 
 many wraps. We shall be frozen. " 
 
 Ten minutes after, the Professor and Miss 
 Blake were in the hall to see Philippa start. 
 The lights flashed out on the road. The bells on 
 the horses tossed the silence in little drifts about 
 their heads. When the cloaked and hooded 
 figures had been swept into the night, Miss Blake 
 turned to the Professor. 
 
 "Poor darling!" she said, tremulously. "I 
 trust she will find that it is not so serious. 
 There is something very touching, Professor, in 
 seeing the two set out in the starlight to face the 
 great shadow of death." 
 
 "Touching? A pair of fools, ma'am! They 
 can't see their road. They will freeze in an 
 hour. If Engel was not such an obstinate fool 
 there might be a little hope. But he will fall 
 over a precipice rather than own he has lost his 
 way." 
 
 "Philippa is with him. She will help him; she 
 is so wise and strong. She has great character; 
 I admire her judgment. Don't you think they 
 will arrive safely, Professor?" 
 
 "Humph!" grunted the Professor.
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 II 
 
 The difficulties of the road did not exist for 
 Philippa, though she knew the ice-track down 
 which the horses must stumble and slide, dan- 
 gerous at noon, at midnight a menacing peril. ' 
 It was nothing to her that they must plunge into 
 pitch blackness, feeling their way on the edge 
 of the chasm that slipped away from the road. 
 It was nothing that they must creep under the 
 rocks, holding their breath, stealthy and silent, 
 lest the pent snow should wind its shroud round 
 horse and sleigh and traveller. It was nothing 
 that the horses might reach Lansing in safety, 
 and the two figures in the sleigh be frozen to 
 their seats. Calm and silent she sat beside the 
 Doctor, whose brows were set over eyes probing 
 the distance. 
 
 It was not yet utterly dark. Splashes of elec- 
 tric light made pools upon the mile of road be- 
 tween Mittenplatz and Pitzen. The Kurhaus at 
 Pitzen was still awake. Above the lights, on 
 the Pitzenberg, people were tobogganing. Their 
 laughing sounded pleasantly under the sparkling 
 stars. Engel spoke to the horses, and they 
 dashed up the Pitzenberg and down again into 
 the plain of the Pitzensee. The lake slept its 
 winter death-sleep. The great tombstones of 
 Schwarzberg and Weissberg marked where it 
 '5
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 lay. There was no sound in all the vast silence 
 but the clash of the sleigh-bells. 
 
 Now Philippa had time to dwell on her father's 
 accident. Engel's meagre details had only fed 
 surmise and alarm. 
 
 "Dr. Engel, " she suddenly broke silence, "I 
 want to know exactly what has happened to 
 Daddy." 
 
 Engel frowned. He wished to spare her the 
 knowledge that tightened his throat and made 
 the twenty miles between Mittenplatz and Lan- 
 sing a long-drawn-out dread. "Fatally injured. 
 Only just alive," still clanged in his ears. 
 
 "It is impossible to say. The message was 
 that he had slipped from the diligence in alight- 
 ing. The telephone was short." 
 
 "If he could telephone, it can't be so very 
 serious," said Philippa, thoughtfully. 
 
 Engel busied himself with the horses, floun- 
 dering waist-deep in snow. The lights stream- 
 ing out showed the drift; the air slashed like 
 knives across their faces. 
 
 Philippa shrank into her furs, but Engel hung 
 forward. She could see his moustache frozen, 
 the rime on eyebrow and lash. His hands held 
 the reins as if they, too, were frozen. 
 
 Whatever she might suffer from the cold, she 
 
 saw that he would suffer more, and a light 
 
 remorse flitted over her thoughts. Ought she to 
 
 have insisted on this mad journey? The first 
 
 16
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 diligence from Mittenplatz would be at Lansing 
 eight hours after them, and if her father were 
 not in danger 
 
 For herself she was glad that she had come. 
 This weird progress downward, through snow 
 and pine and midnight, made her tingle with 
 new sensations. She was excited, conscious of 
 Engel's tense attitude. 
 
 Then they sprang into the night of the pine 
 wood, and blackness closed over them with a 
 rush as of meeting wings. Involuntarily she 
 pressed closer to him. She felt his glance towards 
 her. His voice was gentle in spite of its hoarse- 
 ness. It sang above the squeal of the drag on 
 the sleigh-runners. "You are not afraid? You 
 are warm still?" 
 
 "I should be afraid if you were not with me, 
 but not now." 
 
 "That is very well," he said. Her answer 
 pleased him. 
 
 "You like, then, all this?" he went on. 
 
 "Yes; it is all so strange and terrible. Those 
 white pines look like processions of ghosts. But 
 there is life in the bells, and in the creaking of 
 the sleigh, and now and then you can see a star. 
 Dr. Engel, tell me, do you think we shall be able 
 to take Daddy back with us to-morrow?" 
 
 "I cannot say." 
 
 Then he began to tell her of life in the Mit- 
 tenthal. How the winter, with its snow and its 
 17
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 invalids, passed, and the ice in the valley melted, 
 and everywhere the song of living water tinkled. 
 And how the flowers came, long successions of 
 colour passing over the vivid green of the 
 meadows; and how the gentian dyed the slopes, 
 and the alpen-roses lit their fires in the woods 
 where in the white winter-time Death and Life 
 walked together. 
 
 And Philippa smiled to herself at his German 
 sentiment. She liked to listen to him. He 
 dwelt like a schoolboy on the delights of the 
 summer fields. It was a curious theme there in 
 the winter midnight. 
 
 "In the midst of death we are in life," Phil- 
 ippa said to herself, listening to the voice that 
 sang above the squeal of the drag or fell brok- 
 enly among the jangle of the bells. 
 
 Now and then he spoke to the horses, or got 
 out to help them through a drift; and then she 
 could tell from his tone how every thought was 
 clamped round the risks of the mountain road. 
 They were travelling slowly, stealthily, the horses 
 feeling every step of the way. Philippa knew 
 the steepness of the road by the set of their 
 haunches. 
 
 The lights of the lamps touched the snow on 
 either side, and called out flashing fires from the 
 crystals. But behind them was the night and 
 before them the midnight. 
 
 The Doctor got out again and encouraged the 
 18
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 horses, who trembled, feeling the edge of the 
 ravine. The shriek of the drag was like a human 
 cry, the background for his words. Philippa 
 wondered at the way in which he spoke. She 
 had only seen him in the nervous reserve of his 
 professional mood. Now she echoed the Pro- 
 fessor's astonished, "Hard? Engel hard?" 
 
 Would they never get down those dreadful 
 slopes? Would she ever lose the sense of giddy 
 height and giddier depth? She dared not 
 breathe, feeling the balance they kept on the 
 slippery ledge. The beat of a pulse might shat- 
 ter that difficult poise. 
 
 The tension began to tell on her. She watched 
 the white processions stealing towards them with 
 silent, mysterious steps, and she could have 
 shrieked. The cold numbed her. She was 
 paralyzed, bound in living death. 
 
 Soon the stars were blotted out. The dark- 
 ness swathed them round and round. About 
 them there was nothing but the armed cold and 
 the silence of the forest 
 
 She found herself longing unutterably for 
 Engel's voice, but she hid her terror. 
 
 When the road widened he took his seat again, 
 and bent down to her. "Almost asleep?" 
 
 "No. Oh, I ought to have waited! I ought 
 not to have let you come." 
 
 "So? But well, then, I was myself going to 
 Lansing; yes, even alone." 
 19
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Engel!" The intonation of the 
 name was eloquent. Suddenly she caught his 
 arm. "Because you thought it serious you 
 were going?" 
 
 "I wished for myself to see how serious. But 
 now can you hold the reins while I warm my 
 fingers?" 
 
 "Ah, yes!" she cried, eagerly. "I will drive. 
 Your hands must be frozen. See! Put them in 
 my muff." 
 
 When he would have taken the reins again she 
 refused to give them up. Finally he ceased 
 entreating, and took them from her by main 
 force. After that there was silence. Engel was 
 too vexed at her obstinacy, Philippa too offended 
 by his action, to speak. 
 
 All at once the sleigh swerved; there was a 
 muffled cry that died away in his ears and left a 
 soundless space. 
 
 When consciousness came back he was lying 
 in a drift, half-suffocated. His first thought 
 was for Philippa. 
 
 He fought down the snow, struggled to his 
 feet, and groping blindly, clambered to level 
 ground. There were no lights. He stumbled 
 against the sleigh lying on its side. The horses 
 were quiet. Not a breath stirred the shrill 
 silence. His heart became like ice. How long 
 had he been lying stunned? Was she dead? 
 
 20
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 She must be dead! He gave something like a 
 sob. "Du armes Kind! du armes Kind!" 
 
 A quick, tremulous laugh answered him. 
 
 "Call me what names you like, only speak." 
 
 "Where are you, where?" he shouted. 
 
 "Here, holding the horses. I've been calling 
 you for hours." 
 
 He groped his way to her. She was leaning 
 on a pine-trunk, the reins twisted round her 
 arm. He thought he heard her teeth chattering, 
 but he must have been mistaken. When she 
 spoke her voice was brusque and steady. 
 
 "I couldn't look for you, you see. The horses 
 might have bolted. I thought I had better hold 
 them, so that if you were really dead I could go 
 on to Lansing." 
 
 "So?" he said, stupidly. Then sharp and 
 insistent came a desire to have some share in 
 her solicitude. The spark that night's work 
 had kindled was fanned into flame by her uncon- 
 cern for him. 
 
 He lighted the lamps and harnessed the horses 
 to the sleigh, and they took their seats again, 
 Engel driving, straining his eyes to keep the 
 difficult path. 
 
 His great sigh of relief made Philippa aware 
 when the worst danger was passed. They had 
 come to level road. Thereafter the way wound 
 gradually towards Lansing. 
 
 21
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Her thoughts were with her father, but across 
 her anxiety flashed strange lights in which she 
 saw Engel's face. 
 
 That speech of hers had been brutal. If he 
 had been killed, could she have left him? 
 
 "Dr. Engel," she said, suddenly, "it was not 
 true. If you had been killed just now, I would 
 not have left you." 
 
 "So? But I did not think you would," he 
 laughed. The hearty sound shook the dark- 
 ness round them. "Tell me, then, you weak 
 little one, what could you have done?" 
 
 "I would have sat beside you till morning." 
 
 "But then, have you no fear?" 
 
 "I should have been so sorry I wouldn't have 
 felt anything else." 
 
 The silence that fell after that throbbed in his 
 ears with noisy significance. He did not speak 
 again till his exclamation roused Philippa. 
 "Gott sei dank! it is Lansing at last!" 
 
 The lights buzzed about the diligence station. 
 Philippa sprang up, but his hand detained her. 
 
 "Wait till I come back to you." 
 
 She was frozen. Her teeth chattered while 
 she waited in that long, long minute of his ab- 
 sence. He came back. 
 
 "Little one little one " 
 
 His voice broke, and a new, fierce cold took 
 hold of the girl and made her shiver in every 
 muscle. 
 
 22
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 "He is dead," she whispered. 
 
 Engel carried her into the hotel, where a fire 
 was burning, and where the porters stood, 
 hushed and sympathetic. 
 
 He loosened her furs, rubbed her hands. 
 They brought hot brandy, and in a little while 
 she struggled to her feet. 
 
 "I must go I must see " 
 
 "I will first go. Wait for me." 
 
 He beckoned the men away. Philippa sat 
 dazed and stunned. He came back again, and 
 she followed him to the room. In the same hor- 
 rible dream she found herself turning from what 
 she saw and clinging to Engel's arm. It was 
 only for a minute. She drew away, and stood 
 steadily. 
 
 "I will stay here," she said, in a thick voice. 
 
 Engel's lips opened, but the look on her face 
 decided him. He went out and left her. 
 
 The swift, chill hours passed ; the hours that 
 travelled so fast they were years, changing the 
 girl into the woman. And yet what long, slow 
 hours they were of uttermost anguish. 
 
 At six o'clock Engel brought her some coffee. 
 She rose from her knees beside the bed and 
 drank it, choking. His face moved her. 
 
 "Haven't you been to sleep?" she asked. 
 Even her voice was changed. 
 
 "But I was not tired," he said. Then he told 
 her what he had done, speaking softly. She 
 
 2 3
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 listened, half understanding. The only thing 
 clear was that she could start for England in a 
 few hours. Engel had assumed that she would 
 wish to take her father home. 
 
 "I wish with all my heart that I could have 
 gone with you," he said, "but I will telegraph to 
 your relatives to meet you." 
 
 She lifted her smitten face. 
 
 "I have no relatives," she said, blankly. 
 
 "Your friends, then." 
 
 She shook her head, smiling pitifully. 
 
 "None, either, near enough. Daddy and I 
 never wanted any one else." 
 
 His glance strayed to the pillow, crumpled 
 where her head had rested beside that other 
 head, back again where she stood, frail and 
 small and lonely. 
 
 "What then?" he said hoarsely, when he found 
 his voice. She looked at him. He turned away, 
 but she had seen the tenderness and pain in his 
 eyes. 
 
 A wave of emotion broke up the calmness of 
 her face. It passed, leaving her still more white 
 and shrunken. 
 
 "I told you a lie yesterday," she said. "If 
 you had been killed, I would have gone to Lan- 
 sing without you. I wouldn't have stayed with 
 you. You were nothing to me; Daddy was 
 everything." 
 
 The voice echoed curiously in the hollow 
 24
 
 Doctor Engel 
 
 silence of death. She held herself proudly a 
 moment. 
 
 Suddenly she ran to the bed and gathered the 
 dead man in her arms and pressed her face to 
 his, moaning. 
 
 Engel walked to the window, moved and dis- 
 tressed as he had not been before in all his 
 experience of sorrow. He drew the curtain 
 aside, and stood there, seeing nothing. But the 
 night had been cloven through by a stroke of 
 dawn. Already the east was awake. 
 
 He gazed out, wrestling with himself, the 
 words it would be wiser to leave unsaid. Then 
 he stepped to her side and touched her gently. 
 
 "I will take him to the Mittenthal to sleep 
 in the peace of the snow and pines. And you 
 and you " 
 
 He could not bid her go back to England, 
 where she had no friends, and he would not ask 
 her to return to the Mittenthal. He distrusted 
 himself. And long ago he had said he would 
 never trust a woman again. 
 
 His silence spoke louder than speech; but 
 Philippa was listening to another voice: "Snow 
 and pines. Death and immortality." Strange that 
 they were almost the last words her father had 
 said to her. And what else had he said? "/ 
 leave you to the care of the good Doctor. ' ' 
 
 She stood up and gazed searchingly into 
 Engel's face, and read the distrust, the pity, the 
 25
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 strength, and the weakness that battled together 
 there. 
 
 "I thought I would have liked to go back 
 to the Mittenthal," she faltered. 
 
 "As you please, of course," he answered. 
 His tone startled her. She looked at him dis- 
 mayed. She had reached out her hand to her 
 friend, and it had struck a wall of ice. 
 
 Her face and figure stiffened; she turned 
 proudly away. What were the last words her 
 father had said to her? " The ice will melt in the 
 sun. Be patient. ' ' 
 
 When she spoke again there was a new quality 
 in her voice that set Engel at a great distance 
 from her outside the circle of her obligations. 
 
 "I have decided to take my father to the Mit- 
 tenthal, Dr. Engel." 
 
 26
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PHILIPPA ALCESTIS 
 
 There was one grave more in the friedhof of 
 the Mittenthal that pathetic burial-place where 
 the sleepers are young. Gathered together 
 from all nations, they rest in the high valley 
 under the shadow of the Alps. The moan of 
 pines is their requiem. The stars light the 
 graves; the snow folds itself round them. 
 
 There was one grave more a black gash in 
 the snow. Philippa stood beside it while six 
 feet of relentless earth set their bars between 
 herself and her dead. She was not conscious of 
 what was passing. The sun fenced the grave 
 with a lattice of rays. The ice-crystals were in 
 blossom, rainbow flowers of the snow. There 
 was a waveless sea of blue overhead. Deep 
 called unto deep; the unplumbed depth of those 
 six feet answered the unfathomed depth of the 
 blue. But in the girl's heart was a deeper deep, 
 whose silence cried aloud and stayed not. The 
 grave was almost full. The thud that had 
 echoed among the gravestones was growing more 
 muffled. Death had struck a silence through 
 27
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 earth's voices, and life had ,,been quick to fill up 
 the void. 
 
 Philippa stood there till the coverlet of snow 
 was spread over her father and the men who had 
 committed earth to earth had gone away. Miss 
 Blake and the Professor and Simplicity Baldwin 
 had been at the service in the church, but only 
 Dr. Engel had gone with her to the friedhof. 
 He stood apart, watching the little black figure, 
 solitary in its setting of dead people. He had 
 watched many mourners round other graves, but 
 none had touched him as this girl touched him. 
 His glance stayed with her ashen face, the 
 underlip fallen, a white line below the whiter 
 line of the teeth. She did not strive nor cry, 
 but youth had gone from her. 
 
 He had no comfort to give her. He needed 
 comfort himself for the pain of his powerlessness. 
 Suddenly the tinkle of bells rained through the 
 silence. A gay procession of sleighs was passing 
 the friedhof. The horses were festooned with 
 scarlet and blue, the harness shone with gold. 
 In each sleigh sat a young man and a girl, the 
 betrothed lovers of one of the villages keeping 
 their yearly fest. Their voices and laughing 
 filled the morning. Engel had frowned at them 
 ten times. To-day he frowned at them more 
 than ever. 
 
 Some one blew a reveillt on the horn, and 
 Philippa looked up, startled into life. 
 28
 
 Phflippa Alcestis 
 
 The wreaths of colour, the red and yellow 
 kerchiefs of the women, the shining harness, 
 struck a crude contrast with the cold white 
 mound that was her world of pain. She shud- 
 dered at the noise of the horn. No reveiltt 
 would ever wake him again. 
 
 She stumbled along the path to Engel's sleigh. 
 He took the seat beside her, and told his servant, 
 Jakob Meyer, to drive to the Hotel Royal. 
 
 The bells of the other sleighs jangled before 
 them, at first in the distance, then nearer and 
 louder. Jakob Meyer pulled up. A snowdrift 
 had fallen across the road, and it delayed the 
 procession of lovers. When they started again 
 Engel and Philippa were at the end of the caval- 
 cade. 
 
 Engel half smiled; he could afford to smile, 
 he thought cynically. He had served Philippa 
 with the generosity of a man for whom there 
 could be no danger in a woman's friendship. 
 Death had drawn them together for the moment; 
 life would assuredly estrange them. After this 
 he need not see her again. 
 
 But the next day he stood at Philippa's bed- 
 side watching her, his face grave, the lines round 
 his mouth rigid. 
 
 He was used to fight with death. In the Mit- 
 tenthal the grim fight was fought month by 
 month, day by day, and his arm had sometimes 
 decided the contest in a patient's favour. 
 29
 
 She was delirious. Now and then broken 
 words fell among her moans. "/ have trodden 
 the winepress alone. " " Lover and friend hast thou 
 put far from me. " 
 
 It wrung his heart to hear her, but face and 
 voice did not relent from their reserve. Miss 
 Blake, sitting beside the girl, wiped her tears to 
 look resentfully at him. "You are a hard man!" 
 she said to herself. "How can you listen with 
 that face? You have no heart." 
 
 Even the Professor was vexed with Engel in 
 these days. He wasted his time waiting in the 
 corridor for the Doctor to come out of Philippa's 
 room; but when he asked anxiously for news of 
 her, Engel would pass him with a curt, "It is a 
 snowy day. Good morning." 
 
 Simplicity Baldwin made a bet that she would 
 force him to answer her questions; but she lost 
 two hours among the crowd in his waiting-room, 
 and paid a Napoleon for the consultation, and 
 came away defeated. Engel refused to discuss 
 his patients with each other. He did not spare 
 himself in watching Philippa's case: Night after 
 night he sat up listening to her delirium. It was 
 pathetic to guess the story of her devotion to 
 her father, to see glimpses of her nature uncon- 
 sciously laid bare. Listening to her he forgot 
 the bitterness that had embittered his life. A 
 woman had shattered his faith in womanhood. 
 Looking into Philippa's soul, he was compelled
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 to believe in woman again. One night, sitting 
 in the shaded room, he caught himself wishing 
 that he had met Philippa before Isolde had ruined 
 his life. 
 
 The weakness was only momentary. He drew 
 himself up, and his mouth twisted '""cynically. 
 He would never trust a woman again. Women 
 had no honour, no truth. They were liars by 
 instinct. Even Philippa had lied to him. 
 
 Every day the fight with death grew grimmer. 
 Philippa hovered between two worlds. The 
 crisis was near, and Engel only left the room to 
 see his other patients. Miss Blake and Simpli- 
 city Baldwin and the nurses relieved each other; 
 but he took no rest. He scarcely gave himself 
 time for food. He snatched sleep in a chair 
 beside her. So he held the reins of life, and 
 never relaxed his hold until the danger was 
 passed. 
 
 On the day when she opened her eyes with 
 recognition in them, he could not trust himself 
 to speak. He held her hand, counting the beat 
 of the pulse while his own heart-beat deafened 
 him. When he lifted his head again the cynical 
 smile was under his moustache. He gave a 
 sharp order to the nurse, and went away. Miss 
 Blake looked after him reproachfully. "He has 
 no heart," she whispered. 
 
 "My!" Simplicity Baldwin exclaimed under 
 breath, "I would as soon expect to see feeling in 
 3 1
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 a cast-iron stovepipe. He's a perfect cheesemite 
 of a man, but he's a giant of a doctor." 
 
 That night Engel sat in his study, his knitted 
 brows contradicting the softness of his eyes. At 
 last he got up, pushed his chair back, and tossed 
 the hair from his forehead. The gesture had in 
 it the decision of youth. He looked round the 
 room, at the books lining the walls, the books 
 piled on the chairs, the books hiding the carpet. 
 They were his trusted friends of years. To- 
 night their faces were blank. He pulled his 
 beard with impatient fingers, and his glance 
 wandered round and round the room. It was 
 dull and exceedingly lonely. He felt restless 
 and unstrung after the tension of the last days. 
 He missed the toss of a restless head on a pillow, 
 the sight of a white little face, the sound of a 
 tender voice/ He thought over the events of the 
 day, pacing up and down. 
 
 His glance was arrested by the mirror over 
 his desk. He paused before it and studied him- 
 self. He saw a face with a mouth hidden by the 
 close-cut blond beard, deep eyes overhung by 
 a fell of brown hair, a brow lined deeply. Then 
 he saw that the eyes were wistful. He turned 
 away with a gesture of denial. Had he not 
 schooled himself to loneliness and content? 
 Would any woman ever give him the quiet com- 
 radeship he had found in his books? He was 
 32
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 restless to-night, but the mood would pass. It 
 was due to the overstrain of watching. He was 
 dissatisfied only because he missed the absorb- 
 ing pathological interest of the case. 
 
 He sat in his chair, thinking. The denial had 
 gone from his eyes; they were wistful again. 
 
 He thought of the years in which he had seen 
 the guests at the feast of life, and had not sat at 
 the board. The feast was spread even here in 
 the Mittenthal; but those who had been bidden 
 to it were the halt and the lame and the blind. 
 Engel was among them as one that served. He 
 had grown silent as he watched the pity of the 
 spectacle. 
 
 The room was close. He felt stifled, and he 
 opened the window and gazed out, whistling 
 softly, drinking in the peace of the night. The 
 draught was tonic and bracing. The brilliant 
 starlight of the Alps glittered over mountain and 
 valley. The stars that had gazed down on the 
 death-struggle of many poor souls in the valley 
 watched his life-struggle with kindly encouraging 
 eyes. They soothed his mood. His restless- 
 ness passed, the whistle died away. After all, it 
 was a good thing to live here. He was face to 
 face with the great forces, love and death and 
 sorrow, and life. He saw human nature at its 
 highest, if sometimes at its lowest; and he knew, 
 as few men, the irony, the pathos, the humour 
 of it. He knew Death, too Death that came 
 33
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 creeping; Death that galloped ; Death that waited 
 so long that Life prayed for his coming, and 
 even Love entreated him ; Death that struck 
 sharp and swift between two kisses; Death that 
 passed the old man and snatched at the child 
 before its lips had bruised the mother's breast. 
 
 He had seen Love the Love that was stronger 
 than Death, weaker than Life. He had looked 
 into its blank eyes, he had turned away from its 
 doom. And Sorrow he .had known; he knew by 
 heart every line of his twisted, ironical face. He 
 had felt his biting humour, his bitter mirth had 
 made him shudder. Sorrow that gathered the 
 souls of Love and Life and Death into his hands 
 and played at dice with them 
 
 Who was that singing? He lifted himself, 
 listening. Clear and sweet came the sound of 
 music, a melody that might have been written in 
 the score of the starlight. 
 
 It was some time before Engel recognized the 
 sound of Sonnie Baker's violin coming from the 
 balcony of the Hotel Royal. 
 
 The violin had been silent for the last ten 
 days. Sonnie had had no heart to play while his 
 friend Philippa hung between life and death. 
 Now the notes rang out shrill and triumphant. 
 The boy was improvising one of his witches' 
 dances of sound. The music was bewitched. It 
 came across the snow, gliding, floating, twist- 
 ing, twirling. Now it danced with light feet, 
 34
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 springing high; now it stepped with measured 
 precision; now it swept with wide curves about 
 the silence; now it drifted in great waves of 
 melody; now it tinkled in a thin stream of song. 
 It shifted and changed with every moment, but 
 under the melody was always the sound of danc- 
 ing, the tapping of joyous heels. 
 
 Engel listened until the thing got into his 
 head and caught his thoughts, and whirled them 
 round in rhythm and measure. He had not writ- 
 ten verses for years, but here were some set to 
 Sonnie's crazy fiddling. He turned into the 
 room, singing in a soft, booming voice, and sat 
 down at his desk, and wrote while he sang. His 
 eyes had grown bright, the lines on his face were 
 smoothed out. When he finished writing he 
 threw back his head and laughed. 
 
 The laugh echoed among the books with a 
 hollow sound; its voice was the voice of a ghost. 
 It startled him. He looked round guiltily; then 
 laughed again, that the books might grow accus- 
 tomed to the sound of a merry heart. Yes, 
 surely, the glad days were coming. That crazy 
 fiddling had charmed away the past. The gaunt 
 old years of doubt, the rats that had eaten up 
 his youth, had followed the music away out of 
 the valley, beyond the snow, beyond the night. 
 He would never feel their teeth again. He was 
 free to love. Youth was before him, and life, 
 and love and love! 
 
 35
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He read his verses over again; then, proud 
 and shy all at once, he wrote the title, "To 
 Philippa Alcestis. " 
 
 He had written on one of the slips he kept for 
 his prescriptions. He laughed shyly to see love 
 verses on the paper he used for ordering bitter 
 draughts. It was all wrong, of course. He 
 must write them on rose-petals, tinted with sun- 
 rise, perfumed with dawn. But he had some 
 note-paper somewhere. Where had he put it? 
 It was so long since he had written anything but 
 prescriptions he had forgotten that he possessed 
 note-paper. 
 
 He got up hastily and began turning over the 
 drawers in a hurried hunt for the paper. He 
 tossed over the contents recklessly. The paper 
 was certainly somewhere! What was this rub- 
 bish? A withered sprig of greenery. How had 
 it got there? He took up the little branch. The 
 leaves fell and scattered a faint sweetness about 
 the room. The rosemary struck him like a blow. 
 He sat down, a slash of pain showing across his 
 eyes. He covered his face, but he could not 
 shut out the picture of the Italian garden, with 
 its rosemary and lavender bushes, its olive trees 
 and pale pink roses. Was it indeed only ten 
 years since he had loitered about the monastery 
 garden among the flowers? It must surely be a 
 hundred years since he had taken that journey 
 to Florence to bring home his bride. Isolde was 
 36
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 there, waiting for him. They had not met for a 
 year. He had been too busy passing his exam- 
 ination, getting a practice, furnishing the house, 
 to visit her. Now everything was ready for the 
 little wife. 
 
 He did not recognize the demure "maiden in 
 the fashionable woman he found at Florence; 
 but the voice was hers. He would know that 
 peculiar ringing sweetness anywhere. She had 
 grown prettier than ever; but her gaiety clashed 
 with his gravity. In the old days she had been 
 grave, too. The months must have sobered 
 him. He could not follow her butterfly flights, 
 and he looked on them puzzled and wondering. 
 In Berlin she had been shy, and very proud of 
 her tall student. She was no longer shy, no 
 longer proud, though he had taken a high 
 degree. She objected to his beard, his old-fash- 
 ioned, awkward manners. She laughed at him 
 before Major Stannard, the English officer, and 
 called him a German rustic. She mocked at his 
 clothes, at his big hands and feet, his tenderness, 
 his obedience. She put off their wedding-day, 
 and the graver he became the more she laughed. 
 But it never occurred to his simple loyalty to 
 doubt her. His awakening had been cruelly 
 sudden. She had gone to lunch with the Stan- 
 nards, who had a villa outside Florence, and he 
 had arranged to meet her at the Certosa which 
 was near the villa and bring her back. Hq 
 37
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 wanted to see the quaint old monastery, and he 
 set out an hour before the time of the appoint- 
 ment, meaning to go over the place before she 
 arrived. 
 
 He had seen the frescoes in the chapel, and the 
 Delia Robbias in the cloisters, and he wandered 
 about the gardens feeling the spell of the silence. 
 Here life slept. Peace held the olive trees, the 
 rosemary and lavender bushes a peace broken 
 only by the colour of the small pink roses that 
 seemed out of place among the sober livery of 
 the bushes. 
 
 He sat down on Michael Angelo's well. His 
 love for Isolde struck deep through the peace, 
 like the shaft of the well that pierced the earth. 
 At last it touched the chill of his cold doubts. 
 
 The hour dreamed itself away. He saw the 
 monks, white-robed and silent-sandaled, glide 
 past him like ghosts a dream within a dream. 
 Outside the walls the sunlight blazed, and all the 
 far purple hills and the white villas of the slopes 
 seemed shouting for joy. 
 
 But under the loggia there was no sun, and the 
 walls that shut out the world shut out also the 
 vivid life of the summer day. 
 
 Engel, restless, unsatisfied, and foreboding, 
 wondered if life could give anything better than 
 the peace within the Certosa walls. 
 
 A sudden overwhelming distrust of the future 
 had seized him. In his dim, workaday life Isolde 
 38
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 would be as out of place as were the small pink 
 roses among the grey ranks of olive and rose- 
 mary and lavender. The sight of the roses 
 blushing and smiling disturbed him. He walked 
 slowly towards the chapel, and as he went he 
 picked a branch of rosemary, whose lilac blos- 
 soms reminded him of the Isolde to whom he 
 had been betrothed. 
 
 The chapel was very dark. Coming in from 
 the glare he could barely distinguish the cowls 
 of the monks kneeling before the altar. He was 
 in a dream again, but here the vagueness and 
 obscurity of the dream were pierced through by 
 the poignant anguish of the figure on the cruci- 
 fix. Engel took off his hat and slipped into a 
 seat in the darkest corner. The monotone of 
 the monks droned on, like the droning of the 
 bees outside in the garden. Had the monks 
 found the eternal flower which held all the sweet- 
 ness of life? The cross rose from the altar tall- 
 stemmed and white like a lily. It might be that 
 pain and sacrifice shrined the fragrance of 
 immortal love. His thoughts turned to Isolde; 
 but she struck a false note in this house, where 
 men had wrestled with the principalities and 
 powers of passion and sin, with the world and 
 the flesh and the devil. Little butterfly Isolde 
 had nothing to do with nature's deeper mean- 
 ings. 
 
 The breath of summer chased the shadows in 
 39
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the chapel up to the dim altar and the incense 
 wreaths. The monks went away to the cloisters; 
 Engel remained. He would have been content 
 to stay there forever, and bury himself and his 
 fear of the future in the monastery walls. 
 
 After a while thought struggled to life. The 
 secret of peace was not here. The monks 
 touched the fringes of the secret; they had not 
 lifted the curtain. The sweetness of life might 
 be shrined in sacrifice and pain, but it must be 
 in the pain of quivering flesh, in the shudder of 
 the blood in the veins, in the hearts of men and 
 women, not in dead wood. No worship of a 
 carved Christ on a dead tree, no pathos of a 
 plaster Calvary, could give peace or take the 
 sting -from pain. Man must himself be Christ, 
 must himself climb Calvary bearing his cross, 
 must give himself to death, if he would taste the 
 strength and 'the sweetness, the passion and the 
 peace of Godhead. The God in the man could 
 accept no cloister smaller than life, no order 
 narrower than that of humanity. When Engel 
 came out into the hot blaze his face was grey 
 like the grey of the olive trees under which he 
 walked to seek Isolde. He stooped like an old 
 man. 
 
 He found her sitting on Michael Angelo's well, 
 crowned with the roses that Major Stannard had 
 gathered for her. At the sight a fierce, unrea- 
 soning jealousy seized him the crown of roses 
 40
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 set her altogether outside his quiet life. His worn 
 face was still more grey in the sun. He saw 
 Isolde shrink from his eyes. Her self-conscious- 
 ness looked like guilt. She stepped towards 
 Stannard as if asking for protection from Engel. 
 
 He saw Stannard's swift look towards him, and 
 his step backward from Isolde's appeal. That 
 also looked like conscious guilt. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, Isolde," Engel said. His 
 voice was cold and still; it had been drowned in 
 the deep of his pain. "Don't be afraid. I am 
 not blaming you that you prefer this man to me. 
 I understand now why you don't wish to marry 
 me. And I give you back your freedom." 
 
 He turned his back on her sharp cry. "I give 
 you back your freedom," he repeated. "You 
 will be happier with him than with me." 
 
 He took no notice of the trembling voice that 
 called him entreatingly. He went back and hid 
 himself in the chapel, and once again a soul 
 hanging upon his cross rent the stillness and the 
 night with the cry of uttermost anguish, "My 
 God, why hast Thou forsaken me." 
 
 He stumbled down the steep hill from the 
 Certosa, through the ilex groves, into the 
 podere, where the contadini sang as they worked. 
 The purple hills before him rioted in sunlight, 
 and the white villas of the slopes shouted for 
 joy. He turned his back upon them, and walked 
 fiercely westward to meet the sunset. 
 4*
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 It was midnight when he returned to Florence. 
 His fingers were still clenched round the little 
 branch of rosemary. The lilac blossoms were 
 dead. He threw it among the papers on his 
 table. He must have brought it away with 
 them, and it had lain unnoticed in the drawer 
 until now. 
 
 That was ten years ago. He had found his 
 monastery among the mountains, his cloister in 
 the snows of the Mittenthal. His altar was pain; 
 above it hung the picture of Life bearing the 
 babe Death. And here he ministered. 
 
 It was a lonely life, but its solitude had satis- 
 fied him. His books and his profession supplied 
 interest. He lived alone, forgetting the woman 
 who had destroyed his faith in woman, avoiding 
 all other women for her sake. And the life had 
 contented him until now. It would content him 
 again. Had 'he not said he would never trust 
 another woman? He was a fool to let Sonnie's 
 fiddling charm away his wise resolutions. He 
 lifted his head. His eyes were stern. They fell 
 on the verses he had written; the fallen leaves 
 of rosemary almost hid the lines. 
 
 "To Philippa Alcestis. " He smiled bitterly. 
 "No; to Isolde Alcestis. It is not Love, but 
 Isolde, who has come back to me from the 
 dead." 
 
 He tore the paper into pieces and tossed them 
 with the dry twig into the fire. A piece of the 
 42
 
 Philippa Alcestis 
 
 paper fluttered away and fell on the carpet. 
 Engel rose impatiently and picked it up to throw 
 it after the others. Two words were on it, 
 "Philippa Alcestis." He saw them and he 
 stopped. A wavering tenderness came into his 
 eyes. Then he deliberately pushed the paper 
 between the bars of the grate. Before the flame 
 caught it he snatched it away again and crushed 
 it into his pocket. 
 
 He started guiltily, and turned, hearing a noise 
 behind him. It was only the rats in the wainscot. 
 
 43
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SONNIE 
 
 Sonnie Baker stood at his window watching 
 the day outside. The grey kitten sat purring 
 on his shoulder. The morning was dull, houses 
 and valley stood swathed. The folds of the mist 
 were light on the hill-slopes; they thickened 
 where the Griinwasser strove against the ice on 
 its bank. 
 
 In the summer the river had boasted of its 
 freedom as it clattered past the woods. It had 
 mocked the rooted pines and the winds valley- 
 prisoned. Now in the winter, when the pines 
 defied the frost and the air shook out its starred 
 banners, the Griinwasser was fettered. The ice 
 clutched at its feet, but could not keep them, 
 and the river stumbled moaning through the 
 valley towards the lake in the sun. 
 
 Sonnie listened gloomily to its moaning. The 
 mountains before him were the walls of a prison. 
 The wreaths of mist were the coils of the rope 
 that bound him. He could not escape, like the 
 river, to the south. At the end of the valley the 
 Ducanalp stood like a sentinel guarding the pass. 
 The single fang seemed to threaten the sky. 
 44
 
 Sonnie 
 
 He leaned his face against the window, and lis- 
 tened to the beat of the thoughts clanging the 
 knell of his career. 
 
