not swear to him till the last
yard.

"Don't say a word," he whispered excitedly. "I'm just off!"

"Off where?" I gasped, for he had changed into full mountaineering garb,
and there was his greased face beaming in the moonlight, and the blue
spectacles twinkling about his hat-band, at half-past nine at night.

"Up the Matterhorn!"

"At this time of night?"

"It is a bit late, and that's why I want it kept quiet. I don't want any
fuss or advice. I've got a couple of excellent guides waiting for me
just below by the shoemaker's hut. I told you I was on their tracks.
Well, it was to-night or never as far as they were concerned, they are
so tremendously full up. So to-night it is, and don't you remind me of
my mother!"

I was thinking of her when he spoke; for the song had swung through a
worthy refrain into another verse, and now I knew it better. It was
Catherine who had introduced me to all my lyrics; it was to Catherine I
had once hymned this one in my unformed heart.

"But I thought," said I, as I forced myself to think, "that everybody
went up to the _Cabane_ overnight, and started fresh from there in the
morning?"

"Most people do, but it's as broad as it's long," declared Bob, airily,
rapidly, and with the same unwonted excitement, born as I thought of
his unwonted enterprise. "You have a ripping moonlight walk instead of a
so-called night's rest in a frowsy hut. We shall get our breakfast there
instead, and I expect to start fresher than if I had slept there and
been knocked up at two o'clock in the morning. That's all settled,
anyhow, and you can look for me on top through the telescope after
breakfast. I shall be back before dark, and then--"

"Well, what then?" I asked, for Bob had made a significant and yet
irresolute pause, as though he could not quite bring himself to tell me
something that was on his mind.

"Well," he echoed nonchalantly at last, as though he had not hesitated
at all, "as a matter of fact, to-morrow night I am to know my fate. I
have asked Mrs. Lascelles to marry me, and she hasn't said no, but I am
giving her till to-morrow night. That's all, Clephane. I thought it a
fair thing to let you know. If you want to waltz in and try your luck
while I'm gone, there's nothing on earth to prevent you, and it might be
most satisfactory to everybody. As a matter of fact, I'm only going so
as to get over the time and keep out of the way."

"As a matter of fact?" I queried, waving a little