No Hero

l night in my corner of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the wagon-lit in which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, with a black collar, a rusty chin,

impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces. In a word, and the cant one which yet happens to express my state of mind to a nicety, I had already "weakened" on the whole business which I had been in such a foolish hurry to undertake, though not for one reactionary moment upon her for whom

et, the day before yesterday, I had more than acquiesced in the dubious plan. I had even volunteered for its achievement. The train rattled out one long, maddening tune to my own incessant marvellings at my own secret apostasy: the stuffy compartment was not Catherine's sanctum of the quickening memorials and the olden spell. Catherine herself was no longer before me in the vivacious flesh, with her half playful pathos of

ng to his friend to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I ought to have been from

ery tall and extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had

hat, is really best known in the black cap: it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of hi

back of the hotel. The little sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed as a foil to the vast eternal scene. The hanging judge still strutted with his cigar, peering jocosely from under the broad brim of his Panama; the gr

eration suggest

ok in the hall," I said. "I m

up and down the pages inscribed b

ow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more espec

do! Robin Evers,

u know

tty quickly. I was so

boy of that name; but then

uinby, with studious unconcern, yet I

" I deliberately admitted, "when the l

his peculiar

said he. "A ve

sty?" I asked, inclined

id Quinby. "Only-well-perhap

g any further remark. Then I handed Quinby my ciga

That's quite interesting.

but as a matter of fact, there's a gay you

ownright satisfaction. So there was something in it aft

emphasising one of Quinby's e

, she's a good dea

her n

. Lasc

odd

ow anything about he

't say

said Quinby, "except that she

epeated with

looke

ut there yours

on," said I, naming our com

never came across M

ce," I said, smiling

lton did," specul

s," I added, "are a

ascelles; but there are some who say things which they can tell you themselves. I'm not going to repeat them i

bad as a

er people, for you will find that the whole hotel is talking about it. No," he went on, watching my eyes, "it's no use looking for them at this time of day; they disappear from

postal matter. In another minute there was hardly standing ro

every day. You will see him gloating over them in a minute. Ah! the old judge has got his Sportsman; he reads nothing else except the Sporting Times, and he's going back for the Leger. Do you see the man with the blue spectacles and the peeled nose? He was last Vice Cha

a sheepish gentleman with a twitching face, and a shaven cleric in close attendance; the former a rich brand plucked from burning by the latter, whose temporal reward was the present trip, so Quinby assured me during the time it took them to pass before our eyes through the now emptying hall. A deli

d that he had said before I placed him in his proper type: it is one which I have encountered elsewhere, that of the middle-aged bachelor who will and must talk, and he had confessed his celibacy almost in his first breath; but a more pronounced specimen of the type I am in no hurr

g his way toward me. Only an ingrate would have turned and fled; and for the next hour or two I suffered Quinby to exploit my wounds and me for a good deal more than our intrinsic value. To do the man justice, however, I had no fault to find with the very pleasant little circle into which he insisted on ushering me, at one end of the glazed veranda, and should have enjoyed my evening but for an inquisitive anxiety

several hundred miles to put asunder. Hitherto I had only realised the distasteful character of my task; now at a glance I had my first inkling of its d

t of the Matterhorn was a towering gap in the stars; and in the faint cold light stood my friends, somewhat close together, and I thought I saw the red tips of two cigarettes. Ther

member me, but my name's C

out as smoothly as I have written them, as if to show

ber you. I should think I did! I say, th

rk to read the face; and his right hand held tenderly to mine, as his eyes fell upon my sticks,

feeling too big a brute to acknowledge the boy's s

the way, may I introduce you to Mrs. Lascelles? Captain Clephane's one of our v