 But it was impossible that he should not get 
 well again. It was only six weeks since he had 
 had his great success. He still felt the thrill of 
 the crowded hall and heard the cheers of the 
 audience. They had recalled him again and 
 again, and he had played till the excitement had 
 made him faint. The faces had pressed closer 
 and closer until they had stifled him. His violin 
 had clattered with a great noise to the platform. 
 Then blackness had fallen between him and the 
 thousand faces. It all seemed so long ago. 
 And now Dr. Engel would not promise that he 
 would ever face an audience again. 
 
 He put up his hands and drew the kitten to 
 his cheek. His eyes, sunken in the thin face, 
 still shone with the genius that had been his 
 doom. The livid whiteness of the hands against 
 the fur caught his gaze. He studied the long 
 artist-fingers, the knotted knuckles. Was it 
 true? Did Dr. Engel's silence mean that his 
 lungs were not getting better? 
 
 The Doctor had just left him. Sonnie could 
 not forget the haunting pity he had surprised in 
 his eyes. To die at sixteen? The boy shivered. 
 It was very weird to face death alone. The 
 comfortable purring of the kitten accompanied 
 his thoughts. By and by he twisted round into 
 45
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the room. No, he would not go down to the 
 balcony yet. Simplicity Baldwin and her Amer- 
 icanisms would not amuse him to-day, and 
 Philippa Joy was still confined to her room. He 
 did not wish to meet the echo of his doom on 
 the faces of the other invalids. Their gaiety 
 would be more ironical even than usual. It was 
 easy for them to be happy in Mittenplatz. They 
 did not sacrifice a career. And if he had to die, 
 it would be better to go back to London and live 
 splendidly for three months, and die crowned, 
 than to drag out his life in a place like this. 
 
 The mountains would mock him with thoughts 
 of the heights he had meant to reach, the pines 
 would jeer at his hopes of fame. His heart 
 sickened. 
 
 The mountains looked pitiless enough. The 
 Jakob's Pitz before him stared unmoved at the 
 boy's despair. He was so small a thing to hurl 
 himself against the great forces. Would these 
 human insects never learn the patience of nature, 
 that bore the snows of winter with the same 
 silence that carried the green burden of sum- 
 mer? There was a knock at the door, and 
 Babette brought in Sonnie's glass of hot milk. 
 She was breathless to-day. Her gasps sounded 
 louder than Fifine's purr. Sonnie looked at her 
 with new sympathy. He understood now why 
 Babette was so attentive to him. The fellow 
 feeling had come into his own heart. 
 46
 
 Sonnie 
 
 "Look here, Babette, you are not fit to work," 
 he said. "You look perished. Sit down and 
 warm yourself. And here you drink this milk. 
 I'll get some more when I go downstairs." 
 
 He pushed the armchair before the_ fire, and 
 the maid sat down gratefully. She was the 
 woman who waited on that floor, and she was 
 almost as ill as most of those she waited on. 
 Sonnie talked to her while she warmed herself 
 and drank the milk. When she went away the 
 weight on his heart had lifted. He walked to 
 the window again, and this time his face was 
 calm. 
 
 Suddenly the sun shone out, and all at once 
 the valley was transfigured. The mists rose 
 trembling from the river and fled, torn and tat- 
 tered, to the belt of pines. 
 
 He opened his window and stepped out onto 
 the balcony. The sting in the cold was the 
 sting of life. 
 
 He leaned against the railing and looked down 
 towards the houses clustered round the church. 
 They splashed the snow with colour pink and 
 yellow and green. They were all square and 
 hideous, but the ugliness had been blurred by 
 time. The road was dotted with people, little 
 black figures moving towards the skating-rink, 
 where the red flags flaunted. A blue sleigh, with 
 a tail of toboggans behind it, clattered past the 
 hotel. The bells clashed out joyfully. The 
 47
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 valley had wakened, and its face was alight with 
 life. Even the pines lost their gloom where 
 their edges were pinked out against the glow. 
 The snow tingled with light. Sonnie's eyes 
 wakened, too. The eagerness came back to his 
 face; his eyes flashed and darkened. His fingers 
 beat on the rail, Fifine, washing her face on the 
 floor, thought it was a game, and prepared to 
 spring. But suddenly Sonnie turned into the 
 room, caught up his violin, and began to play. 
 And as he played you saw the light rosy on the 
 peaks, sparkling and dancing on the snow. 
 Across the moan of the Griinwasser you could 
 hear the music of bells. He played on. At 
 last, breathless, he put down his violin. 
 
 "Marie said it was an angel, and it's only a 
 boy." 
 
 Sonnie started up and looked round him. The 
 peculiar ringing intonation of the voice was un- 
 familiar. A child stood in the doorway, a little 
 thing in a straight black frock. She had yellow 
 hair and big, soft eyes. When she saw his face 
 her eyes widened, her voice dropped. 
 
 "I think you must be an angel. That's what 
 makes your face white and shining." Her face 
 was awed, but she walked up to him fearlessly. 
 
 "When I'm an angel I'll play a harp, too." 
 
 Sonnie held out his hand to her. "Hello! 
 where have you come from?" 
 
 "I've runned away from Marie," she said,
 
 Sonnie 
 
 slyly. "But I came in the train last night, smile 
 and miles, with my Uncle Rob his name is 
 Major Sanderson, and we must be velly quiet, 
 'cause he's velly poorly. I'm Miss Busybody. 
 What's your name?" 
 
 "Soniland Baker Sonnie, if you like." 
 
 He smiled at the child. She was about six 
 years old, round and rosy and dimpled. He 
 liked her soft, big eyes. 
 
 "I'll call you Sonnie; it's abooful name. I'll 
 call my doll Sonnie, too. Did you come down 
 in the snow with the other angels?" 
 
 "The angels don't come to Mittenplatz," he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, they does," she cried, eagerly. "It's a 
 secret. Marie telled me, and she knows, be- 
 cause she's German, and speaks the language. 
 There's angels in the snow; that's why it's so 
 white. There's heaps and heaps of 'em. And 
 when they shake their wings the snow is full of 
 stars. Marie said you played angel-music, and 
 I came to see. But God has forgotten your 
 wings." 
 
 "I'm not an angel, you know," said Sonnie. 
 
 Her face fell. "I'm velly much disappointed," 
 she began; then her lips flowered into a rose of 
 a smile. "Well, maybe if you make angel-music, 
 God will want to put you into the band in 
 Heaven. There's a big German band there, 
 Marie says. And all the angels stand round 
 49
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 about the throne and play harps. I like angel- 
 music. Play some more." 
 
 "Do you really like music, my music?" Son- 
 nie asked. 
 
 "Yes, I does," she said, earnestly. "It 
 makes me think of my dear, dear little kittie 
 that died. She squealed like that when I pulled 
 her tail." 
 
 "I have a kitten," said Sonnie, "but you 
 mustn't hurt her." 
 
 Miss Busybody gave a glance at Fifine. 
 
 "I loves kittens," she said, soberly, "but I 
 like music better." She climbed on a chair, and 
 sat with legs dangling and arms folded, looking 
 expectantly at him. Sonnie took up his violin 
 again, and she sat mute till he had finished. 
 Then she scrambled down from the chair, and 
 made a quaint little curtsey. 
 
 "I'm velly'much obliged, Sonnie; and when I 
 say my prayers to Marie I'll ask God to put you 
 in the band in Heaven." 
 
 She was half-way to the door, when she turned 
 round, balanced herself on one leg and tilted her 
 head, and looked at him, her eyes growing very 
 big. 
 
 "Let's play cat and mouse," she said. 
 "You're a mouse and I'm the grey kitten coming 
 to dead you. And you must keep getting away, 
 but in the end I'll catch you. Now then, run!" 
 
 The game was not over till Sonnie had been 
 50
 
 Sonnie 
 
 duly caught and eaten. After the child was gone 
 he threw himself on the sofa and laughed. The 
 blood was swinging in his veins again, his pulses 
 were beating. Miss Busybody had brought back 
 life. 
 
 From that day Sonnie's loneliness ended. 
 Miss Busybody had a passion for music, and 
 while he played would sit mute, nursing Fifine, 
 her big eyes fastened worshippingly on Sonnie's 
 face. She had not lost her first impression of 
 him; something of the angel still lingered about 
 his rapt face and shining eyes. 
 
 When Fifine and he lay on the balcony in his 
 chaise tongue, she would bring her chair and sit 
 beside him, and tell him quaint involved histories 
 of her dolls, or repeat strange versions of the 
 legends Marie told her. Sonnie had no time for 
 sad thoughts. 
 
 Dr. Engel's next report was hopeful. In the 
 fortnight the boy had done wonders; there was 
 distinct, unexpected improvement in his condi- 
 tion. 
 
 Sonnie, studying the Doctor's face, saw the 
 lines relax and the eyes brighten. 
 
 "So! That is good! Ah, yes; we shall make 
 a man of you. One day you shall be maestro. 
 Your violin will yet speak in all countries. But 
 now, attention! You must take no cold, you 
 must run no risk. A relapse now, and your 
 chance goes." 
 
 51
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Sonnie did not speak. He had grown very 
 pale; he breathed quickly. He turned away, 
 and caught up Fifine and laid his face against 
 her fur. 
 
 "Care and attention, my young friend, care 
 and attention," said Engel, taking off his spec- 
 tacles. The glasses were blurred, his own lips 
 were unsteady. "No risk, no colds," he added, 
 and hurried away. 
 
 The sun poured into the room, the skies 
 laughed aloud. The gladness of the valley 
 surged over the solemn pines. Sonnie wondered 
 if the place had ever appeared to him chill and 
 ghostly a valley of dead men. Of dead men? 
 It was the gate of life! This was the happy 
 land where Death was vanquished. 
 
 "Oh, Life, here is thy victory!, here is thy 
 victory!" he sang. The words remained with 
 him. They sang in his brain, they tingled in his 
 fingers. He took up his violin, and the bow 
 swept it triumphantly. 
 
 Triumph was in the music. It rang out clear 
 and resonant among the notes that mounted up 
 and up until they circled round the bared fang 
 of the Ducanalp. 
 
 "OA, Life, here is thy victory! O Life, here is 
 thy victory!" 
 
 Major Sanderson, who had come to the Mit- 
 tenthal too late, lifted his hand and feebly beat 
 time to the music. The rhythm held the joy of 
 52
 
 Sonnie 
 
 life exultant, unconquerable. He heard the 
 quick march of hope, and his heart stepped to 
 the measure. His face had been troubled, but 
 it cleared as he listened. His lips moved. "Oh, 
 Grave, where is thy victory?" 
 
 Sonnie went downstairs to the public balcony. 
 The invalids were already in their chaises tongues, 
 a line of recumbents that made the balcony 
 look like the section of a hospital ward. There 
 were patches of colour to brighten the effect, a 
 gaudy cushion, the Professor's tartan. Simpli- 
 city Baldwin's dress was a flare of scarlet in the 
 foreground. There was colour in the sunburnt 
 faces that turned smiling to welcome Sonnie. 
 They seemed to him to wear a new expression; 
 there was no cynicism in the mask of gaiety. 
 The ring in the voices was not forced. Every- 
 body was talking at once, suggesting expeditions, 
 proposing skating, sleighing, tobogganing. The 
 voices buzzed about the balcony like bees in the 
 sun. 
 
 Miss Busybody wandered in and out of the 
 hubbub, her red cloak challenging Simplicity's 
 dress. She was not in spirits ; her mouth drooped. 
 When she saw Sonnie her face brightened. She 
 ran to him. "Are you going for a walk? Please 
 take me with you." 
 
 "Not to-day, sweetheart. I'm going in the 
 post-wagon to Kleinbad. " 
 
 "I want to go in the post- wagon, too. Please 
 53
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 take me. I'm velly unhappy. My Uncle Rob 
 is velly ill, and Marie can't go out, and there's 
 nobody to play with me." 
 
 Sonnie thought a moment. They would have 
 to walk back; but Miss Busybody was a good 
 walker, and could easily manage the three miles, 
 with the frequent rests that he would be obliged 
 to take. 
 
 "Well, run and ask Marie if you can go." 
 
 She danced away, and came back radiant. 
 She skipped beside Sonnie on their way to meet 
 the post-sleigh. They were both in spirits to 
 match the sun. They took their seats, and the 
 post jangled along the road and across the bridge, 
 under which the moan of the Grunwasser was 
 muffled. The valley opened out white, glittering 
 where the rays danced. The surface of the snow 
 was broken into an ice forest of tiny fronds and 
 flowering crystals. In the distance the Ducanalp 
 gleamed against the blue background. 
 
 Sonnie saw it all with his eager eyes. His 
 face was sharp with the keenness of his gaze. 
 He was looking beyond the valley, beyond the 
 white gates of the pass, to the years before him. 
 He would be maestro: he was going to realise 
 his dream of fame. 
 
 "Oh, Life, here is thy victory!" 
 
 He felt young again; the weight of the years 
 had lifted. Suddenly he broke into the words 
 of a poem Philippa Joy was fond of repeating: 
 54
 
 Sonnie 
 
 "Is it so small a thing 
 
 To have enjoyed the sun? 
 To have lived light in the spring, 
 To have loved, to have thought, to have done?" 
 
 "What's that?" asked Miss Busybody. 
 
 "That's the song of a man who grasps fame." 
 
 "What's fame?" 
 
 "Fame? oh, fame I really don't know how 
 to tell you. Fame is when they give you a laurel 
 wreath, and everybody says you are a genius." 
 
 "That's nothing. I heard Simplicity say it 
 this morning when you were playing. 'Sonnie is 
 a genius,' she said; 'it's drefful to think he 
 can't live.' And Philippa said, 'He can't die. 
 People who play like that can't die.' " 
 
 There were tattered lights in the sky. The 
 clouds were stealthily mustering. Their shadow 
 crossed Sonnie's face. 
 
 "They talked lots about you," Miss Busybody 
 went on, "but I've forgotten. And then Miss 
 Blake cried, and said, 'Sonnie can't die; he 
 shows us how to live. ' And the Professor con- 
 kerdicted her, and said, 'He can't live; he 
 shows us how to die.' And I asked them what 
 it meant, and they told me to run away. Is that 
 being a genius, Sonnie? Is that fame?" 
 
 Sonnie drew a deep breath. "Perhaps; only 
 that kind has no laurels." 
 
 "You shall have laurels, Sonnie. I'll ask my 
 Uncle Rob to buy you one. I know what laurels 
 55
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 is; it's a wreath on a coffin. It was on my 
 daddy's, because he was a brave soldier. He 
 was just awfully brave. He stood up in the 
 stirrups and waved his sword to the regiment, 
 and called out, 'Death and victory!' and then he 
 was shotted. My Uncle Rob makes me stand on 
 the table and shout it. He shouts, too, 'Death 
 and victory!' Marie says it's wunderschon. " 
 
 The clouds drifted away from Sonnie's face. 
 By the time they reached Kleinbad the shadow 
 had passed. 
 
 They lunched at the Kurhaus, and afterwards 
 set out to walk back to Mittenplatz. The child 
 chattered along the road, but Sonnie was feeling 
 tired. They rested a while before they struck 
 into the pine wood. He shivered as he entered 
 the shadow. 
 
 "Night has come awful quick," said Miss 
 Busybody presently. 
 
 Sonnie peered through the tree-trunks. It 
 was always dusk in the wood, but the clouds 
 must have gathered to make the shadows so 
 dense. All at once Miss Busybody exclaimed, 
 "Look! look! the angels are shaking their 
 wings." 
 
 It had begun to snow. Sonnie thought anx- 
 iously of the long walk before them ; they had 
 only gone half the distance. It was as easy to 
 go on as to return to Kleinbad, and a sleigh 
 might overtake them. He hurried the pace, his 
 56
 
 Sonnie 
 
 breathing quickening. Miss Busybody trotted 
 beside him, talking gaily of the angels passing. 
 They came from the shelter of the pines into a 
 whirling tumult of snowflakes. They could see 
 nothing; mountain and valley were hidden in 
 the folds of the storm. 
 
 "I wish I had my fur it's drefful cold," said 
 the child. Her face was blue, her teeth chat- 
 tered. 
 
 Sonnie looked uneasily at her. They were 
 nearly two miles from home, and there was the 
 valley to be crossed. He was cold, too, and 
 tired, but they must push on. 
 
 "Courage, sweetheart," he said, cheerfully; 
 "we shall soon be at home." 
 
 He exerted himself to tell her stories, but they 
 did not amuse her. Every moment she inter- 
 rupted him with complaints of the cold. Pres- 
 ently she began to cough. What was to be 
 done? He could only help her by giving her his 
 jacket, and he himself was chilly enough already. 
 But she was taking cold, and he had heard of 
 children dying of croup. 
 
 He hurried her along the road, their feet 
 clogged by the deepening snow. 
 
 Miss Busybody began to cry. Sonnie stopped. 
 
 "What is it, sweetheart?" 
 
 "I'm just deaded with cold," she sobbed, "and 
 my foots is asleep. Can't I get under your over- 
 coat?" 
 
 57
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 The boy hesitated. Engel's voice was in his 
 ears: "No risk. No cold. A relapse now, and 
 you chance goes." 
 
 Miss Busybody's sobs punctuated the sen- 
 tences. Sonnie set his mouth hard, drew off his 
 overcoat, and slipped out of his jacket. 
 
 "Here, sweetheart," he said; "put on my 
 jacket under your cloak, and you'll soon be 
 warm." He put on his overcoat again, and but- 
 toned the jacket round her. 
 
 "Now then, Miss Busybody, hurry!" he said, 
 cheerily. 
 
 "Death and victory!" he cried, and they 
 plunged forward. How it snowed! The heav- 
 ens had fallen to earth, and the shattered skies 
 were full of tiny stars. They sprinkled his coat 
 and clung to his feet as he walked. He could 
 not keep up the pace. His breath quickened; 
 he gasped at every stab of the cold. 
 
 The shroud of the snow wound itself round 
 and round in thicker folds. His feet grew more 
 and more heavy. Miss Busybody's weight on 
 his arm was dragging him down. He could not 
 talk to her; he needed to be careful of those 
 quick breaths. 
 
 "I can't truly walk no furder, Sonnie; please 
 carry me." 
 
 "I can't, poor little sweetheart. You're too 
 heavy." 
 
 She looked reproachfully at him. 
 58
 
 Sonnie 
 
 "My daddy used to carry me. I'm truly, 
 truly tired, Sonnie." 
 
 "I know, dear, I know. Perhaps a sleigh will 
 come. Be brave a little longer." 
 
 They went on a few yards; then the child's 
 pent-up misery burst in a howl. 
 
 "It's no use. My foots is dead. I can't walk, 
 Sonnie, I can't!" She sat down in the snow, 
 and sobbed there. 
 
 The boy looked at her, then at the road up 
 and down. He could only see a few feet ahead. 
 He shouted. The spent voice lost itself in the 
 silence of the snow. The storm swept round 
 them the folds of the shroud thicker and 
 thicker. There was no light from chalet or 
 shed. He strained his ears for the sound of 
 bells. The hush of the grave held the valley. 
 
 They could not stay there to perish in the 
 snow. He could not leave the child. To carry 
 her was to court death. It was hard enough for 
 him to struggle on alone. 
 
 "A relapse now, and your chance goes." 
 
 "I wish my daddy was here," Miss Busybody 
 sobbed. 
 
 The boy's face changed. Her daddy was 
 dead. His last cry, "Death and victory!" still 
 rang in his ears. 
 
 He stooped and lifted Miss Busybody. 
 
 "Hurrah! Death and victory!" he panted 
 as he stumbled forward. 
 59
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Her arms round his neck made breathing still 
 more difficult. Her red cloak falling round him 
 hindered his feet. Gasping, fighting, blinded, 
 breathless, he staggered on. 
 
 The snow was lightening round them. Where 
 the sleigh-lamps pierced it, it was like an open 
 gate. Sonnie did not see the light his head 
 was bent forward; his strained ,eyes saw only the 
 red of the child's cloak. The beating of his 
 heart battered in his ears. 
 
 The lights came nearer. The bells were 
 muffled by the snow. The horse stepped care- 
 fully, shaking the red plume on his forehead. 
 There was no sound of hoofs. 
 
 The sleigh was almost upon them before Son- 
 nie was aware of it. The crack of Jakob Mey- 
 er's whip startled him like the crack of doom. 
 He set down the child, and stood gasping, unable 
 to answer Dr. Engel's questions. The Doctor's 
 sharp voice did not frighten Miss Busybody. 
 She knew quite well who Engel was. 
 
 "Sonnie carried me," she said. "I was almost 
 deaded, and he carried me, and so he's out of 
 breath. I expect he's velly cold, too; he gave 
 me his jacket 'cause I was cold." 
 
 Engel started as she spoke, and gave the child 
 a keen look, but turned to Sonnie. 
 
 "I'll drive you home," he said, in a queer, 
 dry voice. "Come." He helped the boy into 
 the sleigh, and wrapped him in his bear-skin. 
 60
 
 Sonnie 
 
 'So! Lie back. Don't speak. I'll look after 
 the little one." 
 
 He took Miss Busybody on his knee, gave a 
 quick order to Jakob Meyer. 
 
 "Ja wohl," said Jakob, turning the horse 
 towards Mittenplatz. The frown settled between 
 Engel's brows. Had the boy done himself 
 irreparable mischief? Who was the child? The 
 peculiar ringing intonation of her voice had 
 struck familiarly on his ears. Except for the 
 English accent it might have been Isolde speak- 
 ing. His arm tightened round the child. 
 
 "What is your name, little one?" 
 
 "Miss Busybody." 
 
 "No, no. What does mother call you?" 
 
 "My muvver is deaded. " 
 
 "What, then, does father call you?" 
 
 "My daddy's deaded, too. He was a brave 
 soldier. I'm Uncle Rob's girl." 
 
 "And what does Uncle Rob call you?" 
 
 "Little demon." 
 
 "So! Then, poor little one, thou hast no 
 name but Miss Busybody." 
 
 "Ah, but I have!" she said, eagerly. "It's a 
 booful name, and it was my muvver's. It's 
 velly long to say. Shall I say it?" She looked 
 up confidingly at him, her soft eyes smiling. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Isolde Johanna Stannard. " 
 
 61
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BABETTE 
 
 Babette was shivering in her little room on the 
 landing. Outside the sun lay white on the white 
 snow. Where the pines climbed the hills there 
 was a splash of yellow on the trunks and a 
 tangle of saffron light among the branches. The 
 shadows were deep on the mountain-side, and 
 the December cold was so intense you could 
 almost see it, an impalpable blue hanging over 
 the snow. 
 
 Even in the Hotel Royal it was cold, and 
 Babette 's teeth chattered while she cut the slips 
 of pinewood with which she made the bedroom 
 fires. She cut the wood so that the curled shav- 
 ings came at marked intervals and made a little 
 white tree, like the ghost of the pines that her 
 father felled in the forest. She liked to see the 
 tree grow under her fingers, and to watch it 
 aflame afterwards in the stove, all its branches 
 blazing. It was a prettier death, she thought, 
 than came to the blocks of wood that slowly 
 smoked themselves out. 
 
 Now and then a fit of coughing seized her, 
 and when it was over she would lift her eyes to 
 62
 
 Babette 
 
 the bell indicator, afraid lest she had not heard 
 the bell of No. 10. 
 
 In No. 10 Sonnie Baker lay ill from the chill 
 caught in the snowstorm. Babette had made 
 several errands to his room already, to see if he 
 wanted anything. She was coughing now be- 
 cause she had spent the previous night on the 
 floor outside his door. He had sent his nurse 
 away for a night's rest, and Babette could not 
 bear to leave him alone when any moment he 
 might need help and not have strength to ring. 
 So she had spent the night at his door, listening 
 to every movement inside, and to-day she was 
 coughing more than ever. She was tired and 
 cold, but she did not think of that as she sat in 
 her fireless closet ready to answer the bells. 
 
 There came the shrill peal the fiftieth time 
 that morning. She laid down the wood and got 
 up, setting her cap straight as she passed the 
 looking-glass. Who could tell? Perhaps she 
 would meet Karl, the porter, on the stairs. 
 
 Her eyes brightened ; she gave a second look 
 at herself. She shivered again as she saw her 
 face; it was livid where the red patches did not 
 burn. Her eyes were sunken. She could not 
 bear to look. She went out quickly, hoping that 
 Karl would not meet her. She was thankful that 
 her father could not see her. Poor old man, he 
 was so delighted that his girl was in the Mitten- 
 thai, where sickness was cured and where weak 
 63
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 lungs grew strong. He did not know that 
 health only came back to those who had leisure 
 and comfort and ease. Babette had to work 
 day and night, waiting on invalids, some of 
 whom were not as ill as herself. 
 
 She was so bright always that only Sonnie 
 Baker had noticed her quick breathing and her 
 tired face. Even Karl did not suspect that any- 
 thing was wrong, for she laughed through the 
 half-hour that Frau Bullen occasionally gave the 
 lovers. 
 
 Her face was one of the brightest in the hotel, 
 though her feet were constantly weary in run- 
 ning errands, sometimes for those who only came 
 to the Mittenthal for amusement. She thought 
 it such a beautiful thing to be strong that it 
 delighted her to wait on people who were not 
 sick like herself. She looked on ungrudgingly 
 at those who walked with Life, and her hand did 
 not struggle in the chill grasp that held it. She 
 knew she was getting worse, that the hard life 
 was becoming too hard for her, but she never 
 told any one. She had accepted her fate. She 
 was too poor to afford the luxury of life. It was 
 one among the things she must do without. It 
 had been something that she had been able to 
 come to Mittenplatz, to give herself the benefit 
 of the wonderful climate, and to spend a whole 
 winter in the same hotel with Karl. 
 
 She loved the valley, with its still air, its sun, 
 6 4
 
 Babette 
 
 its snow. It was a beautiful place, where people 
 were cured. Sometimes Babette felt as if the 
 stillness was caused by great white wings spread 
 over the valley, and she would dream of a great 
 angel poised in the air. She never saw the 
 shadow of the wings. To her the angel who 
 hovered over the valley was always the Angel of 
 Life. It was the smiling Angel of Death who 
 walked in the valley. And she loved the people 
 who lay on the balconies with bright faces, wait- 
 ing; and their friends who waited on them with 
 bright faces, though their hearts were wrung. 
 She was only a simple peasant, but she under- 
 stood the pathos and the tragedy round her. 
 She could not have put it into words, but she 
 felt the atmosphere charged with great emotions, 
 and she had seen the terrible beauty of Life and 
 the exquisite beauty of Death. She loved the 
 angel with the gentle touch and the silent feet 
 and the smiling face. His footfall was as silent 
 as that of the snow; and the peace and cold of 
 the snow were his, also. The day was his, and 
 the night, and his hand rested lightly on the 
 children of men. Babette had seen his face 
 many times that winter. She was glad that she 
 had come to the valley where men learned to see 
 Death and not to fear him. 
 
 She climbed the stairs to answer the bell. It 
 was the Fraulein Joy who had rung, and she was 
 one of those who considered Babette, and never 
 65
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 rung unnecessarily. To-day Philippa had made 
 a cup of beef-tea for Babette. She had noticed 
 that the girl was looking pale, and she knew 
 that Babette had more to do now that Sonnie 
 Baker was confined to bed. 
 
 "Sit down, Babette, and drink this; then I 
 will ask you to take that parcel to No. 10. " 
 
 There were a good many parcels on the table. 
 Babette remembered that it was the day before 
 Christmas. Philippa had a small bronze figure 
 in her hand. She was looking at it hesitatingly. 
 Then she saw that Babette was gazing at the 
 bronze. 
 
 "Do you want to see it, Babette?" she asked, 
 rousing herself from her thoughts. "See, it is a 
 beautiful St. John, by a great artist." 
 
 Babette looked at it with a curiously eager 
 face. 
 
 "It's wunderschon, " she said. "But it is not 
 very like does the Fraulein know that in Mit- 
 tenplatz the Herr Doctor is called 'der Heilige 
 Johann"? 
 
 "Dr. Engel? No; I didn't know." Philip- 
 pa's voice was interested. "Why is he called 
 so?" 
 
 "It is his good heart, and the life so holy. He 
 lives but to do good, and the poor worship him." 
 
 "He always seems so silent." Philippa hesi- 
 tated for the word. 
 
 "But his heart speaks." Babette smiled. 
 66
 
 Babette 
 
 Philippa turned her face a little aside. Her 
 eyes were not so frank as usual. 
 
 "It is a present for the Doctor," she said in 
 an embarrassed manner. "He has been so kind, 
 and it is Noel and his name is John.. In Eng- 
 land we give our friends presents at Christmas," 
 she added, with unnecessary emphasis. 
 
 "But yes; and here also," said Babette, 
 smiling. She would not have thought it un- 
 natural if the Fraulein Joy had wished to give 
 fifty presents to Dr. Engel. "And shall I ask 
 of Karl to take the Fraulein 's gift to the Herr 
 Doctor?" 
 
 "No, no," said Philippa, hastily. "You are 
 always ready to call Karl, I notice, Babette. 
 And I don't care to tell everybody to whom I am 
 sending presents. I tell you, because you like 
 the Doctor, and you know how good he has been." 
 
 "He has saved the Fraulein's life," said 
 Babette. "And now he will have the marvelous 
 joy of the Fraulein's gift." 
 
 Philippa coloured, and put the bronze figure 
 on the table. "He may not care for it," she 
 said, with great unconcern. "Have you finished 
 your beef-tea, Babette? You must come again 
 to-morrow for another cup. You are looking 
 very ill; you should rest." 
 
 Babette smiled as she shook her head. 
 
 "When you are rich, you rest; when you are 
 poor, you work." 
 
 67
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "That seems to be the rule," Philippa said 
 sadly; "and it is so hard. I suppose you are 
 very poor, Babette?" 
 
 Babette flushed all over her white face. 
 
 "Ach no!" she laughed, joyfully. "I have the 
 little father, and I have Karl." 
 
 Philippa's face changed, and her voice 
 changed, too. "You are richer than I am, 
 Babette." 
 
 Her thin, white hand pressed the table till the 
 knuckles reddened. "Lover and friend hast 
 thou put far from me," she was thinking. 
 
 Babette looked at her pale face, paler for the 
 black frock, and her eyes filled with ready sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Poor little one!" she whispered. She tried 
 to say more, but the words would not come. 
 She shook her head, and escaped from the room. 
 
 Philippa sat down and laid her cheek against 
 the bronze on the table. She was not crying; 
 all her tears had been buried in the grave in the 
 friedhof, but the look in her eyes was sadder 
 than tears. 
 
 "Lover and friend, lover and friend," she 
 whispered over and over again. And yet he 
 had been good to her so good to her. What 
 had she said or done that his manner should 
 have changed so? He was brusque and harsh 
 now; his kindness touched her through a glove 
 of steel. But though he was cool and stern, he 
 68
 
 Babette 
 
 was the one person she trusted and since her 
 father's death, the one person on whom she could 
 lean. "The good Doctor. " "His heart speaks. " 
 What did it matter if he was no longer her 
 friend? She would never forget that time when 
 his friendship had been the only thing that 
 bound her to life. She had thought then that 
 his tenderness had meant more than friendship, 
 more even than pity. But lately, since she had 
 grown stronger, his attitude had been different. 
 His visits had been coldly professional. He no 
 longer came into the room smiling, his pockets 
 bulging with the books he had brought to amuse 
 her. He no longer stayed, talking about the 
 books, when his medical visit was over. Of 
 course his time was largely given to Sonnie 
 Baker, who had been ill ever since his walk from 
 Kleinbad. But that scarcely accounted for his 
 changed manner. "If he were like other men, 
 I would say he was fickle," Philippa thought. 
 "But he is not like other men. His heart speaks, 
 and the poor worship him. And they call him 
 St. John in the valley. " She smiled, a tender 
 pride in the smile. "He is a saint his lonely, 
 unselfish life is finer than the life any saint ever 
 lived. And he stays here in the wilderness " 
 
 She broke off her thoughts to pack the St. 
 
 John into its case. Then she put it among the 
 
 other presents. She would not send it by Karl, 
 
 but give it herself to Dr. Engel when he came 
 
 69
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 to see her that day. She had taken cold, and he 
 had ordered her to stay in her rooms for the 
 present. 
 
 Philippa was glad to escape the preparations 
 for Christmas. She had no heart for the festivi- 
 ties downstairs. 
 
 The hotel was full of visitors, come for the 
 skating, or to spend Christmas with their friends 
 who were ill. Their voices banished the silence 
 in the corridors, their laughing drove away the 
 ghosts. The piano banging all day to the spin 
 of galops and waltzes was a gayer sound than 
 Sonnie's violin. The rush up and down the 
 stairs silenced the creak of the lift. You missed 
 the patient, smiling faces of the winter in the tide 
 of light-faced, light-footed people who surged 
 over the halls and passages. There was nothing 
 of the health-resort left in the hotel. Christmas 
 had taken possession. 
 
 Frau Bullen was in the pantry recklessly order- 
 ing dainties for dinner and for the supper after- 
 wards. Beef-tea and milk-pudding had had their 
 day; they ceased to be for the present. The 
 balcony was empty of its chaises tongues. The 
 invalids were in the salon, making garlands for 
 the walls, trimming the Christmas fir. The tree 
 was almost dressed. Miss Busybody stood fas- 
 cinated by its glitter of tinsel, its globes of 
 coloured glass and candles. On the topmost 
 bough stood a plaster figure of the Christ-child. 
 70
 
 Babette 
 
 There were some smaller trees standing near. 
 These were for the invalids who had to stay in 
 their rooms. Miss Busybody had already hung 
 her presents for Sonnie and Fifine on the one 
 that was going to No. 10. She did not think it 
 was such a pretty tree as the one Frau Bullen was 
 sending to Philippa. Babette stood beside the 
 child admiring the trees. She knew that when 
 night came Frau Bullen would bid her carry 
 them to the different rooms, with her "Gruss" 
 and ' ' Gliickwiinsch. ' ' That would please Babette 
 very much; but she wished there had been a 
 Christ-child on the Fraulein's tree. She could 
 not forget the black-robed figure and the face of 
 Philippa that morning. It made her heart 
 heavy, it weighted her feet more than the weari- 
 ness that grew harder to resist as the day went 
 on. Up and down, up and down the intermi- 
 nable steps Babette went, on the errands of the 
 people who were too busy with their amusements 
 to spare the servants; and her face grew greyer 
 and her breathing more painful with every 
 errand. Sometimes she stopped, gasping, on 
 the landing, and then hurried on to avoid the 
 eyes of the merry people passing up in the lift. 
 But she did not pity herself; all her pity was for 
 Philippa. 
 
 The sun went down, and the cold stabbed 
 keen and fierce over the valley; but she did not 
 feel it. She had forgotten the weary stairs, the
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 pain in her side. She could only remember the 
 face of the girl who had lost her father. 
 
 "If there had been the Christ-child on the 
 tree, it would surely have brought comfort," she 
 thought. And the more she thought of it 
 the more certain she was that the Christ-child 
 would have brought comfort to the little Fraulein. 
 Ach, if she could but afford to buy a Christ-child 
 for the Fraulein. At last she took her purse, 
 and counted up the money put by week by week 
 for her father. 
 
 "I will spare two francs," she said. "The 
 Fraulein is poorer than me. The Christ-child 
 will comfort the broken heart." 
 
 She could not go to the shops herself, but Karl 
 would buy the Christ-child for her when he went 
 to the post. Her cheeks burned, her eyes 
 glowed, as she waited for Karl to come back. 
 Every now and then she went to the window and 
 looked down the road for him. 
 
 There he was at last, the slow one! And he 
 carried a little parcel carefully. Babette 
 clasped her hands: "Ach, du herrliches Christ- 
 kind!" She waited on the landing for Karl, and 
 he came running up. 
 
 "Ach, liebchen, there is no a Christ-child 
 more in the shops. But I have bought thee an 
 equally beautiful image. The Fraulein will be 
 greatly comforted when thou givest him."
 
 Babette 
 
 Babette's face fell. "Thou hast not brought 
 the Christ-child?" 
 
 "Nein, nein; but one as beautiful. Only 
 look, liebchen!" 
 
 He unrolled the paper, and with a flourish 
 displayed a bust of Bismarck. 
 
 "Thou dost not like it?" he exclaimed, star- 
 ing at Babette. "But it is wunderschon. The 
 Fraulein will marvel at it." 
 
 "I marvel at thee!" Babette said, half crying 
 with disappointment. "Oh, thou great dummr 
 kopf! The Christ-child and thou bringest 
 Bismarck!" 
 
 "They had only angels," said Karl, crest- 
 fallen. 
 
 "Then must thou bring an angel," said 
 Babette, severely. "What comfort is there in 
 Bismarck?" 
 
 Karl could not go out again till after dinner, 
 and he was only just in time with the angel. 
 Babette had already toiled up the stairs several 
 times, carrying trees to different rooms. The 
 pots were heavy. She could scarcely breathe for 
 the pain in her side. If she could only go up in 
 the lift. But the lift was for the visitors, not 
 for the servants who carried burdens. 
 
 She left Philippa's tree till the last. Then she 
 went up with it to the top landing, where Karl 
 was waiting, looking sheepishly at the little 
 plaster angel he had bought. 
 73
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Oh, thou good Karl! Ach! but it is wun- 
 derschon, " Babette gasped. She kissed him 
 suddenly. "Thou art not a dummkopf. " 
 
 Karl looked gratified. "I have then chosen 
 well. Hast thou praise for me?" 
 
