ded and put my hands upon the
rock, feeling its surface inch by inch. There was a crevice there, not
large enough to have permitted a bird to pass--the merest fissure.

"Jacqueline! Is that you, dear?" I called.

"Where are you, Paul?" she whispered back.

"Behind the wall," I answered. "You are not hurt, Jacqueline?"

"I am lying where you left me, dear. Paul, I--I heard."

"You heard?" I answered dully. What did it matter now?

"Why didn't you tell me, Paul? But never mind. I am so glad, dearest!
Can you come through to me?"

I struggled to tear the rocks away; I beat and bruised my hands in vain
against them.

"Soon," I muttered. "Soon. Can you breathe well, Jacqueline?"

"It is all open, Paul. It is nearly dawn now."

"I will come when it grows light, Jacqueline," I babbled. "When it
grows light!"

She did not know that it would never grow light for me. Again I flung
myself against the walls of my prison, battering at them till the blood
dripped from my hands. Again and again I flung myself down hopelessly,
and then I tried again, clutching at every fragment that protruded into
the cave.

And at last, when my despair had mastered me--it grew light.

For a sunbeam shot like a finger through the crevice and quivered upon
the floor of the cave. And overhead, where I had never thought to
seek, where I had thought three hundred feet of eternal rock pressed
down on me, I saw the quiver of day through half a dozen feet of
tight-packed debris from the glacier's mouth.

I raised myself and tore at it and sent it flying. I thrust my hands
among the stones and tore them down like the tiles from a rotten roof.

I heard a shout; hands were reached down to me and pulled me up, and I
was on my feet upon a hillside, looking into the keen eyes of Pere
Antoine and the face of the Indian squaw.

And the Eskimo dog was barking at my side.

CHAPTER XXV

THE END OF THE CHATEAU

Only one thing marred the happiness of our reunion, and that was the
loss of Jacqueline's father.

We had talked much over what had happened, and ten days later, when
Jacqueline had recovered from the shock and from what proved to be,
after all, only a flesh-wound, we had visited the scene of our rescue
by the old priest.

The Indian woman had met him as she was returning home, and had told
him of our danger, and he had started out before dawn, to find that
there was no longer any entrance to the tunnel. Wandering i