indeed he had, a better plan and a simpler one, a plan
which not merely would give to any uttered suspicion
the complexion of malignancy, but must even bring
Mr. Garratt Skinner honor and great praise. But
no idea of the plan occurred either to Sylvia or to
Chayne as all through that long hot day they toiled
up the ice-fall of the Col du Geant and over the passes.
It was evening before they came to the pastures, night
before they reached Courmayeur.
There Chayne found full confirmation of his fears.
In spite of effort to dissuade them, Garratt Skinner,
Walter Hine and Pierre Delouvain had started yesterday
for the Brenva climb. They had taken porters with
them as far as the sleeping-place upon the glacier
rocks. The porters had returned. Chayne
sent for them.
“Yes,” they said. “At half
past two this morning, the climbing party descended
from the rocks on to the ice-fall of the glacier.
They should be at the hut at the Grands Mulets now,
on the other side of the mountain, if not already
in Chamonix. Perhaps monsieur would wish for
porters to-morrow.”
“No,” said Chayne. “We mean
to try the passage in one day”; and he turned
to his guides. “I wish to start at midnight.
It is important. We shall reach the glacier by
five. Will you be ready?”
And at midnight accordingly he set out by the light
of a lantern. Sylvia stood outside the hotel
and watched the flame diminish to a star, dance for
a little while, and then go out. For her, as for
all women, the bad hour had struck when there was
nothing to do but to sit and watch and wait.
Perhaps her husband, after all, was wrong, she said
to herself, and repeated the phrase, hoping that repetition
would carry conviction to her heart.
But early on that morning Chayne had sure evidence
that he was right. For as he, Simond and Andre
Droz were marching in single file through the thin
forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd
lad came running down toward them. He was so
excited that he could hardly tell the story with which
he was hurrying to Courmayeur. Only an hour before
he had seen, high up on the Brenva ridge, a man waving
a signal of distress. Both Simond and Droz discredited
the story. The distance was too great; the sharpest
eyes could not have seen so far. But Chayne believed,
and his heart sank within him. The puppet and
Garratt Skinner—what did they matter?
But he turned his eyes down toward Courmayeur.
It was Sylvia upon whom the blow would fall.
“The story cannot be true,” cried Simond.
But Chayne bethought him of another day long ago,
when a lad had burst into the hotel at Zermatt and
told with no more acceptance for his story of an avalanche
which he had seen fall from the very summit of the
Matterhorn. Chayne looked at his watch. It
was just four o’clock.
“There has been an accident,” he said.
“We must hurry.”