 Babette turned her bright face to him. He 
 thought she panted from the weight of the tree. 
 They fastened the angel to the topmost bough 
 and lighted the candles together, their hands 
 touching many times, and then Karl carried it to 
 the door of Philippa's room. Here Babette took 
 it, and bore it, all glory and glitter, into the 
 room where Philippa sat alone in the firelight, 
 waiting for Dr. Engel's visit. She started up, 
 exclaiming; and Babette stood breathless and 
 smiling till a bell called her from the sight of 
 Philippa's pleasure. She had to run downstairs 
 and up again, and this time the pain was like a 
 sword in her side. 
 
 Dr. Engel, going up to Philippa, saw Babette 
 clinging to the balustrade. He was only just in 
 time to catch her as she fell. 
 
 Left alone, Philippa gazed sorrowfully at the 
 tree. The room was gaudy with colour and 
 light, but there could be no fest for her. Out- 
 side the snow lay heaped, grey in the sunless 
 night, and greyer and colder still it lay heaped 
 on her father's grave in \hzfriedhof. 
 
 One by one the candles on the Christmas fir 
 74
 
 Babette 
 
 burnt low and burnt out, and the world outside 
 came into the room, cold and grey and sad. 
 The tree without its lights seemed to be dead, 
 but on the topmost bough there was a glimmer 
 where the blaze of the logs touched the angel. 
 In the glare of the candles she had not noticed 
 it, but now she saw it, and the pain in her eyes 
 deepened. 
 
 "I suppose it is meant for the Angel of Life," 
 she said. "How ironical it is to send it to me 
 when I have nothing to live for." 
 
 Just then the bells crashed out from the 
 church, and she smiled a dreary smile. "That 
 is ironical, too to ring out peace and good will 
 to so many poor souls to whom peace only means 
 death. And what good will does Christmas bring 
 to Babette, for instance? Only extra work, 
 until she is ready to drop in carrying other peo- 
 ple's presents. No one gives her anything not 
 even an angel with an ironical message of life. 
 And she has something to live for her father 
 and Karl. Poor Babette, who is too poor to 
 rest!" 
 
 Philippa's thoughts moved from her own 
 misery to Babette's hard lot. It was terrible 
 that she should have to work because she was too 
 poor to rest. "She is much more ill than I 
 am," she said to herself; "but no one gives 
 her a chance to get well." Suddenly she started 
 up. Babette should have a chance. She should 
 75
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 have every chance that money and care could 
 give her. 
 
 Philippa walked up and down the room in a 
 fever of enthusiasm, developing her scheme. 
 She was rich ; she could afford anything that was 
 needed to make Babette well. The bells pealed 
 out with a triumphant note, "Peace and good 
 will to Babette!" 
 
 Philippa lifted her arms to the angel on the 
 bough and laughed aloud. "Ah, little angel, 
 you have brought a message of life to Babette." 
 
 She stood in the middle of the floor in a white 
 wrapper, the long sleeves fallen back from her 
 arms giving a suggestion of wings. The light 
 was dim round her, and the Doctor, arrested in 
 the doorway, peered short-sightedly into the 
 dusk. She might have been a spirit. 
 
 A tender, pleased look came into his eyes and 
 softened them. He stood gazing at the girl. 
 Then her arms dropped, and he saw only the 
 woman against whom he had steeled his heart. 
 
 "They are all heartless," he thought. "Here 
 she dances gaily while Babette dies at her 
 door." 
 
 He gave another louder knock and went for- 
 ward. "May I come in?" Philippa sprang to 
 meet him. She caught his hand and drew him 
 forward. In the firelight he saw her face radi- 
 ant. He lifted his brows at the warmth of his 
 welcome, but his mood melted in spite of him- 
 76
 
 Babette 
 
 self. With an embarrassed surprise he allowed 
 her to lead him into the room. She was always 
 surprising him, always appearing in a new, unex- 
 pected character. But he had just left Babette, 
 and he hardened his heart again. 
 
 "I will not stop," he said. "You are better, 
 and I am busy." 
 
 "I am perfectly well," she said, impatiently. 
 "But I want to speak to you. It is very impor- 
 tant. Something must be done at once for 
 Babette, and you must advise me." 
 
 Philippa had forgotten Engel's coldness. Her 
 manner was as unconstrained as it had been 
 before her father's death. Engel sat down, 
 crushing his soft hat in his hands with the same 
 nervous force with which he was trying to crush 
 the tenderness he felt for her. He kept his eyes 
 downcast while she explained her scheme for 
 Babette. Though he was iron to her uncon- 
 scious appeals, he was triumphant because she 
 had proved herself less callous and self-engrossed 
 than the majority of the women whom he 
 attended. 
 
 "You see what I mean," Philippa said, 
 eagerly. "To the people in the hotel she will 
 be my private maid. In reality she shall be my 
 guest. She shall have the room next mine; I 
 will give her every comfort, and I will nurse her 
 myself." 
 
 Engel got up slowly and wearily from his chair. 
 77
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "I wish you had thought of this before. It is 
 too late now; Babette is dying." 
 
 The life failed from Philippa's face. 
 
 "Dying?" she cried, in a hushed voice. 
 "Babette? Surely not! She was here an hour 
 ago. Dying?" 
 
 "I fear so," he said, sadly. "She has broken 
 a blood-vessel. Now I will go. I must move 
 her to another room." 
 
 Philippa sprang towards him. 
 
 "Bring her to mine. You must for to-night 
 at least. Oh, I am so grieved! Bring her at 
 once." 
 
 Engel walked directly to the closet on the land- 
 ing where one of the maids was tending Babette. 
 
 He carried her into Philippa's room and laid 
 her on the bed. Then he turned to Philippa, 
 who stood with sorrowful eyes on the girl. 
 
 "I must-- stay with her for an hour or two. 
 You will sit in that chair; I will call you if I 
 want anything." 
 
 Philippa could not speak. She was struggling 
 with the faintness that threatened to overcome 
 her. She walked to the bed and helped Rosa to 
 unloose Babette's clothes and to make her ready 
 for the night. Then, without a word to Engel, 
 she went to the chair and lay back in the 
 shadow. She did not want him to see that she 
 was faint, and she did not want him to send her 
 from the room. 
 
 78
 
 Babette 
 
 After a time the faintness passed. She lay 
 listening to Engel's voice speaking very kindly 
 to Babette. How gentle he was! Had she ever 
 thought this man hard? And yet, and yet he 
 was hard to her. Well, it could not be his fault; 
 she must have given some reason for his changed 
 conduct. No friend could have been more to 
 her than he had been at first. The murmur of 
 his voice mixed drowsily with her thoughts, and 
 grew fainter and fainter. She thought she heard 
 chimes. 
 
 She woke shivering. The room was very cold 
 and dark, except where the night-light made a 
 circle of radiance. There was no fire; a slip of 
 white showed the snow against the open window. 
 Philippa stared vaguely. Where was she? She 
 put up her hands and felt the heavy coat tucked 
 round her. Whose coat was it? 
 
 She sat up straight and peered into the dark- 
 ness. A sound of soft breathing came from the 
 bed. The light cast a gigantic halo on the wall, 
 and in the midst of it was the shadow of a head. 
 Engel quietly crossed to Philippa's side. 
 
 "Don't move," he whispered. "She sleeps." 
 
 "What time is it?" Philippa asked. 
 
 "Nearly six." 
 
 The girl sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Have I 
 been asleep all night? and kept you here?" 
 
 "Babette kept me," he answered. 
 
 Philippa looked remorsefully at him. "How 
 79
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 could I have slept so long? Oh, why didn't 
 you wake me? And this is your coat? Oh, you 
 shouldn't have done it! You gave it to me, and 
 you have been sitting without an overcoat all 
 night! No fire, and the window open! I can 
 never forgive myself!" 
 
 "Babette needed the cold air," he said. "It 
 is nothing. I am yet warm." 
 
 "Let me feel your hands." She took his 
 hands in hers. They were like ice. "Oh, I 
 shall never forgive myself!" she cried, passion- 
 ately. She felt the sudden rigidness that tight- 
 ened his muscles, and she got up and went into 
 her sitting-room. Here the electric light was 
 turned on. There was a fire, and a kettle sing- 
 ing on the stove. Philippa made tea, and heaped 
 the fire with logs. Then she called Engel from 
 the bedroom. He came to her, a new shyness 
 under his gravity, and drank the tea, talking all 
 the time of Babette. There was no conscious- 
 ness in Philippa's eyes. They met his frankly. 
 She had many questions to ask about Babette. 
 It was he who was embarrassed. And yet he 
 lingered beside the fire, warming himself, his 
 heart melting towards the girl whose remorseful 
 tenderness could not do enough for him. It was 
 pleasant to sit there with her, to listen to her. 
 His hands burnt still where her hands had 
 touched them. 
 
 "I must go." His height overtopped her 
 80
 
 Babette 
 
 small figure. His eyes bent down very pleas- 
 antly on her. "I begin my rounds soon after 
 six." 
 
 "Yes, I know," she said, eagerly. "And 
 though it is Christmas Day, you take no holiday. 
 Ah! I remember! But you are to have a Christ- 
 mas gift " 
 
 "I I, too, would ask for a Christmas gift," 
 he stammered. What was he going to say? He 
 hardly knew. He felt her touch on his hand. 
 He knew he loved her. He had sat all night 
 gazing at her, thinking. 
 
 "Wait! wait!" Philippa laughed joyfully. "It 
 is here, all ready for you. I think you will like 
 it." 
 
 She ran to the table and gave him the case 
 with the bronze, and stood by while he opened 
 it. Her eyes were shining, her face was eager; 
 she had felt Engel's altered manner, and her 
 heart had leaped to meet it. 
 
 He paused in opening the case, and gave her 
 a look, shy and full of meaning. "But I want 
 two gifts," he smiled. 
 
 Philippa's lips puckered up into protest. 
 "Two?" she cried, gaily. Engel did not answer. 
 He had unrolled the bronze, and was gazing at 
 it with changed face. 
 
 "Don't you like it?" Philippa said. "I sent 
 for it from Florence for you. It is Donatello's 
 'St. John.' " 
 
 81
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Yes, I know. You are very kind." His 
 voice was constrained; his face was again 
 reserved. All the meaning had passed from his 
 manner, all the happiness from his eyes. The 
 bronze had raked up the past again. It was a 
 replica of one he had bought for Isolde in Flor- 
 ence ten years ago. 
 
 Philippa stood transfixed where he had left 
 her. Her face had changed, too. What could 
 there have been in a simple Christmas present to 
 vex him so? she wondered, miserably. 
 
 Karl sprang up from his place on the landing 
 where he had crouched all night, in sight of the 
 room where Babette lay. The light on the 
 landing was still burning. 
 
 "Is she then dead the little one?" 
 
 "She is dead to me," said Engel. 
 
 Karl fell back. "Babette!" he cried. 
 
 The pain in his voice pierced through Engel's 
 thoughts. He caught the poor fellow by the 
 hand. 
 
 "Nein! nein! She lives Babette. The 
 danger passes. She will recover." 
 
 "Gott sei dank!" Karl gasped. "And you 
 ach lieber, Herr Doktor, and the good Fraulein 
 Joy, who has been so kind " 
 
 Engel walked on. At the end of the passage 
 a door opened and Miss Busybody, in her little 
 dressing-gown, appeared. At the sight of the 
 82
 
 Babette 
 
 Doctor she ran and put her arms round his legs. 
 "I'm looking for the Christ-kind," she whis- 
 pered, loudly. "Marie says he is walking round 
 to-night. Have you seed him?" 
 
 Engel lifted the child and kissed her. He 
 kept her in his arms a long time. Miss Busy- 
 body struggled down at last. 
 
 "Let me feel in your pockets if you've got 
 somefing for me." The Doctor opened his 
 overcoat, and the child fumbled in an inner 
 pocket. At last she found the doll he had 
 brought for her the night before. Her face 
 broke into wonderful smiles. She looked up 
 beaming. 
 
 "I love you velly much," she said, earnestly. 
 "You're nearly as nice as Philippa; and my 
 Uncle Rob says she is the Joy of the Mitten- 
 thai."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MERRIDEW 
 
 "Merridew is a fool," growled the Professor. 
 "Why can't he be content with his own natural 
 folly?" 
 
 "We never know when we are well off," said 
 Simplicity. 
 
 The Professor looked impatiently to the other 
 end of the table, where Merridew's was the only 
 grave face. Everybody was laughing. The 
 people at the Professor's end of the table, who 
 could not tell what it was all about, shrugged 
 their shoulders. 
 
 "It is only Mr. Merridew again," Philippa 
 said to Miss Blake. 
 
 "The man is a fool," the Professor repeated, 
 and went on with his soup. 
 
 "I know what a fool is, Professor," Miss 
 Busybody said. Major Sanderson glanced at 
 the child, then smiled across at Philippa. He 
 was very proud of his niece. 
 
 "Tell us what a fool is, you little pitcher!" he 
 said. 
 
 Miss Busybody tilted her head and looked shy. 
 
 "A fool is a person that makes you laugh, 
 84
 
 Merridew 
 
 Uncle Rob. I know. I saw him once at the 
 circus. He had on a cap with bells, and his face 
 was red and white. Is Mr. Merridew a fool 
 because he has got red spots on his face?" 
 
 "No, no. Go on with your lunch, you little 
 demon," said Major Sanderson, hastily. "Poor 
 Mr. Merridew Is an invalid." 
 
 "I don't think there is much wrong with him," 
 said Miss Blake, in her depressed voice. "He 
 is a little hipped " 
 
 "Hipped!" thundered the Professor. "Where 
 are your eyes, ma'am? Can any person with 
 sense look at that man and not see he is as good 
 as dead?" He glared at Miss Blake, the pale 
 little woman beside him. She had prominent 
 china-blue eyes, and looked like a Dutch doll. 
 Miss Blake, who was evidently anxious and wor- 
 ried, flushed and dropped her face over her 
 plate. Every one in the hotel knew that she and 
 the Professor were no longer friends, and that 
 Miss Blake was miserable and the Professor 
 surly. But no one knew what had happened 
 between them. Philippa heard Miss Blake's 
 fork clatter against the plate, and she braved 
 the Professor's temper. 
 
 "I think Miss Blake is quite right," she said, 
 quietly. "Mr. Merridew doesn't look like an 
 invalid. How bright he is! The hotel would 
 be dull enough without him." 
 
 "Frau Bullen pays him to keep up our spirits," 
 85
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 grunted the Professor. "He is a professional 
 clown." 
 
 "You are abominable, Professor," said Phil- 
 ippa, hotly. "Please attack some one else " 
 
 "I'll attack Engel, if you like," he growled. 
 "Engel is a fossil; he is hard enough to belong 
 to the stone age. He " 
 
 Philippa laughed while she reddened. "At 
 any rate, Mr. Merridew is the kindest man here," 
 she said, quickly. 
 
 "I wonder if any one is going to toboggan 
 to-night?" Miss Blake put in, hurriedly. "It is 
 full moon. I would like to go out." 
 
 "I should think you would like some tobog- 
 ganing, Professor. You said it improved your 
 temper," Philippa said, mischievously. 
 
 "Ask Merridew," growled the Professor. 
 "I'm busy." 
 
 "Don't trouble," said Miss Blake, hastily; "I 
 don't want to I " 
 
 Philippa turned to Merridew, who was passing 
 her chair on his way from the salle-a-manger. 
 His coat hung loose from his shoulders, his 
 figure was stooping and thin. His face was thin, 
 too, and the colour on his cheeks made his eyes 
 glitter. 
 
 "Mr. Merridew, won't you toboggan with Miss 
 Blake to-night?" She caught the demur on his 
 face, and added, "It is so dull for her to sit 
 reading to the Professor every night." 
 86
 
 Merridew 
 
 Miss Blake flushed again, and her eyes filled. 
 She did not tell Philippa what everybody knew, 
 that for the last two evenings the Professor and 
 she had not read together. Merridew under- 
 stood what Philippa meant, and answered pleas- 
 antly, in his grave tones: 
 
 "I should be delighted. It is just the weather 
 for tobogganing. After dinner, then, Miss 
 Blake." 
 
 "Mr. Merridew," Miss Busybody piped, "the 
 Professor says you are a fool." 
 
 "Only a fool?" Merridew smiled. 
 
 "Come here, Miss Busybody. You have not 
 told me what you are going to call your new 
 doll," said Philippa. 
 
 The child ran round the table and climbed on 
 to Philippa's knee. "My new doll, that Dr. 
 Engel gave me for Christmas? Her name is 
 Philippa. Philippa and something else, only it's 
 too hard to 'member. But he wrote it down, and 
 I've got the paper." 
 
 , "Who wrote it down? What paper?" Philippa 
 asked, bending till her brown hair mixed with 
 the child's fair locks. 
 
 "Dr. Engel. This is the paper. It was in my 
 dollie's sash when I took her out of his pocket." 
 
 Miss Busybody carefully untied her handker- 
 chief and produced a scrap of paper. "I keep 
 it safe, 'cos I can't 'member the name, and 
 Marie can't," she explained. 
 87
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Philippa took the paper and read the two 
 words on it, "Philippa Alcestis. " She recog- 
 nized Engel's writing, and stared. What did 
 it mean? Who was Philippa Alcestis? 
 
 "I don't understand," she said, a little frown 
 showing between her eyes. "Who was Alcestis, 
 Professor?" 
 
 "Alkestis, you mean," said the Professor. 
 "She was the woman whom Hercules brought 
 back from the dead." 
 
 "No, she wasn't," said Miss Busybody, 
 eagerly. "She was Philippa, I know, 'cos I 
 asked Dr. " 
 
 Philippa caught up the child and ran laughing 
 out of the room with her. Miss Blake turned 
 to Merridew, a spark of interest in her melan- 
 choly eyes. 
 
 "I wonder " she sighed. 
 
 He shook his head. "I don't think so. 
 Engel has never been known to give a thought 
 to any woman." 
 
 "Of course he has not," said the Professor. 
 "He knows 'em too well. If a woman is not a 
 fool, she is a liar; and if she is neither, she's a 
 confounded nuisance." 
 
 He pushed his chair noisily, and they heard 
 him growling to himself as he left the table. 
 
 Miss Blake looked as if she would cry. Mer- 
 ridew gave her a kind glance. "No one minds
 
 Merridew 
 
 the Professor's storms," he said; "we are all 
 used to them." 
 
 "He is a charming man," faltered Miss 
 Blake, "only occasionally a little blunt." 
 
 "Quite so," Merridew agreed. 
 
 He walked out on to the balcony, and a 
 pleased look was in his eyes as they rested on 
 the scene. Long use had made it familiar, but 
 to him it was always new. Mittenplatz in mist, 
 Mittenplatz in sun, Mittenplatz at dawn, and 
 Mittenplatz in the red evening were so many 
 different places. Sometimes the houses were 
 transfigured, their plain faces lighted up; and 
 when their eyes shone through the mystery of 
 the moonlight they had charm for a lover's eye. 
 
 Merridew was one of the lovers. The fasci- 
 nation of the place held him. He had come under 
 the spell of its silence and its sun, and if it had 
 been possible to him to leave the valley, he would 
 not have chosen to go. He listened to the com- 
 ments of newcomers with amusement in his grave 
 eyes. He knew that in a month or two the spell 
 would be woven round them, too, and that 
 haunting mystery of the mountains would hold 
 them as it held him. 
 
 He was one of those who troop into the val- 
 ley, and after a time troop out again by one of 
 its two passes. Some go out by the high pass of 
 the White Gate, and some the train bears down 
 again into the cities. Merridew knew that his 
 89
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 way out would be by the high pass. When he 
 had first come to the Mittenthal, hopelessness 
 and loneliness had eaten his heart out. The 
 number of invalids had melted with the melting 
 of the snow, but he had been among those who 
 could not go South. 
 
 The snow never altogether disappears from 
 the Mittenthal. Even after it melts in the val- 
 ley, through all the summer's heat you can see 
 the wreaths lying on the higher peaks. 
 
 The other invalid in the Hotel Royal was a 
 woman. They called her The Child in the 
 hotel, because she was so little and eager, and so 
 absurdly young for her years. She must have 
 been forty, and she was very poor and quite 
 alone. But she was always gay, and her kind 
 brown eyes always had a laugh in them. Through 
 the summer the man lying helpless, and The Child 
 almost as helpless, found their world in each 
 other. She was ten years older than he, but her 
 eyes were ten years younger than his ; and Mer- 
 ridew had never thought about her age at all. 
 
 He grew gay and contented within sound of 
 her laugh, and in sight of her eyes. Their chairs 
 were always together on the balcony, and they 
 read Browning, and played chess, and made bets 
 on the weather, and laughed in the sun. 
 
 Sometimes they went into the fields where the 
 Griinwasser flowed, to gather the flowers, the 
 purple bells and heart's-ease that flaunted in 
 90
 
 Merridew 
 
 the valley. They would come back exhausted, 
 and for days after would pretend to each other 
 that the balcony was too desirable a place to 
 leave for the fields, with their orchestras of 
 crickets twanging away in the grass. 
 
 She called these months her holiday. "When 
 the winter comes there is too much to do for it 
 to be possible to be idle," she told him. 
 
 "In this place? Too much to do?" He lifted 
 his brows. "Oh, yes; there are so many to be 
 nursed, so many lonely ones to comfort. It 
 takes me all my time to lift even a corner of the 
 weight of life from these poor souls. But it is 
 worth doing," she added, cheerily. 
 
 His heart was in the look he gave her. "You 
 have lifted all the corners of my weight of life, 
 Child." 
 
 "Have I?" she said, gaily. "That is good. 
 I am glad. You will be able to do it for others 
 next winter." 
 
 "Next winter!" he exclaimed. "Yes, if " 
 
 Sh'e nodded and smiled at him. "Oh, yes; 
 you will be here next winter. You will be able 
 to walk and go about by that time." 
 
 "We'll climb the Schatzpitz together," he 
 said, eagerly. The faintest tinge of colour came 
 into her face. No one had ever wanted her to 
 climb the Sweetheart-peak before. 
 
 "Who knows?" she smiled. 
 
 But it would not do. Two invalids, and both 
 9*
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 very ill! He had not thought of their ages, 
 either; but she had, and it was not right to let 
 him^love her. She was poor, too, poorer than 
 he so poor that she would not be able to afford 
 another winter in the Mittenthal, though she 
 could not live in the lower air. She would soon 
 have to go, and the one romance of her life must 
 end with life. It would have been a comfort to 
 have stayed beside him, if only as a friend; but 
 that she could not afford. No, she must go. 
 
 She shook herself firmly, while her heart 
 dropped like lead. In all her forty years no 
 one had ever loved her till now. And she must 
 go away and leave love and life. 
 
 "Child, Child!" Merridew said, brokenly. 
 
 The bus was at the door, and she had come 
 to say good-bye to him. She held out her 
 hand, smiling bravely. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you," she said; "to thank 
 you it has made me so rich. I can't forget, 
 ever. You have given me the happiest months 
 of my life." The laugh was still in her eyes 
 a little mirthless breeze that shook the words 
 out in gusts. 
 
 He took her hand, but all the words that came 
 to him were "Child, Child, Child!" over and 
 over again. 
 
 She clung to him, looking into his eyes, sunken 
 with weeping. His hopeless face killed her. 
 92
 
 Merridew 
 
 "Make the poor souls happy as you made 
 me. Ah, no! that is quite impossible. But 
 help them, as you help me, to face death aju.1- 
 ing." 
 
 "Child!" he sobbed; "Child!" 
 
 "I thought perhaps do you mind? you 
 would kiss me," she said. 
 
 His arms clung about her. "Life might at 
 least have given us Love," he said, bitterly. 
 
 She drew herself trembling from his arms. 
 
 "No, not Love," she gasped; "but Life gives 
 Death, and Death is Love." 
 
 That was four years ago, and Merridew was 
 still trying to do what she had done to lift a 
 corner of the weight of life from poor souls. It 
 made his life in Mittenplatz very busy. And the 
 Professor called him a fool. 
 
 He went tobogganing with Miss Blake that 
 night. The toboggan-run was just outside the 
 hotel; it sloped into the meadows where the 
 Griinwasser flowed. The snow upon the run was 
 set and hard and slippery from the passing of 
 sleighs. When Merridew and Miss Blake pushed 
 off from the top their toboggans sheered down 
 the hill, skimming along the ice like winged 
 creatures. The moon was full, and the moon- 
 light flooded over snow and sky, blotting out the 
 stars. White-robed in snow, white-veiled in 
 light, the meadows lay asleep. It was in these 
 93
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 meadows that Merridew and The Child had 
 gathered their flowers. 
 
 Miss Blake was at the end of the run. Merri- 
 dew slowly dragged his toboggan up the hill. 
 His face was white in the moonlight. Presently 
 Miss Blake came up the hill, too. At the top 
 they rested on their toboggans. 
 
 "How still it all is," she said. "There is 
 something weird in this Alpine moonlight. You 
 and I might be ghosts, pausing before we slipped 
 down into our valley of death." 
 
 "There is nothing ghostly about you," he said, 
 with the stress on the pronoun. 
 
 "And yet, when I feel the sweep and rush of 
 the toboggan down the hill, it almost seems as if 
 I were going into the very depths of silence." 
 
 He gave her a sympathetic look that did not 
 miss the strain on her thin face. He liked Miss 
 Blake. She- sometimes reminded him of The 
 Child. She was kind and helpful, and until 
 lately had been one of the most cheerful persons 
 in the hotel. Then there had been a coolness 
 in her friendship with the Professor, and the life 
 had gone out of her face. 
 
 "Something wrong with your liver," he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "No, it's ghosts!" she cried. "This place is 
 
 full of them. They are all round us the ghosts 
 
 of the people that have died here, and the ghosts 
 
 of their friends' thoughts that come back seek- 
 
 94
 
 Merridew 
 
 ing them, and the ghosts that are to be. They 
 troop up and down the road. They make me 
 feel sad. Sometimes I wish I were a ghost, 
 too," she added, wistfully. 
 
 "Certainly not," said Merridew. "We should 
 all protest against that. I don't know why you 
 see ghosts here. To me the place is full of life. 
 I walk along, and see the glad faces of the peo- 
 ple that are being cured; and if ghosts come 
 back, they come with the radiant faces of those 
 that were here ill and are now strong and 
 healthy. Every ray of sun, every snowflake, 
 brings a message of life to some one in the valley. 
 It is almost impossible to die here." 
 
 "I sometimes wish I could die," she said, with 
 a nervous laugh. Merridew thought how easy it 
 was for healthy people to wish for death. He 
 had intended going in, but the catch in her 
 voice made him change his mind. 
 
 "I'll race you down the hill," he said, lightly. 
 
 The toboggans were already in line. She 
 looked up at him with a queer smile. 
 
 "Yes, let us race, and the one who gets first 
 to the river shall be the first 'ghost.' ' 
 
 With a crunch of steel the runners took the 
 road, neck to neck, flying down like live things. 
 Neither Merridew nor Miss Blake put any check 
 on the pace. The air flogged them back, its lash 
 stinging across their faces ; but they flew on, neck 
 to neck, down the slope. The shadow of a big 
 95
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 boarding-house blackened the snow. Neck to 
 neck they swept across it, and came out together 
 into the moonlight. A whirr and a rush, and 
 they were at the sharp turn into the valley. 
 
 With a mad sweep they plunged forward, twist- 
 ing round the corner, neck to neck still. She 
 had the disadvantage of the outside, and at the 
 turn he gained a yard or two. As the toboggans 
 slowed she leaned forward, dug her pegs into 
 the ground, and shot abreast with him. 
 
 She sprang up, and her voice rang trium- 
 phantly across the moan of the Grunwasser: 
 
 "I won! I won!" 
 
 *'No," Merridew panted; "I was first in." 
 
 "I passed you at the finish." 
 
 Her tone surprised him. He glanced at her, 
 and saw her face change in the moonlight. 
 
 "Yes, I "say again, you kill yourself," Dr. 
 Engel repeated. "Tobogganing last night was 
 the act of a fool." 
 
 Merridew remained obstinate. 
 
 "A little pain more or less, what does it mat- 
 ter?" he said. "A man must use up the waste 
 ends. My life is a waste end of rope; it may be 
 useful to piece out another man's rope." 
 
 "You may make the rope long enough to hang 
 him with," said Engel, "and yourself, too." 
 
 "Do you think with care I could last out the 
 winter?" Merridew asked. 
 96
 
 Merridew 
 
 "With care, " Engel answered. 
 
 He was writing out a prescription. Merridew 
 studied the face, with its mouth pursed over the 
 writing. He knew every feature of it by heart, 
 every line on the fine forehead, every flash of the 
 keen eyes. He knew every wrinkle in the waist- 
 coat, where the figure broadened. He had given 
 up criticising Engel's clothes since he had learned 
 that the Doctor sacrificed his clothes and his 
 appearance to his theory of the destruction of 
 possible germs. Merridew looked at him now 
 with the devotion of the hero-worshipper. He 
 had not forgotten his illness during the influenza 
 time, when Engel had sat up with hirn while the 
 Doctor's own temperature was high with fever. 
 
 "If I go on as usual, Doctor, how long do you 
 give me?" he asked, when Engel had finished. 
 
 The Doctor laid the prescription on the table. 
 
 "They tell me the ice-run is in excellent con- 
 dition," he said. 
 
 "Capital!" said Merridew. "Royston made 
 the run in eighty seconds yesterday." 
 
 "That was very rapid. Ach! it is glorious 
 sport. I will look in to-morrow. Good day." 
 
 Merridew looked quizzically at the disappear- 
 ing figure. "I might have known he wouldn't 
 tell me," he said to himself. "I suppose the 
 game is nearly up, and if I go on as usual it will 
 be over the sooner. Granted I am a fool, what 
 does a month more or less matter? Dear little 
 97
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Child, I shall find you again. Let them say I am 
 a fool. At least I do something to lift the weight 
 of life; I show them how to face death smiling." 
 
 He turned painfully on his pillow. "I had 
 better get up, or Miss Blake will think it was the 
 tobogganing last night. I shouldn't like her to 
 know how nearly I won that race into Ghost- 
 land." 
 
 He dressed himself with difficulty, resting 
 often, and dragged himself downstairs. The 
 public rooms were empty; no sound of talking 
 came from the balcony. So much the better. 
 If no one was there, he could lie quietly in the 
 sun. He went slowly to the balcony, and faced 
 a row of figures lying silent and melancholy on 
 the chaises longues. 
 
 A sudden vigour straightened his back; he 
 stepped briskly towards them, rubbing his hands. 
 
 "What, Miss Busybody, no smile, no welcome? 
 Are all the beauties asleep, waiting for the 
 Prince?" 
 
 Miss Busybody, who was sitting on Philippa's 
 knee, hid her face and began to cry. Philippa 
 drew her closer in her arms, and raised a sad face 
 to Merridew. 
 
 "We are all so sorry because Sonnie Baker is 
 worse. They have telegraphed for his aunt." 
 
 "No one should be sorry," said Merridew. 
 "I would give everything I have to die as nobly 
 as that boy. ' ' 
 
 98
 
 Merridew 
 
 The other people began to discuss Sonnie's 
 sacrifice. Simplicity Baldwin turned impatiently. 
 Her glance took in Merridew's stoop, the trous- 
 ers bagged at the knees, the queer, angular 
 way more pronounced than usual in which he 
 carried himself. 
 
 "I wish he wouldn't rub his hands and grin in 
 that ghastly fashion," she said, irritably. "I 
 wish they'd stop talking of Sonnie. It's bad 
 enough to have him dying without seeing a 
 clown at the bedside." 
 
 "Merridew looks rather foolish," said Major 
 Sanderson, "but he is a good fellow, amusing 
 and good-natured, though he's dying, poor 
 devil." 
 
 . "You don't say he's dying!" Simplicity ex- 
 claimed. "That man!" 
 
 "You can't tell these chronic cases " 
 
 "My! if he isn't proposing fancy dress!" she 
 interrupted. "It's not a bad idea. It would 
 give us something besides Sonnie to think of." 
 Her face brightened. She ran across and joined 
 the group of which Merridew was the center. 
 He had banished the gloom. They were dis- 
 cussing costumes and characters as if Sonnie 
 Baker had never charmed them by his violin or 
 saddened them by his fate. 
 
 The Professor growled more than ever that 
 day. The talk at Merridew's end of the table 
 had never been gayer. When night came, and 
 99
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the fancy dresses filed in to dinner, a clown took 
 Merridew's chair. 
 
 "He looks more natural than all the other 
 fools," said the Professor. 
 
 "I wish he hadn't chosen that dress," said 
 Miss Blake, timidly. She and Philippa were the 
 only women who had not forgotten that Sonnie 
 lay dying. 
 
 The salle-a-manger was full of gay voices. 
 Every one was talking and laughing, and criti- 
 cising the dresses; but above the din was the 
 incessant jingle of the bells in Merridew's cap. 
 The eyes under the bells made Philippa uncom- 
 fortable. She had had a glimpse in them of a 
 creature in pain. 
 
 "I wish he didn't know that you called him a 
 fool," she said to the Professor. 
 
 "Fiddles!" he grunted. "Did him good. 
 You see how well the cap fits." 
 
 "He is wiser and more unselfish than we are," 
 she said. "See what he does to keep people 
 from being bored." 
 
 "More fool he," the Professor said. 
 
 At last ten o'clock came. The impromptu 
 dance following the dinner was over. The jingle 
 of Merridew's bells had kept time with the music, 
 and no one had noticed that he did not speak. 
 Under the paint no one had seen the ashes on 
 his face. 
 
 100
 
 Merridew 
 
 He had managed to get to his room, but he 
 had only strength enough to crawl to the couch. 
 He could not even ring the bell. But he was 
 suffocating that heavy cap! But his arms were 
 heavy, too; he could not raise them. He tried 
 to moisten his lips; the paint sickened him. He 
 gasped, choking. He could not tear off the 
 ruffle that was strangling him. He must have 
 help. He rose, steadying himself by the table 
 under the mirror. Seeing his reflection in the 
 glass, his lips parted in a ghastly smile. 
 "The Professor will say that I am a " 
 The sentence was finished by the jangle and 
 jar of bells crashing as he fell forward on his 
 face.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PROFESSOR 
 
 "You have taken the salt from me, ma'am; 
 I'll thank you for it." Miss Blake did not hear 
 the Professor. She was sitting at table d'hote, 
 but her thoughts were not there. She looked 
 pinched and haggard. The colour had not come 
 back into her face since morning, when she had 
 heard that Merridew had won the race into 
 Ghostland. She was straining her ears to catch 
 the sounds in the hall, the stealthy bustle and 
 muffled noises which told that the dead man was 
 being carried from the hotel to his lonely state 
 in the mortuary. As she thought of it, she 
 could scarcely keep up the pretence of eating. 
 
 Then she nearly sprang out of her chair, for 
 the Professor had jogged her elbow. 
 
 "The salt, ma'am; the salt," he said, testily. 
 "One salt-cellar has to serve us both, as you 
 know very well, and you have taken it." 
 
 "You can have the salt; but I didn't take it 
 from you," she answered. Her voice was under 
 better control than her hand. It shook when 
 she pushed the salt towards him. 
 
 "Take care you will spill it," he said, gruffly. 
 
 102
 
 The Professor 
 
 But the spoon had already tumbled over, and 
 the cloth was sprinkled with salt. 
 
 "Dear me, dear me!" she faltered. "It is 
 such a bad omen." 
 
 "Couldn't be worse," the Professor said, 
 cheerfully. "Bad luck; you can't escape it." 
 
 "Throw some salt over your left shoulder," 
 suggested Philippa, seeing Miss Blake's agita- 
 tion. "That counteracts the bad luck." 
 
 "No, no," Miss Blake stammered- "I will 
 make a cross." 
 
 Her finger trembled as she traced a cross on 
 the salt. The Professor looked on cynically. 
 
 "A pack o' nonsense," he grunted. 
 
 "I am afraid I am very silly," she said, apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 "You are a woman," he answered. 
 
 His rough voice was heard distinctly in every 
 part of the salle-a-manger. Merridew's empty 
 chair had struck a silence across the chatter. 
 The echo of the bells he had worn the night 
 before was still in the room. The people at his 
 end of the table were trying to forget that his 
 place would know him no more forever. 
 
 The silence following the Professor's remark 
 was so deep Miss Blake felt that every one must 
 hear the tears rushing to her eyes. It seemed 
 impossible to check them; but she would not 
 betray herself, and she mastered her voice and 
 answered the Professor. 
 103
 
 "To be a woman is punishment sufficient." 
 
 From behind his spectacles he gave her a keen 
 look. 
 
 "Ho, ho!" he laughed. "It is, it is." 
 
 Philippa glanced at Miss Blake with pleased 
 eyes. She had not expected her to show such 
 spirit. 
 
 Then Miss Blake pushed away her plate and 
 rose, with a pale smile. "I find the room very 
 close," she murmured. 
 
 The Professor gazed blankly after her retreat- 
 ing figure, then went on with the book he was 
 reading. But the pages remained unturned, and 
 he refused the dishes at his elbow. His frown 
 drew his bushy brows together till they met. 
 He missed the roar of fierce argument on erudite 
 topics with Miss Blake. He had been in the 
 Mittenthal for ten years, and she was the first 
 woman he- had known with whom logical argu- 
 ment was possible. Miss Blake had spent twenty 
 years in reading heavy treatises to her Aunt 
 Sabina, and in arguing over them afterwards. 
 In this manner Aunt Sabina had encouraged 
 independence of thought, while discouraging 
 every sign of her niece's independence of action. 
 
