e des Charmoz
opposite--how should he know? The philosophy of his guide Michel
Revailloud flashed across Chayne's mind. "One needs some one with whom to
exchange one's memories."

Had Garratt Skinner felt that need and felt it with so much compulsion
that he must satisfy it in spite of himself? Yet why should he practise
concealment at all? There certainly had been concealment. Chayne
remembered how more than once Garratt Skinner had checked himself before
at last he had yielded. It was in spite of himself that he had spoken.
And then suddenly as the train drew up at Vauxhall Station for the
tickets to be collected, Chayne started up in his seat. On the rocks of
the Argentiere, beside the great gully, as they descended to the glacier,
Sylvia's guide had spoken words which came flying back into Chayne's
thoughts. She had climbed that day, though it was her first mountain, as
if knowledge of the craft had been born in her. How to stand upon an
ice-slope, how to hold her ax--she had known. On the rocks, too! Which
foot to advance, with which hand to grasp the hold--she had known.
Suppose that knowledge _had_ been born in her! Why, then those words of
her guide began to acquire significance. She had reminded him of some
one--some one whose name he could not remember--but some one with whom
years ago he had climbed. And then upon the rocks, some chance movement
of Sylvia's, some way in which she moved from ledge to ledge, had
revealed to him the name--Gabriel Strood.

Was it possible, Chayne asked? If so, what dark thing was there in the
record of Strood's life that he must change his name, disappear from the
world, and avoid the summer nights, the days of sunshine and storm on the
high rock-ledges and the ice-slope?

Chayne was minded to find an answer to that question. Sylvia was in
trouble; that house under the downs was no place for her. He himself was
afraid of what was being planned there. It might help him if he knew
something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew at present. And it seemed
to him that there was just a chance of acquiring that knowledge.

He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up St. James' Street.
The street was empty. It was a hot starlit night of the first week in
August, and there came upon him a swift homesickness for the world above
the snow-line. How many of his friends were sleeping that night in
mountain huts high up on the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs
open to the star