t of Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier.
Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It
was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back.
The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the
Blaitiere--yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back,
with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arete of the
Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages. But there was nowhere
in any volume on which he laid his hands any further record of his
exploits. Others who followed in his steps mentioned his name, but of the
man himself there was no word more. No one had climbed with him, no one
had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For five or six seasons
he had flashed through the Alps. Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the
Concordia hut--all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just
under twenty years ago he had come no more.

Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down
again in the arm-chair before the empty grate. It was a strange and a
haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts.
Men like Gabriel Strood _always_ come back to the Alps. They sleep too
restlessly at nights, they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed
away. There must have been some great impediment. He fell into another
train of thought. Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel
Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the
Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was still not unraveled, and
while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and
a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold. He was a
man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and
his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an
aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone--until he smiled. And
in the smile there was much companionship and love. He smiled now as he
stretched out his long, finely-molded hand.

"I am very glad to see you, Chayne," he said, in a voice remarkable for
its gentleness, "although in another way I am sorry. I am sorry because,
of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps."

Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder
and forced him down again with a friendly pressure. "I read of Lattery's
death. I am grieved about it--for you as much as for Lattery