 The Professor resented Miss Blake's leaving 
 the table, although for several days he had not 
 spoken to her. He had come to look upon her 
 almost as his personal property. She made 
 things comfortable for him. His chair, screened 
 104
 
 The Professor 
 
 now and cushioned, was always ready for him in 
 the sunny corner of the balcony. There was 
 always a footstool and his favourite armchair 
 waiting empty in the reading-room. No one was 
 ever reading the Times when he wanted it. He 
 never had to grumble over cold soup, however 
 late he came to table. And at night Miss Blake 
 was always at hand to read to him or to play 
 chess. These things he had noticed, but there 
 were others that he had not noticed. Babette, 
 upstairs, kept his bedroom fire going all day. 
 He had had to stint himself in firewood before, 
 but now the box of wood never seemed to fail. 
 He did not see that his flannels were thicker and 
 warmer. His bed was unusually comfortable, 
 but he had not discovered the hot-water bottle 
 that warmed it, nor the English eiderdown that 
 had taken the place of the Swiss "plumeau. " 
 
 No one ever saw Miss Blake arranging these 
 things, and Babette would have died rather than 
 betray her. But since Babette's illness Henriette 
 had been waiting on the Professor, and Henri- 
 ette's long tongue was responsible for the Pro- 
 fessor's changed manner to Miss Blake. 
 
 But he could not keep up his coolness to her. 
 He missed her too much. She had become neces- 
 sary to him; and if she interfered with the 
 arrangement of the furniture in his bedroom, 
 she had done it out of kindness. After all, the 
 room was cosier for the screen that she had sent 
 105
 
 him ; he need not have been huffy about it. That 
 temper of his was unbearable. It had made him 
 call Merridew a fool, and Merridew had died 
 before he could apologise for the insult. It had 
 made him quarrel with the only woman worth 
 speaking to in the hotel. 
 
 The Professor suddenly pushed his chair away, 
 making a great clatter, and stumped out of the 
 dining-room. He stumped into the hall and put 
 on his coat and hat. Frau Bullen stood at the 
 door, looking after a group of figures passing 
 slowly along the snow. Her smile for the Pro- 
 fessor was worn and faded. Then she dropped 
 her assumption of unconcern, and allowed him 
 to see her tears. 
 
 "There goes a brave heart," she said, nodding 
 towards the road. "People will never know 
 how brave that man has been. He had his own 
 troubles, bfit no one ever knew them. He was 
 very poor, too. Imagine it, Professor! not 
 enough money to pay for the grave." 
 
 "Then " the Professor cried, horrorstruck. 
 
 "Yes," said Frau Bullen, sadly; "the town 
 will give the grave." 
 
 The Professor turned on his heels angrily, and 
 took the road. The more he thought of it the 
 more vexed he was that Merridew should miss 
 even the poor dignity of his own grave. If he 
 could have afforded it, he would have paid for a 
 grave for him. The Professor had strong views 
 106
 
 The Professor 
 
 on the subject. He was poor himself, but he 
 had not rested until he had saved enough money 
 to buy a grave and pay the expenses of his 
 funeral. To have owed his grave to municipal 
 charity would have seemed to him tantamount 
 to spending eternity in the poorhouse. But the 
 fate he had avoided for himself had overtaken 
 Merridew. 
 
 The Professor shuffled along the road in his 
 snow-shoes. He dug his stick into the snow at 
 every step. It was a horrible thought to him 
 that Merridew should not be able to pay for a 
 grave. He walked on, with bent head, fuming, 
 never noticing how long he had been walking. 
 All at once he pulled up and stared about him. 
 He had reached the friedhof. He stood looking 
 blankly at the ranks of white stones rising from 
 the white snow, at the billowy waves that every 
 winter rolled farther down the valley. In the 
 free allotment two men stood measuring the 
 snow. 
 
 The Professor ground his teeth when he saw 
 them. He slouched his hat over his eyes and 
 shuffled away, a quaint figure in his caped coat 
 and big hat and blue goggles that shielded his 
 eyes from the glare. A few yards from the gate 
 he paused and looked back. 
 
 "What does it concern me?" he snarled. 
 "The man and his grave are nothing to me." 
 
 He went on sullenly towards the village; then 
 107
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 he stopped again and looked back over his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You are a fool, a ridiculous old fool!" he 
 addressed himself. "A fool," he repeated, with 
 a change of tone. "A fool," and his voice sof- 
 tened; "a fool," it dropped to regret. 
 
 He dug his stick into the snow; then he 
 retraced the road, and shuffled up the path of 
 the friedhof to the free allotment, where the 
 men were measuring out a grave for Merridew. 
 
 "Stop that!" he growled, speaking in German. 
 "There has been a mistake. I have come to 
 choose the grave for my friend. It is I who 
 bear the expenses of the funeral." 
 
 He glanced towards a pine-tree standing in a 
 clearing among the tombstones. There was no 
 grave there, but the space had been bought. 
 The Professor's face twitched as he saw the tree. 
 The little" freehold was his own. His steps 
 lingered as he led the men to the spot. He 
 walked slowly, following his dead pride to the 
 place of burial. 
 
 Coming out of the friedhof he stepped briskly. 
 After all, it was not such a sacrifice, he said to 
 himself. He did not need the place himself, and 
 by the time his turn came he might be able to 
 save enough money to pay for a second piece of 
 ground. He was walking quite energetically. 
 It was as if in giving up the preparations he had 
 made for his death he had postponed death itself. 
 108
 
 The Professor 
 
 Passing the mortuary, he paused a second and 
 lifted his hat. He wished he could think that 
 Merridew knew he would lie in a grave of his own. 
 
 Beyond the mortuary were meadows sloping to 
 the Griinwasser, where a score of people were 
 tobogganing. He recognized Simplicity Bald- 
 win by her red dress, and he stopped to watch 
 her racing Royston and another man. He did 
 not think her heartless to be amusing herself so 
 near to the place where Merridew was lying. 
 She was not heartless. With a good many of the 
 other healthy people in the valley she ignored 
 death when it came near. She had persuaded 
 Miss Blake to come out tobogganing, and poor 
 Miss Blake had set aside her personal feelings 
 and joined Simplicity. 
 
 "It is what dear Mr. Merridew would have 
 approved of," she told herself. But there was 
 no pleasure for her in the sport. Her nerves 
 were unstrung, and when she pushed off from the 
 top of the hill she was reminded of that race 
 which Merridew had won. The remembrance 
 shook her. She trembled, and lost control of 
 her toboggan in the moment when the pace 
 quickened. 
 
 The Professor caught sight of her just as she 
 pushed off, and he looked on, wondering why she 
 was steering so badly. Suddenly there was a 
 scream, followed by a burst of laughter from the 
 bank. 
 
 109
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Miss Blake's toboggan had been overturned, 
 and her red-flanneled legs were beating the air. 
 The instant after, a confused heap of skirts, she 
 went rolling down the hill. 
 
 Simplicity Baldwin, on the bank, held her 
 sides and laughed till the tears ran down her 
 face. The more decorous turned away from Miss 
 Blake's humiliation, but the younger ones did 
 not spare her. "Funny old thing!" "What a 
 figure she cut!" sounded everywhere. 
 
 The Professor's face blazed as he heard them. 
 Then he seized Simplicity's toboggan and swung 
 himself down after Miss Blake, who had got up 
 and was shaking the snow from her skirts. 
 
 She was not hurt, but the Professor insisted on 
 giving her his arm ; and he led her up the bank, 
 his blue goggles hurling defiance at the hastily 
 composed faces that hurried to meet them. He 
 went through the group, protecting Miss Blake 
 from their solicitude, and he insisted on taking 
 her back to the hotel. 
 
 By the time they reached the Royal the embar- 
 rassment on her face had disappeared before her 
 happiness at their restored friendship. She went 
 to her room palpitating, assuring herself that she 
 did not mind her fall. Miss Blake, with her 
 straight hair and flat face and china-blue eyes, 
 looked like a Dutch doll, and was full of senti- 
 ment. She studied her face in the glass, 
 smoothing down the lank bands that started
 
 The Professor 
 
 from the parting and went down over the ears. 
 Her Aunt Sabina had taught her to dress it so 
 twenty years ago, and she had never thought of 
 changing the fashion. Her skimpy gown showed 
 her figure with cruel exactness. She pinned it 
 tighter yet across her flat chest. The stuff was 
 poor. It had not occurred to her that she could 
 afford a better material than she had worn in 
 her aunt's lifetime. Aunt Sabina's heiress was 
 as badly dressed as Aunt Sabina's humble com- 
 panion had been. 
 
 Yet she was not dissatisfied with the face in 
 the glass. There was something unaccustomed 
 in it the light and shade of an emotional play 
 that made her eyes wistful. She moved away 
 from the glass, when a knock interrupted her 
 scrutiny of herself. 
 
 Philippa Joy came in hesitatingly. Her direct- 
 ness and energy were gone, her eyes were not as 
 bright as usual. 
 
 "May I come in, Miss Blake? Babette is 
 sleeping, and Dr. Engel has just gone, so I can 
 stay a little. I want to talk to you; I am so 
 tired." 
 
 "You poor child! Come and sit here by the 
 fire. I am just going to make tea. You look 
 worn out. You shouldn't stay so much with 
 Babette." 
 
 "I like to," Philippa said, wearily. "She is 
 so bright, and so glad to be getting well. Miss
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Blake, I think if it wasn't for Babette I would 
 go back to England." 
 
 Miss Blake was bustling with teacups. She 
 gave Philippa a vague, baffled look. "But, my 
 dear, wouldn't Dr Engel have something to say 
 against that." 
 
 "No," said Philippa; "he would be glad if I 
 went." 
 
 Miss Blake set down the teacups and came and 
 took Philippa's hand. 
 
 "My dear, tell me all about it." 
 
 "It is this," said Philippa. "I love him with 
 all my heart, and I thought he loved me. He 
 doesn't. That is all." 
 
 She bit her lips and stared into the fire. 
 "What am I to do?" she said at last. 
 
 "Nothing," said Miss Blake. "It is, of 
 course, strange to me to hear a woman speak 
 openly of- love, but you belong to the younger 
 generation. My dear, the Doctor is a hard man ; 
 you will marry some one worthier of yourself. 
 Be patient. Life is only just begun." 
 
 "A hard man?" Philippa blazed up, springing 
 to her feet and glaring at Miss Blake. "Little 
 you know him! He is tenderness itself ten- 
 derer than any woman. His life is beautiful so 
 lonely, so unselfish. He is better than any 
 saint." 
 
 "My dear, I have no doubt he is a very worthy 
 person," said Miss Blake, primly. "Indeed, I 
 112
 
 The Professor 
 
 hear of his kindness on every side, but it is the 
 kindness of the doctor, not of the man. I could 
 wish that you had placed your affections else- 
 where. When I contrast Dr. Engel with such a 
 man as the Professor " 
 
 "The Professor!" Philippa exclaimed. "Do 
 you name the Professor on the same day with a 
 man like Dr. Engel?" 
 
 "Indeed, my dear, I do," said Miss Blake, 
 earnestly. "His chivalry, his good heart, his 
 consideration ' ' 
 
 Philippa burst into a ringing laugh, and gath- 
 ered Miss Blake into her arms. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Blake, you are delicious! We 
 won't quarrel about our friends. There! I feel 
 better already. I won't go back to England. 
 I don't want to. I love the Mittenthal it is 
 fascinating; and I can help people if I stay 
 people like Babette, you know. And you will be 
 here to comfort me when I feel very lonely, and 
 you will be my friend. There! forgive me, I 
 have rumpled your hair." 
 
 She kissed Miss Blake, and drew away and 
 gazed at her in surprise. The faded face had 
 lighted up, the hair she had ruffled lay in rings, 
 softening the flat lines of the face. The ten- 
 derness in the eyes warmed their cold blue. 
 Suddenly they were misty. 
 
 "My dear," Miss Blake faltered, "I have 
 never had a friend. It is too much to hope that 
 "3
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 a bright young creature like you should love 
 me!" 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Philippa. "Come here; 
 look at yourself. Isn't that a face to be loved?" 
 
 "My dear, my dear!" Miss Blake hid her 
 face, blushing. 
 
 "Yes," said Philippa. "Now sit down. I am 
 going to do your hair for you." 
 
 The girl would not be resisted. Finally Miss 
 Blake sat down, and Philippa fluffed out a ring- 
 let here, and pulled a strand there, and turned 
 the hair back, softening the lines. Miss Blake 
 scarcely recognized herself. Her face was fuller, 
 her eyes larger and darker under the friendly 
 curls. 
 
 "Dear me, I scarcely recognise Jane Blake," 
 she said, with a gratified laugh. "But this gown 
 does not become the headdress." 
 
 "No, it ^.doesn't," Philippa said, quickly. 
 "None of your frocks do you justice. Wait a 
 minute; let me put some lace on that bodice, 
 and show you what I mean." 
 
 Miss Blake went slowly downstairs. In the 
 pleasure of the transformation Philippa had 
 worked she had quite forgotten the toboggan 
 episode. She stood aside to let the Professor 
 pass. 
 
 "Is it you?" he said. "Bless my soul, what 
 have you been doing to yourself?" 
 114
 
 The Professor 
 
 He put on his spectacles and looked her up 
 and down. She blushed under his gaze. 
 
 "Ton my soul, it's made a young girl of you. 
 Well, well, I feel like a musty old folio beside a 
 Temple classic." 
 
 That night there was a sensation at table 
 d'hote. It was not only that Miss Blake had 
 suddenly lost her resemblance to a Dutch doll; 
 for the first time in memory the Professor had 
 appeared at table in a white tie and a black coat 
 of some antiquity. 
 
 One morning he stood in the hall examining 
 his great coat. The coat was certainly his; 
 there was his name and the name of the tailor 
 who supplied his clothes printed on the silk 
 strap inside, and yet there seemed to be some- 
 thing different about it. But he couldn't be 
 mistaken. He put on the coat, turned round, 
 and saw Miss Blake. 
 
 "Hm! Going shopping, I suppose?" 
 
 "No, Professor; I thought of walking across 
 the lake." 
 
 "That will suit me. I have business at the 
 Grunwald." 
 
 The Grunwald was an inn at the other side of 
 the lake. The sun had not yet climbed the 
 Rosenalp, and as they came out of the hotel the 
 cold slashed their faces, but in the distance Pitz- 
 endorf shone in the sunlight. The light glis- 
 "5
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 tened on Seehorn and Schwarzhorn and Weiss- 
 horn, and the chalet windows held flashing fires 
 of sunrise. The hotel omnibus came along the 
 road with a clashing of bells, and Karl the 
 porter took off his hat as it passed. 
 
 "Confound him!" grumbled the Professor, 
 crushing his wideawake over the bald place that 
 the cold had bitten. 
 
 "Don't confound him," said Miss Blake, with 
 a gay little laugh. "He is such a nice young 
 man. Have you heard that he and Babette are 
 to be married as soon as she has got over her 
 illness?" 
 
 "Yes; and I think them foolish young people." 
 
 "I don't agree with you. A love-match is 
 always wise." 
 
 The Professor stopped and stabbed the snow 
 with his stick. There was a threat behind the 
 blue goggles. 
 
 "What! love-matches wise? And I thought 
 you were a sensible woman, remaining single 
 because you saw the folly of matrimony." 
 
 "I am not single for choice," she said, cheer- 
 fully. "No one ever asked me to marry." 
 
 "Then I congratulate you. So you've never 
 been in love?" 
 
 They were close to the church that spread 
 
 itself across the road at the foot of the Pitzen- 
 
 berg. The tower was square and plain, crowned 
 
 by two tiers of arched windows supporting a 
 
 116
 
 The Professor 
 
 cupola. The plaster was stained with age, but 
 the stains were rose and blue and green, youth's 
 colours. Through the tower windows could be 
 seen the bells, hanging silent. 
 
 Miss Blake turned away from the Professor's 
 gaze. There was a certain embarrassment in 
 her air. She looked up at the weather-vane 
 above the cupola. The wind was in the north. 
 Her eyes dropped to the church door, with its 
 brass slit under the armen-kasse. 
 
 "They talk of pulling down this quaint old 
 church," she said, unsteadily. 
 
 "Iconoclasts!" he growled. "An interesting 
 example of Byzantine influence and they pull it 
 down in order to run up a hideous hotel." 
 
 "I hope they won't do that," she said. 
 
 They climbed the hill in silence, the Professor 
 trying to hold himself straight and keep step 
 with Miss Blake. 
 
 Suddenly he broke silence: "What is the use 
 of marriage? What is the end of it, eh?" 
 
 She looked up, startled at his tone, and her 
 gaze flitted about and found nothing to rest on. 
 
 "My Aunt Sabina used to say the end of mar- 
 riage was the mending of socks," she said, with 
 an effort at control. 
 
 The Professor gave her a suspicious glance. 
 But no, she could not possibly know the state 
 'of his wardrobe. Besides, it was a long time 
 since he had worn a hole in his socks. 
 117
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "The man who burdens himself with a wife is 
 a fool," he went on. "He pulls down his tower 
 of silence, embodying the fine influences of the 
 past, and runs up in its place a noisy, clattering, 
 vulgar hotel." 
 
 The lake was before them, its level snow 
 edged by road and pine wood. The snow glit- 
 tered, every crystal a flash and a gleam ; but the 
 road was in shadow. It wound on to the Todten- 
 berg, the dead mountain, on which no living 
 thing would grow. On the lake was a circle of 
 blocks of ice. The blocks were clear and blue; 
 they imprisoned the summer sky, and where the 
 sun touched them they glanced like diamonds. 
 To the Professor they only suggested Stone- 
 henge, and they set him talking of Druidical 
 circles and barrows and tumuli, and the ways 
 in which different ages disposed of the dead. 
 
 He handled the subject with gusto. Miss 
 Blake listened, a pale shadow on her face, a 
 deprecating pain in her eyes. Suddenly he 
 stopped. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, ma'am? You 
 are very uninteresting to-day." 
 
 "Am I?" she said, rousing. "I was thinking 
 of Mrs. Royston's love-story, and wondering how 
 many romances had begun and ended on this 
 lake." 
 
 "It's been the ruin of Royston's life that he 
 ever had any love-story. He would have done 
 118
 
 The Professor 
 
 better to have gone under the ice than to have 
 skated on it with that girl when he did." 
 
 "Oh, Professor!" said Miss Blake, shocked. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am!" the Professor said. "You 
 had better die than drag out a ruined life. It is 
 I that tell you so. Death is always dignified. 
 Life is sometimes an indignity. And life with a 
 woman who forces herself on a man, as Roy- 
 ston's wife did, is the most undignified of all 
 lives. Marriage is always ruin, and Royston's 
 marriage has damned him." 
 
 Miss Blake's lips, tightly pressed together, 
 were marked by a white line. Her voice flut- 
 tered when she spoke. 
 
 "Do you see, Professor, we are close to the 
 Griinwald? There is the ice-run. How steep 
 it looks! I should like to toboggan down it 
 some day." 
 
 "Do you want to commit suicide, young 
 woman?" 
 
 "I had not thought of it as suicide, Professor. " 
 
 "For you it would be suicide. Only an expert 
 could come safely down that run. You are not 
 an expert. You toboggan very badly indeed." 
 
 Miss Blake thought of her accident, and a thin 
 flush showed on her strained face. She was silent. 
 
 The Professor's business at the Grtinwald was 
 to eat great slices of rye bread and goat's-milk 
 cheese, and to drink German beer. When he 
 had finished they set out again. 
 119
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "You are positively stupid to-day," he said to 
 Miss Blake, going down the Pitzenberg. "What 
 has happened to you?" 
 
 The clash and wrangle of bells pealing from 
 the church-tower prevented his hearing her 
 answer. 
 
 "Do you hear? Some poor devil has com- 
 mitted the suicide of matrimony," he shouted in 
 her ear. 
 
 At the door of the Hotel Royal he detained 
 her. 
 
 "What is wrong with you? I am sure I didn't 
 say anything to hurt you to-day, did I?' 
 
 She gave him a pale smile, shook her head, 
 and hurried away upstairs. 
 
 The Professor stared after her; his mouth 
 dropped. 
 
 "Boh! I have you!" 
 
 Miss Busybody darted out from behind the 
 coats and seized his legs. 
 
 "What! what! Hillo! Oh, it's you, you 
 small hurricane. You nearly blew me over." 
 
 "Where's my Christmas-card you promised 
 me and never gave me?" she said, reproachfully. 
 
 "Didn't I? didn't I? But I bought it. Yes, 
 I know I bought it. It's in my pocket some- 
 where. Tush! where's the confounded thing?" 
 
 His hands went plunging in and out of his 
 pockets, Miss Busybody's shining eyes darting 
 after each. 
 
 120
 
 The Professor 
 
 "It's here! I know it's here!" he said, irri- 
 tably. "A wretched thing of a grey kitten, like 
 Fifine; I bought it for the likeness." 
 
 "It must be in the pocket of your old coat," 
 the child said. 
 
 "An old coat? I haven't an old coat," he 
 said, crossly. "It must be here somewhere. 
 This is the only overcoat I have, and I put the 
 card in the pocket." 
 
 "No, it isn't your only overcoat," she said, 
 with a knowing look. "This one is your new 
 one, that Miss Blake hung on the peg when she 
 took away the old one. I know, for I saw her. 
 It was Christmas morning, when I was hidded 
 watching for the Christ-kind. And Dr. Engel 
 came, and Miss Blake hidded, too. Can I ask 
 her to let me look in the old coat for the card?" 
 
 The Professor did not answer; his mouth had 
 dropped again. 
 
 "May I, Professor, may I?" cried Miss Busy- 
 body, prancing round him. 
 
 "Certainly not!" he shouted. "Certainly 
 not! If you mention that confounded card 
 coat card to anybody, I'll cut your head off 
 and bury you in my own grave." 
 
 He went slowly up the stairs, frowning and 
 fuming. This came of letting women into his 
 life. It was horrible! indecent! She gave him 
 a screen, and he had forgiven her. And now an 
 overcoat. That was unpardonable. No man 
 
 121
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 would stand it. She would go on doing these 
 things till he would be obliged to marry her in 
 self-defence, like poor Royston. And ruin his 
 life, and his calculations of solar eclipses! If 
 he married, they would never be finished. He 
 would have to go away. There was nothing for 
 it but flight. And, after all, since he no longer 
 had a grave in the friedhof, there was nothing 
 to keep him in the Mittenthal. He could live 
 just as well in one of the other Alpine stations. 
 "Confound you! come in," he shouted. 
 
 Frau Bullen came in, with a mysterious lower- 
 ing of her eyes. "I wished to say, Professor," 
 she whispered, "if you would rather not bear the 
 expenses of poor Mr. Merridew's funeral, there 
 is some one else who is anxious to do it " 
 
 The Professor brought his brows together, 
 frowning horribly. "No, ma'am!" he thun- 
 dered. "I have gone forward, and I will not go 
 back. God knows it may be the salvation of me 
 that I have got rid of that grave, and can leave 
 this hole of designing women." 
 
 122
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MISS BLAKE 
 
 Miss Blake stood at her window looking at the 
 piled-up snow that had blotted out the roads 
 across the valley. There had been a great 
 storm, keeping every one in the hotel for three 
 days, but to-day the sun shone again, and the 
 valley was a wonder of gleaming white. 
 
 The snow seemed to have fallen on Miss 
 Blake's face, blotting out lines, making it a 
 white blank without expression. Her eyes were 
 dull, her figure limp and depressed. There was 
 no one to ask her what ailed her. She might 
 be as miserable as life, and the Professor would 
 not grumble at her. She could have borne his 
 roughest mood better than the silence of the last 
 three days. 
 
 Tears gathered in her eyes and dimmed the 
 shining valley and the snow-muffled chalets. The 
 Pension Tannenwald was half-buried in drifts. 
 Miss Blake wondered what the people there were 
 doing, cut off from Mittenplatz as certainly as 
 she was cut off from the happiness of life. 
 
 She could see nothing for the tears that 
 attended the death of her hopes. She pressed 
 123
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 her hands together, striving to conquer them. 
 They had been her portion ever since the Pro- 
 fessor had gone away. 
 
 If there had been any reason for his absence 
 she would not have felt it so much; but he had 
 left the hotel without a word of explanation to 
 any one, and she was miserable at this end to 
 their friendship. 
 
 She remembered their arguments, the daily 
 walks together, the quarrels that had made them 
 better friends. He had been the only figure in 
 her world, and she missed him. She shrank 
 from telling herself how much she missed him. 
 She had wondered at Philippa's confession of 
 love for a man who did not love her. Now, 
 though she did not belong to the modern gener- 
 ation, she had to confess to something like love 
 for the Professor, who had not treated her with 
 common civility. She went out onto the bal- 
 cony, and sat there miserably. Her heart was 
 too heavy for tears now. She could not think ; 
 she could not even feel. She sat pressing her 
 hands together, her blank eyes staring across 
 the snow. 
 
 There were voices on the balcony just under 
 her. Frau Bullen and Simplicity Baldwin were 
 talking together. Their words had no meaning 
 for Miss Blake. 
 
 "I have always liked the little old maid," 
 Frau Bullen was saying, "but she has behaved 
 124
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 very badly. Poor man! she has driven him 
 away, I know. He told me himself he would 
 not stay in this hole of designing women. Of 
 course he meant her." 
 
 "My! I should think he meant nothing of the 
 sort!" Simplicity cried. "Why, she is sweet a 
 perfectly lovely character. I don't call her 
 a designing woman at all." 
 
 "You don't know," Frau Bullen sighed. 
 "Henriette has told me. She has bought him 
 flannels and stockings, because he was too poor 
 to get them himself. Oh, she meant him to 
 marry her. And he saw her arts, and has gone 
 away to escape them." 
 
 "Poor little thing! the best thing for her," 
 Simplicity cried. "I'd as lief marry a beetle as 
 the Professor. But I presume he liked her. 
 They were always together." 
 
 "Oh, as to that, he found her useful, of 
 course. But that is not love. And she is a 
 dowdy woman, without a sou." 
 
 "But she isn't dowdy. Her new gown is ele- 
 gant." 
 
 "I suppose she dressed to attract him. Well, 
 she won't find herself welcome at the Royal any 
 longer." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Frau Bullen," Philippa's 
 
 voice broke in. "Every one here loves her, 
 
 while no one cared much for that bad-tempered 
 
 old Professor. And if she gave him stockings, 
 
 125
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 it's only what she has done for other people. 
 She was going to give Babette her trousseau and 
 all the house linen, and you can't say she wanted 
 to marry Babette." 
 
 "I say she is throwing away the money she 
 will need for herself," said Frau Bullen. 
 
 "She has plenty for herself and other people, 
 too," Philippa went on. "Only yesterday Mrs. 
 Royston told me what she had done for them ; 
 and she has paid for a south room for Sonnie 
 Baker all winter. She invited Sonnie's aunt to 
 come as her guest when he was taken ill. She 
 is as good as she can be, and it makes me furious 
 to hear your abominable scandals." 
 
 "I am not making scandals," protested Sim- 
 plicity. "I admire Miss Blake. She is worlds 
 too good for that snuffy old Professor." 
 
 Miss Blake stumbled into her room and closed 
 the balcony'door. She sank down on the sofa, 
 shaking. Had they really been speaking of her? 
 Was it she who had driven the Professor away? 
 Oh, it couldn't be true! It couldn't be true! 
 
 She shrank into herself, and her face was piti- 
 ful. She twisted her fingers together, making a 
 little moaning noise. What was this terrible 
 thing that they were saying? How could she 
 ever face these people again? A designing 
 woman? Did he really think she was a design- 
 ing woman? 
 
 Her face shriveled, her whole figure withered 
 126
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 as if a blight had fallen upon her. The shame 
 of it was more than she could bear. 
 
 And he had only found her useful. And that 
 was not love. She cowered down and hid her 
 face in her hands, and lay very still. Strength 
 seemed to be ebbing out of her. She thought 
 she was dying. She hoped she was dying. How 
 could women live of whom such things were 
 said? 
 
 "Miss Blake," Philippa called at the door. 
 
 The interruption sent the blood shuddering in 
 her veins. 
 
 "I am resting dear," she gasped. 
 
 "That's right. Don't forget that you have to 
 go to the toboggan-race this afternoon. The ice- 
 run is open again." 
 
 "Thank you, my dear, for reminding me." 
 
 Philippa had reminded her of the ice-run at 
 the Griinwald. 
 
 "Do you want to commit suicide, young 
 woman?" 
 
 She gave a strange little laugh as she tottered 
 up. 
 
 "I am thinking of suicide, Professor." 
 
 The room was full of his voice. "You had 
 better die than drag out a ruined life. It is I 
 who tell you so. Death is always dignified." 
 
 Ah, yes, yes! How true he had been. Death 
 would be dignified, and how much better than 
 life after this! It would be an easy death; she 
 127
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 knew the swift rush down, down, into the silence. 
 It would not be different from her fall the other 
 day. Merridew had had the start of her, but 
 she would soon overtake him in the Ghostland 
 to which she was going. Death was more digni- 
 fied than life ah, yes, yes! She only wanted 
 death. And they would think it was an acci- 
 dent. He would never know that she had wished 
 to commit suicide. 
 
 Thought whirled with thought in her brain. 
 The spinning confusion dazed her. She laughed 
 again, a queer, shaky laugh that matched the 
 palsy of her shaking head. She held on to the 
 back of the couch. What did people do who 
 were going to die? What had Aunt Sabina 
 done? Made a will? Yes; she must make her 
 will. She would leave all she had to her friend. 
 He was very poor, she knew. The money would 
 atone for any trouble she had given him. 
 
 She remembered the wording of the deed of 
 gift the lawyer had once drawn up for Aunt 
 Sabina. She wrote out a similar deed. But she 
 must have witnesses. Henriette and Marie, who 
 could not read English. When the formality 
 was over she sat staring at the envelope ad- 
 dressed to Professor Franklin. The beginning 
 of the letter she had written to him drummed in 
 her ears: "In case of my death." Then she 
 might not die. But yes, death would be kind. 
 She had been close behind Merridew in their 
 128
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 race to Ghostland. It was a sign; she would 
 soon overtake him now. 
 
 She was still shaking. As she went about the 
 room setting things in order the little curls on 
 her temples trembled. Even her thoughts, she 
 felt, were trembling. "It is not seemly to 
 have such things said it is not maidenly," she 
 murmured, brokenly. "A reputation like that? 
 for me? Ah, no; death is more dignified." 
 
 She was tying the ribbons of her old-fashioned 
 hat under her chin, carefully, before the mirror. 
 She staggered back. She had seen in the glass 
 the face Aunt Sabina had worn when she was 
 dying. And Aunt Sabina had been an old 
 woman, while she was comparatively young. He 
 had told her once she looked like a girl. But 
 now she was an old, old woman. 
 
 "If they see me, they will guess," she said, 
 hoarsely. "At luncheon-time they carry out 
 the dead. When they are at lunch I will go." 
 She went stealthily downstairs. Her steps were 
 heavy and slow and muffled. She was carrying 
 out her dead youth and hope and love and self- 
 respect. She wondered if the people at table 
 d'hote would hear the heavy tread and know 
 that the dead were passing. 
 
 The clouds had gathered again, and the sun- 
 less day pinched her face. She tottered as she 
 walked, though the footway had been cleared of 
 the thick snow. Snow was heavy on road and 
 129
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 chalet and pine. The whole earth seemed 
 muffled in the folds. They closed about the 
 tottering figure on the path, and folded her also 
 in thick silence. The silence was on her heart, 
 a winding-sheet for the dead that lay there 
 Youth and Hope and Love. They were the chil- 
 dren of her old age ; she had scarcely learned to 
 know their faces, and now the desire of her eyes 
 was taken from her at a stroke. She was going 
 forth alone to bury her dead. 
 
 At the bend of the road she met the light 
 snowflakes. They covered her with tiny stars. 
 The chalets at Pitzen were deep in snow. The 
 mountains above them looked down with cold, 
 white regard at the lonely woman toiling by. 
 The morning she had walked with the Professor 
 the sun had burnished the peaks, and the chalet 
 windows had smiled rosily. 
 
 She stopped at the church at Pitzen and put 
 all the money she had into the armen-kasse. 
 Nothing was left in the purse but the card with 
 her name and address. 
 
 Her feet dragged wearily as she climbed the 
 Pitzenberg, but she took her way still where the 
 road sloped to the river. She did not notice 
 the snow deepening as she walked, or the weight 
 of the toboggan dragging behind her. She was 
 only conscious of the weight at her heart; she 
 saw only the pale faces of her dead. "Youth 
 
 130
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 and Hope and Love, Youth and Hope and Love," 
 she kept on saying. 
 
 There was no diamond-flash on the lake. The 
 blocks of ice stood shrouded. The shroud of 
 the snow lay on everything; it was deep on the 
 lake; she could scarcely make her way in places. 
 But she did not notice the snow clogging her 
 feet, dragging her back. It was right that she 
 should go slowly, who followed the dead. Here 
 he had talked of different modes of burial. Ah! 
 he had not known then with what slow steps she 
 would toil across the lake carrying her dead. 
 
 How many romances had been born and had 
 died on that lake! Her romance lay stark in the 
 death-chamber of her heart. It was only three 
 months old. "Love and Hope and Love. Love 
 and Hope and Love." Ah, it had been cruel. 
 She was not a young woman, loving lightly 
 to-day and leaving brightly to-morrow. She was 
 one of those in whom Love was born slowly, 
 with anguish and long travail. And now Love 
 lay stark in the death-chamber. "Love and 
 Love and Love. Love and Love and Love." 
 
 "You had better die than drag out a ruined 
 life." 
 
 He had said that just here. She lifted the 
 desperate pallor of her face to the cold pallor of 
 the Todtenberg. 
 
 "I am thinking of suicide, Professor."
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 The muffled bumping of the toboggan behind 
 her was like the beat of a muffled drum. 
 
 She had reached the Griinwald. Yes, the path 
 was clear. She dragged her toboggan up, up 
 through the wood where the pines were weighted 
 with snow, to the beginning of the ice-run. 
 That also had been cleared of snow. She 
 remembered that she had turned her eyes from 
 seeing the end of the run, where the ice lay like 
 a blade against the sheerness of the bank. 
 
 She seated herself on the toboggan, arranging 
 her skirts carefully. A wistful smile flitted 
 across her face. To-day there would be no Pro- 
 fessor to help her up when she fell. Her thought 
 staggered a little. She clutched at the sides of 
 the toboggan. She steadied herself. This was 
 weakness. Love was dead. There was nothing 
 left. 
 
 It had grown very dark. The pines swayed 
 strangely. They seemed bending towards her. 
 Were those hands bringing snow that she might 
 bury her dead? The beating of her heart was 
 like death itself. It urged her on, whipping her 
 lagging courage. 
 
 She jerked the toboggan, and it bounded for- 
 ward like a horse springing to a race. Quicker 
 and quicker, between the high white banks like 
 the marble bed of a river. Quicker and quicker, 
 between the high white walls like the walls of a 
 grave. The scream of the runners ran along 
 132
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 with the toboggan. It deafened her. Quicker 
 and quicker, to get away from it! The white 
 walls flashed past, quicker and quicker. The 
 winged rush through the air was endless. 
 Quicker and quicker. She closed her eyes. In 
 her ears there was the thunder of steel scraping. 
 
 The Professor shuffled along the road, swear- 
 ing at the untrodden path. Those three days in 
 the Pension Tannenwald had been a horrible 
 experience. He had had no screened seat on 
 the balcony, no open fireplace and favourite 
 armchair, not a single English paper, no 
 friendly Frau Bullen. It was an infamous hole, 
 only suited to the Germans who frequented it. 
 His bed had not been aired, and that wretched 
 plumeau was always falling off. Then the snow- 
 storms had come and kept him a prisoner, with 
 nothing to look at but the cheerful smoke of the 
 Hotel Royal in the distance. And the only man 
 beside himself treated him as if he were a bore 
 yes, a bore, though a cultured woman like Miss 
 Blake well, he didn't mind confessing at once 
 that he had missed her. But she was a fool to 
 have driven him out of the hotel, and he was a 
 fool to go back again, having once escaped. 
 And why had he hidden himself in the Tannen- 
 wald, where he had nothing to do but think of 
 her? That confounded snowstorm! And now 
 he was on his way back to her. He would tell 
 '33
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 her frankly that he cared for her, but he was too 
 poor to marry; that he valued her friendship and 
 companionship, and he hoped he had not for- 
 feited either by his rudeness. There was a 
 mild and human look about the Professor as he 
 shuffled along, swearing because he had to make 
 a path for himself through the snow. 
 
 He had climbed the hill down which Merridew 
 and Miss Blake had raced, and he was hoping to 
 slip unobserved into the Hotel Royal. But the 
 hall was full of people. Simplicity's white face 
 stood out whiter than all the rest. He went 
 instinctively towards it. 
 
 "There has been an accident " she said. 
 "Miss Blake tobogganing. I feel kind of 
 guilty. I made her toboggan. Oh, Professor, 
 I would give worlds if I hadn't laughed at her 
 that day she fell!" 
 
 "Is she hurt?" 
 
 Simplicity did not recognise his voice. 
 
