CHAPTER XXV
“The tissue of the Life to be
We weave with colours all our own,
And in the field of destiny
We reap as we have sown.”
Whittier.
The broad staircase was covered with cocoa-nut matting, she toiled up the slippery steps feeling dazed and giddy, groping her way more by instinct than by sight to her own door. Her room was at the side of the hotel, and its French window, opening on to a little balcony, looked out over the woods of Veytaux and the distant turrets of Chillon to the Dent du Midi. She threw herself down now into the depths of an armchair, letting the soft air play on her hot cheeks, and staring out in a bewildered way at the lovely view which contrasted so strangely with her misery.
Her whole world seemed to be shaken to its foundation. Her instinct warned her that the guardian, whose plausible talk and apparent kindliness had long deceived her, was in no sense a man to be trusted. And seizing the clue, which his own accusations of others had furnished her with, she began to wonder if in some unaccountable way Bruce Wylie himself was one of those fortune-hunters, who finding themselves in difficulties sought to repair their losses with some heiress’ money. Her clear insight had at once detected the false ring in his apologies about the lost train on the previous day. He had somehow forfeited her confidence, and the more she thought over her interview with Sir Matthew, and the extraordinary determination he had evidently made to marry her to his friend, the more she distrusted and dreaded them both. It might possibly be that they had mismanaged her affairs, and were perhaps speculating with her money. She had heard of many cases where luckless women had been ruined by a fraudulent trustee.