At last Bower slunk away. She heard the crunching of his feet on the snow, and, when Stampa ceased his silent prayer, she expected that he would depart by the same path. To her overwhelming dismay, he wheeled round and looked straight at her. In reality his eyes were fixed on the hills behind her. He was thinking of his unhappy daughter. The giant mass of Corvatsch was associated in his mind with the girl’s last glimpse of her beloved Switzerland, while on that same memorable day it threw its deep shadow over his own life. He turned to the mountain to seek its testimony,—as it were, to the consummation of a tragedy.
But Millicent could not know that. Losing all command of herself, she shrieked in terror, and ran wildly among the trees. She stumbled and fell before she had gone five yards over the rough ground. Quite in a panic, confused and blinded with snow, she rose and ran again, only to find herself speeding back to the burial ground. Then, in a very agony of distress, she stood still. Stampa was looking at her, with mild surprise displayed in every line of his expressive features.
“What are you afraid of, sigñorina?” he asked in Italian.
She half understood, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Her terror was manifest, and he pitied her.
He repeated his question in German. A child might have recognized that this man of the benignant face and kindly, sorrow laden eyes intended no evil.
“I am sorry. I beg your pardon, Herr Stampa,” she managed to stammer.
“Ah, you know me, then, sigñorina! But everybody knows old Stampa. Have you lost your way?”
“I was taking a little walk, and happened to approach the cemetery. I saw——”
“There is nothing to interest you here, madam, and still less to cause fear. But it is a sad place, at the best. Follow that path. It will lead you to the village or the hotel.”
Her fright was subsiding rapidly. She deemed the opportunity too good to be lost. If she could win his confidence, what an immense advantage it would be in her struggle against Bower! Summoning all her energies, and trying to remember some of the German sentences learned in her school days, she smiled wistfully.