German quite clearly; but
there was a sinister ring in his words that blanched her face. She
could not leave him in his present mood. She was more alarmed now than
when she saw him rising ghostlike from behind the screen of grass and
weeds.

"Please walk with me to the village," she said. "All this beautiful
land is strange to me. It will divert your thoughts from a mournful
topic if you tell me something of its wonders."

He looked at her for an instant. Then his eyes fell on the church in
the neighboring hollow, and he crossed himself, murmuring a few words
in Italian. She guessed their meaning. He was thanking the Virgin for
having sent to his rescue a girl who reminded him of his lost Etta.

"Yes," he said, "I will come. If I were remaining in the Maloja,
_fraeulein_, I would beg you to let me take you to the Forno, and
perhaps to one of the peaks beyond. Old as I am, and lame, you would
be safe with me."

Helen breathed freely again. She felt that she had been within
measurable distance of a tragedy. Nor was there any call on her wits
to devise fresh means of drawing his mind away from the madness that
possessed him a few minutes earlier. As he limped unevenly by her
side, his talk was of the mountains. Did she intend to climb? Well,
slow and sure was the golden rule. Do little or nothing during four or
five days, until she had grown accustomed to the thin and keen Alpine
air. Then go to Lake Lunghino,--that would suffice for the first real
excursion. Next day, she ought to start early, and climb the mountain
overlooking that same lake,--up there, on the other side of the
hotel,--all rock and not difficult. If the weather was clear, she
would have a grand view of the Bernina range. Next she might try the
Forno glacier. It was a simple thing. She could go to and from the
_cabane_ in ten hours. Afterward, the Cima di Rosso offered an easy
climb; but that meant sleeping at the hut. All of which was excellent
advice, though the reflection came that Stampa's "slow and sure"
methods were not strongly in evidence some sixteen hours earlier.

Now, the Cima di Rosso was in full view at that instant. Helen
stopped.

"Do you really mean to tell me that if I wish to reach the top of that
mountain, I must devote two days to it?" she cried.

Stampa, though bothered with troubles beyond her ken, forgot them
sufficiently to laugh grimly. "It is farther away than you seem to
think, _fraeulein_; but the real difficulty is t