rent dinner, paid a large bill, and
went out to survey the preparations for departure, so far as the pelting
rain in the court-yard would let him. He was going over the Simplon,
starting rather late in the day, and the weather was abominable. His
valet, Richard Dell, kept watch over the luggage and encouraged the
ostlers, with a fairly stoical countenance. He was an old traveller, and
though he would have preferred not to travel in a deluge, he disliked
Italy, as a country of sour wine, and would be glad to find himself
across the Alps. Moreover, he knew the decision of his master's
character, and, being a man of some ability and education, he took a
pride in the loftiness of the affairs on which Ashe was generally
engaged. If Mr. Ashe said that he <i>must</i> get to Geneva the following
morning, and to London the morning after, on important business--why, he
<i>must</i>, and it was no good talking about weather.

They rattled off through the streets of Domo Dossola, Dell in front with
the driver, under a waterproof hood and apron, Ashe in the closed landau
behind, with a plentiful supply of books, newspapers, and cigars to
while away the time.

At Isella, the frontier village, he took advantage of the custom-house
formalities and of a certain lull in the storm to stroll a little in
front of the inn. On the Italian side, looking east, there was a certain
wild lifting of the clouds, above the lower course of the stream
descending from the Gondo ravine; upon the distant meadows and mountain
slopes that marked the opening of the Tosa valley, storm-lights came and
went, like phantom deer chased by the storm-clouds; beside him the
swollen river thundered past, seeking a thirsty Italy; and behind, over
the famous Gondo cleft, lay darkness, and a pelting tumult of rain.

Ashe turned back to the carriage, bidding a silent farewell to a country
he did not love--a country mainly significant to him of memories which
rose like a harsh barrier between his present self and a time when he,
too, fleeted life carelessly, like other men, and found every hour
delightful. Never, as long as he lived, should he come willingly to
Italy. But his mother this year had fallen into such an exhaustion of
body and mind, caused by his father's long agony, that he had persuaded
her to let him carry her over the Alps to Stresa--a place she had known
as a girl and of which she often spoke--for a Whitsuntide holiday. He
himself was no longer in office.