" It had seasoned everything, twined round everything,
great and small--a day's trout-fishing or deer-stalking; a new book, a
friend, a famous place; then politics, and the joys of power.
Gone! Here he was, hurrying back to England, to take perhaps in his
still young hand the helm of her vast fortunes; and of all the old
"expectation and desire," the old passion of hope, the old sense of the
magic that lies in things unknown and ways untrodden, he seemed to
himself now incapable. He would do his best, and without the political
wrestle life would be too trifling to be borne; but the relish and the
savor were gone, and all was gray.
* * * * *
Ah!--he remembered one or two storm-walks with Kitty in their engaged or
early married days--in Scotland chiefly. As he trudged up this Swiss
pass he could see stretches of Scotch heather under drifting mist, and
feel a little figure in its tweed dress flung suddenly by the wind and
its own soft will against his arm. And then, the sudden embrace, and the
wet, fragrant cheek, and her Voice--mocking and sweet!
Oh, God! where was she now? The shock of her disappearance from Venice
had left in some ways a deeper mark upon him than even the original
catastrophe.
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