ach year passes so quickly looking back and looking forward."

"Yes, I understand," she said.

"You will come back?"

But this time she did not answer at once. She stood looking thoughtfully
out over the bridge of the Argentiere. It seemed to Chayne that she was
coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her
life. Then she said--and it seemed to him that she had made her decision:

"I do not know. Perhaps I never shall come back."

They turned away and went carefully down the slope. Again her leading
guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that
instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him. The technique
came to her so naturally. She turned her back to the slope, and thus
descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of
her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder.
Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier,
he cried out:

"Ah! Now, mademoiselle, I know who it is you remind me of. I have been
watching you. I know now."

She looked up.

"Who is it?"

"An English gentleman I once climbed with for a whole season many years
ago. A great climber, mademoiselle! Captain Chayne will know his name.
Gabriel Strood."

"Gabriel Strood!" she cried, and then she laughed. "I too know his name.
You are flattering me, Jean."

But Jean would not admit it.

"I am not, mademoiselle," he insisted. "I do not say you have his
skill--how should you? But there are certain movements, certain neat ways
of putting the hands and feet. Yes, mademoiselle, you remind me of him."

Sylvia thought no more of his words at the moment. They reached the
lateral glacier, descended it and crossed the Glacier d'Argentiere. They
found their stone-encumbered pathway of the morning and at three o'clock
stood once more upon the platform in front of the Pavillon de Lognan.
Then she rested for a while, saying very little.

"You are tired?" he said.

"No," she replied. "But this day has made a great difference to me."

Her guides approached her and she said no more upon the point. But Chayne
had no doubt that she was referring to that decision which she had taken
on the summit of the peak. She stood up to go.

"You stay here to-night?" she said.

"Yes."

"You cross the Col Dolent to-morrow?"

"Yes."

She looked at him quickly and then away.

"You will be careful? In the shadow there?"

"Yes."

She was