‘Do you mean to tell me that we require all these things for a week or ten days?’ he said, scowling at the patient Jinman, who was standing on guard over a compact pyramid of trunks, portmanteaux, and Gladstone bags, umbrellas, sunshades, and heterogeneous etceteras. ‘I don’t think there’s anything could have been dispensed with, Sir Vernon,’ answered Jinman. ‘The books and ornaments and most of the heavy luggage have gone on to Montrooks.’ ‘Great Heaven, in the face of this would any man marry, and make himself responsible for feminine existences!’ exclaimed Sir Vernon, shrugging his shoulders disgustedly as he turned away; yet Jinman could have informed him that his own share of the luggage was quite equal to that of his daughters. They were all established presently in a German railway compartment: Sir Vernon seated in his corner and absorbed in an English newspaper, whose ample sheet excluded every glimpse of lake and wooded slopes, Alps and Jura; while Edgar smoked on the platform outside, and Daphne stood at the open door, gazing at the changing landscape: the smiling lake below; the dark slopes and mountain range on the farther shore; the villages nestling in the valley on this nearer bank; the cosy little homesteads and bright gardens; the vine-clad terraces, divided by low gray walls; the quaint old churches, with tiled roofs and square clock-towers; and yonder, far away at the end of the lake, Chillon’s gloomy fortress, which she recognised with a cry of delight, having seen its presentment in engravings and photographs, and knowing Byron’s poem by heart. She gave a sigh of regret as a curve of the line carried her away from the azure lake and its panorama of hills. ‘I can hardly bear to leave it,’ she said; ‘but, thank Heaven, we are coming back to it soon.’ ‘You are reconciled to Switzerland, then, in spite of your disillusions,’ said Gerald. ‘Reconciled! I should like to live and die here.’ ‘What! abandon your beloved Shakespeare’s country?’ ‘I am heartily sick of Shakespeare’s country.’ ‘Daphne,’ cried Edgar, with a look of deepest mortification, ‘that is a bad look-out for poor old Hawksyard.’ ‘Hawksyard is a dear old place, but I don’t want to be reminded of it—or of anything else in Warwickshire—now I am in Switzerland. I want to soar, if I can. I am in Byron’s country. He lived there,’ pointing downwards to where they had left Lausanne and Ouchy. ‘He wrote some of his loveliest poetry there; his genius is for ever associated with these scenes. Sad, unsatisfied spirit!’ Her eyes filled with sudden tears at the thought of that disappointed life, seeking solace from all that is loveliest in Nature, shunning the beaten tracks, yet never finding peace. ‘If you are very good,’ said Gerald gravely, ‘within the next ten minutes I will show you something you are anxious to see.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘Mont Blanc. Get your glass ready.’ ‘Why, we left him behind us, across the lake, sulkily veiled in impenetrable cloud.’