“My letter? I wrote to you at Zermatt directly I heard of your accident. You took no notice, so I concluded you did not want to hear of me any more.”
“Alma, as sure as I stand here a living man, I have never received a line of your writing in my life.”
It was her turn to grow pale now.
“But I did write. I directed to your hotel at Zermatt. What can it mean? You never received it?”
He burst into a harsh laugh—a laugh infinitely more moving than tears.
“What can it mean?” he repeated. “It means this: it is part of the whole hellish plot. That letter was intercepted by the hand that for its owner’s vile purposes lured me to my ruin. But that hand is burning now for that act of wickedness—that one act alone—that act which ruined my life. It is burning in another world—if there be another world—for the woman, its owner, is dead.”
“I begin to see,” she said, her eyes brimming with love and pity. “Yes, I can see it all now.”
The bell rang again, and the paddles slackened. The Mont Blanc was sweeping up to the débarcadère at Morges. The next stoppage would be Ouchy, and there they must part.
“Do you remember that day we were crossing over to Bouveret on this very boat?” he went on. “Do you remember our conversation as we passed Chillon Castle? You remarked then, à propos of all its mediaeval horrors, instruments of torture, and so forth—that there seemed a time when the world must have been under Satanic rule instead of under that of a good Providence. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, I do.”