CHAPTER II. AT INNSBRUCK.

When Sidney Martin turned away from his petulant young wife, and strode with long hasty strides up the mountain track which lay nearest to him, he did so simply from the impulse of passion. He was little more than a boy himself; just as she was little more than a wayward girl. It was scarcely a year since he left Oxford; and he was now spending a few months in traveling abroad as a holiday, before settling down to the serious business of life. His uncle was the head of the great firm of Martin, Swansea & Co., shipping agents, whose business lay like a vast net over the whole commercial world, bringing in golden gains from the farthest and least known of foreign markets. Sir John Martin, for he had already been knighted, and looked forward to a baronetcy, was a born Londoner, at home only in the streets of London, and unable to find pleasure or recreation elsewhere. But he was desirous that his nephew and heir should be a man of the world, finding himself unembarrassed and at home in any sphere of society; especially those above the original position of his family. To this end he had sent Sidney to Eton and Oxford; and had now given him a year's holiday to see those foreign sights presumed to be necessary to the full completion of his education.

The misfortune was, as Sidney had long since owned to himself, that he had not been content to take this holiday alone. He was in love, with a boy's passion, with Sophy Goldsmith; and he knew his uncle would rather follow him to the grave than see him married to a girl so far beneath him in position. It was impossible to leave Sophy behind; he had no difficulty in persuading her to consent to a secret marriage. She was a girl of the same age as himself, whose sole literary education had consisted in the reading of third-rate novels, where none of the heroines would have hesitated for a moment from stealing away, as she did, from her very commonplace home; to which she expected some day to return in great state and glory.

But the stolen happiness had been very brief. Sidney, boy as he was, found out too soon how ignorant and empty-headed his pretty, uneducated wife was. She was in no sense a companion for him. Traveling about from place to place, with all the somewhat pedantic book-learning of his university career fresh upon him, and with enthusiastic associations for many of the spots they visited, especially in Italy and Greece, he was appalled to find that what interested him beyond words was inexpressibly wearisome to her. What was the Palace of the Cæsars to one who knew only as much of Roman history as she had learned in Mangnall's Questions at the poor day-school she had gone to? Or Horace's farm; who was Horace? Or Pliny's villa; she knew nothing of Pliny. Why did he want to go to Tusculum? And why did he care about the Etruscan tombs? She did not want to learn. She had not married to go to school again, she declared one day, with a burst of tears; and if he had not loved her as she was he ought to have left her. There were those who would have loved her if she had not known a great A from a chest of drawers. She would not bother herself with any such things.

Sidney discovered, too, that she cared equally little for painting or music. A brass band playing dance-music in the streets and a strongly tinted oleograph was as far as her native taste in music and art would carry her; and she resented the most delicately hinted instruction on these points also. The wild and magnificent scenery which delighted him immeasurably, was dreary and unintelligible to her. She loved streets and shops, and driving amid throngs of other carriages, and going to theaters, though even there she yawned and moped because she could not understand a word the actors spoke. It was in vain he urged her to try and acquire a knowledge of the language. She was going to live in England, she argued; and it was not worth while to spend her time in learning Italian or French.

Before six months had passed, the inward conviction had eaten into Sidney's mind that his marriage was a fatal mistake. He brooded silently over this thought until it affected strongly his temper, kind and sanguine when untried, but now falling into a somber despair. He had been guilty of a folly which his uncle would never overlook. If Sophy had been as intellectual as she was beautiful, he could have educated her, and so made a companion of her; and possibly his uncle might in time be won over to forgiveness. A brilliant, beautiful woman, able to hold her own in society, one of whom Sir John could be proud, might have conquered him; but never an ignorant, empty-headed, low-born dunce, like Sophy. A dunce and a fool, the young husband called her in the bitter intolerance of youth; for youth demands perfection in every person save self.

This inward disgust and weariness of his silly little wife had been smouldering and increasing for months. Once before he had given way to it so far as to leave her for a few days, and to wander about in what seemed a blissful and restful solitude. But he had written to her, and kept her informed of his movements, and had returned after a short absence. Now he felt he could not take up the heavy burden again; not voluntarily.

He made his way through the darkening shadows of great pine forests and narrow valleys, to Toblach, a village about twenty miles distant, at the entrance of the Ampezzo valley, through which Sophy must pass, if she continued her journey without retracing alone the route by which they had come. And there he remained for three or four days, expecting to see her arrival hour after hour. Then he grew nettled. She was waiting for him to go back penitent, like the prodigal son. Not he! She was quite able to manage a journey alone; and he had left her plenty of money—indeed, nearly all he possessed. It was not as if she was some high-born young lady, who had never ventured out of doors unattended. Sophy had the hardy independence of a girl who had earned her own living, and had expected to manage for herself all her life. This had become one of her offenses in his eyes. She was as sharp as a needle in avoiding imposition, and taking care of money; and her generalship at the many hotels they had stayed in had at first amused, and then enraged him. She could take very good care of herself.

Still, when he went on his way, he left word with the landlord of the hotel that he was gone to the Kaiserkrone at Botzen; and at Botzen he stayed another three days, and left the same instructions as to her following him to the Goldne Sonne, at Innsbruck. Each journey made the distance between them greater, and gave to him a feeling of stronger relief at being free from her presence. There was no return of his boyish passion for her; not a spark revived in the ashes of the old flame.

