rn, and a question presently revealed it.

"What made him start on a long walk so suddenly?" she asked. "I saw him
at eleven o'clock, and then he meant to go to Engelberg, and sleep."

"On his way to Interlaken?" Rowland said.

"Yes," she answered, under cover of the darkness.

"We had some talk," said Rowland, "and he seemed, for the day, to have
given up Interlaken."

"Did you dissuade him?"

"Not exactly. We discussed another question, which, for the time,
superseded his plan."

Miss Garland was silent. Then--"May I ask whether your discussion was
violent?" she said.

"I am afraid it was agreeable to neither of us."

"And Roderick left you in--in irritation?"

"I offered him my company on his walk. He declined it."

Miss Garland paced slowly to the end of the gallery and then came back.
"If he had gone to Engelberg," she said, "he would have reached the
hotel before the storm began."

Rowland felt a sudden explosion of ferocity. "Oh, if you like," he
cried, "he can start for Interlaken as soon as he comes back!"

But she did not even notice his wrath. "Will he come back early?" she
went on.

"We may suppose so."

"He will know how anxious we are, and he will start with the first
light!"

Rowland was on the point of declaring that Roderick's readiness to throw
himself into the feelings of others made this extremely probable; but he
checked himself and said, simply, "I expect him at sunrise."

Miss Garland bent her eyes once more upon the irresponsive darkness, and
then, in silence, went into the house. Rowland, it must be averred, in
spite of his resolution not to be nervous, found no sleep that night.
When the early dawn began to tremble in the east, he came forth again
into the open air. The storm had completely purged the atmosphere, and
the day gave promise of cloudless splendor. Rowland watched the early
sun-shafts slowly reaching higher, and remembered that if Roderick
did not come back to breakfast, there were two things to be taken
into account. One was the heaviness of the soil on the mountain-sides,
saturated with the rain; this would make him walk slowly: the other
was the fact that, speaking without irony, he was not remarkable for
throwing himself into the sentiments of others. Breakfast, at the inn,
was early, and by breakfast-time Roderick had not appeared. Then Rowland
admitted that he was nervous. Neither Mrs. Hudson nor Miss Garland had
left their apartment; Rowland had a mental