You must follow.' There was the chloral always ready. I found myself night after night, when you were asleep, reaching out my hand obediently towards it--towards it----"

"Except last night," Royle interrupted, suddenly finding at last the explanation of some words of hers which had puzzled him, "when he came here, and you were away."

"And I slept soundly in consequence," she agreed. "Yes. But to-night--if you hadn't been here--I should have obeyed altogether."

"But I am here," said Royle, gently; and, looking up, he saw that the morning had come. He rose and pulled aside the curtains so that the clear light flooded the room.

"Ina, do something for me," he pleaded, and she understood. She took the bottle of crystals, poured them into the basin, and set the tap running.

"Stay with me," she said. "Now that I have told you, I believe that I shall sleep, and sleep without fear. When you came into the room before I was only pretending."

She nestled down, and this time she did sleep. It seemed to Royle that the victory was won.

Some months later, however, a client talking over his affairs with Royle in his private office mentioned Raymond Byatt's name. Royle leaned forward with a start.

"You knew that man?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the client with a laugh. "He forged my name for a thousand pounds--and not mine alone. He was clever with his pen. But he came to the end of his tether at last. He saved himself from penal servitude by blowing his brains out."

Royle jumped out of his chair.

"Is that true?"

"Absolutely."

And Royle sat down suddenly.

"That's the best piece of news I have ever had in my life," he cried.

Now for a sure thing the victory was his. He went home that evening in the highest spirits.

"What do you think, Ina, I discovered to-day?" he blurted out. "You'll be as glad to hear as I was. Raymond Byatt didn't kill himself for you, after all. He did it to save himself from a prosecution for forgery."

There was a moment's silence, and then Ina replied:

"Indeed!" and that was all. But Dorman Royle, to his perplexity, detected a certain unexpected iciness in her voice. Somehow that new insight which Groome had discovered in him had on this evening failed him altogether.

THE CRYSTAL TRENCH

THE CRYSTAL TRENCH

I

It was late in the season, and for the best part of a week the weather had been disheartening. Even to-day, though there had been no rain since last night, the mists swirled in ma.s.ses over a sunless valley green as spring, and the hill-sides ran with water. It pleased Dennis Challoner, however, to believe that better times were coming. He stood at a window of the Riffelalp Hotel, and imagined breaches in the dark canopy of cloud.

"Yes," he said, hopefully, "the weather is taking up."

He was speaking to a young girl whose name he did not know, a desultory acquaintance made during the twelve hours which he had pa.s.sed at the hotel.

"I believe it is," she answered. She looked out of the window at two men who were sitting disconsolately on a bench. "Those are your men, aren't they? So you climb with guides!"

There was, a note of deprecation in her voice quite unmistakable. She was trying not to show scorn, but the scorn was a little too strong for her. Challoner laughed.

"I do. With guides I can go where I like, when I like. I don't have to hunt for companions or make arrangements beforehand. I have climbed with the Blauers for five years now, and we know each other's ways."

He broke off, conscious that in her eyes he was making rather feeble excuses to cover his timidity and incompetence.

"I have no doubt you are quite right," she replied. There was a gentle indulgence in her voice, and a smile upon her lips which cried as plainly as words, "I could tell you something if I chose." But she was content to keep her triumphant secret to herself. She laid her hand upon the ledge of the window, and beat a little tattoo with her finger-tips, so that Challoner could not but look at them. When he looked he understood why she thus called his attention. She wore a wedding-ring.

Challoner was surprised. For she was just a tall slip of a girl. He put her age at nineteen or less. She was clear-eyed and pretty, with the tremendous confidence of one who looks out at life from the secure shelter of a school-room. Then, with too conscious an unconsciousness, she turned away, and Challoner saw no more of her that day.

But the hotel was still full, though most of the climbers had gone, and in the garden looking over the valley of Zermatt, at six o'clock that evening, a commotion broke out about the big telescope. Challoner was discussing plans for the morrow with his guides by the parapet at the time, and the three men turned as one towards the centre of the clamour. A German tourist was gesticulating excitedly amidst a group of his compatriots. He broke through the group and came towards Challoner, beaming like a man with good news.

"You should see--through the telescope--since you climb. It is very interesting. But you must be quick, or the clouds will close in again."

"What do you mean?" Challoner asked.

"There, on the top of the Weisshorn, I saw two men."

"Now? At six o'clock in the evening--on a day of storm?" Challoner cried. "It's impossible."

"But I have seen them, I tell you."

Challoner turned and looked down and across the valley. The great curtain of cloud hung down in front of the hills like wool. The lower slopes of dark green met it, and on them the black pines marched up into the mist. Of rock and glacier and soaring snow not an inch was visible. But the tourist clung to his story.

"It is my first visit to the mountains. I was never free before, and I must go down to-morrow morning. I thought that even now I should never see them--all the time I have been here the weather has been terrible.

But at the last moment I have had the good fortune. Oh, I am very pleased."

The enthusiasm of this middle-aged German business man, an enthusiasm childlike as it was sincere, did not surprise Challoner. He looked upon that as natural. But he doubted the truth of the man's vision. He wanted so much to see what he saw.

"Tell me exactly what you saw," Challoner asked, and this was the story which the tourist told.

He was looking through the telescope when suddenly the clouds thinned, and through a film of vapour he saw, very far away and dimly, a soaring line of black like a jagged reef, and a great white slope more solid than the clouds, and holding light. He kept his eye to the lens, hoping with all his soul that the wonderful vision might be vouchsafed to him, and as he looked, the screen of vapour vanished, and he saw quite clearly the exquisite silver pyramid of the Weisshorn soaring up alone in the depths of a great cavern of grey cloud. For a little while he continued to watch, hoping for a ray of sunlight to complete a picture which he was never to forget, and then, to his amazement and delight, two men climbed suddenly into his vision on to the top of the peak. They came from the south or the south-west.

"By the Schalligrat!" exclaimed Challoner. "It's not possible!"

"Yes," the tourist protested. He was sure. There was no illusion at all. The two men did not halt for a second on the top. They crossed it, and began to descend the long ridge towards the St. Nicholas valley.

"I am sure," he continued. "One of the climbers, the one in front, was moving very slowly and uncertainly like a man in an extremity of weakness. The last was strong. I saw him lift the rope between them, which was slack, and shake the snow off it----"

"You saw that?" exclaimed Challoner. "What then?"