Lucy's tongue, once loosed, never seemed to tire. Her despondency and melancholy, her load of carking care, were all transferred as by the wave of a magician's wand to her cousin's shoulders. Alas! that cousin, that patient, loving cousin is perhaps destined to carry to her grave the fardel of another's weakness, the punishment of a worthless woman's fault.
Georgie, from that hour, was a changed girl. No more the once happy, loving eyes gazed on the younger girl with more than a mother's pride. From that day Georgie feared her cousin, and Lucy soon detected the new sentiment which she had unexpectedly inspired. The younger dictated, the elder acquiesced.
"Georgie," she once suddenly said, when they were alone together on the little platform which hung over the blue waters of the lake, "swear to me that you will never betray my secret." She clutched her cousin's hand with fierce insistance and stamped her little foot; "swear to me," she said in a hoarse whisper, "that never by word or letter you will reveal my secret—our secret," she added with a smile. If ever a pretty woman's smile was devilish, Lucy Warrender's was, as she insisted on this partnership in her guilt.
"Have I ever deceived you, Lucy, that you should want me to swear?"
"But you shall swear, Georgie," she reiterated almost savagely. "I have gone too far to hesitate at trifles now, and if you don't, you will never see me more," she added menacingly, as she pointed to the lake. Her little figure seemed to increase in height, so sternly determined was her aspect.
Georgie cowered in mingled anxiety and horror.
"Swear to me," she said, and she emphasized the command, for it was no longer an entreaty, by a fierce clutch at her cousin's wrist, "never to a soul till the day of your death will you breathe a word of it. Swear."
"I do swear it, Lucy," replied the dominated victim, and she buried her face in her hands.
The next day the two English ladies left the Villa Lambert in an open carriage.
The faithful Capt was told to be ready for their return in a few days' time. Considerably to his astonishment, he did not accompany them. As the carriage drove away the valet lighted one of those long and peculiarly nasty cigars which his countrymen seem so much to enjoy. He stood watching the carriage rapt in meditation, and his face wore a puzzled air. Then he did what no economic Switzer has probably done before or since—he actually flung away the still burning abomination. Then he spat upon the ground, and with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders re-entered the house.