 "They said she was dead." 
 
 "My God, it can't be!" he cried. "Killed 
 tobogganing? Miss Blake killed tobogganing? 
 It can't be!" 
 
 Frau Bullen came down the stairs, carrying a 
 letter. She beckoned the Professor into the 
 bureau and handed him the letter. She sat 
 down. 
 
 "Isn't it dreadful, Professor?" she panted. 
 "And nobody knows anything about her. This
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 letter to you was on her table. Perhaps you 
 should open it." 
 
 "That American girl said she was dead." 
 
 "We don't know; Dr. Engel is there still. 
 He said no bones were broken but You see, 
 she was tobogganing down the ice-run at the 
 Griinwald. The whole length of the run had 
 not been cleared of the snow. She seems to 
 have tobogganed straight into the drift, and to 
 have been thrown off. Nobody knows how long 
 she had been lying in the deep snow when they 
 found her. She was brought home two hours ago. 
 Engel has been trying artificial respiration." 
 
 The Professor turned away and mechanically 
 opened the letter Frau Bullen had given him. 
 He read it through, and did not understand that 
 Miss Blake had left him a fortune "in case of 
 her death." 
 
 "Dead? She isn't dead! How could she be 
 dead?" he said, hoarsely. Frau Bullen shook 
 her head, and began to cry. 
 
 The Professor pushed past her to the door. 
 The people in the hall fell to right and left, and 
 did not speak as they saw his face. He walked 
 straight into Miss Blake's room. She was on 
 the bed, Dr. Engel and Philippa and a nurse 
 with her. 
 
 Engel looked up, and made a sign for silence. 
 
 "She is asleep. She will do now," he said, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 '35
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 The Professor looked vaguely from the Doctor 
 to Philippa, who smiled and nodded at him ; then 
 he tottered into a chair and bowed his head on 
 the table. 
 
 "Let us go away," said Philippa, softly. 
 
 Dr. Engel followed her into her sitting-room. 
 He walked to the table, and turned over the 
 books there. Then he glanced round at Philippa. 
 Her mouth was still trembling, but she tried to 
 smile. 
 
 "The poor old Professor! he is a dear!" she 
 said. 
 
 "I hope he won't wake her," said Engel, try- 
 ing not to smile. 
 
 A shred of paper fluttered out of the book he 
 had in his hand. He picked it up. "A valuable 
 bookmark, Miss Joy." 
 
 "Yes, it is valuable," she said, drily. "Don't 
 you recognise your own writing, Dr. Engel?" 
 
 But Engel had already seen the "Philippa 
 Alcestis" on the paper. "I didn't know trifles 
 interested you," he said, coldly. 
 
 "It isn't a trifle," she answered. "I want you 
 to tell me what it means." 
 
 Alcestis was the wife of Admetus, whom 
 Hercules brought from the dead." 
 
 "I know that," she said, impatiently. "But 
 why Philippa Alcestis?" 
 
 "The Professor must have got over his emo- 
 
 136
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 tion by this. I will return to my patient," said 
 Engel. 
 
 "No," said Philippa, quietly. She stood 
 before him, her face set with a strange determina- 
 tion, her eyes grave and steady. 
 
 "Dr. Engel, I want you to tell me what you 
 had in your mind when you wrote that name?" 
 
 Engel returned her gaze by one equally fixed, 
 but the lines on his face grew rigid as he looked 
 at the girl. There was a long silence. 
 
 "I want to know." Philippa's voice was iron. 
 
 "It is not the sort of thing a man can tell." 
 He spoke very quietly. His voice was iron, too. 
 
 "You may tell me," Philippa said. 
 
 Engel walked across the room, and stood with 
 his back to her examining a picture. Ought he 
 to tell her? Would it not be better for her to 
 understand? 
 
 "Dr. Engel " He turned round. The pur- 
 pose on her face had strengthened. 
 
 "I want you to tell me," she said. 
 
 "If you will know " he began, and stopped. 
 
 Philippa broke the long silence: "Yes, Dr. 
 Engel." 
 
 "I had this in my mind," he said, speaking 
 rapidly; "that the girl Philippa was herself Love, 
 to me come back from the grave in which she 
 had been lying. And I wrote for her some 
 verses " 
 
 '37
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Yes?" said Philippa again, but now voice and 
 eyes were soft. 
 
 Engel dropped his eyes from hers. They 
 moved him against his will. 
 
 "Then I tore up the verses." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He drew himself up, and stood straight before 
 her, his face strong again. 
 
 "Because because Love had not come 
 back." 
 
 Philippa's fingers interlocked. She paused, 
 hesitating; then she lifted her face with a proud 
 light on it. 
 
 "I think you were wrong. Love has come 
 back." 
 
 Her eyes leaped to his and held them. Engel 
 could not fail to understand. An answering 
 light flickered an instant on his face, went out, 
 and left it dark. 
 
 "No," he said, sternly. "Love has not come 
 back. It betrayed me once. I saw it in a 
 woman's eyes, as I see it now. She was false. 
 Love has ruined my life " 
 
 "No, no!" Philippa cried. "It didn't ruin it. 
 It has made it what it is, strong and noble and 
 unselfish. Oh, you can't tell how fine your life 
 is! And it is so pathetic, so lonely. Look, Dr. 
 Engel ; I wrote some verses, too. May I show 
 them? There see how you look to me!" 
 
 She opened her blotting-pad and took up a 
 138
 
 Miss Blake 
 
 sheet of paper. "It was in the snowstorm yes- 
 terday," she went on, excitedly. "The whole 
 valley was dead; not a single creature moved in 
 it, not a sleigh, not a dog. And the snow fell 
 and fell and fell. And then in that awful 
 storm I saw you plunging through the snow, 
 knee- deep; and I knew you were going across 
 the valley to see poor Miss Lindsay. The snow 
 lay round the rim of your hat like an aureole. 
 I knew you were one of God's saints, and I 
 wrote this." 
 
 Her voice broke as she finished, tears were in 
 her eyes. She handed the paper to Engel. 
 
 He took it from her, and the words danced 
 before him through a mist. 
 
 Engel slowly folded the paper and put it in his 
 pocket. His face was very white. 
 
 Philippa's eyes, fastened on him, saw the ice 
 that had frozen it, and she understood. 
 
 "It is time I go back to my patient," he said. 
 
 All the light had faded out of the girl's face. 
 She made a sudden step forward. 
 
 "Dr. Engel," she said, "you won't let me 
 love you, but let me help you. Let me take a 
 little of your work from you. Not the medical 
 work, of course, but the nursing and the sym- 
 pathy and the time you give to your patients." 
 She smiled, though her lips were white, and held 
 out her hand. "Will you let me be your helper?"
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Engel affected not to see her hand. 
 
 "I must really go now," he said, and brushed 
 past her. At the door he paused and looked 
 back. 
 
 "You make very good verses. Good-bye.' 
 
 The voice was cynical, but she had seen the 
 look in his eyes. 
 
 140
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MR. JERNINGHAM 
 
 Mr. Jerningham came into the salle-a-manger, 
 gave a weary look at the tables, then refused the 
 chair that the waiter had drawn out for him. 
 
 "I will sit with my back to the light." 
 
 His voice was thin and high. It cut the 
 silence like a fine blade. His face was melan- 
 choly; there was a plaintive droop in his eyes. 
 He held his head on one side, as if his slight 
 shoulders were not strong enough to support the 
 weight. A delicate perfume from the violets in 
 his buttonhole followed him. 
 
 "What a funny, funny man!" Miss Busybody 
 said, in a whisper that penetrated to every cor- 
 ner of the room. "Do you see him, Philippa? 
 Look, Uncle Rob ! Why does he have long hair 
 and talk like an old woman?" 
 
 "Be quiet, you little demon!" Major Sander- 
 son laughed. 
 
 "Miss Busybody," said Philippa, quickly, to 
 divert the child's attention, "I saw somebody 
 awfully nice this morning. Guess who it was?" 
 
 "Dr. Engel, " said Miss Busybody. 
 
 "Nice? Dr. Engel? Why, if a cow was round, 
 141
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 I guess she'd eat that man, he's so green." Sim- 
 plicity's accent flavoured Miss Busybody's curi- 
 osity. 
 
 "Dr. Engel is not green, he is red; and so is 
 Philippa, " Miss Busybody said. 
 
 "No; it was Sonnie Baker that I went to see," 
 said Philippa, hastily. "He is sitting up again." 
 
 "I know," Miss Busybody nodded; "and Miss 
 Baker says me and Boykin can go to tea with 
 him soon." 
 
 Boykin was a recent arrival in the Mittenthal. 
 He was only five years old, and he had consoled 
 Miss Busybody in Sonnie's absence. 
 
 Mr. Jerningham having found a place to his 
 mind, laid a book beside his plate, and began 
 his lunch. 
 
 "Mercy on us, he is reading Elizabeth Barrett 
 Browning!" Simplicity whispered. "I presume 
 he wants us to take him for a poetical genius." 
 
 The Professor looked up from his discussion 
 with Miss Blake. He was in a good temper. 
 He beamed at her across a well-starched collar 
 and smart tie. 
 
 "If you don't mind, Miss Impertinence, he 
 will take you for what you are"; he addressed 
 Simplicity. 
 
 "He may take me for better or for worse, I 
 don't mind," she laughed. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, you should not jest on such 
 subjects. We never know what will happen," 
 142
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 said Miss Blake, who had reappeared at table 
 that day, still weak from her accident. Then 
 she blushed very much, and asked Philippa hur- 
 riedly if she knew the name of the stranger. 
 
 Between each course Mr. Jerningham read a 
 poem, which, however, did not seem to affect 
 his appetite. When the meal was over he 
 walked drearily to the end of the table, where 
 Major Sanderson sat. Miss Busybody saw him 
 coming, and ran round to Philippa and hid her 
 face on her lap. "I'm drefful frightened of 
 him." Her voice came muffled from the folds 
 of Philippa's gown. 
 
 "I had better tell you that you must take that 
 child to the other table, or I must move my 
 seat," Jerningham said. 
 
 Major Sanderson stared at him haughtily. 
 
 "It is your child, I think?" Jerningham went 
 on. "I object to children in hotels, or at least 
 at meals. She must leave the table or I must. 
 She called attention to my appearance." 
 
 "But is that unusual?" Simplicity said, 
 suavely. 
 
 "I came here to avoid observation," he said, 
 sighing. 
 
 "If that's what you want, you go to work the 
 wrong way," she smiled. "The minute folks 
 set eyes on you they want to know more about 
 you." 
 
 "I have an aversion to children," he said, 
 H3
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 pathetically; "my nerves are shattered, and 
 they disturb me." 
 
 "Most all of us are invalids," said Simplicity; 
 "but we're delighted to have a cunning little 
 thing like Miss Busybody playing round. She 
 don't disturb anybody." 
 
 "She disturbs me; she must go, or I must." 
 
 Philippa took Miss Busybody's hand and led 
 her away from the discussion. The face Sim- 
 plicity turned to Jerningham was as red as her 
 dress. 
 
 "No one here wishes to keep you," she blazed 
 out. She was a Kansas girl, and she had the 
 sharpness of the type. She turned to Major 
 Sanderson. 
 
 "Don't wait for Karl. Let me help you to 
 the balcony, Major Sanderson." 
 
 Jerningham stared. He had not seen any 
 signs of illness in the Major's sunburnt, cheer- 
 ful face. Now he saw that he was a very sick 
 man, walking with great difficulty, even with the 
 help of Simplicity's strong arm. Her voice, 
 strong, too, accompanied Major Sanderson. 
 "He may take me for what he likes; I take him 
 for a poor little woman-insect, with his nerves 
 and his aversions " 
 
 Jerningham shrugged his shoulders and waited 
 till they had got out of the room. Then he 
 found his new snow-shoes and his overcoat, and 
 went out to see the village. 
 144
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 If anything could have charmed him, this glory 
 of frost and snow and ice and sun must have 
 done it, for the Mittenthal was like an open lily 
 in the sun. But he saw only an Alpine village, 
 less dreary than he had expected it to be. The 
 road was gay with people strolling in the sun. 
 Their coloured sunshades and bright dresses 
 warmed the snow. The band outside the Kur- 
 haus was playing, an undertone to the hubbub 
 of tongues French, German, Portuguese, Ital- 
 ian, Russian that echoed through the garden. 
 The people that lay on the chaises longues in the 
 balconies did not look ill. The place was very 
 cheerful indeed. But the people in his hotel 
 were intolerable that sick man and the child 
 and that American. She looked very smart in 
 her stylish red gown, but she was awfully vulgar. 
 Would any English girl have spoken so? And 
 he was an invalid, at the mercy of people like 
 that! Tears gathered in his eyes. He was very 
 sorry for himself. In the briskness and gaiety 
 round him he had been walking vigorously. Now 
 he drooped again, and took himself plaintively 
 back to the hotel. 
 
 He did not move his seat at dinner. It was 
 well placed for the courses, he had noticed. 
 
 Passing Simplicity's chair as he left the room, 
 he dropped his visiting-card. She might pick it 
 up, and see whom she had insulted. Americans 
 were quick to recognise celebrities. The waiter
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 handed him the card before he reached the door. 
 He sighed as he took it. Why were waiters 
 always so officious? 
 
 He went to his bedroom and threw open the 
 balcony window. The stillness of the night 
 made the darkness more intense, but dark as it 
 was, the pale glimmer of the snow flitted ghost- 
 like about the valley. Jerningham could almost 
 have persuaded himself that he saw mysterious 
 forms passing. He felt a new sensation of awe, 
 and noted it. 
 
 "What a setting for music!" he said to him- 
 self. "This place is built on grand lines. The 
 full sweep of this silence is magnificent. I won- 
 der how it would tone in with the violin?" 
 
 He brought his violin, and standing on the 
 balcony, touched the strings lightly. 
 
 At the first notes Miss Blake, who was lying 
 on her own balcony, started up with a pleased 
 cry. "It must be Sonnie playing again!" Then 
 she knew that the touch was not Sonnie's. She 
 lay listening in quiet content. After the storm 
 of the day before there was a great calm in her 
 life. She had come back to consciousness to 
 find Love waiting for her with living eyes. She 
 was still brooding over the wonder of it. The 
 valley seemed full of mysterious forms that were 
 glad; she could see their faces shining. In the 
 balcony below her, Major Sanderson was look- 
 ing at the same scene, and seeing in it the 
 146
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 solemn troops of his years passing. The pro- 
 cession would soon end now. The stillness in 
 the valley was so intense he could almost hear 
 the march of their feet. There were people 
 lying on all the balconies, but there was no 
 sound of gay chatter. It was the hour when 
 those who have died in the Mittenthal return, 
 and the wind of their garments chills the faces 
 of the living when people see the angel with 
 the drawn sword who guards the gate of the 
 valley, and remember that only the strong-armed 
 can wrestle with him. It was the hour when the 
 voice of one they call Death is heard from the 
 mountains, as from mighty mosques summoning 
 to prayer. 
 
 Jerningham was dimly conscious of a new 
 influence in his music. He had spent the day 
 without hearing the deep note that life struck in 
 the Mittenthal. He had not seen the tragedy 
 that played itself out with clash of cymbal and 
 beat of drum in every seat at table d'hote. He 
 knew nothing of the depths of agony, the dark 
 hopelessness that the laughter covered. "Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," had 
 not been said to him. He had had no soul to 
 hear the language of inarticulate eyes. But all 
 this was in his music, and he was dimly aware 
 of it. 
 
 Some one joined Miss Blake on her balcony. 
 "I wonder who it is playing, " Jerningham heard.
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He touched the violin very lightly, so as to 
 catch the reply. "I presume it's the new ar- 
 rival. I saw a violin-case among his luggage." 
 
 "I wish he was the kind of man one could ask 
 to play to Sonnie Baker. Miss Baker told me 
 Sonnie was longing for some music. You might 
 ask him, my dear." 
 
 "Why, Miss Blake, he isn't the kind of man 
 I'd ask to tie a shoestring! A man*who could 
 snub Miss Busybody ain't likely to have human- 
 ity enough to play for a sick cat, let alone 
 Sonnie. He's just a windbag of a man, and I 
 want to prick him all the time and let the wind 
 out. Besides, Sonnie wouldn't thank you for 
 music like that. It's cheap compared with what 
 Sonnie himself can do." 
 
 The balcony door banged as Jerningham went 
 in. His playing "cheap, " when he was a maestro, 
 a man of European reputation? It was time 
 some one put a stop to the criticisms of ignorant 
 persons. There should be a penalty for defama- 
 tion of the character of a man's art. To be 
 disparaged by a girl! And she said he had no 
 humanity. She wouldn't ask him to play for this 
 boy. Well, he would not wait to be asked. He 
 would offer to play. He did not mind spending 
 ten minutes in doing it, since the boy was musical. 
 
 At breakfast next morning, while he pretended 
 to read, he listened to the talk round him. He 
 wished to discover which was Miss Baker. 
 148
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 The face of the conversation was disfigured 
 with medical terms microbe and bacteria, 
 phthisis and carditis. Major Sanderson said 
 cheerfully that his temperature was a hundred 
 and one; another man gave the result of some 
 microscopical examination or other. The Pro- 
 fessor shouted across the table that Babette 
 slept in flannel with the window wide open. 
 
 Jerningham had intended to speak about his 
 loss of appetite as an interesting subject, but 
 he remained silent. 
 
 Simplicity Baldwin camefin, and spoke to the 
 lady beside him: "How is Sonnie this morning, 
 Miss Baker?" 
 
 "Better, I am thankful to say. Dr. Engel 
 says he may get up again, but he is not to touch 
 his violin yet. Poor Sonnie is dreadfully disap- 
 pointed. " 
 
 Jerningham stopped while helping himself to 
 honey. "I gather that the boy is ill, and fond 
 of music. I shall be glad to spare ten minutes 
 to play for him. I am Horace Jerningham." 
 
 The name conveyed nothing to Miss Baker. 
 
 "You are very kind," she hesitated. "But 
 my nephew is very clever and he is naturally 
 extremely fastidious." 
 
 Simplicity's eyes twinkled delightedly. 
 
 Jerningham straightened himself. 
 
 "Perhaps you did not understand. I am 
 Horace Jerningham, the violinist." 
 149
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Miss Baker flushed. 
 
 "It is very kind of you. Shall I say you will 
 come in this morning? My nephew's number is 
 ten." 
 
 Jerningham finished helping himself to honey. 
 Suddenly Simplicity addressed him. 
 
 "I feel real mean at something I said about 
 you yesterday. I ask your pardon. You're a 
 stranger, and I presume you would like to see 
 some of the local sights. I am going into the 
 Grunwasser valley at midnight. Perhaps you 
 would like to go, too." 
 
 "You have not said what you are going to 
 see," he said, pleasantly. The girl had a fine 
 face and an open, generous look in her eyes, and 
 she had owned she had been unjust to him. 
 
 "To see the Todten-Volk the dead people, 
 you know," she answered. "The peasants say 
 if you go to a certain spot in the valley at mid- 
 night, you will see all the dead folk pass in pro- 
 cession. They wear quaint old clothes, and 
 their faces are covered all but the last. He 
 turns his face towards you, and it is the face of 
 some one who will die this year." 
 
 "Grim enough," said Jerningham. 
 
 "Why, of course it's grim. It gives you 
 thrills. Why, the last face may be your own." 
 
 "But does everybody see it?" said Jerning- 
 ham. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. "But, at any
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 rate, it will be a sensation to see the valley at 
 midnight." 
 
 "I should like to go with you," said Jerning- 
 ham. 
 
 Two hours after, Jerningham took his violin 
 to No. 10. Sonnie was on the sofa, a thin 
 shadow of the boy who had shouted "Death and 
 Victory!" that day in the snowstorm. His eyes 
 seemed to have burnt up the rest of his face. 
 He looked very small and eager and childish. 
 
 "You have a Strad! a real Strad!" he said, as 
 he saw Jerningham. "Imagine having a real 
 Strad! Let me see it. " 
 
 "It is a very valuable instrument. I never let 
 children handle it," Jerningham said. 
 
 "You don't call me a child, do you?" Sonnie 
 laughed. "Don't be afraid; I know how to 
 hold a violin." 
 
 Jerningham noticed that the hand he held out 
 was shaking, and he grudgingly gave up the 
 violin. He was reassured at the reverence with 
 which Sonnie took it. His very look was a 
 caress. 
 
 At last the boy returned it, and fell back on 
 his cushions. "If that Strad was mine, I'd 
 never want anything else all my life," he sighed. 
 "Play something, will you?" 
 
 Jerningham did not like the tone, but Sonnie's 
 eyes could not be denied. With an infinite con-
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 descension he leisurely played a few bars. 
 Sonnie's face reminded him that his listener was 
 fastidious, and he executed a difficult move- 
 ment; but the boy's face remained blank. Jer- 
 ningham heard his disappointed sigh. 
 
 "Poor little chap! it's beyond him," he 
 thought; "I'll try something simpler." But 
 though he went from study to study, Sonnie 
 remained silent and unimpressed. 
 
 At last, piqued, Jerningham put out all his 
 power in an intricate Brahms, then laid down his 
 bow. Sonnie struggled to his feet and took up 
 the violin. "Let me try." 
 
 An uncertain note answered his uncertain 
 touch. Vexed, Jerningham walked to the win- 
 dow. 
 
 Sonnie stood rapt, as if listening to something 
 that no other listener could hear. 
 
 A mome'nt after Jerningham swung round. 
 Sonnie's bow was sweeping the strings. A wild, 
 unearthly melody sounded. It filled the room 
 with the tramp of a mighty army. 
 
 Jerningham stood, his eyes fastened on Son- 
 nie, holding his breath, not daring to move lest 
 he should miss one footfall of the procession. 
 He could almost see the long, line of mysterious 
 forms tramping to the music. Suddenly a string 
 broke. 
 
 Sonnie turned his pale face to him, handed 
 him the violin, and fell weeping on the sofa. 
 152
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 Jerningham did not speak. He was not con- 
 cerned for the boy. He stood biting his lips, 
 wondering what quality it was in Sonnie's music 
 that his own lacked. 
 
 That evening he did not sit silent at dinner. 
 Miss Baker was quite ready to talk to him about 
 Sonnie, and some of the other people were curi- 
 ous to hear about his proposed expedition into 
 the valley to see the Todten-Volk. 
 
 Soon after eleven he went into the hall to 
 meet Simplicity. She and her friend, Mrs. 
 Royston, were there waiting for him. Mrs. 
 Royston was a young wife who lived in a chalet 
 at Pitzen, Simplicity told him. Both women 
 were excited. Mrs. Royston giggled foolishly. 
 
 "You mustn't tell my husband of this esca- 
 pade," she said. "He would not have let me 
 come if he had known of it. I told him Frau 
 Bullen had asked me to spend the night at the 
 Royal. It is true, you know." 
 
 "I hope you won't do yourself any harm," 
 said Simplicity, sobering, and glancing anxiously 
 at Mrs. Royston. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, my dear child; I shall do 
 much more harm if I stay at home brooding over 
 the future. I have a perfect horror of death. 
 I want to know if " 
 
 "But suppose we do see the dead folk?" said 
 Simplicity. 
 
 "We shan't see anything if we waste any more
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 time, that's certain. Come along," Mrs. Roy- 
 ston cried. "; 
 
 Jerningham followed them into the road. 
 The electric light still flared outside the hotel, 
 throwing shadows on the snow. The hotel was 
 asleep. A deathly silence held the valley, but 
 for the deep voice of the Griinwasser. "We 
 shall have to cross the river," Simplicity whis- 
 pered. It seemed difficult to speak naturally in 
 the silence. 
 
 The night was black with clouds. Not a star 
 twinkled. A thick mist swathed the valley. It 
 clung like a chilly sheet to their faces. 
 
 "Do you think it is wise to go?" Jerningham 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, yes!" Mrs. Royston said. "It is not 
 far. We cross the river, and go to a ravine a lit- 
 tle way up the valley." 
 
 "We ought not to talk," said Simplicity. 
 
 She led the way, following the beaten snow 
 of the path. Her snowshoes made no sound; 
 she went, a dim and noiseless figure, through the 
 mist and the midnight. Mrs. Royston followed 
 close behind, noiseless, too. Jerningham, mak- 
 ing the third of the file, felt the mystery of the 
 mute, dark figures passing silently through the 
 black night. He wondered why he had come. 
 The snow and the mist and the silence were 
 gruesome. If it had been possible, he would 
 have turned back and left the women to go on
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 alone. There was something uncanny in the 
 breathlessness of Mrs. Royston's swift, stealthy 
 movements. Simplicity was the only one of the 
 three who walked naturally. The free poise of 
 her head lent Jerningham courage. He fixed his 
 eyes on her, and sought to get away from the 
 consciousness of tension in Mrs. Royston's atti- 
 tude. 
 
 They had passed the last chalet; the Griin- 
 wasser moaned behind them. They were close 
 to the pines that sloped up Pitz Jakob and laid 
 a belt of deeper night round the midnight. The 
 silence deepened as the valley narrowed and the 
 mist closed round the three shadows. It wound 
 them round and round until even consciousness 
 was bound in damp bands. The chill lay on 
 Jerningham's thoughts. He had expected to 
 see other people in the valley the peasants, or 
 visitors curious like themselves to see the pro- 
 cession of the dead folk; but not a voice echoed, 
 not another living form was visible. Simplicity 
 led the way in a silence that every minute be- 
 came more ghastly. It seemed to the man that 
 they had been walking forever in mute proces- 
 sion through the great shadow of the night. He 
 could not remember the time when he had not 
 taken those soundless steps over the livid snow, 
 feeling the ravine closing in upon him, struggling 
 in the slimy bands of the mist. 
 
 "Stop!" said Simplicity, in a hoarse whisper.
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Her voice seemed to have arrested even life. 
 The three stood frozen. The deep stroke of 
 midnight came down the valley. Twelve beat 
 out loud and clamorous, then twelve again, 
 dying faintly. The air trembled round Mrs. 
 Royston's shudder. 
 
 As the strokes died, another sound woke in 
 Jerningham's mind the first note of the music 
 Sonnie had played that day. One by one the 
 notes came, muffled, like a dim, veiled proces- 
 sion passing by. They sounded louder as they 
 drew near, and Jerningham's eyes froze with 
 terror. Every note was a ghost, growing larger 
 and larger; every ghost wore a human shape, 
 cloaked and cowled. A gleam of snow lighted 
 the feet. 
 
 "The Todten-Volk!" dropped from Jerning- 
 ham's dry lips. 
 
 One by one they passed him, swathed in mist 
 and midnight, stepping to the tramp of wizard 
 music 
 
 His gaze could not move away from the wan 
 procession. The faces were hidden, the heads 
 bowed. 
 
 As the last ghost passed, Jerningham stag- 
 gered back. Sonnie's face had turned to him. 
 It gleamed dimly from a lifted cowl. 
 
 Mrs. Royston's shrieks sounded far away, then 
 nearer and louder, until Jerningham heard the 
 whole valley crying out. 
 156
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 "For God's sake!" His voice stumbled and 
 fell. 
 
 "Be quiet, Mrs. Royston; please be quiet," 
 Simplicity was saying. "You will hurt yourself. 
 There is nothing! Don't you see? Twelve 
 o'clock has struck, and not a single ghost has 
 passed." 
 
 She had thrown her arms round Mrs. Royston, 
 and now she shook her gently. "Be quiet, you 
 mad woman. I'm real sorry you ever persuaded 
 me to come with you." 
 
 "But I saw! but I saw!" Mrs. Royston 
 screamed. 
 
 Jerningham put his hand "on her shoulder, in a 
 quieting pressure. "What did you see?" he said, 
 in a muffled voice. 
 
 "A long line of figures, " she gasped, "wrapped 
 in white." 
 
 "Bunkum!" said Simplicity, vigorously. "I 
 stared as hard as I could, and I saw nothing 
 but mist. Come away; time we were going 
 back." 
 
 "No! no!" Mrs. Royston gasped. "I saw the 
 face of the last, and and it was my husband's. 
 I saw him quite plainly. He had a a baby in 
 his arms. His hair was wet and dripping." 
 
 "Goodness! If there's a healthy creature in 
 this valley, it's Mr. Royston. He isn't going to 
 die this year. Come along, Mrs. Royston; at 
 any rate, you are safe."
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "What does it all mean?" said Jerningham, in 
 a queer voice. 
 
 "It's all superstition," said Simplicity. "The 
 peasants say that when the Todten-Volk go by 
 you see the face of the last man only, and it is 
 the face of a living man who will die during the 
 year. But I'm real disappointed there was 
 nothing to see. Now then, quick march back 
 again!" 
 
 They set out at a sharp pace, Simplicity talk- 
 ing loudly all the time. When she saw that 
 neither of the others would talk, she began to 
 sing. 
 
 The night waked; her voice, sweet and strong, 
 clove the mist and soared through the great 
 shadows. Where the clouds parted a star shone. 
 
 The next day Jerningham spent an hour with 
 Sonnie. He had taken his violin to play for the 
 boy, but he was the listener while Sonnie played. 
 There was something in Sonnie's music that 
 showed his own art crude and lifeless, and made 
 him recognise his limitations. It also kept alive 
 in his mind his midnight experience. He could 
 not look at Sonnie without seeing the last face in 
 the procession of the Todten-Volk; and while 
 he was not superstitious, he could not get away 
 from the thought that the boy was doomed. 
 The pity of it seized him. For the first time in 
 his life Jerningham found his interest centred 
 158
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 in something outside himself. When it was 
 necessary once to sit up with Sonnie, he begged 
 to be allowed to do it. That night's watch 
 made him Sonnie's friend. 
 
 After that Jerningham was always in Sonnie's 
 room. The boy could not bear to see the Strad 
 go; and when Jerningham was not playing him- 
 self, he lent the violin to Sonnie, and sat listen- 
 ing to him. Jerningham found a whimsical 
 pleasure in playing second fiddle to the boy. 
 He had recognised Sonnie's genius. In a fort- 
 night the man had changed. His air had 
 become less weary; there was a spark in his eye. 
 He had lost some of his affectations. The vio- 
 lets were given every day to Sonnie. He forgot 
 to read poetry at table. There were always 
 inquiries for Sonnie to be answered. Simplicity, 
 who was very friendly, laughed at his long hair. 
 He came back from the hairdresser cropped and 
 in his right mind. 
 
 "There is nothing wrong with you," Dr. 
 Engel said to him. "Go back to your work." 
 
 Jerningham shook his head. "If I go away, 
 my violin goes, too, and that would break Son- 
 nie's heart." 
 
 "Then leave him the violin." 
 
 "Give it him altogether! You don't know 
 what you are saying. One doesn't give a Strad 
 to a boy!" 
 
 "Ah, to be sure! The genius is only a boy."
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "It's the only instrument I can use. You 
 might as well tell me to give up my art alto- 
 gether. If I gave away my Strad, the only thing 
 left to me would be to conduct an orchestra." 
 
 "No," Engel said, drily; "you might conduct 
 an omnibus." 
 
 Jerningham went off in a rage. Fortunately, 
 he was master of his time. He would not go 
 away till Sonnie was stronger and better able to 
 console himself for the loss of the Strad. Sud- 
 denly the memory of the procession of the dead 
 folk returned to him. He shook it off. There 
 was nothing in it; the fancy of excited nerves. 
 Besides, Sonnie would get well again. He was 
 one of the procession of people passing through 
 the valley from death to life. One of these days 
 the pathetic hopefulness would shine in his eyes; 
 he would go out and take his place in the proces- 
 sion and march gaily with the best from death 
 to life. 
 
 But Jerningham could not persuade himself 
 that Sonnie's place was not last in the proces- 
 sion. Nothing ever banished the shadow in the 
 boy's eyes but the violin. 
 
 And Sonnie had once said if the Strad were 
 his, he would want nothing else in life. 
 
 He took the violin and went to No. 10. 
 
 Sonnie was too weak to sit up. He lay back 
 on his pillows, looking very white. 
 
 "He is not so well," said his aunt. "He 
 160
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 fainted this morning, but I think it is only the 
 fohn wind; it always tires him." She looked 
 anxiously at Sonnie. 
 
 Jerningham's eyes followed hers to the boy's 
 face. 
 
 Sonnie was like a wreath of snow that the fohn 
 would snatch away from the valley. The sun 
 shone on the windows, but a new shadow had 
 fallen on the boy's eyes. 
 
 "You look so tired," said Jerningham; "I 
 won't stay now. To-morrow I will stay longer, 
 to make up." 
 
 "To-morrow is my birthday," Sonnie smiled. 
 "You will lend me the Strad all day." 
 
 Jerningham carried away the violin with a 
 guilty consciousness that it was Sonnie's by 
 right. 
 
 The boy's face haunted him. It looked out 
 from the pillow as that other face looked at him 
 from the cowl. If he could only make up his 
 mind to give the violin to Sonnie! 
 
 Sonnie's eyes followed the violin as Jerning- 
 ham disappeared. He could see it go and not 
 regret it. There seemed so little to wish for in 
 life. He only wanted to lie still and watch the 
 sunset creeping up the bed. When the bar of 
 light touched the head of the bed the sun would 
 sink. 
 
 He thought dreamily of the sunlighted valley 
 the great sweep of the golden waves that flooded 
 161
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the snow and ebbed and flowed among the 
 mountains. It was very beautiful. 
 
 He had grown to love the valley. He would 
 be content to remain in it now; to listen always, 
 as he had listened on the day of the snowstorm, 
 to the grand chords of the chorale that echoed 
 here among the hills: "Oh, Life, here is thy 
 victory!" 
 
 Yes, the victory of Life was here in the valley 
 where Death had lost his sting, where one might 
 look on his face and not be afraid, where one 
 might walk through the shadow and fear no evil. 
 He smiled, remembering how he had shouted 
 "Death and Victory!" the day he had carried 
 Miss Busybody. If he had had any voice left 
 now for a shout, it would be "Life and Victory!" 
 "I'll tell her that when she comes," he said to 
 himself. He turned his head feebly. How 
 heavy it had become ! 
 
 "Aunt, I want to see Miss Busybody." 
 "I think not, dear. You look so tired." 
 "No, I'm better quite well. You go and 
 rest. Let her stay with me." 
 
 "I don s t like to leave you, Sonnie. " 
 "Yes, please. I will ring when I want you." 
 Miss Busybody came tiptoeing in, her hands 
 behind her, her face full of mystery. 
 
 "Miss Baker says I'm to send you to sleep, 
 and then call her. Guess what I've got here. " 
 "I can't; I'm sleepy." 
 162
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 "It's a secret; it's laurels. But you're not to 
 know till to-morrow. Philippa and me boughted 
 it for your birthday. She said flowers; but I 
 'membered you said you wanted laurels, so we 
 got a wreath. Do you think you'll like it? 
 Shall I see if it fits?" 
 
 She climbed on the bed and crowned him with 
 the laurel wreath. He shivered, feeling the cold 
 of the leaves. 
 
 "It's beautiful," he whispered. That strange 
 faintness was coming on again. 
 
 "Yes; it fits you boofully. I'll let you wear 
 it a bit, if you don't tell Philippa I showed it 
 you too soon." 
 
 "I won't tell." 
 
 The cold of the leaves seemed to have touched 
 every part of his body; or was it the chill of sun- 
 set coming on? What had happened to him? 
 
 "A string broke then," he muttered. He 
 felt himself falling, and he clutched at the 
 clothes to save himself. What had happened? 
 Miss Busybody, sitting beside him, seemed to be 
 drifting away. He could not breathe for Fifine's 
 loud purring. He roused himself. 
 
 "Don't go don't go " 
 
 "I'm not going," said Miss Busybody, settling 
 herself on a chair with Fifine on her lap. "I'll 
 wait till you're asleep. You're velly sleepy, 
 aren't you, Sonnie?" 
 
 "Yes, but I wanted to tell you " What 
 163
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 was it he had to tell Miss Busybody? "To tell 
 you Victory Life ' ' 
 
 His thoughts were drifting by. He caught at 
 them, but they drifted through his fingers. 
 
 "Is that my bow on the bed?" He tried to 
 catch the bar of sunlight on the bed, but it 
 slipped through his hand. "I thought I had the 
 Strad too dark to see " 
 
 "It's not dark, Sonnie; it's velly light. Are 
 you afraid of the dark?" 
 
 "Not afraid," he muttered, drowsily. 
 
 "I am." Miss Busybody nodded her head 
 wisely. "And then I always say my darkness 
 hymn, the one with 'Grant to little children 
 visions bright of Thee, ' and 'Let Thy holy angels 
 watch around my bed.' " 
 
 "Say it," Sonnie whispered. 
 
 "What makes you talk so low, Sonnie? It's 
 too soon to say the darkness hymn." 
 
 She looked at him and sighed. His eyes were 
 closed. 
 
 "He's not velly amusing. I wish Boykin was 
 here. I'll say my hymn now, shall I, Sonnie?" 
 
 Sonnie opened his eyes again and smiled. His 
 hands were moving in the sunlight. 
 
 "Don't play with your fingers, naughty Son- 
 nie. You're to go to sleep. Shut your eyes; 
 I'm afraid when you look at me like that." 
 
 Sonnie smiled still. The bar of light climbed 
 his chest out of reach of the restless fingers. 
 164
 
 Mr. Jerningham 
 
 He folded his hands and gave a long, gentle 
 sigh. 
 
