ile, rather like her own smile, hesitated about his mouth.

"And--

"Who is Sylvia? What is she?
Her trunks do not proclaim her!"

he said. "Beyond that Sylvia has apparently come to stay, I am rather in
the dark."

"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?"

"Yes."

"I am your daughter Sylvia."

"My daughter Sylvia!" he exclaimed in a daze. Then he sat down and held
his head between his hands.

"Yes, by George. I _have_ got a daughter Sylvia," he said, obviously
recollecting the fact with surprise. "But you are at Chamonix."

"I was at Chamonix yesterday."

Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia.

"Did your mother send you to me?"

"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came of my own accord. A letter
came from you--"

"Did you see it?" interrupted her father. "Did she show it you?"

"No, but she gave me your address when I told her that I must come away."

"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that kindly act," he said, with
a sudden bitterness. Then he looked curiously at his daughter.

"Why did you want to come away?"

"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been thinking over this. I hated it
all--the people we met, the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether.
Then at Chamonix I went up a mountain."

"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you went up a mountain?
Which one?"

"The Aiguille d'Argentiere. Do you know it, father?"

"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner.

"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is difficult to explain. But I
felt the difference. I felt something had happened to me which I had to
recognize--a new thing. Climbing that mountain, staying for an hour upon
its summit in the sunlight with all those great still pinnacles and
ice-slopes about me--it was just like hearing very beautiful music." She
was sitting now leaning forward with her hands clasped in front of her
and speaking with great earnestness. "All the vague longings which had
ever stirred within me, longings for something beyond, and beyond, came
back upon me in a tumult. There was a place in shadow at my feet far
below, the only place in shadow, a wall of black rock called the Col
Dolent. It seemed to me that I was living in that cold shadow. I wanted
to get up on the ridge, with the sunlight. So I came to you."

It seemed to Sylvia, that intently as she spoke, her words were and must
be elusive to another, unless that other had felt what she felt or were
moved by sympathy to feel it. Her fathe