he
next day or two. Anyhow I've rather overdone things lately."

"Thank you for the promise," Lucy said, and was glad when her mother
joined them, for she felt baffled and wanted to think.

She hated Walters with a half-instinctive hatred that reflection showed
her was justified; but beyond the concession he had made Lawrence would
not be moved. On the surface, so to speak, he was logical and she was
not. She was sure Walters had plotted to leave him on the couloir,
although she admitted that he had meant to save his life when he turned
dizzy upon the trunk. It was possible that he had yielded to sudden
generous emotion, but she did not accept the explanation. The fellow
was cold-blooded and calculating; she thought he had deliberately let
his opportunity pass, because, after this, nobody would believe him
guilty if he found another. But he must not find an opportunity, and
it was a keen relief to know that Foster would soon arrive. She had
not told Lawrence yet; it might be better to let Foster make an excuse
for his visit.

When it began to get dark, she stood near the glass front of the
veranda and glanced at her watch. She could see for some distance down
the valley and knew that the smoke of a locomotive would spread in a
dark cloud across the tops of the pines. The train was late, but there
was no smoke yet. It was a long climb from sea-level at Vancouver
Inlet and in winter the line was sometimes blocked. There was no
obvious ground for alarm, but somehow she was worse afraid of Walters
than before.

The massed pines gradually faded to a formless blur on the cold
blue-gray slopes of snow. There was no sound from the valley by the
roar of the river, and by and by a servant turned on the lamps. Lucy
could now see nothing outside and shivered as she looked at her watch.
She hoped no accident had delayed the tram.

In the meantime, Lawrence, who was sitting near her mother, had picked
up a book, but put it down when Walters came in, and Lucy felt a
curious tremor of repugnance as she glanced at him. It was a shrinking
she sometimes experienced at the sight of a noxious insect. Yet there
was nothing about Walters to excite aversion. He was rather a handsome
man, and stood in a careless pose, smiling at the group.

"The trouble about a pleasant time is that it comes to an end, and I'll
have to pull out to-morrow," he said. "When are you going to give me
the photographs you promised, Lawrence?"