ntain side. And though the road
be broad and very plainly marked, the conductor never feels secure
that his passenger will find his way safely to the summit. He likes
to know that each of his flock is in his right place, and disapproves
altogether of an erratic spirit. But Mr. Glascock at last prevailed,
and the two men started together up the mountain. When the permission
has been once obtained the walker may be sure that his guide and
shepherd will not desert him.

"Of course I know," said Trevelyan, when the third twist up the
mountain had been overcome, "that people talk about me and my wife.
It is a part of the punishment for the mistake that one makes."

"It is a sad affair altogether."

"The saddest in the world. Lady Milborough has no doubt spoken to you
about it."

"Well;--yes; she has."

"How could she help it? I am not such a fool as to suppose that
people are to hold their tongues about me more than they do about
others. Intimate as she is with you, of course she has spoken to
you."

"I was in hopes that something might have been done by this time."

"Nothing has been done. Sometimes I think I shall put an end to
myself, it makes me so wretched."

"Then why don't you agree to forget and forgive and have done with
it?"

"That is so easily said;--so easily said." After this they walked on
in silence for a considerable distance. Mr. Glascock was not anxious
to talk about Trevelyan's wife, but he did wish to ask a question or
two about Mrs. Trevelyan's sister, if only this could be done without
telling too much of his own secret. "There's nothing I think so
grand, as walking up a mountain," he said after a while.

"It's all very well," said Trevelyan, in a tone which seemed to
imply that to him in his present miserable condition all recreations,
exercises, and occupations were mere leather and prunella.

"I don't mean, you know, in the Alpine Club way," said Glascock. "I'm
too old and too stiff for that. But when the path is good, and the
air not too cold, and when it is neither snowing, nor thawing, nor
raining, and when the sun isn't hot, and you've got plenty of time,
and know that you can stop any moment you like and be pushed up by a
carriage, I do think walking up a mountain is very fine,--if you've
got proper shoes, and a good stick, and it isn't too soon after
dinner. There's nothing like the air of Alps." And Mr. Glascock
renewed his pace, and stretched himself against the hill at the rat