“Only twenty, fräulein, only twenty, and as tall and fair as yourself. They carried her here sixteen years ago this very day. I did not even see her. On the previous night I fell on Corvatsch.”
“Oh, how sad! But why did she die at that age? And in this splendid climate? Was her death unexpected?”
“Unexpected!” He turned and looked at the huge mountain of which the cemetery hill formed one of the lowermost buttresses. “If the Piz della Margna were to topple over and crush me where I stand, it would be less unforeseen than was my sweet Etta’s fate. But I frighten you, lady,—a poor return for your kindness. That is your way,—through the village, and by the postroad till you reach a notice board telling you where to take the path.”
There was a crude gentility in his manner that added to the pathos of his words. Helen was sure that he wished to be left alone with his memories. Yet she lingered.
“Please tell me your name,” she said. “I may visit St. Moritz while I remain here, and I shall try to find you.”
“Christian Stampa,” he said. He seemed to be on the point of adding something, but checked himself. “Christian Stampa,” he repeated, after a pause. “Everybody knows old Stampa the guide. If I am not there, and you go to Zermatt some day—well, just ask for Stampa. They will tell you what has become of me.”
She found it hard to reconcile this broken, careworn old man with her cheery companion of the previous afternoon. What did he mean? She understood his queer jargon of Italianized German quite clearly; but there was a sinister ring in his words that blanched her face. She could not leave him in his present mood. She was more alarmed now than when she saw him rising ghostlike from behind the screen of grass and weeds.
“Please walk with me to the village,” she said. “All this beautiful land is strange to me. It will divert your thoughts from a mournful topic if you tell me something of its wonders.”
He looked at her for an instant. Then his eyes fell on the church in the neighboring hollow, and he crossed himself, murmuring a few words in Italian. She guessed their meaning. He was thanking the Virgin for having sent to his rescue a girl who reminded him of his lost Etta.