White Motley

little widow," despite her wakefulness. For her the night was fruitful of other thoug

d by her desire to obliterate the past and to recall, if it were possible, the innocence and the freedom of her girlhood. But she knew now that the attempt had faile

; but the ordeal through which she must pass, in a sense the exposure, affrighted her and robbed her even of a desire to sleep. The morning of the

om the thought of such a shelter. Her only brother, Harold, was with his regiment in India, and had already condemned her conduct in strenuous letters full of childish complaints. "Would she drag her story into the papers? Wash their dirty linen

re she would, to remote cities of Europe, to the East, even to America, there were some who knew her story and would sell secrecy at a price. She made no friends, won no sure refuge, could find no sanctuary. Sometimes she regretted her determination to be known henceforth as Lily Kennaird, and wondered if her brother were not right wh

nd, Luton, and upon each occasion at a crisis of his life. A wanderer like herself, he lived chiefly upon the allowance of one thousand a year which she made him, and when that

he was sure. Luton Delayne rarely troubled her unless his case were desperate-and desperate indeed it must be for him to abandon the purlieus of Monte Carlo at such a season. She resolved, upon

to the ordeal of the skis on this morning; and when, with Kavanagh, she met

mmanded from the hotel porter, the parson upon one side and Kavanagh upon the other set to work

seen?" asked Clavering, a little excit

ndow and so did her sister. Sir Gordon Snagg is another. He declares i

was of th

nwell may have brought his aeroplane here to scare the natives; and jolly well he's

ld agree with him as a matter of cours

wicked people?" she remarked; "you ha

mean is, let's keep the mountains anyway. We don't want ginger-beer bott

dissented

o pioneers in the world, I should not be travelling through the Simplon Tunnel to Bellagio in three weeks' time, and you would not be smoking that excellent tobacco. I

up in one yourself?

sand sovereigns

ed with the difficulties of the uncouth implements they had strapped to her boots than with any question of flight and its consequences. How awkwar

lifting your feet, if you can; it's quite easy to walk up--the coming down is the difficulty. We'll go to the slopes by the Park Hote

ed some moments in an attitude of despair, explained that he had done it to show the ease with which one can rise when the boots and straps

; and hither go the inexperienced to be tutored by kindly masters, who are themselves but children at the game. On every side you hear the injunction not to be afraid-so pompously uttered, so difficult to obey. Elderly gentlemen, who would be more at home upon a rocking-horse, glide down gentle

ming his hard luck, forgot the latter employment when he espied the "little widow." How he envied the cheery parson, who was holding her arm; how he detested that gilded popinjay (Benny had got the expression from a novel) who stood by her s

, held well behind the body. Then the amiable little man would proceed to slide down the slope himself, perhaps sitting hurriedly at the foot of it, or arriving triumphantly at his goal as a man who has ac

one who skis must fall four hundred times," he said reassuringly. "Now don't be a

hat lordly person falling headlong and in such a position that his skis held him immobile, and he had to cry for help. When he was rescued and had brushed the snow from his immaculate collar, he asked her if she did

he most fascinating thing on earth, she thought, while she watched those experts, Bob Otway and Keith Rivers, sailing down the mountain-side with a dexterity which amazed her. Patience would teach her to imitate them, and then the heights would be open to her. A vain desire whispered

is eye and turning upon that wild youth a

"If you will tell me how much you require to

urned away

start," and with that for a shot he began to climb up the mountai

rway. It's quite impossible to do what he does unless you are caught

y dashed down the steep. "A clever performer," said the parson, "would jump ninety or a hundred feet before his skis touched ground again"; but the proceeding was hazardous, and some wonderful falls resulted. However, he had no fears about Bob Otway, and when that young gentleman started with a flourish, h

vine. Hardly seeming to leave the track, she shot through the air at a tremendous pace, and landed so evenly and with such perfect balance that the run was resumed as though it had

I suppose it's to make a soft place for me. Mr. Kavan

a hole with a spade; but he admitted tha

's a man's duty to do something of the sort," he said,

ll calling them back to the Palace for lunch, he resolutely refused to go indoors. Had he not brought baskets packed with chicken and the mysterious sausage in which "Chic," the cook, delighted? They would bivouac up there in the woods-perhaps that generous person, Mr. Benjamin Benson, would permit

he black-handled knives and the forks which matched them, declared that the kitchen fire was at their service; but he did so rather knavishly and with a glance aside at the beautiful woman who had intruded upon their privacy. It remained for the Abbé Villari to join the party, and he cut

uppose," said Kavanagh, starin

a joke into them-a correct rendering of the great doctor's bon mot, which made but a poor appeal

great fields of the dazzling snow, the beauty of the woods, the grandeur of the prospect spoke of peace and rest as no other scene she could remember. And with it there came the idea that one man's good will contributed not a little to this gift of self-deception, and that in the hum

ow, and when she inquired with a woman's gentlen

hat it was everything-and as he said it, he glanced at the "little widow