sant acquaintance. Bower waited on
the platform to see the last of her as the train steamed away.

"Yes, it is worth while," he muttered, when the white feathers on her
hat were no longer visible. He did not go to the lake, but to the
telegraph office, and there he wrote two long messages, which he
revised carefully, and copied. Yet he frowned again, even while he was
paying for their transmission. Never before had he taken such pains to
win any woman's regard. And the knowledge vexed him, for the taking of
pains was not his way with women.

CHAPTER IV

HOW HELEN CAME TO MALOJA

At Coire, or Chur, as the three-tongued Swiss often term it--German
being the language most in vogue in Switzerland--Helen found a
cheerful looking mountain train awaiting the coming of its heavy
brother from far off Calais. It was soon packed to the doors, for
those Alpine valleys hum with life and movement during the closing
days of July. Even in the first class carriages nearly every seat was
filled in a few minutes, while pandemonium reigned in the cheaper
sections.

Helen, having no cumbersome baggage to impede her movements, was swept
in on the crest of the earliest wave, and obtained a corner near the
corridor. She meant to leave her handbag there, stroll up and down the
station for a few minutes, mainly to look at the cosmopolitan crowd,
and perhaps buy some fruit; but the babel of English, German, French,
and Italian, mixed with scraps of Russian and Czech, that raged round
a distracted conductor warned her that the wiser policy was to sit
still.

An Englishwoman, red faced, elderly, and important, was offered a
center seat, facing the engine, in Helen's compartment. She refused
it. Her indignation was magnificent. To face the engine, she declared,
meant instant illness.

"I never return to this wretched country that I do not regret it!" she
shrilled. "Have you no telegraphs? Cannot your officials ascertain
from Zurich how many English passengers may be expected, and make
suitable provision for them?"

As this tirade was thrown away on the conductor, she proceeded to
translate it into fairly accurate French; but the man was at his
wits' end to accommodate the throng, and said so, with the breathless
politeness that such a _grande dame_ seemed to merit.

"Then you should set apart a special train for passengers from
England!" she declared vehemently. "I shall never come here
again--never! The place is overrun with ch