his books, and
possessed of an intuitive hostility to existing modes. What kind of a
career would ensue? Strange anticipated the solution of the problem
with an approach to excitement. Two events, however, prevented the
complete realisation of his scheme. One was a lingering illness which
struck him down when David was twenty-four and about to enter on his
ordeal. The second, occurring simultaneously, was the advent of Mrs.
Branscome--then Kate Alden--to Grindelwald.

They met by chance on the snow slopes of the Wetterhorn early one
August morning. Miss Alden was trying to disentangle some meaning
from the _patois_ of her guides, and gratefully accepted Hilton's
assistance. Half-an-hour after she had continued the ascent, David
noticed a small gold locket glistening in her steps. It recalled him
to himself, and he picked it up and went home with a strange trouble
clutching at his heart. The next morning he carried the locket down
into the valley, found its owner and--forgot to restore it. It became
an excuse for further descents. Meanwhile, the theories were wooed
with a certain coldness. In front of them stood perpetually the one
real thing which had surged up through the quiet of his life, and,
lover-like, he justified its presence to himself, by seeing in Kate
Alden's frank face the incarnation of the ideal patterns of his books.
The visits to Grindelwald grew more frequent and more prolonged. The
climax, however, came unexpectedly to both. David had commissioned a
jeweller at Berne to fashion a fac-simile of the locket for his own
wearing, and, meaning to restore the original, handed Kate Alden the
copy the evening before she left. An explanation of the mistake led to
mutual avowals and a betrothal. Hilton returned to nurse his adoptive
father, and was to seek England as soon as he could obtain his
release. Meanwhile, Kate pledged herself to wait for him. She kept the
new locket, empty except for a sprig of edelweiss he had placed in
it, and agreed that if she needed her lover's presence, she should
despatch it as an imperative summons.

During the next two years Strange's life ebbed sullenly away. The
approach of death brought no closer intimacy between uncle and nephew,
since indeed the former held it almost as a grievance against
David that he should die before he could witness the issue of his
experiment. Consequently the younger man kept his secret to himself,
and embraced it the more closely for his secrecy