Read Ebook: Mona Maclean Medical Student: A Novel by Travers Graham

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Ebook has 4013 lines and 145005 words, and 81 pages

d had her wits about her. "Oh Lucy, I am an abject idiot!" she groaned.

At this moment she fancied she heard a step on the stones some distance behind her. Yes, there was no doubt of it. Some one was coming. Uncertain whether to be relieved or more alarmed than before, she stood still, her heart beating fast. The steps drew nearer and nearer. It was horrible to feel a presence so close at hand, and to strain her eyes in vain. In another moment a broad, ruddy, reassuring face looked down at her like the sun through the mist, and she drew a long breath of relief.

"Bless my soul!" the owner of the face exclaimed, aghast at finding a young girl in such a dangerous situation, "you don't mean to say you are alone?"

"Yes," laughed Mona. But the laugh was a very uncertain one, and revealed much that she would rather have kept to herself.

"Well, I am glad I have found you," he went on, shaking a shower of water from his dripping straw hat. "I shouldn't like to think my sister was out here alone on a night like this. Won't you take my arm? I'm afraid you are very tired, and it can't be easy to walk with your dress clinging to you so."

Mona's cheek flushed, but she was glad to take his arm. His tall, sturdy, tweeded figure belied the boyish, beardless face, and seemed like a tower of strength.

"Not a bit. I need not tell you that I shall be glad to get home."

They both laughed at the equivocal compliment.

"Were you afraid?" he asked presently.

"Dreadfully," said Mona simply. "In fact," she added after a pause, "I am ashamed now to think how unnerved I allowed myself to get."

"Why--you had some cause. Few men would have strictly enjoyed the situation. How far had you gone?"

"No: I left my portmanteau at the inn, and started with that intention; but I went in for a bit of scrambling on this side of the valley, and then the mist drove me home. I am very glad it drove me to your assistance--not but what you would have got on all right without me."

He started, almost imperceptibly. There was a curious charm in that honest un-selfconscious glance, but there was something more than that.

"You are not travelling alone, are you?" he asked, after a minute's silence.

"No, I am with my uncle and aunt. Sir Doug--my uncle usually walks with me,--not that I think a chance accident like this is any argument against my going about alone if I choose."

There was no answer. He was looking at her in an interested way, as if meditating the question profoundly.

"How can I tell any one what is not true?" he said, recovering himself. "I did not find you in extremis at all. I did not even know you were frightened till you laughed. You looked at me with such dignified self-assurance when I hove in sight that I was more than half inclined to lift my hat and pass on."

Mona laughed incredulously.

They trudged on for a time in silence. Once she looked up and found his eyes fixed on her face with an expression of amusement. "It is very odd," he said, finding himself caught.

"What is?"

"Oh, I don't know--the whole thing."

He broke into a quiet laugh, and Mona joined in it from sympathy. He was a curious creature this son of Anak, whose broad, glistening face gleamed at her so benevolently through the mist.

"Have you been long at Stalheim?" he asked.

"Only a few days."

"Is the hotel good?"

"Ye-e-s. This part of Norway is in an awkward transition stage between the primitive inn and the cosmopolitan hotel."

"Are there many tourists?"

"Oh yes! They go rushing through by hundreds every day. They stop to smoke a cigar, eat a dinner, or sleep for a night, and then join the mad chase of kariols again. They are noisy, too; my uncle gets quite indignant at the way they clatter about the wooden floors in their heavy boots, and shout their private affairs up-stairs and down-stairs, or from the verandah to the road."

"I suppose he does," and the son of Anak laughed again.

The mist was beginning to clear by slow degrees when they came to the crest of the abrupt descent that led to the torrent.

"I can't tell you how I was dreading this part of the way," said Mona.

"Were you? Well, I must say it is a case where two are better than one. See, I will go first and hold out my hands behind me."

They got across in safety, and in a wonderfully short time found themselves on the road.

"Don't you find it very dull here in the evening?" he asked.

"No. But I can imagine any one would who was accustomed to being amused."

"You sit on the verandah, I suppose?"

"Not on the one overlooking the Naerodal. There is such a crowd there. We get one of the others to ourselves, and enjoy a cup of coffee, and a chat, or a quiet rubber."

"Now do get off those wet things instantly," he said as they drew near the house, "and promise me that you will have a glass of hot toddy or something equivalent. That's right!"--interrupting her thanks--"don't stand there for a moment. I shall take the liberty of presenting myself on the verandah after supper."

Mona ran up-stairs with a smile, but his last words had caused her some alarm. What sort of reception might he look for on the verandah? Lady Munro was considered extremely "exclusive"; and as for Sir Douglas, he classified the male tourists broadly as "counter-jumpers," and was indignant if they so much as looked at his niece and daughter. If her friend got a chance to speak for himself, nobody could fail to see that he was a gentleman, and in that case all would be well; but Sir Douglas was hasty, and not likely to welcome advances from a complete stranger.

"The fact is, I ought not to have hob-a-nobbed with him so," she said. "I need not have let my gratitude and relief run away with me. It is all my own fault. Yes, Lucy, I am an abject idiot!"

"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" cried Evelyn as Mona entered the room the cousins shared; "in another minute I should have told Mother."

"Where is aunt Maud?"

"She came in not long after you left, and has been asleep all the afternoon, so there was no one to tell Father. I should have gone to him in another minute. I have been so miserable."

"Plucky little soul! And she has actually had the stove lighted! I shall be dry in no time. Luckily, the mist is clearing every minute."

"My Etna will be boiling directly, and I have got wine to make you some negus. Oh, Mona, do make haste! What a state you are in!"

Mona hastily exchanged her dripping clothes for a comfortable dressing-gown, and after wringing out her long hair, she seated herself by the stove, sipping her negus.

"You must have been in fearful danger, I have imagined such things!"

"Not a bit. A son of Anak came to my rescue; but more of that anon. Get me out some clean things, like a darling."

"What dress will you wear?"

She was not late. The bell rang just as she was fastening her brooch.

"Got back, Mona?" said Lady Munro, emerging fresh and fragrant from her room.

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