Chapter 23

prevail with her.

"So it was his doing," she cried, with a laugh, and at once grew serious, dwelling, as lovers will, upon the small accident which had brought them together, and might so easily never have occurred. An unknown guide speaks to her in a doorway, and lo! for her the world is changed, dark years come to an end, the pathway broadens to a road; she walks not alone. Whatever the future may hold--she walks not alone. Suppose there had been no lamp above the doorway! Suppose there had been a lamp and she not there! Suppose the guide had passed five minutes sooner or five minutes later!

"Oh, Hilary!" she cried, and put the thought from her.

"I was thinking," he said, "that if you were not tired we might walk across the fields to Michel's house. He would, I think, be very happy if we did."

A few minutes later they knocked upon Michel's door. Michel Revailloud opened it himself and stood for a moment peering at the dim figures in the darkness of the road.

"It is I, Michel," said Chayne, and at the sound of his voice Michel Revailloud drew him with a cry of welcome into the house.

"So you have come back to Chamonix, monsieur! That is good"; and he looked his "monsieur" over from head to foot and shook him warmly by the hand. "Ah, you have come back!"

"And not alone, Michel," said Chayne.

Revailloud turned to the door and saw Sylvia standing there. She was on the threshold and the light reached to her. Sylvia moved into the low-roofed room. It was a big, long room, bare, and with a raftered ceiling, and since one oil lamp lighted it, it was full of shadows. To Chayne it had a lonely and a dreary look. He thought of his own house in Sussex and of the evening he had passed there, thinking it just as lonely. He felt perhaps at this moment, more than at any, the value of the great prize which he had won. He took her hand in his, and, turning to Michel, said simply:

"We are married, Michel. We reached Chamonix only this evening. You are the first of our friends to know of our marriage."

Michel's face lighted up. He looked from one to the other of his visitors and nodded his head once or twice. Then he blew his nose vigorously. "But I let you stand!" he cried, in a voice that shook a little, and he bustled about pushing chairs forward, and of a sudden stopped. He came forward to Sylvia very gravely and held out his hand. She put her hand into his great palm.

"Madame, I will not pretend to you that I am not greatly moved. This is a great happiness to me," he said with simplicity. He made no effort to hide either the tears which filled his eyes or the unsteadiness of his voice. "I am very glad for the sake of Monsieur Chayne. But I know him well. We have been good friends for many a year, madame."

"I know, Michel," she said.

"And I can say therefore with confidence I am very glad for your sake too. I am also very glad for mine. A minute ago I was sitting here alone--now you are both here and together. Madame, it was a kind thought which brought you both here to me at once."

"To whom else should we come?" said Sylvia with a smile, "since it was you, Michel, who would not let me ascend the Aiguille des Charmoz when I wanted to."

Michel was taken aback for a moment; then his wrinkled and weatherbeaten face grew yet more wrinkled and he broke into a low and very pleasant laugh.

"Since my diplomacy has been so successful, madame, I will not deny it. From the first moment when I heard you with your small and pretty voice say on the steps of the hotel 'I am sorry' to my patron in his great distress, and when I saw your face, too thoughtful for one so young, I thought it would be a fine thing if you and he could come together. In youth to be lonely--what is it? You slip on your hat and your cloak and you go out. But when you are old, and your habits are settled, and you do not want to go out at nights to search for company, then it is as well to have a companion. And it is well to choose your companion in your youth, madame, so that you may have many recollections to talk over together when the good of life is chiefly recollection."

He made his visitors sit down, fetched out a bottle of wine and offered them the hospitalities of his house, easily and naturally, like the true gentleman he was. It seemed to Chayne that he looked a little older, that he was a little more heavy in his gait, a little more troubled with his eyes than he had been last year. But at all events to-night he had the spirit, the good-humor of his youth. He talked of old exploits upon peaks then unclimbed, he brought out his guide's book, in which his messieurs had written down their names and the dates of the climbs, and the photographs which they had sent to him.

"There are many photographs of men grown famous, madame," he said, proudly, "with whom I had the good fortune to climb when they and I and the Alps were all young together. But it is not only the famous who are interesting. Look, madame! Here is your husband's friend, Monsieur Lattery--a good climber but not always very sure on ice."

"You always will say that, Michel," protested Chayne. "I never knew a man so obstinate."

Michel Revailloud smiled and said to Sylvia:

"I knew he would spring out on me. Never say a word against Monsieur Lattery if you would keep friends with Monsieur Chayne. See, I give you good advice in return for your kindness in visiting an old man. Nevertheless," and he dropped his voice in a pretence of secrecy and nodded emphatically: "It is true. Monsieur Lattery was not always sure on ice. And here, madame, is the portrait of one whose name is no doubt known to you in London--Professor Kenyon."

Sylvia, who was turning over the leaves of the guide's little book, looked up at the photograph.

"It was taken many years ago," she said.

"Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Michel, with a shrug of the shoulders, "when he and I and the Alps were young."

Chayne began quickly to look through the photographs outspread upon the table. If Kenyon's portrait was amongst Revailloud's small treasures, there might be another which he had no wish for his wife to see, the portrait of the man who climbed with Kenyon, who was Kenyon's "John Lattery." There might well be the group before the Monte Rosa Hotel in Zermatt which he himself had seen in Kenyon's rooms. Fortunately however, or so it seemed to him, Sylvia was engrossed in Michel's little book.