 Miss Busybody put Fifine down on the bed, 
 and sat looking at Sonnie with a troubled face. 
 "I wish he'd shut his eyes and his mouth," she 
 said, plaintively. "It's drefful quiet. I wish I 
 needn't stay till he's asleep. I wish he'd talk. 
 It's drefful lonely. I'd better say my darkness 
 hymn." 
 
 ' 'Now the day is over,' " she began. She 
 stopped. "Hush!" She put her finger on her 
 lips as Jerningham came in softly. 
 
 "I'm velly glad that somebody's come," she 
 whispered, scrambling down from the high chair. 
 "Sonnie won't speak, and he won't go to sleep. " 
 
 Jerningham went to the bed, and stood gazing 
 down at the smiling lips, the glazed eyes. The 
 bar of sunset lay across the laurel leaves. The 
 kitten purred on comfortably. 
 
 "What is Sonnie looking at?" Miss Busybody 
 pulled Jerningham's sleeve. 
 
 He raised his head, laid down the Strad beside 
 Sonnie, lifted the child, and went from the room.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SIMPLICITY 
 
 Fifine'spurr got on Jerningham's nerves. He 
 held the kitten under his coat. Fifine purred 
 on happily; she was used to Jerningham. That 
 purr was ironic! Jerningham made a sudden 
 movement to put her down. He changed his 
 mind, and drew the coat closer round her. It 
 was not her fault that she lived while Sonnie 
 died. 
 
 His face was gaunt. There was something in 
 his eyes that the people in ',he hotel were shy of 
 looking at. It had been there since yesterday 
 at sunset.' And now it was sunset again. Jern- 
 ingham caught his breath with a hard sob. He 
 had just brought the kitten from Sonnie's empty 
 room. 
 
 Well, it was all over now. Nothing was left 
 but to go back to England. His art was over, 
 too. It would be desecration for him to use 
 Sonnie's Strad; and he would never play again. 
 How could he touch the strings that guarded the 
 music of the boy's dead fingers? The violin was 
 on the coffin, in the mortuary chapel. His eyes 
 dragged themselves across the valley to the pine 
 166
 
 Simplicity 
 
 wood, where there was a gleam of white walls. 
 His lips tightened. The path that led to the 
 wood was as lonely as the sunset. All at once 
 his fingers closed round Fifine. He lifted him- 
 self. The violin? Was that the violin? Then 
 he dropped back. "Fool," he muttered. 
 
 Along the valley came the ring of the jodel. 
 The sound trailed away into silence, on which a 
 woman's voice drifted along: 
 
 " Under the winter, dear, 
 Summer's note lieth ; 
 If it be sweet to hear 
 Song never dieth." 
 
 The woman swung round the bend of the path, 
 and was full in sight, a point of red on the 
 snow. 
 
 " Under the winter, dear," 
 Summer's note lieth." 
 
 It was Simplicity. If the red gown had not 
 proclaimed her, he would still have known her 
 voice. But how could she sing like that, when 
 Sonnie ? It was not four hours since her weep- 
 ing had gone to his heart. They had held each 
 other's hand and looked at Sonnie in silence. 
 Then they had turned from the dead to the liv- 
 ing, and their eyes had struggled together. He 
 was so weak, and he needed to hear a voice in 
 that awful silence. 
 
 Simplicity had spoken. "Not here not now." 
 Yet she could sing like that four hours after! 
 167
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He watched the red gown growing larger. It 
 was like the red of sunset. Her singing grew 
 louder. 
 
 " Soon in the forest, love, 
 
 Breezes shall bear it ; 
 ' There in the bough above, 
 
 Lo ! thou shall hear it ! " 
 
 Two men, new arrivals, strolled on to the 
 balcony. 
 
 "That girl is the only lively thing in this God- 
 forsaken hole!" one of them said. "Lord! what 
 a country! Looks as if we should have more 
 snow, too; then good-bye to our skating. What 
 are you grinning at, Romsey?" 
 
 "Nothing; only it's pleasant to hear my verses 
 sung in red and white so far from England." 
 
 "Oh, confound it all! Can't you forget your 
 trade? But the girl can sing." 
 
 Romsey stroked his moustache. His eyes 
 waited for Simplicity. Jerningham lifted his 
 haggard face and glared at them. This was 
 the sort of person that harried the place. But 
 what did it matter? As soon as the funeral was 
 over he would go back to" London, to live his 
 life again as if he had never known Sonnie. But 
 could he do that? Would he ever again be satis- 
 fied with the things that had satisfied him before 
 he had known the boy? 
 
 He leaned over the balcony rail and wondered 
 if his life would be more grey than it had been 
 168
 
 Simplicity 
 
 before it had had that point of red in it. She 
 had a large nature ; he could not watch her every 
 day without admiring its generous lines. She 
 had given friendship lavishly, but her breadth 
 meant shallowness. There had been no depth in 
 her grief for Sonnie. 
 
 She was quite near, on the path under the bal- 
 cony, and she smiled up at him, showing her 
 strong, white teeth. 
 
 "I am coming to you; wait for me." 
 
 The minute after she was on the balcony, 
 rosy and smiling. Jerningham saw her gaiety 
 with dull eyes that avoided hers, but Romsey 
 smiled delightedly. 
 
 Simplicity drew up in her rapid walk towards 
 Jerningham. "What's the matter with you? 
 Come and take a walk." 
 
 "I prefer to sit still." 
 
 She studied his face. "What have you been 
 doing all the afternoon?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Nursing kittens. Call that a man's work?" 
 But she liked him better for taking notice of 
 Sonnie's kitten. 
 
 He made no answer. A little tender smile 
 came into her eyes, and died before it saw the 
 light. 
 
 "You would have done better to mourn some 
 other way," she said. 
 
 "I'm not like you; I can't forget," he said. 
 169
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He rose wearily, and was passing her. Sim- 
 plicity gazed at him as if she did not understand. 
 
 "Why, you wouldn't have that poor boy give 
 up his heaven, would you?" she cried, her eyes 
 widening. "Hasn't he done the noblest thing 
 he could do, even if he had lived a hundred 
 years? I'm just delighted that he has got over 
 his rough bit of road so quickly. I guess he's 
 harping with the sweetest harp in heaven, and 
 all the angels round him listening." 
 
 "That sort of thing may satisfy you," said 
 Jerningham; "I don't believe in dreams." 
 
 "Dreams make the life," she said, flushing, 
 "and dreams make the death. Sonnie wouldn't 
 smile like that if he hadn't dreamt in life. He 
 looks real noble; I've been in the mortuary an 
 hour sitting with him. And I said to myself, 'It 
 is good to be here.' " 
 
 Jerningham turned abruptly and left the girl. 
 She stared after him, and one by one the lights 
 in her face went out, leaving a wan twilight. It 
 settled oddly on the strong lines of her face. 
 Her heel struck the balcony floor crisply as she 
 moved away. 
 
 "I wasn't dreaming, I know that," she said. 
 "But even if I had been dreaming, the dream 
 makes the life. Well, I don't understand him, 
 that's clear; and it's very little comfort to know 
 that he's miles away from understanding me. 
 Life is a real hard nut to crack. Sonnie has 
 170
 
 Simplicity 
 
 cracked his nut, and I don't believe it was 
 empty." 
 
 Everybody was watching the sudden friend- 
 ship between Simplicity and Romsey. It was 
 diverting to see the ball of life tossing between 
 two people; the movement broke up the monot- 
 ony of the hotel. Everything had been dull 
 lately. Babette was well again, and was prepar- 
 ing for her wedding. The Professor and Miss 
 Blake quarrelled more intimately than before, 
 and looked the happier for it. Mrs. Royston's 
 baby had found its way safely into the valley. 
 Dr. Engel went about looking like a frost-bitten 
 branch. There was no scandal to flavour the 
 season. The days went yawning through the 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 Simplicity was the only person who looked 
 brisk and busy, and not bored. She never 
 seemed to have an idle minute. When she was 
 not skating, sleighing, tobogganing, walking with 
 Romsey, she was singing his songs to music of 
 her own setting. Romsey was a popular ballad- 
 writer. He stayed on in the Mittenthal after 
 his friend had left. He and Simplicity were 
 working together. He supplied the song, she 
 the music. One day she asked Jerningham to 
 bring his violin and accompany her on the piano. 
 
 "Hasn't Romsey accompanied you suffi- 
 ciently?" he asked. 
 
 17:
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 The glance she flung at him reminded him 
 that she had once called him "a little woman- 
 insect." He shrivelled before her. 
 
 "I don't wonder that you can make such a 
 speech," she said, scornfully. "When a man 
 spends his days loafing about with a face as long 
 as a fiddle, he ain't likely to be the manlier 
 fork." 
 
 "I didn't think you concerned yourself with 
 my doings." 
 
 "I don't; but I concern myself with what you 
 don't do. Do you suppose you'll have eternity 
 to promenade in, when you don't take the 
 trouble to mark life on the six feet of earth time 
 gives you?" 
 
 "I wonder what you mean by that?" 
 
 "Why don't you take your violin and do your 
 honest work honestly?" 
 
 "I am no artist. You said so yourself." 
 
 "But you have technique, and you only need 
 passion to be a great player. If you felt things, 
 the feeling would grow in your music." 
 
 He shook his head. "I should only fail. I 
 don't choose to be a magnificent failure." 
 
 She lifted her eyes impatiently. "It would be 
 a higher thing, at any rate, than crawling 
 through life on your stomach. Don't you see 
 that you are losing your limbs by not using them? 
 You crawl when you might fly when you might 
 be another Sonnie. " 
 
 173
 
 Simplicity 
 
 The storm in her voice shook Jerningham. 
 
 "Sonnie had wings," he said, hoarsely. 
 
 "So has the chrysalis; only it must spread 
 them." 
 
 "The chrysalis waits for the sun." 
 
 "You sit with your back to the light." She 
 swung round and left him. 
 
 He looked after her, until the wistfulness in 
 his eyes grew bold and showed itself openly. 
 
 Was he sitting with his back to the light? 
 Was she all that he had once believed her to be 
 true and deep and great-hearted? 
 
 His eyes clung about her as If they would have 
 dragged her back to him. Then their hold loos- 
 ened. 
 
 "Mr. Romsey, " Simplicity was calling, 
 "don't you want to hear me play your new 
 song?" 
 
 A bitter smile twisted Jerningham's lips. 
 "She's only a heartless flirt a worthless, shal- 
 low girl. And I stay on here, wasting my life for 
 her. I will go; I won't stay a single day longer. " 
 
 He leaned back in his chair with closed eyes- 
 Pain twined itself among the lines of his face. 
 
 Two little feet pattered past him, returned, 
 and stopped beside him. He looked up, and saw 
 Miss Busybody gazing at him with soft, troubled 
 eyes. 
 
 "I'm 'fraid your head's bad. Shall I kiss 
 away the pain?"
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "The pain won't be kissed away," he said. 
 
 Miss Busybody sighed. "It's drefful tiresome 
 not to do anything. Simplicity said I could 
 toboggan with her, but she won't go. She's 
 crying in her room, and she says her headVbad. 
 I'm drefful lonely. Boykin's gone away, and I 
 want Sonnie. " 
 
 Jerningham lifted the child on his knee, and 
 wrapped his cloak round her. She nestled to 
 him, warm and confiding. "I like talking," she 
 said. "You're a nice man to talk to. Tell me 
 why you put your violin on Sonnie's coffin." 
 
 "I gave it him because he wanted it." 
 
 "But he didn't want it; Marie said he didn't. 
 God has put him in the German band in heaven. 
 I expect he has the boofullest harp. Will you 
 take the violin back?" 
 
 "No," said Jerningham; "I don't know how 
 to play it." 
 
 "I know how Sonnie played it." She lifted 
 her head and looked at him knowingly. "He 
 told me once. He listened to what the stars 
 told him, and the snow, and the trees, and the 
 wind, and then he put it into music. Some- 
 times it hurt him drefful; but the more it hurt 
 him, the more he liked to play. And he could 
 see things great, big, beautiful things better 
 than angels. But Marie said they were only 
 common people, like Philippa and Simplicity."
 
 Simplicity 
 
 "Do you like Simplicity?" Jerningham asked. 
 He hated himself for asking. 
 
 Miss Busybody nodded. "Yes, and my Uncle 
 Rob just adores her; he says so. He has to die 
 soon, but he says he doesn't mind. And Sim- 
 plicity is going to hold his hand, and shout 
 'Death and Victory!' all the time till he is dead. 
 I think he wants me now; I think I had better 
 go and see." 
 
 She scrambled down, and lifted her mouth up 
 to Jerningham for a kiss. "Will you take me 
 tobogganing to-morrow?" she asked. 
 
 "I'm afraid not. I'm going away to-morrow." 
 
 Miss Busybody's eyes brimmed up. "I wish 
 you wouldn't!" she cried. "It's drefful lonely. 
 Everybody is going away, Boykin and Sonnie. 
 And Simplicity won't play with me, and my 
 Uncle Rob will soon be dead. And there won't 
 be anybody left. And Miss Baker has gone, and 
 taken away Fifine; and Sonnie won't come back. 
 I think God might have remembered that I'm a 
 velly lonely little girl without Sonnie." 
 
 "Don't cry," said Jerningham, stroking her 
 little fat hand. "Don't cry; I won't go away 
 to-morrow. I'll stay and play with you." 
 
 "And Simplicity?" Miss Busybody bright- 
 ened. "Will you play with Simplicity, too?" 
 
 "Simplicity has other people to play with, 
 Miss Busybody."
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 That was a fortnight ago, and Simplicity had 
 scarcely spoken to him since. His weary droop 
 had come back; he read at meals, and took no 
 notice of any one but Miss Busybody. She was 
 his little friend; he let her sit on his knee and 
 chatter to him of Simplicity. He could not 
 believe that the girl was a heartless flirt when he 
 heard of her tenderness to Major Sanderson and 
 the child. 
 
 He said no more about leaving. He knew 
 that while Simplicity remained he would remain, 
 too. But she did not speak to him, and his days 
 were very lonely. She was not altogether to 
 blame for her silence towards him. He avoided 
 her himself, but she did not seem to notice that 
 he did so. She was always in high spirits, bois- 
 terous even to grotesqueness. Her gaiety swung 
 like a brilliant Japanese lantern above the dusk 
 of pain, and the shadows fled. Every morning 
 her laugh flew along with her toboggan where 
 the red and blue flags marked the course of the 
 ice-run. Jerningham, hidden among the pines 
 above the run, followed the laugh and the flash 
 of the red gown, and the loneliness at his heart 
 tightened. He was very lonely without his 
 music, without Sonnie, without the dream that 
 he had dreamed. He was terribly lonely. 
 There was a crook in his fate. Romsey had 
 arrived in the hotel the very day that Love had 
 stood like an angel of life at the bed of the dead 
 176
 
 Simplicity 
 
 boy. He went over the scene again, and lived 
 through the hours that followed. He had sat 
 on the balcony till the sun had set and the silence 
 had ripped open the grave in his heart. At sun- 
 set Sonnie had always played, and that day the 
 stillness had touched notes deeper than sound. 
 The notes had been so deep he had felt, not 
 heard them. The snow had grown leaden round 
 him, like life. And suddenly the twilight had 
 blazed with scarlet, and her voice had flaunted 
 along the valley: 
 
 " Under the winter, dear, 
 Summer's note lieth; 
 If it be sweet to hear, 
 Song never dieth." 
 
 They had been Romsey's words, and Romsey 
 had heard them. Well, the song had not been 
 for him. 
 
 One morning spring came to the Mittenthal. 
 A sea of sunlight tossed its waves among the 
 hills. The snow in the valley was still to swoon- 
 ing. The sword of the sun had struck its heart. 
 Down on the road a thin tinkle of cowbells 
 lingered along the line of the lingering cows. 
 In the pine wood there was a measured thud 
 thud. The snow-wreaths were slipping onto 
 the roof of the mortuary chapel, wreath to 
 wreath, ice to ice, snow to snow. 
 
 In the hotels the steps of the waiters had 
 177
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 quickened. On the balconies the faces of the 
 invalids had become alert. Life was among 
 them, tossing her balls from hand to hand. 
 Major Sanderson had not even strength to open 
 his palm as she passed him. 
 
 The restlessness in the air seized Jerningham. 
 The time would soon come when he must go 
 away, beggared of ambition and the few grudg- 
 ing gifts that hope had given. 
 
 If he had had his music still. But it would 
 never satisfy him again. Sonnie had made him 
 see the futility of it; his art was cold and dead. 
 Simplicity's eyes accused him of crawling through 
 life. Well, he would crawl back to the big, piti- 
 less London, that sucked in life's failures and 
 nourished itself with the blood of man's vain 
 aspiring and yet Ah, how the prospect 
 stifled him! 
 
 He sprang up. He would climb the Brunberg; 
 climb and climb until this beating of baffled 
 wings, this sound of music clamouring, settled 
 again into the toneless peace he had become 
 accustomed to. 
 
 It was the spring in his blood that had stirred 
 it. He would climb get higher and higher, 
 walk until he dropped, until this fluttering 
 motion of life and sound of music dropped, too, 
 and died of its own struggle to live. 
 
 The path twisted in and out of the wood, 
 between the ranks of solemn pines that stood to 
 178
 
 Simplicity 
 
 watch it going by. The snow had been beaten 
 down by feet passing. Now and then the dull 
 thud of falling snow broke the silence. High 
 up the path a peasant went jodelling. The 
 breath of resin charged the air with springtime. 
 The great patience of nature lay white and wait- 
 ing among the roots. In the top of the pines a 
 light wind sang like the high notes of the violin. 
 
 "Sonnie listened to what the wind told him, 
 and he put it into music." Miss Busybody's 
 voice drifted by. 
 
 Jerningham climbed up and up, but he could 
 not get away from her voice from the tumult 
 in his pulses. Strange harmonies strove in him 
 with a beating of baffled wings. His quick, 
 short breaths came gustily in the struggle. The 
 high notes in the pines tingled through and 
 through him. He heard a fine, wavering melody 
 with a measured underbeat in the song of the 
 wind. He stopped, breathless, and leaned 
 against a tree. 
 
 Voices were in the wood, winding about him 
 with the winding of the path. 
 
 "You dear man! Well, I'm just as happy. 
 But it's impossible I don't believe " 
 
 Jerningham did not hear the end of the sen- 
 tence, but the man's reply fell on his ear with 
 the sound and the weight of falling snow. 
 
 "Not love you? Who could help loving you? 
 Don't you know how frank and generous and. 
 179
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 womanly you are? I'll not forget the first day 
 I saw you. You came along the valley singing 
 one of my own songs." 
 
 Every muscle in Jerningham's body tightened 
 to hear the woman's voice, but the winding of 
 the road caught it away. By and by the deeper 
 voice rang out: 
 
 "Of course it's all right. You are going to be 
 very happy with the man you love. How queer 
 all this is. And I thought you were grave 
 because my songs bored you." 
 
 Simplicity's laugh sprinkled the wood with 
 gay little echoes. "Your songs? What conceit! 
 Goodness! I concern myself with songs when I 
 was haunted by a silence?" 
 
 Jerningham twisted an arm round the tree to 
 keep himself from falling. His blinded eye 
 struck the path below. There was a dash of red 
 behind the lattice of pines. 
 
 Late that evening he returned to the hotel. 
 He hoped no one would see him come in, but 
 Simplicity was in the hall, walking restlessly up 
 and down. 
 
 He saw her face change, but his own was dead. 
 She ran forward, holding out her hand. 
 
 "You look like a sick man! Where have you 
 been all day? Come right into the reading-room; 
 I saw to the fire. Why, you are as numb " 
 
 She drew him into the room, and pushed him 
 into the chair before the fire. 
 180
 
 Simplicity 
 
 'Now toast yourself well. Where have you 
 been? I declare you frightened us all. We 
 thought of avalanches and ravines." 
 
 "No," he said, huskily; "I was in the wood. 
 I had been dreaming, but I woke woke in 
 time " 
 
 "Good for you!" she cried, half -sob in her 
 laugh. "Why, you might have been asleep still, 
 frozen to death." 
 
 "It is the music in me that is frozen to 
 death." 
 
 "Say you so?" She sprang up and gazed at him 
 with flashing eyes. "You are wrong! It appears 
 to me that the music has wakened. You have 
 it in your face your eyes are so deep. It is 
 Sonnie's own look when he played." 
 
 "I shall never play again." His tired voice 
 trailed a shadow across her eyes. "My life is 
 over. I am a defeated man; one of life's fail- 
 ures. Even Love has cast me out." 
 
 "Ah, no! not that!" she cried, passionately. 
 "How can you say that, when when " She 
 choked, but went on again, an eager intensity in 
 her voice. "A failure? defeated? Why, it's 
 just that which makes the artist. When Sonnie 
 died I had the biggest hopes of you. I said to 
 myself: 'Now he will find his art; now he will 
 feel and make us feel. When the sob is in his 
 heart it will sound in the strings.' But it didn't. 
 I waited till I was sick with waiting to hear that 
 181
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 violin. Sonnie's death didn't teach you any- 
 thing. It only dried up your manliness." 
 
 "It taught me a hard lesson," he said, dully. 
 "Don't let me forget that I have learned it." 
 
 He rose unsteadily and held out his hand. 
 Pain had bleached his smile. "Good night, and 
 good-bye; I start for England to-morrow." 
 
 He dropped her hand and turned away with- 
 out looking at her. Then he paused, hesitating. 
 
 "My dear," he said, brokenly, "I hope you 
 will be very happy with the man you love." 
 
 Simplicity was staring at him with colourless 
 lips parted. Her eyes looked like cages in which 
 the singing-birds had dropped, wounded. At his 
 words the colour rushed back to her face, the 
 birds fluttered up again to their perch. She 
 laughed, a curious, shattered laugh. 
 
 "Why, if this isn't the funniest thing I ever 
 heard," she began. The words broke off. She 
 dashed past him out of the room. 
 
 Jerningham packed, his face grown stern. 
 
 "I didn't think she was quite so heartless," 
 he said to himself. But when he put the violin- 
 case with his Gladstones, her words came back 
 to him: 
 
 "When the sob is in the heart, it will sound 
 in the strings. Defeat and failure make the 
 artist." 
 
 "If that is true, I should be an artist," he said. 
 "But I am no artist. I will never play again." 
 182
 
 Simplicity 
 
 "I grew sick of waiting to hear that violin." 
 Well, she would never hear it again. 
 
 He took the Strad out of the case and gazed 
 at it. He could almost see Sonnie's face bend- 
 ing over it; he could almost hear the music the 
 boy had played a fine, wavering melody, with a 
 measured underbeat in it. The music must be 
 in the strings yet. They had not been touched 
 since they touched Sonnie's coffin. 
 
 He struggled with the impulse to play. It 
 fought with his will. He felt the beat of baffled 
 wings. 
 
 At last he straightened himself. "Once 
 again, " he said; "I will play this once. I will 
 lay the music on the face of the dead." 
 
 He took the violin downstairs, and went onto 
 the balcony. No one was there. The lights 
 were out. The mist was heavy on the valley. 
 He seemed to be following Simplicity's sound- 
 less feet across the snow. The night was full of 
 the tramp of feet stepping to a fine, wavering 
 melody. It was Sonnie playing again! It was 
 Sonnie playing again ! 
 
 With a sob, half-agony, half-delight, Jerning- 
 ham swept the bow across the strings, and the 
 music'leaped forth. 
 
 He played on and on, to the tramp of that 
 
 procession of the dead ambition, pride, the 
 
 lust of life, the desire of the eye. Cowled and 
 
 hooded they passed him. He played on and on, 
 
 183
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the notes sweeping upward, deepening, flooding, 
 till the whole valley heard the tramp of passing 
 feet. 
 
 As the last faint note was folded in mist Jern- 
 ingham sank down trembling. He could still 
 hear the feet passing. But it was the tap of 
 Simplicity's heels on the balcony floor. 
 
 She kneeled down beside him, and laid her 
 face on his hand. He knew by her tears that 
 she was weeping. 
 
 "I heard you playing; I stood and listened till 
 I couldn't keep my senses. It seemed to me 
 that I was letting my life go past me. I saw the 
 dead folk while you played. And the last turned 
 and looked at me, and I saw Love going by to 
 join the dead." 
 
 She sobbed comfortlessly a moment, then 
 lifted her head with a sudden passion. 
 
 "And I'm not going to be such a fool as to let 
 Love pass me and die for the want of a word. 
 It's all miserable, heartless convention that 
 keeps a woman silent when Love is passing her 
 for the want of a word. Oh, you genius, my 
 genius!" Her voice was tender and soft and 
 infinitely womanly. "Don't you know when a 
 woman loves you?" 
 
 "What is this? What?" Jerningham faltered. 
 "I thought it was Romsey. Isn't Romsey the 
 man you love?" 
 
 "Romsey? Why, Romsey's engaged to my 
 184
 
 Simplicity 
 
 best friend. That's how I came to know his 
 songs. Besides, he knew all the time I loved 
 you. Why, do you think I'd have kept up all 
 these weeks if that dear creature hadn't helped 
 me? And now? Oh, my dear man! You shan't 
 go away if I can keep you. I want you. I want 
 to be very happy with the man I love." 
 
 "I think I am dreaming I must be dream- 
 ing," Jerningham stammered. 
 
 "We are such stuff as dreams are made of," 
 Simplicity said. The words were a fine, waver- 
 ing melody with an underbeat in them. 
 
 185
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARIE 
 
 Boykin lived with his mother in a chalet at 
 Pitzen, and every day there were words between 
 Miss Busybody and her nurse, Marie, as to the 
 road they should take. Miss Busybody liked 
 nature and Pitzen; Marie preferred Mittenplatz 
 and the chance of seeing Dr. Engel's coach- 
 man, Jakob Meyer. 
 
 "I'm going to Pitzen." Miss Busybody 
 planted her snow-shoes firmly one day. "There 
 is pines and chalets at Pitzen." 
 
 "Ach! but the shops at Mittenplatz!" Marie 
 said, in German. 
 
 "I hate shops, Marie. And I don't want to 
 talk to Jakob Meyer. He's not velly amusing. 
 He only says "Ja wohl. " 
 
 "But the Herr Doctor, liebchen, " Marie 
 coaxed. "The Doctor that thou lovest, whose 
 pockets hold gifts for thee. Ach! how pleasant 
 to meet him!" And Marie spread out her arms 
 rapturously. 
 
 Miss Busybody looked fixedly towards Pitzen. 
 
 "Ach, Gott! the obstinate!" Marie sighed, 
 186
 
 Marie 
 
 But she must see Jakob that morning before 
 Berta, Boykin's nurse, came into town. 
 
 "Look, sweet one," she said; "we will go to 
 the wonderful hen that lays the sugar eggs. And 
 who can tell? I may find twenty centimes for 
 thee. " 
 
 Miss Busybody brightened. Two sly little 
 devils came into her eyes and stayed there. 
 She turned slowly towards Mittenplatz. 
 
 "Give me the centimes first." 
 
 "Ach, the cunning rogue!" Marie searched 
 her pockets. 
 
 "Here, then. Now hasten, for we are late." 
 
 She dragged Miss Busybody along the road, 
 her eyes darting from side to side in search of 
 the Doctor's sleigh. 
 
 And there it was, before the Kurhaus! Ach! 
 if the Herr Doctor should come out and drive 
 away before she could speak to Jakob ! 
 
 She pressed on, Miss Busybody trotting will- 
 ingly to match her pace. Heaven was kind. 
 The sleigh was yet at the door; Jakob still 
 crouched in his fur cape on the box. He looked 
 cold. Marie's rosy smiles might have warmed 
 him, but he remained chilly while she poured out 
 a torrent of persuasive German. As she fin- 
 ished, the Doctor's voice was heard speaking 
 sharply in the Kurhaus. 
 
 "Ja wohl!" Jakob said, hastily, and gathered 
 up the reins and straightened himself. 
 :8 7
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Marie dragged Miss Busybody across the road, 
 and stood gazing pensively at the Kurhaus gar- 
 dens. 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Busybody," Engel 
 called, and kissed his hand to the child as he 
 hurried into the sleigh. Miss Busybody turned, 
 smiled shyly, and hung behind Marie's skirts. 
 
 "Catch!" said Engel, and threw a little parcel 
 at her as he passed. 
 
 "Chocolates!" Miss Busybody beamed, with her 
 mouth full. By and by she looked up at Marie. 
 
 "I know what the Procession of the Betrothed 
 is, Marie. Karl and Babette are going to drive 
 in it, too. Dr. Engel has lent them his sleigh. 
 Are you going to drive with Jakob in the Proces- 
 sion der Verlobten, Marie?" 
 
 "I don't speak of Jakob," said Marie, growing 
 very red. "On Sunday there is the procession 
 of the children, when those who love drive out 
 on their toboggans with garlands and great glad- 
 ness. " 
 
 "But don't you love Jakob, Marie? Boykin 
 says Berta loves him. She wants to be betrothed 
 to him, like Karl and Babette. And you told 
 Jakob you would go in the Procession of the 
 Betrothed; you know you did, Marie." 
 
 "Ach was!" Marie sighed. "See, kindchen, 
 
 don't speak of this; and if thou art silent, thou 
 
 shalt see the procession of the children. On 
 
 Sunday the boys take the little maidens of their 
 
 188
 
 Marie 
 
 hearts to Bergstein to keep fest. The toboggans 
 are decked with pine and roses. It is wunder- 
 schon. " 
 
 Miss Busybody pranced in the snow. "Yes, 
 yes! I want to see them. We'll all go Boykin 
 and me, and Karl and Babette, and you and 
 Jakob Meyer eh, Marie? Shall we all go?" 
 
 Marie lifted her eyes in despair. "The child 
 betrays all. And Berta will hear of it, and will 
 persuade Jakob, and they will betroth them- 
 selves. Dear little one " She took Miss Busy- 
 body's hand and pressed it earnestly. "If thou 
 speakest of this, thou canst not go. It is a tre- 
 mendous secret for the little peasants of the 
 Alps; but if thou art silent, thou shalt see the 
 procession of the children. Givest thou the 
 faithful promise?" 
 
 "I promise," said Miss Busybody, gravely. 
 "I promise velly faithfully only perhaps Fifine, 
 and perhaps Boykin. And I won't tell Berta, 
 either. Here's the hen. Come, Marie, come." 
 
 She trotted up to the automatic hen that sat 
 in the road on a wooden pedestal. Standing 
 on tiptoe, she could drop her money into its 
 mouth. The hen swallowed the twenty cen- 
 times, Marie pulled out a spring, a big white 
 egg fell into the net. 
 
 Miss Busybody stood, all eyes and delight, 
 while Marie opened the egg and read the motto 
 inside. 
 
 189
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Sweetheart mine, come fly with me; 
 Feast is spread for me and thee; 
 Crowned with garlands bright of flowers, 
 We shall sport through sunny hours." 
 
 "Ach, it is heavenly the joy of those who 
 love!" Marie sighed. "But thou hast eaten 
 chocolates; thou mayest not eat the sweets from 
 the egg." 
 
 Miss Busybody said nothing, but her teeth 
 met on the sweets with a determined crunch. 
 She folded the motto and put it back in the 
 egg. 
 
 "Miss Busybody! Miss Busybody!" 
 
 A little boy in a red cap was running towards 
 them, shouting. It was Boykin. Miss Busybody 
 ran to meet him. She put her arms round him, 
 and kissed him many times. He was a little 
 smaller and younger than she. Boykin wiped 
 off the kisses with the tassel of his cap. 
 
 "I met Philippa, " he said. "She's velly 
 pretty. Her hair curls better'n yours." 
 
 Miss Busybody gazed at him reproachfully. 
 She endured torments from curl-papers because 
 Boykin admired curls. 
 
 "I've got chocs and a sugar egg," she said, 
 stoutly. "It's got a motto inside it." 
 
 "I don't like chocs." Boykin looked at her 
 boldly as he told the fib. "And you can't read 
 the motto. There isn't a book in the world that 
 Philippa can't read." 
 
 190
 
 Marie 
 
 "I can read," she said, eagerly; "yes, I can. 
 I can read the motto as well as Philippa. " 
 
 She unrolled the strip of paper, and inspired 
 by the urgency of the situation, read glibly: 
 
 " Sweetheart, come out and play, 
 The little boys and the little girls are gay; 
 They are gay with flowers and play, 
 And drive each other in the sleigh." 
 
 She looked triumphantly at Boykin. "There! 
 and Philippa's older than me." 
 
 "I don't want to read," said Boykin, with dig- 
 nity. "And Philippa's hair curls." 
 
 "I've got a secret," Miss Busybody panted, 
 her chest swelling. "It's a tremendous secret, 
 and I've promised not to tell. The motto means 
 it, and I won't tell you." 
 
 "I don't want to know it. I've got a secret 
 with Philippa." Boykin strutted off, a hand in 
 each pocket, his red cap singularly defiant. 
 
 "Bo oy kin!" The word swelled with 
 tears, but Miss Busybody did not move. Boykin 
 walked on, kicking the snow about with his 
 feet. Marie and Berta, following behind, told 
 each other that he was a very naughty, spoiled 
 child." 
 
 "Boy oy kin!" Miss Busybody wailed. He 
 took no notice, and she trotted after him, sob- 
 bing. 
 
 "Boy kin, I'll never kiss you again." 
 
 "Philippa kissed me just now," Boykin said, 
 191
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 musingly; "one on both cheeks. She's got all 
 her tooths; yours has gaps in them." 
 
 "When I'm older I'll have tooths that take 
 out and put in again. Philippa's can't take 
 out," said Miss Busybody with spirit. 
 
 "Philippa hasn't got a sugar egg, and she 
 hasn't got chocs," said Boykin, thoughtfully. 
 "I loves you, Miss Busybody." 
 
 Miss Busybody suddenly showed all the gaps 
 in her teeth. "And I loves you, Boykin," she 
 smiled. "I'll tell you my secret, and I'll give 
 you all my chocs." 
 
 Boykin gravely accepted the chocolate. 
 "You're nicer than Philippa," he said; "and I 
 b'lieve she has a wig. Cook has. " 
 
 Miss Busybody flung her arms round him and 
 whispered the secret. "I don't care what Marie 
 says; I'll go, too," Boykin said when she had 
 finished. 
 
 This was on Thursday. During Friday and 
 Saturday the children were inseparable, and the 
 two nurses were forced to spend most of the day 
 together. This suited Marie, who knew that 
 Berta had fewer opportunities of meeting Jakob. 
 If they saw him in the sleigh, neither spoke to 
 him, and Marie dropped her eyes. She did not 
 wish Berta to suspect that she and Jakob under- 
 stood each other. Berta's pursuit of Jakob was 
 no secret. It had already made a coolness 
 between him and Marie ; but if they could be 
 192
 
 Marie 
 
 kept apart until Marie had driven in the Proces- 
 sion of the Betrothed with Jakob, there would be 
 nothing more to fear from Berta. Marie 
 dreaded lest Miss Busybody, who was a terrible 
 gossip, should betray her; and she invested the 
 secret with imagination and awe by making a 
 show of mysterious preparations for Sunday. 
 For those two days Miss Busybody and Boykin 
 kept their own secret. It was nothing new to 
 see them together. Miss Busybody's love affair 
 with Boykin had amused everybody. The court- 
 ship, the quarrels, the reconcilements of the two 
 were common property. 
 
 Miss Busybody had an engagement-ring of 
 Thun china, but it was seldom on her finger, 
 being removed with broken-hearted passion in 
 ever interval between quarrel and reconciliation. 
 Boykin's heart, while anchored to Miss Busy- 
 body, tossed between Philippa and Simplicity, 
 and Miss Busybody knew already the tender 
 pains of love. She did not mind much Simpli- 
 city's influence over Boykin, but she was herself 
 a victim to Philippa's gaiety and charm, and she 
 did not see how Boykin could resist them. 
 
 But for two whole days love had been tranquil. 
 The children were in no danger of forgetting 
 their secret. In every chalet in the valley the 
 little peasants were busy preparing for Sunday's 
 fest. At each door there was a toboggan of 
 quaint shape, which the boys were making
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 ready, polishing the wood, brightening the run- 
 ners. Boykin and Miss Busybody nudged each 
 other whenever they passed one. Sometimes the 
 chalet door stood open, and they could see the 
 long, low room, raftered with larch, the peat 
 glow reddening the beams, the flames leaping on 
 the polished pine settles round the walls. Some- 
 times, on the table, their eyes would be caught 
 in a tangle of coloured paper purple and green 
 and violet and gold from which the girls were 
 making loops of flowers. 
 
 And then Miss Busybody would push nearer 
 to Boykin, and whisper excitedly that she and 
 Marie had made better flowers than those, and 
 that her toboggan, dressed with four yellow flags 
 and beautiful red roses, was all ready for Sun- 
 day. And Boykin would draw in his breath 
 valiantly, and set his teeth over the desire to 
 tell the other boys that he was going, too, into 
 the Bergstein valley. 
 
 His face had grown serious during these days. 
 It was dreadful to keep a secret from Berta, but 
 he had given Miss Busybody the promise of "a 
 genkilman," and that promise Boykin never 
 broke. Miss Busybody had arranged his plan of 
 conduct. Next Sunday, instead of going to sit 
 with his mother after lunch, he was to slip out 
 of the house and hide himself in the pine wood 
 beyond it. Then when the procession came by 
 he was to run out and jump on Miss Busybody's 
 194
 
 Marie 
 
 toboggan, and Marie would be obliged to take 
 him with them to Bergstein. 
 
