“Must be very quick; no time to lose,” said the man and hurried away.
That he spoke a deep and underlying truth was evidenced by the mad rush of passengers and porters which immediately ensued. They joined the crowd and found themselves speedily flung in some shape into Zurichbahn No. II., which moved out of the station at once.
Jack was too saturated with sleep to be able to try any more. He went through to the smoker’s compartment, and Rosina looked apathetically out upon the Lake of Zurich and reflected her same reflections over again and again. The moon, which had looked down upon the Isar rapids, rode amidst masses of storm clouds above the dark sheet of water, and illuminated with its fitful light the shadows that lay upon the bosom of the waves. She felt how infinitely darker were the shadows within her own bosom, and how vain it was to seek for any moon among her personal clouds.
“It’s a terrible thing to have been married,” she thought bitterly. “Before you’ve been married you’re so ready to be married to any one, and after you’ve been married you don’t dare marry any one.” Then she took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “Oh, dear,” she sobbed, “it doesn’t seem as if I could possibly be more wretched with him than I am without him!”
They reached Zurich in the neighborhood of nine o’clock. The end of a trip always brings a certain sense of relief to the head of the party, and Jack’s spirits rose prodigiously as he got them all into a cab.
“We’ll get something to eat that’s good,” he declared gayly, “and then to-morrow, after a first-class night’s sleep, we’ll go over the Gotthard, and be in Milan Monday. And then, ho for Genoa, Gibraltar, and joy everlasting!”
He seized Rosina’s hand and gave it a hard squeeze.
“Cheer up, you poor dear!” he cried; “you’ll come out all right in the end,—now you see!”
She pressed her lips tightly together and did not trust herself to say one word in reply.
She felt that she was beginning to really hate her cousin.