“You will take the train, if you take it, over Jack’s and my dead bodies,” remarked Molly coldly.

“It would be rather sport to rush the Pass at night,” said Jack.

“Oh, you darling!” cried Molly, “I’ve never loved you so much.”

This naturally settled it.

We walked down to the town by an exquisite path leading through dark, mysterious pine forests; where the slim, straight trunks of the tall trees seemed tightly stretched, like the strings of a great harp, and where melancholy, elusive music was played always by the wind spirits.  In Lucerne we did not, as Molly had suggested, ask everybody to stand and deliver information, but we compromised by visiting tourists’ bureaux.  At these places the verdict was an echo of our landlord’s, and I saw that Molly and Jack were glad.  Having scented powder, they would have been disappointed if the midnight battle need not be fought.

Molly had never seen Lucerne, which was too beautiful for a fleeting glance.  It was arranged that, after driving me over the Pass, for weal or woe, they should return.  They would leave most of their luggage at the Sonnenberg, and come back to spend some days, before continuing their tour as originally mapped out.

We slept that night in peace (it is wonderful how well you do sleep, even with a “mind diseased,” after hours of racing through pure, fresh air on a motor car); and next day we began stealthy preparations for our adventure.

CHAPTER VI

The Wings of the Wind

“Oh, still solitude, only matched in the skies;
Perilous in steep places,
Soft in the level races,
Where sweeping in phantom silence the cloudland
flies.” 
—­R.  BRIDGES.

The wind howled a menace to Mercedes, as she glided down the winding road towards the comfortable, domestic-looking suburbs of Lucerne.  Banks of cloud raced each other across the sky, and, crossing the bridge over the Reuss, we saw that the waters of the Lake, turquoise yesterday, were to-day a sullen indigo.  The big steamers rolled at their moorings; white-crested waves were leaping against the quays, and thick mists clung like rolls of wool to the lower slopes of Pilatus.

Molly’s spirits rose as the mercury in the barometer fell.  “Would you care for people if they were always good-tempered, or weather if it were always fair?” she asked me (we were sitting together in the tonneau, Jack driving).  “I revel in storms, and if we have one to-night, when we are on the Pass, one of the dearest wishes of my life will be gratified.  ‘A storm on the St. Gothard!’ Haven’t the words a thunder-roll?  Sunlight and mountain passes don’t belong together.  I like to think of great Alpine roads as the fastnesses of giants, who threaten death to puny man when he ventures into their power.”