The Castle Of The Shadows.

by Alice Muriel Williamson.

CHAPTER I

WHERE DREAMLAND BEGAN

According to the calendar it was winter; but between Mentone and the frontier town of Ventimiglia, on the white road inlaid like a strip of ivory on dark rocks above the sapphire of the Mediterranean, it was fierce summer in the sunshine. A girl riding between two men, reined in her chestnut mare at a cross-road which led into the jade-green twilight of an olive grove. The men pulled up their horses also, and all three came to a sudden halt at a bridge flung across a swift but shallow river, whose stony bed cleft the valley.

The afternoon sunshine poured down upon them, burnishing the coils of the girl's hair to gold, and giving a dazzling brilliancy to a complexion which for twenty years to come need not fear the light of day. She was gazing up the valley shut in on either side with thickly wooded hills, their rugged heads still gilded, their shoulders already half in shadow; but the eyes of the men rested only upon her. One was English, the other Italian; and it was the Italian whose look devoured her beauty, moving hungrily from the shining tendrils of gold that curled at the back of her white neck, up to the small pink ear almost hidden with a thick, rippling wave of hair; so to the piquant profile which to those who loved Virginia Beverly, was dearer than cold perfection.

"Oh, the olive woods!" she exclaimed. "How sweet they are! See the way the sunshine touches the old, gnarled trunks, and what a lovely light filters through the leaves. One never sees it anywhere except in an olive grove. I should like to live in one."

"Well, why not?" laughed the Englishman. "What prevents you from buying two or three? But you would soon tire of them, my child, as you do of everything as soon as it belongs to you."

"That's not fair," replied the girl. "Besides, if it were, who has helped to spoil me? I _will_ buy an olive grove, and you shall see if I tire of it. Come, let's ride up the valley, and find out if there are any for sale. It looks heavenly cool after this heat."

"You'll soon discover that it's too cool," said the Italian, in perfect English. "The sun is only in these valleys for a few hours, and it's gone for the day now. Besides, there's nothing interesting here. One sees the best from where we stand."

Virginia Beverly turned her eyes upon him, and let them dwell on his face questioningly. "Of course, you must know every inch of this country," she said, "as you used to live just across the Italian border."

For once he did not answer her look. "I haven't spent much time here for several years. Paris has absorbed me," he said evasively. "One forgets a good deal; but if you want to see a really charming valley, we had better go farther on. Then I think I can show you one."

Virginia's pretty brows, which were many shades darker than her hair, drew together. "But I don't want to go farther," she said. "And I like this valley."

"Spoilt child!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Englishman, who claimed rights of cousinship, though by birth Virginia was American.

At that moment two members of the riding party, who had contrived to be left behind, came leisurely up. One was a very handsome, dark woman, who succeeded in looking not more than thirty, the other a young man of twenty-five, enough like Virginia to suggest that they were brother and sister.

"What are you stopping for?" inquired Lady Gardiner, who would not have been sorry to keep her friends in advance.

"Waiting for you," said Virginia promptly. "I want to explore this valley."

As she spoke she gave her mare a little pat on the velvety neck. The animal, which was Virginia's own, brought from her namesake state, had never known the touch of the whip, but understood the language of hand and voice. She went off at a trot up the shadowed road; and the Marchese Loria was the first to follow. But he bit his lip under the black moustache, pointed in military fashion at the ends, and appeared more annoyed than he need because a pretty girl had insisted upon having her own way.

It was not yet cold, as he had prophesied, but it was many degrees cooler than in the sunshine; and as they rode on the valley narrowed, the soft darkness of the olive grove closing in the white road that overhung the rock-bed of the river.

The hills rose higher, shutting out the day, and there was a brooding silence, only intensified by the hushed whisper of the water among its pebbles.

The shoulders of the heights were losing their gold glitter now; and Virginia had a curious sensation of leaving reality behind and entering a mysterious dreamland.

For a long time they rode without speaking. Then Virginia broke the spell of constraint which had fallen upon them.

"Where are the persons who gather the olives?" she asked of the Italian, who rode almost sullenly beside her.

"This isn't the time of year for that," he replied, more abruptly than was his custom in speaking to her.

"I never saw such a deserted place!" exclaimed the girl. "We have ridden ever so far into the valley now--two miles at least--and there hasn't been a sign of human habitation; not a person, not a house, except the little ruined tower we pa.s.sed a few minutes ago, and that old chateau almost at the top of the hill. Look! the last rays of the sun are touching its windows before saying good-bye to the valley. Aren't they like the fiery eyes of some fierce animal glaring watchfully down at us out of the dusk?"

Pointing upward, she turned to him for approval of her fancy, and to her surprise saw him pale, as if he had been attacked with sudden illness.

"What is the matter?" she asked quickly.

"Nothing at all," he replied. "A slight chill, perhaps."

"No, there is more than that," Virginia said slowly. "I'm sure of it.

I've been sure ever since we stood on the bridge looking up this valley.

You wanted to go on. You could hardly bear to stop, and when I proposed riding in you made excuses."

"Only for your sake, fearing you might catch cold."

"Yet you suggested going on to another valley. Would it have been warmer than this? Oh, Marchese, I don't like you when you are subtle and secretive. It reminds me that we are of different countries--as different as the north can be from the south. Do tell me what is really in your mind. Why do you hate this valley? Why has coming into it tied your tongue, and made you look as if you had seen a ghost?"

"You exaggerate, Miss Beverly," said Loria. "But if you care to know the precise truth you shall, on one condition."

"What is it?"

"That you turn your horse's head and consent to go out into the sunshine again. When we are there I will tell you."

"No. If I hear your story, and think it worth turning back for, I will. I mean to have a nearer glimpse of that chateau. It must have a lovely view over the tops of the olive trees."

She touched the mare, who changed from a trot into a gallop. In five minutes more they would be under the castle; but almost instantly Loria, obliged to follow, had caught up with her again.

"One of the greatest sorrows of my life is connected with this valley,"

he answered desperately. "Now will you take pity upon me and turn round?"

Virginia hesitated. The man's voice shook. She did not know whether to yield or to feel contempt because he showed emotion so much more readily than her English and American friends. But while she hesitated they were joined by her cousin, Sir Roger Broom, who had been riding behind with her half-brother, George Trent, and Lady Gardiner.

"Look here, Loria," he exclaimed, with a certain excitement underlying his tone; "it has just occurred to me that this is--er--the place that's been nicknamed for the last few years the 'Valley of the Shadow.'"

"You are right," answered Loria. "That is why I didn't wish to come in."

Sir Roger nodded toward the chateau, which now loomed over them, gray, desolate, one half in ruins, yet picturesquely beautiful both in position and architecture. "Then that is----" he began, but the Italian cut him short.

"Yes. And won't you help me persuade Miss Beverly that we've seen enough of this valley now?"

"Why, the castle's for _sale_!" cried Virginia suddenly, before Roger Broom had had time to speak.

She pointed to one of the tall gate-posts at the foot of the hill, close to the road, which showed a notice-board announcing in both French and Italian that the Chateau de la Roche was to be sold, permission to view being obtainable within.

"Poor people; they must have been reduced to sad straits indeed!"

murmured Sir Roger, looking at the board with its faded lettering, half defaced by time and weather.

"Yes, it was all very unfortunate, very miserable," Loria said hastily.

"Shall we go back?"

The Englishman seemed hardly to hear. "I'd seen photographs of the valley, but I'd quite forgotten, until suddenly it began to look familiar. Then, all in a flash, I remembered."