 Miss Busybody drilled the plan into his ears 
 whenever they stopped to watch the peasants 
 preparing for Sunday. And the nurses watched 
 the preparations, too, each pretending that pro- 
 cessions had no interest for her. But the chil- 
 dren's procession was only a forecast of the 
 Procession of the Betrothed that would take 
 place the following Sunday. 
 
 All Sunday morning Boykin's brow was grave 
 with surmise. His mother was lunching out, and 
 how was he to escape from Berta? How could 
 he slip away to join the procession if he had to 
 spend the afternoon with her in the nursery? 
 And what would Miss Busybody say if he broke 
 the word of a gentleman? 
 
 He had no appetite for his dinner. The tinkle 
 of bells and the piping of flutes added to the 
 confusion in his mind. The little peasants were 
 already gathering before the church at Pitzen, 
 and how was he to escape from Berta? 
 
 He looked at her wistfully, but she did not 
 notice him. Her face was furious; her brows 
 met above her nose. He wondered if she was in 
 a temper because she was not going with Marie 
 to Bergstein. But he knew better than to ask 
 questions when Berta was in a temper. 
 
 She finished her dinner quickly. Then she 
 took him to the nursery, and gave him his
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Noah's ark. She arranged in couples Noah 
 and his wife, and Shem and Ham and Japhet, 
 with their wives, and telling Boykin to set all 
 the animals in pairs, and not to move till she 
 came back, she left him. 
 
 A minute after Boykin heard the street door 
 slam. He ran to the window and stared with 
 big eyes. That was certainly Berta slipping 
 along the road to Mittenplat^. He stood look- 
 ing after her, his face puckered up to cry; but 
 all at once it occurred to him that now he could 
 run away. He turned back into the room, and 
 the silence and loneliness deterred him. The 
 flutes piped along the road, and the bells tinkled; 
 but now there was fear in the sounds, and his 
 face became graver. 
 
 "It's drefful hard to run away when there's 
 nobody to run away from," he sighed. 
 
 But he had given the word of a gentleman. 
 He found his snow-shoes, and put them on very 
 slowly; he had never dressed himself before, 
 and his gaiters proved too much for him. So 
 also did his overcoat, which refused to meet his 
 arms. At last, after manful struggles, he got 
 both arms into the sleeves. By this time the 
 coat was turned inside out, and the plaid lining 
 worn outside made Boykin look like a Swiss boy. 
 He caught up his cap, walked soberly out of the 
 house, and past the children gathered before 
 the church. The flutes and garlands and gay 
 196
 
 Marie 
 
 toboggans heartened him. As soon as he was 
 out of sight he ran till he reached the pine wood. 
 Then he crouched down behind a snowdrift and 
 waited for the procession. Meanwhile, Miss 
 Busybody was in her room, waiting for Marie. 
 The last sleigh, the last shrill flute had gone 
 towards Pitzen, and still Marie did not come. 
 Miss Busybody craned from the window. Under 
 the window she could see her toboggan, its dec- 
 orations shrouded by an old rug. Why didn't 
 Marie come? Everybody had gone, and she 
 would be too late to join the procession. Her 
 eyes filled; she stamped her foot in a passion. 
 And Boykin would wait in the pine wood, and 
 they would not be in the procession, and then he 
 would say she was a girl and not an honourable 
 man. And he would never speak to her again 
 and he would marry Philippa. 
 
 At this point Miss Busybody screamed, 
 "Marie! Marie! Oh, Marie, why don't you 
 come?" But now her voice was muffled by tears. 
 There came in answer a distant tinkle of bells, a 
 jangle of far-away music, the faint shouts of 
 children. She looked out of the window again. 
 Marie was not in sight. A sudden resolution 
 calmed her face and arrested the tears. She 
 turned back into the room, grave and purpose- 
 ful. It was no use waiting for Marie; she must 
 go alone. She must keep her word to take Boy- 
 kin to Bergstein. Her red cloak lay ready on 
 197
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 the bed. She passed it by and put on a black 
 coat. 
 
 "Where are you going, Miss Busybody?" said 
 Dr. Engel, who met her on the stairs. He lifted 
 her up and kissed her, and his eyes clouded. 
 She wriggled down from his arms. 
 
 "I'm going to Boykin, " she answered. 
 
 She hurried out of the hotel, and took her 
 toboggan and set out. Every one was at lunch, 
 the road was still deserted; it stretched before 
 her white and gleaming in the sun like polished 
 silver. 
 
 She ran along, her toboggan bumping behind 
 her, until she came in sight of the peasants out- 
 side the church at Pitzen. Then she slackened 
 pace and walked past them slowly. Her heart 
 was thumping, but her head was lifted with 
 splendid courage. No one spoke to her. At 
 the bend of the road she ran again, and arrived 
 breathless at the pine wood. There she saw the 
 print of Boykin's feet in the snow, and above the 
 drift the peak of a red cap. 
 
 "Boys is sillier'n girls," she said. "If Marie 
 had corned, she'd have catched Boykin by his 
 cap. I "membered to wear my black coat." 
 
 She dragged her toboggan round the drift, 
 and came full on Boykin, huddled together in a 
 heap. Relief brightened his face at the sight of 
 Miss Busybody. He was all at once valiant. 
 
 "I'm a brave boy," he said. "I'm braver
 
 Marie 
 
 than a girl. I'm almost as brave as a soldier. 
 I runned away all by myself, and walked miles 
 and miles fifty miles, I believe." 
 
 "That's nothing!" said Miss Busybody. 
 "I've corned from Mittenplatz, and that is a 
 very great distance. It must be more'n a hun- 
 dred miles." 
 
 "Where's Marie?" said Boykin. 
 
 "Marie? Oh, I b'lieve Marie is at Bergstein, 
 waiting for us." Miss Busybody lied boldly, 
 blushing. "And anyhow, Boykin," she added, 
 "if she does come, she will see your red cap and 
 send you back to Berta. " 
 
 "I won't go," said Boykin. "I'll put on 
 your tarn; there!" He snatched Miss Busy- 
 body's cap from her head and put it on. 
 
 "But my hair will come out of curl!" she 
 cried ; "and Marie will find me if I wear your red 
 cap." 
 
 "Put something over your head, like the other 
 little girls. Then they won't think you are 
 proud and wear a hat," said Boykin. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Miss Busybody; "and when 
 they come we'll tie our toboggan onto theirs, 
 and they'll think we are Swiss, too." 
 
 She tied her neckerchief over her head, and 
 the two crouched behind the drift and waited for 
 the procession. 
 
 "But I don't know what to say if they ask us 
 anything," Boykin whispered. 
 199
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "You must roll your eyes up, so, like Marie, 
 and say: 'This is the little maiden of my heart. 
 We love each other with great gladness, and we 
 marry each other. ' ' 
 
 "But, Miss Busybody, I'm 'fraid that would 
 not be quite the truth, " said Boykin. "I think 
 I think I'm engaged to Philippa. I kissed her. 
 She is a velly pleasant person." 
 
 "Philippa is nearly married to Dr. Engel 
 already. And besides, she doesn't like kisses. 
 I asked her why she didn't kiss Dr. Engel, and 
 she told me so. I know it was the truth, 
 because he was there, and he heard her, and he 
 got very red. And I asked her if it was because 
 he had a prickly beard, and oh, Boykin! they're 
 coming!" 
 
 She pointed to the road, and Boykin seized 
 her hand, and they stood up together, trem- 
 bling. 
 
 All around them was the snow, and over them 
 the deep blue arch of the sky. And far away, 
 where the white met the blue on the edge of the 
 Pitzenberg, there was a flash of moving colour 
 and a piping of flutes. Along the road it came, 
 the swift wonder of flags and garlands and 
 music, and the children crushed each other's 
 hand, holding their breath. 
 
 The procession was tailing to Bergstein. First 
 came a sleigh drawn by four grey horses, with 
 bells and garlands; and in the sleigh were the
 
 Marie 
 
 pipers whose notes stirred the valley from the 
 sheeted snow up to the gaunt forest-tops. 
 
 Behind the sleigh the little peasants rode on 
 toboggans tied in pairs, a long line that swayed 
 and screamed and laughed with the lurching of 
 the horses. 
 
 Each toboggan was decked with flags and 
 wreaths of flowers, and the boy guiding it wore 
 a garland of pine across his breast and paper 
 roses in his hat. The girl sitting behind him 
 was splendid in many-hued ribbons, and the pro- 
 cession wound like a broken rainbow on the snow. 
 
 Miss Busybody drew a deep breath; it was all 
 so pretty. But she had not time to admire. 
 They were coming! She dragged Boykin and 
 the toboggan to the side of the road. 
 
 "Achtung! Achtung!" she shouted, above the 
 noise of bells and pipes. "Achtung! Achtung!" 
 to the man driving the sleigh. 
 
 The little toboggan, magnificent in yellow 
 flags and red roses, had already caught his eye. 
 He handed the reins to another man. The pace 
 slackened; the horses stopped. He jumped 
 down, ran along the line, tied the toboggan at 
 the end, set the two children on it, and ran back 
 to his horses. In another minute Boykin and 
 Miss Busybody were bumping and swaying and 
 screaming along the road. 
 
 The giddy delight of it, the fun and the excite- 
 ment were enough; they had no time for
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 thought till they reached Bergstein. Then they 
 found that, in spite of their disguise, they had no 
 share in the fest. They followed the children 
 into a barn, and stood shyly watching while the 
 peasants ate strange Swiss cakes and dipped 
 their wooden spoons into the great bowl of curds 
 and honey. By and by they tired of being 
 onlookers. It was a dull fest. They wished 
 they were back at home. 
 
 "Let's go home," said Boykin, in a loud 
 whisper. "I love you, Miss Busybody, and I 
 don't intend to marry Philippa. We'll go home 
 and get married." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Busybody; "we'll get mar- 
 ried; then I won't have a nurse, and Marie can 
 marry Jakob Meyer." 
 
 "No, she can't," Boykin said; "he's going to 
 marry Ber.ta. She will betroth to him on Sun- 
 day. I heard her tell cook." 
 
 They were on the road, and they stood out of 
 the way of a sleigh that was coming towards 
 them. 
 
 The woman in the sleigh was smiling very 
 much. The eyes she turned to the man were 
 glad and tender. Marie had played well; the 
 game was in her hand. Jakob was driving her 
 to Siilschen to see his mother. They would 
 return to Mittenplatz pledged lovers; and next 
 Sunday she, and not Berta, would drive with 
 Jakob in the Procession of the Betrothed. 
 
 202
 
 Marie 
 
 All at once the gladness dropped from her 
 face. She had caught sight of the flags and 
 roses of Miss Busybody's toboggan. And there 
 was the child herself, standing with Boykin on 
 the road, ten miles from home! 
 
 Marie grew pale, but fear for herself was as 
 great as fear for her charge. Jakob's mood was 
 not to be trusted; his fidelity was lightly bal- 
 anced between herself and Berta. If he was 
 thwarted now, and they took the children home, 
 she knew well that Berta and not she would 
 drive with him next Sunday in the Procession of 
 the Betrothed. But her duty! She tried not to 
 see the forlorn-looking little creatures toiling 
 along the road. 
 
 How had they got there? And had the Frau- 
 lein Philippa forgotten her promise to take 
 charge of Miss Busybody that afternoon? And 
 how would they walk those ten miles back to the 
 Mittenthal? They could not get home before 
 dark ; she could see the tired little feet trudging 
 through the night. She heard their frightened 
 cries. Her heart melted. She could not buy 
 her own happiness at such a price. 
 
 Her eyes were hopeless when she laid her 
 hand on Jakob's arm. "Seest thou, Jakob, the 
 little naughty ones?" 
 
 Jakob looked stupidly before him. 
 
 44 Ja wohl." 
 
 "Thou must stop, Jakob. I may not go with 
 203
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 thee to see the dear mother." The tears broke 
 from her eyes. "Thou seest I must take the 
 naughty ones to their homes." 
 
 She looked pleadingly into Jakob's puzzled 
 face. His mind slowly grasped the significance 
 beyond the words. Marie refused to go on to 
 Siilschen after he had hired a sleigh for her. 
 What then? Berta would be willing enough 
 to drive with him next Sunday. 
 
 "The little one is an angel of sweetness," 
 Marie sobbed. "I may not leave her to suffer. 
 Thou wilt let me go, Jakob?" 
 
 "Jawohl, " said Jakob, grimly, drawing in the 
 reins. 
 
 At this moment there was a shout from the 
 children : 
 
 "Marie! Marie! dear Marie!" 
 
 They ran together to the sleigh. 
 
 "Oh, Marie! have you come for us? We are 
 so tired. We want to go home. We'll drive 
 home with you and Jakob in the sleigh." 
 
 Marie looked timidly into Jakob's face. 
 
 "Wilt thou drive us back, Jakob?" 
 
 " Ja wohl, " he said, sullenly. But so he would 
 get back to Berta more quickly. 
 
 "Hurrah, Jakob!" Boykin cried. "And I 
 will sit on your knee and hold the reins." 
 
 Before his sentence was finished he had clam- 
 bered into the sleigh and was on Jakob's knee. 
 Miss Busybody was climbing up the other side. 
 204
 
 Marie 
 
 Marie helped her in, and tied her toboggan to 
 the back of the sleigh. 
 
 "Hurrah! hurrah! Now we go home!" Boy- 
 kin snapped the whip. Jakob turned the horses 
 towards Mittenplatz. 
 
 "Now we are quite, quite happy," said Miss 
 Busybody, with a comfortable sigh. "And we 
 are a procession ourselves. We love each other, 
 and are betrothed Boykin and me, Marie and 
 Jakob. Do you love Marie velly much, Jakob?" 
 
 Jakob cleared his throat, but maintained a 
 sulky silence. His face wore a scowl. He was 
 thinking of Berta's black eyebrows. 
 
 "Do you, Jakob, do you?" Miss Busybody 
 persisted when he did not answer, and Boykin 
 looked up and echoed: 
 
 "Do you love Marie, Jakob? Do you love 
 Marie? do you, Jakob?" 
 
 "Ja wohl," Jakob growled, seeing that he 
 could not escape an answer. 
 
 Miss Busybody clapped her hands. "Now we 
 go home with mirth and great gladness. And 
 Boykin and me will be married. And you will 
 marry Marie, too, won't you, Jakob?" 
 
 And Boykin looked gravely at him : "Won't 
 you, Jakob?" 
 
 "Ja wohl," said Jakob, stolidly. 
 
 Miss Busybody gave a long sigh. "I'm velly 
 much relieved," she said. "I was 'fraid you 
 
 205
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 would marry Berta. Berta is not kind like 
 Marie; she pulls Boykin's hair." 
 
 "She slapped me once," Boykin said, pen- 
 sively; "and my father said she had a devil of a 
 temper." 
 
 Miss Busybody nestled closer against Marie. 
 "I love Marie," she said; "she is kind. She 
 gives me centimes for the hen that lays the eggs 
 with the booful mottoes." 
 
 Marie wiped the tears on her face, and smiled. 
 "Ach! the angel little one!" 
 
 "And my uncle says," Miss Busybody went 
 on, "that when Marie is married he will give her 
 a frock and lots of money, because she is good. 
 Will you be married to Marie velly soon, Jakob?" 
 
 Jakob did not answer. At last Boykin inter- 
 rupted his thoughts. 
 
 "Will you be married to Marie velly soon? 
 Will you, Jakob?" 
 
 Jakob's face had cleared. He snapped his 
 whip and made the horse trot. 
 
 "Ja wohl!" he said, cheerily. Then he 
 smiled at Marie. 
 
 206
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ROYSTONS 
 
 It was early winter, three years before Philippa 
 had come to the Mittenthal. That year the 
 frost had caught and bound the lake suddenly. 
 From Pitzen to the Griinwald it was a smooth 
 stretch of smoked glass, darker for the light 
 snow that lay on the fields and mountains. Here 
 and there the shadows of the hills threw a deeper 
 fold of night on the lake; and skating in and out 
 of the shadows, in and out of the bands of moon- 
 light, Royston and Adelaide Gower swayed 
 along the ice. Where the stream ran that fed 
 the lake the ice was still thin, and a row of 
 poles shouted warning in the silence. The two 
 skaters seldom spoke. Royston was guiding the 
 girl, their hands intertwined, and the loneliness, 
 the moonlight, the measured motion, held him 
 in a dream. He could have gone on like that 
 forever, held to life only by the closeness of the 
 girl's clasp. 
 
 "We are on the thin'ice!" 
 
 Her voice, shrill and startled, rang suddenly. 
 207
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 He woke, and the next instant swung out be- 
 yond the poles. Then he laughed. 
 
 "Little coward! Did you think you were in 
 danger?" 
 
 "What else?" she said, petulantly. "Thin 
 ice and thirty feet of water. If we had gone in, 
 we must have been drowned." 
 
 He smiled confidently. "You at least would 
 have been saved." 
 
 "At the cost of your life?" Her voice soft- 
 ened. 
 
 "Why not? It's no hardship to die in saving 
 another life." 
 
 She shuddered. "I couldn't do it; I love my 
 life too much. I love it so much I would accept 
 it at any cost." The soft voice made the words 
 harder. 
 
 "Fortunately," Royston said, drily, "there is 
 no need to sacrifice any one's life." 
 
 "And even if you had fished me out, I might 
 have died from the chill," she said, musingly. 
 
 He had to laugh; she was so frankly selfish. 
 Then his face softened. "I forgot that you are 
 a delicate little thing. You are always so gay 
 one doesn't think of you as an invalid." 
 
 "I'm not an invalid," she cried. "I'm quite 
 strong. I can do everything that other people 
 do, except leave the Mittenthal. " 
 
 "But that is hardest of all! This place is 
 glorious for a short stay, or if one is ill, but I 
 208
 
 should hate it if I were condemned to live in it 
 all my life." 
 
 "Oh, no, you wouldn't! The mountains have 
 a fascination. After you have once felt it, it's 
 impossible to live anywhere else. Besides, some- 
 thing pleasant comes along every day to make 
 you forget you are a prisoner. To-night, for 
 instance, makes up for all I have suffered 
 here." 
 
 "But that is absurd," he said, practically. 
 "How can an hour's skating atone for years of 
 suffering?" 
 
 There was a conscious note in her laugh. 
 "Oh, I don't know; but I am happy. I like all 
 this the mystery, the moonlight, gliding on 
 and on, alone with you." 
 
 Royston could not fail to understand the 
 stress on the last word. When he spoke next 
 there was a perceptible dryness in his manner. 
 
 "We ought, perhaps, to be going back now, 
 Miss Gower. " 
 
 "So soon?" she cried, dismayed. "It can't 
 be nine yet. Besides, I want to have some sup- 
 per at the Grtinwald. " 
 
 He looked at the head of the lake, a mile 
 away, where the light of the hotel twinkled, and 
 he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Of course if you want supper. But it is 
 later than you think." He stopped and glanced 
 towards Pitzen, expecting her to agree to their 
 209
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 return, but she remained silent. The impatient 
 tap of her skate on the ice was the only sound. 
 He shrugged his shoulders again, and struck 
 out towards the Griinwald. But the charm of 
 the night was over. He even wished that he had 
 refused to go when she had proposed this moon- 
 light skating. They had not been wise to come 
 alone, either. If the ice had broken just now, 
 there would have been no help at hand. 
 
 "You are very dull!" She lifted a pouting 
 face to his. 
 
 "Am I? By the way, I thought some of the 
 other men were coming." 
 
 "They spoke of it. The Professor changed 
 his mind at the last moment. But don't you 
 like it better without them?" 
 
 Her voice was sharp. There was an edge, 
 too, in her silence when he did not answer. 
 
 At the end of the lake he took off her skates. 
 They climbed the slippery path to the Griinwald 
 without speaking. But supper restored their 
 good temper, and he sat on, amused at her 
 chatter, till the clock striking made him start up. 
 
 "Eleven o'clock! Impossible! We must go at 
 once. We can't get back before midnight. Are 
 you ready, Miss Gower?" 
 
 She looked at his disturbed face, and laughed. 
 
 "But, Mr. Royston, the hour is not criminal." 
 
 "My thoughtlessness is," he answered. "You 
 should have been asleep an hour ago."
 
 The Roystons 
 
 'Nonsense! This is great fun. Besides, I 
 would rather have one hour like this with you 
 than " She stopped. 
 
 Royston laughed awkwardly. He assured 
 himself there was nothing in the words. The 
 girl was always frank. 
 
 Well, they could only make the best of the 
 adventure. It would be pleasant enough to go 
 gliding along the ice under the moon. He would 
 take the good of the moment, and leave the 
 consequences. He caught Adelaide's hand, and 
 they swung out on the black track of ice, singing 
 a skating song they had learned that year in the 
 Mittenthal. 
 
 " In the ice on which we hover 
 
 We but see the mirrored moon, 
 As we chase the brightness of her 
 
 On the ringing iron shoon 
 But the black abyss is under, 
 
 And the silence and the wonder 
 Of the sleeping night lagoon; 
 
 And black as death 
 
 Is all beneath; 
 And the thawing cometh soon." 
 
 "I don't like the words," she said, when they 
 stopped. "They are stupid and solemn. Why 
 should we be reminded of death? Oh, there is 
 nothing better than life! It is good to live, to 
 see the moonlight and the great mountains, and 
 to taste the cold. One drinks joy in this air, 
 and the silence is like wine." 
 
 211
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Youth is better than life," he answered. 
 "To feel the blood swing in the veins to know 
 that one has power and time to carve one's 
 future." 
 
 "But what is youth?" she asked. 
 
 "That is youth to see life and to be glad; to 
 see death, and not to fear it." 
 
 He felt her fingers close tighter on his. 
 
 "I fear death," she whispered. "You called 
 me a coward to-night, and it is true. Dr. Engel 
 says I am quite well, yet I dare not go away from 
 the Mittenthal lest I should get ill again and 
 die." 
 
 "Poor little girl! If I could save you from 
 death, I would. It would be work worth doing." 
 
 "But you are doing fine work, aren't you? I 
 heard about the speeches you made last session. " 
 
 "They were nothing. But I hope to make a 
 career for myself." 
 
 She looked up at him, and saw a wavering 
 determination on his face. 
 
 "I believe you could do anything that you 
 tried to do," she cried, enthusiastically. 
 
 "I should try to do anything that I ought to 
 do." 
 
 "You talk like an old man," she said; "yet 
 you have the great gift of youth. I don't want 
 your great gift if it makes you solemn. Laughter 
 is a greater gift things joyous, and mirth and 
 love."
 
 The Roystons 
 
 "You almost persuade me that the greatest 
 of these is love." He smiled at her as he 
 spoke. Yes, he was almost persuaded. She was 
 pretty and charming. A wave of passion swept 
 him off his feet. Wasn't the greatest thing in 
 life love? 
 
 But in another moment he regained his emo- 
 tional footing. They had come to the bank. 
 He busied himself with her skates, and they took 
 the road through Pitzen, neither speaking. 
 
 Adelaide was shy and subdued. Royston 
 wondered if she could have read his thoughts, 
 that her manner was so conscious. 
 
 A little way from the hotel they met the Pro- 
 fessor, Dr. Engel, and some others, carrying 
 ice-ladders and ropes. Their late return had 
 spread rumours of an accident. 
 
 The search-party turned back with them, the 
 Professor shouting that it was always a mistake 
 to be guided by feelings of humanity. The Royal 
 was lighted still, and full of excitement. Fear- 
 ing an accident, no one had gone to bed. Ade- 
 laide escaped, laughing, from their questions; 
 but next morning she faced a sentiment from 
 which escape was not so easy. When she ap- 
 peared on the balcony where the invalids sunned 
 themselves, there was a sudden hush in the talk. 
 In the drawing-room it was the same thing. 
 The gossips were discussing her night adven- 
 ture, and with no gentleness. 
 213
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 Coming into the reading-room late that night, 
 Royston found her huddled up in a corner behind 
 the Lady, in abject misery. 
 
 He had not spoken to her all day indeed he 
 had shunned her; and now he went to her 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "Aren't you feeling well?" he said, stiffly. 
 
 She screened her face behind the paper, but 
 he heard her low sobs. 
 
 "Something has happened," he said, dis- 
 tressed. "Won't you tell me what makes you 
 cry like this?" He sat down beside her, and 
 gently drew aside the paper. She lifted her 
 face, all pale and downcast. 
 
 "These horrid, gossiping women!" she sobbed. 
 "I hate them all! Oh, what shall I do? What 
 shall I do?" 
 
 Royston's brow knitted. He knew what scan- 
 dal was saying. 
 
 "You would surely not notice a set of idle 
 tongues!" he said. 
 
 "Oh, but I do!" she wailed. "It makes me 
 wretched. I know what gossip is in a place like 
 this. A sentence is enough to take away a 
 reputation and that they should say such 
 things of me " She broke off, moaning. 
 
 Royston's face was stormy. He sat still and 
 said nothing. Presently she lifted herself. 
 
 "It is easy for you to sit there," she said, 
 
 214
 
 The Roystons 
 
 plaintively. "You don't care. You are a man, 
 and you don't care. But for me it is different. 
 You can't understand what it means to a girl to 
 be told that she that she is compromised." 
 
 She hid her face again, and her body shook 
 with her weeping. Royston looked at her in 
 great perplexity, his mouth hardening. 
 
 All this emotion seemed to him forced and 
 exaggerated. He had already been told that he 
 had compromised the girl, but the thing had 
 seemed too trivial. He could not understand 
 that any one should give it a moment's serious 
 consideration, and here was Adelaide breaking 
 her heart over it. How soft and white she 
 looked colourless but for the garnets round her 
 neck. 
 
 Her trouble softened him, and he tried to 
 reason it away. But it was of no use. "Com- 
 promised" was the point on which all his argu- 
 ments were impaled. 
 
 "Go away," she said. "What do you care? 
 You are a man, and you can't understand. You 
 bring all this on me, and then you leave me to 
 bear it alone." 
 
 "But, my good girl " 
 
 "Don't!" 
 
 She sprang to her feet. The light ran along 
 her necklace like a circle of fire. 
 
 "I thought you were a brave man," she said, 
 
 315
 
 panting between each word; "you are not. You 
 are like all the rest. What does it matter if the 
 woman suffers? You are free. " 
 
 Royston made a step forward, his face pale 
 and set. "Tell me how I make you suffer." 
 
 She shrank from the anger in his eyes; her 
 eyelids quivered and drooped. 
 
 "It is horrrible, " she faltered. "You will go 
 away, and it will be nothing to you. But. peo- 
 ple are always hard on women. I have to stay 
 here and and ' ' 
 
 "Finish," he said, curtly. 
 
 "I shall not be asked anywhere any more, 
 because people will say I am not quite nice. 
 And I can't bear it." 
 
 She ran from him, and threw herself again on 
 the sofa, and hid her face in the cushion. 
 
 Royston remained staring at her, and as he 
 looked the lines of his mouth gathered strength, 
 though the light in his eye was uncertain. At 
 last he spoke, and the words dropped from him 
 one by one, colourless and dead. 
 
 "There is one way in which it may be borne 
 if you are my wife. Will you give me the right 
 to silence this gossip?" 
 
 Adelaide looked up. A sudden light darted 
 through the storm in her eyes. 
 
 "Your wife? To marry you?" 
 
 "Yes." The word seemed wrung from him 
 against his will. 
 
 216
 
 The Roystons 
 
 Her lips parted. A quick happiness tossed its 
 light about her. 
 
 "Ah!" She drew a long breath. "This was 
 what you meant last night when you said love 
 was best you love me?" 
 
 Her eager eyes did not wait for an answer 
 from his. They seemed to be darting from 
 thought to thought, and missed the irresolution 
 on his face. 
 
 "Love is best," he answered. Then he held 
 out his hand to her. "Then you will be my wife?" 
 
 She sprang to him and threw her arms round 
 his neck. 
 
 "Oh, my dear! What do I care for anybody 
 so long as you love me?" The pressure of her 
 lips fired the man's passion. His arms closed 
 round her. "Love is best! Love is best! Love 
 is best!" The words rained among his kisses. 
 
 It was not till the following week, when they 
 were discussing their plans, that Royston saw 
 what he had done. 
 
 "Leave the Mittenthal?" Adelaide laughed. 
 "Not for worlds! I should die in a month. I 
 can only live in the high air. No; you must 
 live here with me." 
 
 "But, my child, my work is in London." 
 
 "Bring your work here." 
 
 He laughed constrainedly. "You forget that 
 I am in the House." 
 
 217
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Then you must give it up." 
 
 She spoke quite simply and decisively. Roy- 
 ston turned away, biting his lips. He had 
 learned the uselessness of arguing with her, but 
 it was maddening that she should speak so calmly 
 of sacrificing his career. And why should it be 
 sacrificed? If she would not leave the Mitten- 
 thai, their engagement must come to an end. 
 
 She had no right to keep him in the valley for 
 a whim. He took two or three hurried turns 
 about the room. Then he moved slowly round 
 to the sofa where she sat. She had thrown her 
 head back, and was watching him through half- 
 closed lids. She smiled, and held out her hands. 
 
 "Well?" she laughed, softly; "well?" 
 
 "I must go," he stammered, avoiding her 
 eyes. "My work is everything to me." 
 
 "That was in the past." She blew a kiss at 
 him. "Now love is everything to you." 
 
 He looked down at her, a dumb appeal in his 
 glance. Her eyes held him bound. 
 
 Suddenly she lifted herself and twisted her 
 arms round his neck, and with a child's irre- 
 sponsible tyranny, drew him down. 
 
 "You are love's prisoner. What is your work 
 compared with my happiness? I will not release 
 you." 
 
 He smiled bitterly, feeling her arms like 
 chains about him. It was true what she said. 
 He was a prisoner but of honour, not love. 
 218
 
 The Roystons 
 
 "But I thought only rich men got into Parlia- 
 ment," she pouted, ten minutes later. 
 
 Royston shook his head; his face was very 
 pale. "Not all. I am a poor man. My elec- 
 tion expenses were paid by my uncle. I make 
 what income I have by journalism. At my 
 uncle's death I shall be rich, but that is not to 
 be counted on." 
 
 "Never mind; I have enough for us both," 
 she said, cheerfully. "Money need be no 
 obstacle. And you can still write. " 
 
 "I suppose so," he hesitated. "I can write 
 for magazines, at any rate." He knew that 
 Adelaide was well enough off. 
 
 "Of course you can. Oh, we shall be very 
 comfortable. We will take a pretty flat, and 
 have people to dinner every night. It will be 
 great fun better than hotel life. Now, confess 
 that you are a happy man. You have youth, 
 leisure, love all the gifts of the gods." 
 
 She smiled alluringly, but he gave her no 
 answering smile. His burnt out passion strewed 
 his life with ashes; it had been like a lava- 
 stream, quickly cooled, that now lay heavy on 
 life and ambition. But he had bound himself to 
 the girl ; and honour stood like a grim sentinel, 
 forbidding him to go beyond his word. 
 
 319
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 II 
 
 Frowning, Royston lifted his head from his 
 writing. The walls were thin, and the baby's 
 crying sounded through them. The child had 
 been crying all the morning, and more than 
 once already he had interrupted his work to 
 comfort it. 
 
 His eyes brooded over the scene in the next 
 room: Adelaide on the sofa in a litter of fashion 
 papers, too busy remodelling a gown to attend 
 to her baby. 
 
 His glance moved about him, and grew darker 
 as it fell on the disorder everywhere. This was 
 his study, but it might as well have been the 
 rubbish-room of the flat. All the overflow of 
 the apartment was piled into it saucepans were 
 on the stove, clothes on the sofa, shoes strewed 
 the floor, the baby's bath was in the corner. 
 
 It was a picture of the squalid life he had lived 
 for three years, and he ground his teeth as he 
 saw it. This was the end of his ambition a 
 loveless marriage, a frivolous wife, wasted days, 
 a house that shamed the meanest chalet in the 
 valley, and the burden of a neglected child. 
 
 He laid his head on his arms in his misery, 
 and strove to find excuses for his wife. It was 
 not altogether her fault. She was no manager, 
 220
 
 The Roystons 
 
 and could not train servants. She was not 
 strong, either, and since the baby's birth she 
 had lost her energy. It was his fault, who could 
 not afford to keep better servants because he 
 earned so little by his writing. In the three 
 years he had not made as much money as he 
 made in London in one year. He could not 
 control Adelaide's expenditure of her income. 
 She wasted it on herself; but he had not remon- 
 strated with her after the day when she had 
 retorted by an allusion to his poverty. 
 
 It was all the more maddening because it was 
 she who prevented him from going to work in 
 London. There he could have made an income 
 and a name, but here there was nothing that a 
 man could do. His youth was going, and his 
 strength. His mind was worn by the daily fric- 
 tion of Adelaide's moods; his will weakened. 
 "To see death, and not fear it; this is youth," 
 he had said. Now, "To see death, and pray for 
 it; this is to be old," he knew. 
 
 God! how he longed for death to end this 
 tragedy of waste! Release could only come by 
 death his own or his wife's. He jerked him- 
 self away from the thought, and sprang tfp and 
 went into the next room. 
 
 Adelaide held up an armful of laces to him. 
 "See what a lovely bodice I have made for to- 
 night? Now, confess that you have a clever 
 wife." 
 
 221
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "That child has been crying for an hour, Ade- 
 laide." 
 
 "Yes, poor little mite. I think he must have 
 inherited his bad temper from you. You grow 
 more like a bear every day." 
 
 "Why don't you quiet him?" he said, restrain- 
 edly. "Can't you see that he is ill?" 
 
 "And if he is, whose fault is it? How can he 
 be well when he never goes out? Other fathers 
 provide nurses and perambulators for their chil- 
 dren. " ("And the money you have spent on 
 that lace would have bought the perambulator," 
 he thought. ) 
 
 "He is not heavy," he said aloud. "You 
 should let Rosa take him out." 
 
 "I want Rosa to do my dress," she smiled. 
 "You forget that I am going to the dance at the 
 Royal to-night." 
 
 Royston turned away, lifted the child and 
 carried him onto the balcony, where he walked 
 about with him till he fell asleep. 
 
 By that time his anger had cooled. He could 
 even pity the irresponsible girl. Her taunt had 
 cut. It was he who had failed to provide for his 
 family. His power lay in political writing; but 
 what use was it to send to London articles that 
 arrived when the situation was a week old? He 
 cursed the weakness that kept him tied to this 
 woman's will. She was stronger than he, and he 
 
 222
 
 The Roystons 
 
 could not free himself from her arms round his 
 neck. 
 
 He had tried the magazines, but his pen was 
 new, and it was difficult to secure foothold there. 
 He would have taken a pupil, but he shrank 
 from disclosing the secrets of his household. He 
 wanted no witness to the daily scenes with Ade- 
 laide. He had tried to find pupils in the hotels, 
 and had failed. 
 
 He was fettered on every side; the outlook 
 was hopeless. At nine o'clock that night Ade- 
 laide came into the study, where he sat bending 
 over the child's cradle. She was in white from 
 head to foot, except for the garnets. 
 
 "Well, aren't you going to tell me that I look 
 nice?" she said, gaily, tapping his shoulder with 
 her fan. 
 
 He pointed to the baby, gasping in its sleep. 
 "Child, child," he groaned, "have you no heart?" 
 
 She looked down at the cradle, a swiftly pass- 
 ing tenderness in her face. 
 
 "What a poor white mite it is!" She drew on 
 her glove slowly and thoughtfully. "Do you 
 know," she went on musingly, "it is one of the 
 disappointments of my marriage that I didn't 
 have a little daughter. It would have been fun 
 to dress her in pretty clothes. But what can you 
 do with a boy?" 
 
 "You might keep him clean," said Royston, 
 significantly. 
 
 223
 
 "And be scolded for extravagance in laundry 
 bills?" she smiled. "Ah, there is the sleigh. 
 Bother! the bells have waked him! What a 
 nuisance!" 
 
 The baby held up his arms and caught at the 
 red stones, and she lifted him and kissed him, 
 while Royston looked on in a melting silence. 
 
 She was so pretty and sweet, holding the child 
 and hushing him to sleep with the croon of the 
 soft, gliding song: 
 
 " In the ice on which we hover 
 
 We but see the mirrored moon, 
 As we chase the brightness of her 
 On the ringing iron shoon." 
 
 The sleigh-bells sounded again under the win- 
 dow, and she hastily gave the child to her husband. 
 
 "Take him, dear; I must go. You are very 
 foolish no.t to come, too. You see there is noth- 
 ing wrong with baby. He only wants to be 
 noticed a little." 
 
 "I tell you he is ill," he answered, shortly; 
 "and the illnesses of young children are not to 
 be trifled with. My dear," his anxiety thrust 
 an entreaty through his impatience, "don't leave 
 him to-night. See how soon you quiet him. The 
 poor little chap likes his mother best, you know. ' ' 
 
 She laughed lightly. "Booh! You are an old 
 woman! If I listened to you, I would never go 
 anywhere. Bye-bye, my baby." 
 
 She kissed the child and ran from the room, 
 224
 
 The Roystons 
 
 and Royston paced the floor miserably, the boy 
 in his arms. 
 