He was sauntering through the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, gazing somewhat wearily at the grotesque bronze figures surrounding the tomb of Maximilian, and thinking how Sophy would have screamed with laughter, and talked in the shrill key that had so often made him look round ashamed, in other famous churches; for he was at an age when shame is an overpowering vexation.

"Thank Heaven, she is not here," he said half aloud, when suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a familiar voice exclaimed:

"What, Sidney! you are here—and alone!"

"Alone!" he repeated; "who did you expect to find with me, George?" he asked irritably.

It was the last word that struck him, and over-balanced the astonishment he felt at hearing his cousin's voice. George Martin shrugged his shoulders.

"Come out of this church," he said, in a voice toned down to quietness, "and I'll tell you straight. I never could manage anything, you know; there's no diplomacy in me, and so I told Uncle John. Come; I can't talk about it here."

They went out into the open air, and strolled down to the river in silence. George Martin was in no hurry to tell his message, and Sidney shrank from receiving it. He had often dreaded that some rumor might reach his uncle; for Sophy had not been prudent enough in effacing herself on their travels. So the two young men stood on the bridge, gazing down at the rapid rushing of the waters below them, and for some time neither of them spoke a word.

"Old fellow," said George at last, laying his hand affectionately on Sidney's shoulder, "I'm so glad to see you alone. There isn't anybody at the hotel, is there?"

"What do you mean?" asked Sidney with a parched throat.

"Anyone you would be ashamed of, you know," he continued. "Uncle John heard somehow there was a girl traveling about with you—I don't like to say it, Sid—and he sent me off at a moment's notice after you. There, now the murder's out! Uncle John said, 'Don't be bluff and outspoken; but find out quietly.' But I never could be diplomatic. You are alone, Sidney, aren't you?"

"Quite alone," answered Sidney, looking frankly and steadily into his cousin's face. There was always a winning straightforwardness and clearness in his gray eyes, as if the soul of honor dwelt behind them, which went right to the hearts of those who met their gaze; and George Martin's clouded face brightened at once.

"I'm so glad, so thankful, old fellow!" he exclaimed. "I don't mind now telling you, uncle was in an awful rage, swore he would disinherit you, and cut you off without even a shilling, you know; and sent me to find you out, because I was to be the heir in your place, if it was true. Perhaps he thought that would make me keen to find it true. But oh, how thankful I am to find it false? We are more like brothers than cousins, Sidney; and I'd rather lose a dozen fortunes that lose you."

Sidney grasped his hand with a firm, strong clasp, but said nothing. For the moment he was dumb; his pulses beat too strongly for him to speak in a natural tone. Disinherited! He who had not a penny of his own. George Martin attributed his silence and agitation to the indignation he must be feeling.

"Come home at once with me," he said, "and make it all right with Uncle John. It was a vile scandal, and just the thing to exasperate him. It's only giving up a few weeks of your holiday; and it's worth while, I tell you, Sid. He said he had it on good authority; but if you go back with me, he'll be satisfied."

"I don't know," answered Sidney, with some hesitation; "it's like owning I am afraid of being disinherited. Leave me to think it over; it is not a thing to be decided in a moment."

Yet he knew at the bottom of his heart that he had already decided. It seemed to him as if he had been saved from a fatal exposure by the drift of circumstances. But for Sophy's violent temper she would either have been with him when his cousin met him at Innsbruck, or George would have pursued his journey to the Ampezzo valley, and found them there. Then it would have been impossible to conceal the truth—the hateful truth—any longer. That would have been utter ruin for them both. He could do nothing to maintain a wife or, indeed, himself, if his uncle disinherited him. So far he had never earned a six-pence in his life. If he acknowledged Sophy just now, it would only be to bring her to destitution; or to make himself dependent upon her exertions.

He went back to his hotel, and wrote a long letter to his young wife, carefully worded, lest it should fall into wrong hands. He told her to make her way as directly as possible to England to her father's house; and to let him know immediately of her return there. She could reach it by tolerably easy railway journeys in about a week; and he carefully traced out her route, entering the moment of departure for each train she must take, and telling her at what hotels she must stay. It was now a week since he had left her, and he had no doubt she was on her way after him. It seemed to him as though he was taking an almost tender care for her safety and comfort, more than she deserved; and thought she ought to be very grateful to him for it. He urged the utmost prudence upon her in regard to their secret.

He left this letter with the landlord of the Goldne Sonne, doing so with considerable caution, very well concealed. It was addressed to S. Martin only, and might have been either for a man or a woman. If no person claimed it, it was to be forwarded to him intact at the end of three months, when he would send a handsome acknowledgment for it. But it would probably be asked for in the course of a few days; for Sidney reminded himself, with self-gratulation, that at both of the hotels he had quitted lately he had left instructions for Sophy; with a careful description of her appearance, that no wrong person should receive them.

These steps set his conscience at rest; and he returned to England with no heavier burden on his spirits than the dread of discovery, which must be borne as long as he was absolutely dependent upon his uncle's favor.