about him, for I had seen this condition before. In the morning he
would be as stiff as a poker, but recovered.

'Now I'm off for St Anton,' I said. 'I must get there tonight.'

'You are the hardy one,' the man laughed. 'I will show you the quick
road to Grunewald, where is the railway. With good fortune you may get
the last train.'

I gave him fifty francs on my Herr's behalf, learned his directions for
the road, and set off after a draught of goat's milk, munching my last
slab of chocolate. I was still strung up to a mechanical activity, and
I ran every inch of the three miles to the Staubthal without
consciousness of fatigue. I was twenty minutes too soon for the train,
and, as I sat on a bench on the platform, my energy suddenly ebbed
away. That is what happens after a great exertion. I longed to sleep,
and when the train arrived I crawled into a carriage like a man with a
stroke. There seemed to be no force left in my limbs. I realized that I
was leg-weary, which is a thing you see sometimes with horses, but not
often with men.

All the journey I lay like a log in a kind of coma, and it was with
difficulty that I recognized my destination, and stumbled out of the
train. But I had no sooner emerged from the station of St Anton than I
got my second wind. Much snow had fallen since yesterday, but it had
stopped now, the sky was clear, and the moon was riding. The sight of
the familiar place brought back all my anxieties. The day on the Col of
the Swallows was wiped out of my memory, and I saw only the inn at
Santa Chiara, and heard Wake's hoarse voice speaking of Mary. The
lights were twinkling from the village below, and on the right I saw
the clump of trees which held the Pink Chalet.

I took a short cut across the fields, avoiding the little town. I ran
hard, stumbling often, for though I had got my mental energy back my
legs were still precarious. The station clock had told me that it was
nearly half-past nine.

Soon I was on the high-road, and then at the Chalet gates. I heard as
in a dream what seemed to be three shrill blasts on a whistle. Then a
big car passed me, making for St Anton. For a second I would have
hailed it, but it was past me and away. But I had a conviction that my
business lay in the house, for I thought Ivery was there, and Ivery was
what mattered.

I marched up the drive with no sort of plan in my head, only a blind
rushing on fate. I remembered dimly that I had still three cartridge