 When he slept he laid him in the cradle, and 
 sat down at his desk. It would not be his fault 
 if they could not have things different. Hours 
 passed while he wrote, and through his writing 
 throbbed the heavy breathing of the child. All 
 at once it changed to a quick gasping, and 
 Royston, springing up, saw the boy's limbs con- 
 vulsed. He shouted for Rosa, asleep in the 
 kitchen, and sent her for Dr. Engel. And then, 
 for an awful hour, alone and helpless in his 
 ignorance, he watched the tiny struggle for life. 
 When Dr. Engel came at last Royston looked up 
 dumbly. The shadow of death was on his face, 
 too. 
 
 The silence was broken by the sleigh-bells. 
 
 Royston lifted his head, and a scowl came into 
 his eyes. He could not forgive the woman who 
 had left her child to die. 
 
 His stern face met her when she looked in at 
 the door, her eyes shining, her face rosy, hap- 
 piness in every quick breath. 
 
 "Such a delicious dance, Edward! I didn't 
 sit out once, and " She stopped in the middle 
 of the floor and frowned at him. 
 
 "Well, at least you needn't look like a thun- 
 derstorm; I haven't done anything so very 
 dreadful." 
 
 225
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "You have done this," he said; and he caught 
 her roughly and dragged her to the cradle. 
 
 She shook herself free of him, glanced down, 
 and gave a cry. "Oh, who has killed my little 
 baby?" 
 
 ''''You have killed him," Royston said. 
 
 She turned terrified, appealing eyes to him, 
 but his face was relentless. With an instinct of 
 protection, she snatched up the child, and hold- 
 ing him close, crouched behind the cradle, sob- 
 bing tearlessly. The dead face lay pallid against 
 her bare bosom. Presently she began to rock 
 herself, hushing the baby with broken notes of 
 the song she had sung to it before. 
 
 Royston could not bear the sight. Pity mas- 
 tered him, and he stooped, and would have taken 
 the child from her, but her arms tightened and 
 she sprang up. 
 
 "Don't touch him!" she cried, shrilly. "Don't 
 dare to touch him ! You have stolen my baby's 
 last hours from me. You might have sent for 
 me, but you let me go on dancing while he 
 died that you might say I murdered him. 
 Brute! to revenge yourself so!" 
 
 "I didn't think I called Engel I " 
 
 But she interrupted furiously: "Oh, don't 
 speak to me! Go away! All this misery is your 
 doing; I was so happy, and since we married I 
 haven't known what happiness is." 
 
 "Adelaide, my poor girl " Tears were in 
 226
 
 The Roystons 
 
 Royston's eyes. He stepped towards her, but 
 she moved backward, holding the dead child 
 between them. 
 
 "Don't touch me!" she said, coldly, suddenly 
 quiet. "Leave me; go away. I never want to 
 see your face again!" 
 
 The chill of the words numbed him. His 
 strength left him and his limbs shook. He 
 gazed at her, pity and weakness and pain in his 
 eyes; then he turned and stumbled out of the 
 room. He sat gazing with smitten eyes at the 
 night. Orion swung above the gleam of a dag- 
 ger. The stars died; clouds were folded about 
 the sky. Six o'clock tolled out from the tower. 
 It was another day. He went into the hall, and 
 his hand groped blunderingly on the rack for his 
 hat. It struck his skates hanging there. 
 Mechanically he took them down, and went out 
 of the house and on to the road. He did not 
 choose his direction. He went out blindly, 
 whipped on by Adelaide's voice. Now she was 
 saying, "I never want to see your face again," 
 and now, "Since we married I haven't known 
 what happiness is," and now she was singing 
 that horrible gliding song to the dead child. 
 
 The song mesmerized him. His feet crunched 
 the snow as he walked, but he knew nothing of 
 the frozen road and the starless hour. He was 
 in a dream, skating on the lake in the moon- 
 light, and Adelaide's hands were warm in his. 
 227
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 They burned like fire in his palms, and made 
 him unconscious of the cold that froze his blood. 
 The frost stabbed the valley with a thousand 
 knives, but he walked on untouched. He 
 reached the lake. Above him Schwarzberg and 
 Weissberg stood cold and silent, looking down 
 at a splash of night on the snow the large circle 
 swept on the lake for the skating. Beyond the 
 circle a long line of blocks of ice, newly cut, 
 looked like a procession of ghosts. 
 
 Still in a dream, Royston put on his skates and 
 slid out on the ice. He skated mechanically, 
 moving round and round and round that endless 
 circle. Presently the dim dawn glided in like 
 moonlight over the lake. He gazed round him 
 bewildered. It was surely the night he had 
 skated with Adelaide. She was skating here 
 beside hi.m, singing of "the black abysses 
 under " 
 
 But that was not true. No one was singing. 
 
 The silence shocked into his consciousness. 
 He looked round him, and understood where he 
 was and what had driven him there. And 
 beyond that night's work he saw clearly the work 
 of that other night which had fathered this. 
 
 "What a fool I was," he thought, bitterly. 
 "What a weak fool. Honour was not in the 
 question at all. No gossip could have done the 
 harm this marriage has done. I've sacrificed 
 everything to my weakness. And it's done no 
 228
 
 The Roystons 
 
 good. She hasn't known happiness since she 
 married me, while I fooled myself thinking she 
 at least was happy." 
 
 He struck out recklessly beyond the circle 
 towards the line of blocks that crossed the lake 
 like a pale procession. He did not notice the 
 poles that warned him away. A sound like the 
 crack of a pistol followed his curving path, but 
 he did not heed it. He could only hear Ade- 
 laide's voice: "I was so happy. All this misery 
 is your doing. " 
 
 Now here, now there, he swung on his skates, 
 trying to get away from the horror that held 
 him. The awful cold of the morning was in his 
 blood, benumbing sensation; despair was in his 
 heart, stupefying consciousness. He was close 
 to the last blocks, cut from the lake the day 
 before, but he did not see them. He was deaf 
 to the sharp snapping, blind to the warning poles. 
 
 There was a sudden crack of rent ice, a splash, 
 a muffled cry, and the water sucked him in. 
 
 He rose again, and struck out blindly, cutting 
 his hands against the edge of the splintered ice. 
 Life was strong in him, and the instinct to live, 
 and he caught at the floating ice that slipped 
 from his touch and sheered under the water. If 
 he could only reach the side where the ice was 
 thicker! But the water numbed his arms, dulled 
 his strength, dulled even the desire for life. 
 
 While he struggled, the sobs of his wife 
 229
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 rushed with the rushing waters in his ears, and 
 life thrilled again at the sound. 
 
 A block floated beside him. Strong in his 
 desperation, he swung himself to it, caught at it, 
 and partly lifted himself from the water. The 
 block was steady; he might even yet gain foot- 
 hold. His tortured eyes fastened themselves on 
 the ice, and saw it splashed with drops of blood. 
 They were like the round little stones of Ade- 
 laide's necklace. Under them, in the pale ice, 
 half-dazed, he seemed to see the gleam of the 
 dead child's face. Her voice rushed with the 
 rushing sound in his ears, "I never want to see 
 your face again." Once more the words froze 
 his heart. His strength went from him, and his 
 grasp failed. 
 
 The ice shuddered under him. With a long, 
 gurgling sob he slipped into the night. 
 
 The ice shook itself free, rose again, and 
 quieted with the quieting water. Snow began 
 to fall thick, steady flakes that closed about the 
 line of blocks and wrapped them round until 
 nothing could be seen of the ghostly procession 
 that had crossed the lake in the dawn. 
 
 "The child is dead. You must let me put him 
 in the coffin," Engel said. 
 
 Adelaide's arms tightened round the baby. 
 "If I could only see his face again," she said, 
 blankly. She had been saying it for twenty-four 
 230
 
 The Roystons 
 
 hours, holding the child's mouth pressed to her 
 breast. Engel's face was strained and baffled. 
 He could do nothing. He had scarcely left 
 Adelaide since he had heard of Royston's disap- 
 pearance. He was the only person she would 
 see. Royston's skates were missing, too; but 
 whatever secret their absence whispered had 
 been hushed up by the snow. It's sheet was 
 spread across the lake from end to end. A 
 white pall of silence lay also on Engel's face. 
 
 The day before, crossing the Pitzenberg in 
 the early morning, he had heard sharp, cracking 
 sounds. He had thought it was the cracking of 
 a peasant's whip, but it might have been the 
 snap of ice. He had not given any importance 
 to it until Rosa had told him that Royston's 
 skates were gone. But it was too late then to 
 find out the truth. The newly frozen ice was 
 covered with snow. 
 
 "If I could only see his face again," Adelaide 
 moaned. 
 
 "He may come back; he may not be dead," 
 Engel said, gently. 
 
 She was still in the low dress she had worn at 
 the dance. It was horrible to see the baby's 
 dead lips on the rose of her bosom. 
 
 "He is dead," she answered, dully. "I saw 
 him among the Todten-Volk. He carried my 
 baby. He was wet and dripping. He is 
 drowned in the lake " 
 231
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "The lake is frozen from end to end." 
 
 "He is there, drowned. If I could only see 
 
 his face again! If I could only see his face 
 
 again!" 
 
 "Let me put the child in its coffin." 
 
 "No, no; the poor little chap likes his mother 
 
 best." She tightened her arms again, and began 
 
 to sing, rocking backwards and forwards: 
 
 " In the ice on which we hover 
 
 We but see the mirrored moon 
 
 She stopped, and her gaze grew fixed; 
 
 " But the black abyss is under," 
 she went on; 
 
 " And black as death 
 
 Is all beneath; 
 And the thawing cometh soon." 
 
 "If I could only see his face again!" The 
 words came like the refrain of the song. 
 
 Engel's eyes were full. He looked at her, 
 not knowing what to do. "She ought to have 
 some woman with her," he thought. But she 
 had refused to see her friends, Frau Bullen and 
 Simplicity and Miss Blake. It seemed useless 
 for him to stay, but he could not go and leave 
 her alone there, nursing the dead baby. 
 
 He wished Philippa had been her friend 
 
 Philippa, who was gentle and sympathetic, and 
 
 who knew death. She would not jar on strained 
 
 nerves. He had seen her nursing Babette, and 
 
 232
 
 The Roystons 
 
 comforting Sonnie Baker's aunt. She was the 
 kind of woman who could help other women. 
 She would help this poor distraught creature, if 
 any one could. 
 
 He remembered that she had asked him to let 
 her work with him, and he had refused ungra- 
 ciously. It would be humiliating now to confess 
 that he needed her help. Teh! what was his 
 humiliation compared with Mrs. Royston's need? 
 He wrote a note quickly: "Will you come and 
 help me? Mrs. Royston needs you. I can do 
 nothing for her." 
 
 Philippa came back with Rosa, who had taken 
 the note. Engel met her at the door. Philippa 
 scarcely saw him. Her eyes sprang past him 
 to Adelaide and the child. Engel never forgot 
 the look on her face. She stooped to Adelaide. 
 
 "You poor soul! You poor soul!" The tears 
 ran down her face. 
 
 Adelaide looked up blankly. "If I could only 
 see his face again." 
 
 "You look so tired. Let me hold baby," 
 Philippa said. 
 
 She lifted the child and held him to her. Her 
 tears were his baptism. 
 
 Engel turned away with a lump in his throat. 
 
 Adelaide's eyes followed Philippa dully, a kind 
 of dead jealousy in them. She watched her lay 
 the baby in his little white coffin, and come back 
 to her. 
 
 233
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "He looks so happy in his little bed," Philippa 
 said, softly. 
 
 Adelaide's lips quivered. She burst into pas- 
 sionate weeping. 
 
 "If I could only see my husband in his coffin!" 
 she moaned. 
 
 The grey dawn wrapped the mountains. The 
 houses and trees hung in the mist, deadly still. 
 An awful silence froze the valley. The great 
 shadow of the winged angel hung low and had 
 not yet lifted. 
 
 People in hotel and chalet were still dreaming. 
 The eyes of the houses were blank and lifeless; 
 their lids closed to the passing of quick and 
 dead. 
 
 Along the frozen road the steps of the women 
 made no sound. They moved slowly, for the 
 child went with them, and his little feet had not 
 learned to walk. They moved slowly along the 
 valley, hedged about by the silence. Philippa's 
 knees shook as they went, but Adelaide walked 
 steadily. The two faces wore the same grey. 
 The little white coffin made a little white bridge 
 between them. 
 
 They went with bowed heads. Life held only 
 the long white road, the little white bridge, the 
 great silence. 
 
 The road wound upward to the friedhof. 
 When they came in sight of the gates, and the 
 234
 
 The Roystons 
 
 men waiting, Adelaide's steps dragged. She 
 took the coffin from Philippa and held it against 
 her breast, and lifted her face. 
 
 "This is not the grave," Philippa whispered. 
 
 "Six feet of space for that tiny span of life?" 
 
 "His father's grave," Adelaide said, in a thick 
 voice. "He will come soon." 
 
 They stood gazing down at the little white 
 bridge that was so small it could not unite the 
 two walls of the grave. Then Philippa took a 
 handful of snow and let it fall loosely through 
 her fingers. 
 
 "Snow to snow, ice to ice, star to star!" The 
 words fell hushed. The crystals fluttered down 
 on the little white bridge that was so long it 
 spanned the great gulf between death and life. 
 
 235
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MISS BUSYBODY 
 
 The Professor shuffled along the road that 
 crossed the Griinwasser and led to the Tannen- 
 wald. He shuffled slowly, his shoulders bowed 
 under a new weight of thought. The slant of 
 his hat on his forehead was the angle of depres- 
 sion. 
 
 "It -won't do, it won't do!" he muttered to 
 himself. "This affair of Royston's is an object- 
 lesson. As well depend on the devil himself for 
 an income as on your wife. It won't do! I'll 
 tell her so this very day. Nice woman, charm- 
 ing woman, sensible creature one in a thou- 
 sand; but it won't do! If poor Royston had 
 married her instead of that butterfly now! Ah, 
 poor fellow! Queer thing that he should have 
 gone where he knew the ice was thin very 
 queer, indeed. And queer that he should have 
 been found when they began to cut the ice again. 
 Poor fellow! Well, it's an object-lesson to me 
 not to set up house on my wife's money. I'll 
 tell her it won't do." He looked up, frowning 
 fiercely. "I tell you it won't do!" He ad- 
 dressed himself, testily. 
 
 236
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 The Pension Tannenwald stood before him. 
 He gazed at it, slowly shaking his head. What 
 ghastly hours he had spent there! How he had 
 missed Miss Blake! He had been miserable 
 without her. He would be miserable without 
 her again. But no. He could not do without 
 her. He would tell her that marriage was 
 impossible, but they would remain friends. 
 They would live in the same place always; 
 inseparable friends, but independent of each 
 other. A laugh pealed out, as if in mockery of 
 his scheme. 
 
 The Professor gave a great start, and pushed 
 up his hat to see who was laughing at him; then 
 his brow smoothed. It was only that little imp 
 of a Miss Busybody. 
 
 She was dancing along the road, dragging 
 Miss Blake with her. The Professor was aston- 
 ished to see that Miss Blake could run as well as 
 Miss Busybody. 
 
 She smiled a deprecating smile as she came 
 nearer. "I offered to amuse the little dear," 
 she explained. "You have heard about the 
 Major?" 
 
 "My Uncle Rob is velly ill," said Miss Busy- 
 body, with importance. "I must be amused all 
 the time, Professor, because he is velly ill, you 
 know. Marie says I'll be a bereaved like Mrs. 
 Royston." 
 
 The Professor shuffled along with the two. 
 237
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Marie says it's the snow melting that makes 
 him ill," Miss Busybody chattered on. "Phil- 
 ippa's going away when the snow melts, but Miss 
 Blake can't go, because she has no money." 
 
 "My dear, little girls should be seen, and not 
 heard." Miss Blake's blush cast a red glow on 
 the Professor's face. He stopped and faced 
 her. 
 
 "What do you mean by that? I thought you 
 were rich." 
 
 She shook her head cheerfully. 
 
 "Not now; I gave up my fortune, you know." 
 
 "The deuce you did! What made you do it? 
 To whom did you give it?" 
 
 Surprise shot through the tender light in Miss 
 Blake's china-blue eyes. 
 
 "Why, don't you remember? I gave it to you. 
 You surely remember the deed of gift?" 
 
 "The deed of gift?" said the Professor, 
 slowly. Yes, he remembered that letter now. 
 He stood lost in thought, his mind rapidly 
 grasping the situation. 
 
 "What is a deed of gift, Professor? Profes- 
 sor, what is a deed of gift?" 
 
 Miss Busybody plucked at his coat-tail to 
 attract his attention. 
 
 "A deed of gift?" said the Professor, 
 slowly. He was smiling at Miss Blake; the 
 tenderness in his eyes made the blue goggles 
 dim. 
 
 238
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 "A deed of gift is when a generous woman 
 gives herself in deed to a man who doesn't de- 
 serve her." 
 
 "Oh, Professor! indeed, not that," Miss 
 Blake murmured, dropping her words breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am; indeed that!" he insisted. 
 
 Miss Busybody looked from one to the other 
 with puzzled eyes. "You are two funny people. 
 I don't know what you mean! Oh, I see Dr. 
 Engel!" She dropped Miss Blake's hand. 
 "I'm going to take my Philippa to him. She is 
 broken, and he promised to mend her." 
 
 The Professor watched the fat gaiters scamper 
 away. When he saw Miss Busybody hurry Dr. 
 Engel into his house, he looked down at Miss 
 Blake, who was shrinking and fluttering like a 
 little bird newly caught. 
 
 "I'm a very good surgeon," Engel was telling 
 Miss Busybody. "The doll's arm is in splints; 
 I've put a bandage on, and you mustn't take it 
 off. To-morrow you can bring her to see me 
 again. Will you?" 
 
 Miss Busybody nodded. "Yes, I will. I like 
 to come and see your funny things, and those 
 dear, dear little bottles." 
 
 Her eyes swept round Engel's surgery, gath- 
 ering up every detail. Suddenly she clapped 
 her hands. 
 
 239
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "You've got Angel John! It's muvver's 
 Angel John!" 
 
 She was dancing with delight before the 
 bracket where the St. John stood that Philippa 
 had given Engel. 
 
 "It's muvver's! it's muvver's!" she shouted. 
 "Give him to me; I want to kiss him again." 
 
 Engel stood hesitating before the child. 
 The shadow was on his face again. He knew 
 that Miss Busybody was Isolde's child, and he 
 remembered the little St. John that he had given 
 to his betrothed in Florence. 
 
 "It is not your mother's," he said, slowly 
 handing the bronze to the child; " it is mine. " 
 
 "No, no! it's muvver's! the very same!" 
 Miss Busybody hugged the little bronze, and 
 crooned over it, forgetting Engel. 
 
 He turned away from the sight, and sat down, 
 covering his face with his hands. His sigh made 
 the child remorseful. She climbed on his knee 
 and drew down his hand. "Don't cry. I won't 
 take him away from you. But it is truly my 
 muvver's Angel John that she loved just dref- 
 fully. I know the story. I'll tell you, shall I?" 
 
 "What is the story?" 
 
 She settled herself on his knee, and lifted her 
 soft eyes to his. "My muvver telled it me," 
 she said, earnestly. "Angel John was just 
 awfully good the best man that ever lived. 
 And he loved a naughty lady, but she wasn't 
 240
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 good. And one day she took a big sharp thorn 
 and stuck it right through him, so that it went 
 through his heart. And poor Angel John went 
 away dreffully wounded. And God said to him: 
 'Angel John, go away into the wilderness, and 
 stay by yourself, and you'll forget the naughty 
 lady; and you shall eat honey and locusts to 
 make up.' And Angel John went away, and 
 stayed by himself and one day one day " 
 
 Miss Busybody's eyes were shining, her whole 
 face was shining with breathless happiness. 
 "What do you think? While he was standing all 
 alone, somebody came and stood by him some- 
 body booful, that had a kind face, and kissed 
 Angel John, and guess who it was?" 
 
 "I can't." 
 
 "No, you can't, because He had the dreffullest 
 long name, and it took me weeks to learn it." 
 
 "What was His name?" 
 
 "It was " She folded her hands, and her 
 voice dropped to the tone in which she said her 
 prayers. "It was Strong-Son-of-God-Immortal- 
 Love. 
 
 "I b'lieve you're crying; and that's great non- 
 sense, for I said I wouldn't take him from you." 
 She looked at Engel with great severity. 
 
 "No, no. Is that all the story?" 
 
 "'Tisn't quite all. There's the bit about the 
 Naughty Lady. Well, you know, she was dref- 
 fully sorry, but it was no use being sorry. And 
 241
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 she fretted about it. And she asked God to let 
 her go to the wilderness, to pull the sharp thorn 
 out of Angel John's heart. And God said: 'No, 
 you can't go; you aren't good enough. But I 
 won't forget him. And one day I'll send a good 
 woman into the wilderness, and she will pull the 
 thorn out.' That's all." 
 
 Miss Busybody remained silent, thinking. 
 Suddenly she spoke. "I know another story 
 about another John. I'll tell you, shall I?" 
 
 Engel nodded. 
 
 "Philippa telled me. This one was not a 
 great angel ; he was only a saint. And people 
 were cruel to him. And they sent him to live 
 all alone on an island in the sea. And he was 
 very sad. And God loved him, and didn't for- 
 get him. And He showed him things angels, 
 and cities made of pearls, and great glorious 
 rainbows that you can walk on right into 
 heaven. And God said: 'Tell what you see, that 
 poor men who are sad may know that one day 
 they shan't be sad any longer, for I will wipe 
 away all tears from all faces!' But I think God 
 must want a lot of handkerchiefs to wipe up the 
 tears of everybody that cries." 
 
 She scrambled down from his knee. "I'm 
 tired," she said. "It takes a long time telling 
 stories. I don't think I'll come again. I don't 
 like your house much. It feels velly dismal. It 
 makes me want my muvver again." 
 242
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 Miss Busybody's mouth was trembling. 
 
 Engel smothered a groan. He stepped sharply 
 to the door. 
 
 "Jakob, Jakob!" he called. 
 
 Jakob came from the kitchen, hiding a yawn. 
 
 "Ja wohl," he answered. 
 
 "Carry the child back to her nurse," said 
 Engel. 
 
 "Ja wohl," said Jakob. 
 
 He lifted Miss Busybody, who threw her arms 
 round his neck. "I want Marie; carry me to 
 Marie," she sobbed. 
 
 "Ja wohl," said Jakob. 
 
 Engel sat down again slowly. His face was 
 very white. His eyes did not stir from the little 
 St. John on the table, where Miss Busybody had 
 left it. The story she had told him was in his 
 heart, but he was thinking of the child. Had 
 she come to take out the thorn her mother had 
 struck into his life. He had come fresh from his 
 talk with Major Sanderson, when he had lifted 
 the only shadow on the face of the dying man 
 by telling him that he would adopt the child. 
 The Major's pension died with him, but he had 
 sheltered Miss Busybody's future by getting her 
 admittance into a school for officers' orphans. 
 He had begged Engel to send Marie with Miss 
 Busybody to the school after his death. 
 
 Engel's throat had tightened as he listened. 
 
 243
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "That gay little heart doomed to an asylum for 
 orphans?" 
 
 He had known that Isolde's people were dead. 
 Now Major Sanderson told him that he was 
 Stannard's half-brother and the child's only rela- 
 tive on her father's side. 
 
 "Let me take her for my own child," Engel 
 said, hoarsely. "She ought to have been my 
 child." 
 
 It had been settled only an hour ago. Engel 
 had felt, with a great throb of happiness, that 
 though he might never know love of wife, he 
 would be no longer childless. 
 
 And now Miss Busybody's story had shown him 
 that Isolde had not been heartless. It might be 
 that he had misunderstood her that day in the 
 Certosa; that in his haste he had forced her to 
 marry Stannard. Who could tell? He would 
 never know now. One thing he understood from 
 the child's story: she had never forgotten him. 
 She had kept the last thing he had given to her. 
 He remembered that she had called her child 
 Johanna. 
 
 Engel thought of his dead love in a wistful ten- 
 derness, sad and regretful, and yet without pain. 
 His life was no longer empty. He would have 
 Isolde's child for his own. It would not be 
 long now. He stepped onto the balcony and 
 looked across the meadow to the Hotel Royal. 
 His glance strayed about the window of the room 
 244
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 where Major Sanderson was fighting his last 
 fight. The window was open and the sun was 
 full upon it. 
 
 Standing there, Engel heard Jerningham's 
 violin sweeping across the moan of the Grttn- 
 wasser, a faint, mysterious throb that found its 
 echo in the beat of his heart. He remembered 
 the night when he had heard Sonnie's violin, and 
 it had waked his love for Philippa. His eyes, 
 fixed dreamily, grew very sad. Well, all that 
 was ended now. His silence must have killed 
 the love she had once confessed. If he had only 
 trusted her! What a fool he had been to doubt 
 her! Pain lashed his heart with knotted cords. 
 His face was suffering. And yet Isolde's love 
 had come back to him. He sighed heavily. 
 Ah, well, the child would fill his life. It would 
 not be altogether lonely. 
 
 A sudden white flash in one of the windows of 
 the hotel made his gaze waver. Some one had 
 drawn the blind in Major Sanderson's room. 
 
 Philippa sat very still, her head bent over 
 Miss Busybody, asleep in her arms. The child's 
 face was stained with tears. She had been cry- 
 ing because they had not let her say good-bye to 
 Uncle Rob. 
 
 "It isn't velly fair, I'm sure, Philippa," she 
 said. "All the time Simplicity held his hand, 
 and she said 'Death and Victory,' though it was 
 245
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 me he told to say it. And now everybody's 
 gone to the friedhof, and they wouldn't let me 
 go." 
 
 "I haven't gone, dear. You shall stay with 
 me." Philippa had hushed her to sleep, and 
 her face, bent over Miss Busybody, was grave 
 and purposeful. 
 
 The snow was melting in the valley, and the 
 great gates of the pass were open. One by one 
 the invalids were going away to the South." 
 Some were going who were no longer invalids. 
 It was good to see the bright faces and quick 
 steps of those she had known in the winter hope- 
 less and dying. They were now going away 
 cured. 
 
 "Oh, Life, here is thy victory!" Philippa 
 said Sonnie's watchword to herself as she thought 
 of the groups of merry people that paced the 
 balcony. Nearly all the chaises longues were 
 empty. The sun had healed the sicknesses of 
 some who had been sick. Some were going on 
 to recovery. Some Death had carried already 
 through the pass. Babette lay on the balcony 
 still, but she was getting well. Her lungs were 
 not diseased, and she would soon be able to go 
 home and prepare for her marriage with Karl. 
 
 It was springtime in the valley. Everywhere 
 there was a tinkle of dripping snow. The blue 
 dome of the sky was draped with yellow rays. 
 246
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 The great shadow had floated high above the 
 stars and melted in the sunlight. 
 
 The time had come for Philippa to make new 
 plans. She was free to troop away with the 
 happy troop into the valleys of the South. And 
 yet she did not welcome her freedom. There 
 was no stir in her veins. The blood ran chill 
 when she thought of leaving the Mittenthal. 
 The hands of the dead held her feet; the hands 
 of the living were round her heart. She was 
 loth to leave the place where she had tasted the 
 agony of death and the bitterness of love. She 
 thought of her father, and the empty aching in 
 her heart cried aloud to stay where at least she 
 might see his grave. She thought of Engel, and 
 memory stood beside another grave. But Love 
 was not there. He had risen. 
 
 "The pain has been good," Philippa whispered 
 to herself. "It has taught me to understand 
 life." 
 
 She would not have chosen differently if the 
 choice had been in her hands. She was con- 
 tent to have loved this strange, solitary, great 
 soul who had shown her what life was. If he 
 had loved her, her life would have been more 
 complete; it could scarcely have been fuller. He 
 had made it rich in possibilities. 
 
 "To love is better than to be loved," she 
 knew. She lifted her head; a proud, noble light 
 was on her face. It veiled her girlhood with a 
 247
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 high mystery. "I am free now to go down into 
 my vineyard and gather my purple grapes, and I 
 don't want to go. I have trodden the winepress 
 alone; and loneliness is better than laughter." 
 Memory dimmed her eyes, but the tears did not 
 fall. 
 
 She drew Miss Busybody closer to her, and a 
 shadow was thrown across the high light in her 
 face. 
 
 "If I had had a little child of my own but 
 I have only held a dead love in my arms." 
 
 She shook her head determinedly, and forced 
 away the shadow. "Life is living," she told 
 herself. She remembered how she had planned 
 to live royally in some beautiful place; but the 
 royal life was to be lived here in the Mittenthal, 
 where Death held his court. 
 
 She had meant to drink the sweetness of life, 
 but the sweetest draught was in the cup of pain. 
 She had intended to be one of the great women 
 of history. She had found that history often 
 knew nothing of the greatest. She had hoped 
 to listen to the song of the delight of life. 
 She had heard a sweeter voice singing at dawn, 
 and at noon, and at even through all the hours 
 of man's day and the song was the song of sor- 
 rows. It struck deep into her soul, and great 
 chords answered it. "Strength is a better gift 
 than happiness," she thought. "We only know 
 the sweetness of love by tasting its bitterness." 
 248
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 No, she would not leave the valley, where life 
 struck its deep notes; where she might serve 
 the lonely, the sick, and the dying. She would 
 make her home here, and share Engel's work. 
 In the life floating by with every season, chang- 
 ing as the tides change, there should be one lit- 
 tle craft anchored in the valley beside which he 
 could moor his own life. 
 
 He would need her, she knew. Some day 
 Miss Busybody would be glad to have a woman 
 friend who could take a mother's share in her 
 thoughts. 
 
 Philippa's arms folded round the little body. 
 She lifted her face, all wistful and tender, and 
 met Engel's eyes, soft and full of a gentle pain, 
 fixed upon her. He came into the room, ner- 
 vously crushing his hat in his hand. 
 
 "I have come for for my little girl." 
 
 He saw Philippa tighten her hold of the child. 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Engel! So soon? I don't know what 
 I shall do without her." 
 
 He moved his hat from one hand to the other. 
 "She had better come now, I think," he said, 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Yes," said Philippa, under her breath. She 
 looked at him with a dumb appeal in her eyes 
 that he could not meet. 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" she said. 
 
 The commonplace words plumbed the depth 
 of his heart. 
 
 249
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "Not now I am busy," he said. 
 
 "It's such a pity to wake her," Philippa 
 said with a half-sob, "when 'Life is a watch or a 
 vision between a sleep and a sleep.' ' 
 
 Her voice swooned with an unexplained agita- 
 tion. Engel's throat was strained to bursting. 
 He could not take his eyes from the gracious 
 womanhood that caressed Isolde's motherless 
 child. 
 
 His silence drew the girl's face to his. The 
 terrible hunger of love was in her eyes. Her 
 glance fluttered about and found no resting- 
 place. His eyes were flooded by waves of emo- 
 tion. Broken-winged, her own eyes sought the 
 shelter of the little child. Her breath came 
 gustily. She pressed the child to her to hide the 
 storm. 
 
 Miss Busybody woke, and sat up, rubbing her 
 eyes. She smiled rosily. 
 
 "I'm velly glad to be awake. I had a bad 
 dream. I thought I was all alone. Wasn't it a 
 funny dream, Philippa, when I was here with 
 you all the time?" 
 
 "Very funny, darling. And do you see that 
 Dr. Engel is here, too?" 
 
 Miss Busybody laughed. 
 
 "And your voice is funny, too. Don't you 
 like Dr. Engel, Philippa? Don't you think he is 
 a nice man?" 
 
 The question snapped the tension between the 
 250
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 two. A little merry twinkle sat astride a tear, 
 and pricked along Philippa's smile. 
 
 "Yes, I think Dr. Engel is a very nice man," 
 she said. But the dawning gaiety fell from her 
 face, rebuffed. 
 
 Engel bent down to the child. 
 
 "Come, Miss Busybody. I have come to take 
 you home, to live with me. You are my little 
 girl now." 
 
 The child threw herself back from him. Fear 
 darted into her eyes. "No; I won't be your 
 little girl. I don't want to live with you. I 
 want to stay with Philippa. " 
 
 She clung to Philippa, hiding her face on her 
 breast. Engel's face changed. 
 
 "You are my own dear little girl," he said. 
 "I want you to come and live with me. I want 
 some one to play with." 
 
 "I'll give you my dollie, if you like. But you 
 must be velly careful, for her arm is weak. You 
 can play with her. But I'll stop with Philippa." 
 
 Miss Busybody's voice came muffled from the 
 folds of Philippa's dress. "No, darling," said 
 Philippa; "you must go with Dr. Engel. You 
 are to be his little girl now." 
 
 "But I don't want to be it, Philippa. It's 
 velly dull at Dr. Engel's house. There's only 
 Angel John to play with." 
 
 There was an earnest trouble in the child's 
 voice. 
 
 251
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 "You shall have lots of dolls," said the Doc- 
 tor. The restraint in his tones made them cruel 
 in their hardness. 
 
 Miss Busybody gave him a sudden terrified 
 glance. "I won't go," she cried. "I'm 'fraid 
 of you. I don't like you to look at me so. Take 
 me away; please take me away, Philippa. " She 
 clung to Philippa, her soft eyes big with terror 
 and tears and entreaty. 
 
 Philippa's own eyes were full. She could only 
 hold the child close to her. Presently her voice 
 came back. 
 
 "Let me keep her, Dr. Engel. I would be so 
 glad to adopt her; I am able to provide well for 
 her." 
 
 "A promise to the dead is sacred," said Engel, 
 unyieldingly. "She must come now. No use 
 to repeat the scene. Come, Miss Busybody. 
 You shall drive in my sleigh." 
 
 "I don't like sleighs. I want to stay with 
 Philippa. Can't I, Philippa?" 
 
 Philippa shook her head. 
 
 Miss Busybody glanced from Engel to Philippa 
 and back again, and there came on her face the 
 expression that made Marie call her "the obsti- 
 nate." 
 
 "I'm not going with you; I'm going to be 
 Philippa's little girl." 
 
 "No, no, darling," Philippa said, brokenly. 
 "You must go with Dr. Engel." 
 252
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 "I won't! I won't!" Miss Busybody sobbed. 
 "He can have my dollie, but I won't go." 
 
 Engel was gazing at the child with a dis- 
 tressed, uncertain face, in which was an echo of 
 the pain her mother had given him ten years 
 before. 
 
 "A promise is a promise. I gave my word to 
 her uncle," he said, hoarsely. "Come with me, 
 sweetheart." His voice softened. "I love you 
 very much, and I am very lonely." 
 
 "And I'm velly lonely if I haven't Philippa, " 
 said Miss Busybody. "I'll be dreffully lonely 
 without Uncle Rob and Philippa. Truly, Dr. 
 Engel, truly." 
 
 Engel turned and walked sharply to the win- 
 dow, and stood gazing out. Then he wheeled 
 round. He had made his decision. 
 
 Miss Busybody's little face was swollen. The 
 look in her eyes was pitiful. "Did you give my 
 Uncle Rob the word of a genkilman?" she said, 
 her lips still trembling. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I wish you hadn't! I wish you hadn't!" she 
 cried, passionately. "It wasn't velly fair not to 
 ask me first." The tears dropped heavily down 
 her cheek. "I'm 'fraid I'll have to go now," 
 she said, with a despair that went to Engel's 
 heart. "Boykin said a man can't ever break the 
 word of a genkilman." 
 
 Then she flung herself again on Philippa, and 
 253
 
 The Valley of the Great Shadow 
 
 clung to her, shaking. Philippa's sobs mingled 
 with the child's. 
 
 At last Miss Busybody struggled up, and 
 looked at Engel with swimming eyes. 
 
 "It's not velly fair to go away and leave 
 Philippa all alone. She is crying, too. I think 
 I think you should tell Philippa to come, 
 too." 
 
 The tense silence was broken by Engel. 
 
 "Will you come, too, Philippa?" he said, 
 huskily. 
 
 Philippa's face was hidden. 
 
 "It would be better if you would come, 
 Philippa," said Miss Busybody, earnestly. 
 "You know you said he was a velly nice man." 
 
 "Will you come, Philippa?" Engel said again. 
 
 Philippa turned towards him. A radiant look 
 shone through her tears; 
 
 "Do you mean it? Do you know what you are 
 saying?" 
 
 "Mean it?" he said, in a shaking voice. "/ 
 want you, too, Philippa." 
 
 Simplicity and Jerningham, Miss Blake and 
 the Professor, Karl and Babette, were all watch- 
 ing from different parts of the balcony. Jakob 
 and Marie had just passed with Miss Busybody's 
 box. The child was going to her new home; 
 she walked between Engel and Philippa, holding 
 a hand of each. The silence tossed her laugh 
 254
 
 Miss Busybody 
 
 up to the balcony as she went by. She was chat- 
 tering merrily. 
 
 "Yes. And you know the snow will soon be 
 melted, and then we shall see the booful flowers 
 again." 
 
 "My! If they don't look as if they were 
 drinking glory!" Simplicity exclaimed. 
 
 "Then they have found the well in the val- 
 ley," Jerningham answered. 
 
 "Can one believe in death in all this sunlight?" 
 Miss Blake was saying. "Surely the great 
 shadow has lifted, if only for a moment." 
 
 "There go two people who seem to believe in 
 life!" The Professor nodded towards the road. 
 
 Miss Blake followed his eyes, her face shining. 
 
 "And love," she added. "They believe in 
 love. Life, Death, Love these three. But 
 the greatest of these is Love." 
 
 THE END.
 
 PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
 AND SONS COMPANY, AT THE 
 LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.
 
 IONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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