re me from becoming a murderer, and I give you this last chance
of saving your dirty life. Kneel there, by the side of the grave, and
attend to the words that I shall read to you, or you must surely die!
You came to Zermatt and chose my Etta. Very well, if it be God's will
that she should be the wife of a scoundrel like you, it is not for me
to resist. Marry her you shall, here and now! I will bind you to her
henceforth and for all eternity, and the time will come when her
intercession may drag you back from the hell your cruel deed
deserves."

With a mighty effort, Bower regained the self-conceit that Stampa's
words, no less than the depressing environment, had shocked out of
him. The grotesque nature of the proposal was a tonic in itself.

"If I had expected any such folly on your part, I should not have come
with you," he said, speaking with something of his habitual dignity.
"Your suggestion is monstrous. How can I marry a dead woman?"

Stampa's expression changed instantly. Its meek sorrow yielded to a
ferocity that was appalling. Already bent, he crouched like a wild
beast gathering itself for an attack.

"Do you refuse?" he asked, in a low note of intense passion.

"Yes, curse you! And mutter your prayers in your own behalf. You need
them more than I."

Bower planted himself firmly, right in the gateway. He clenched his
fists, and savagely resolved to batter this lunatic's face into a
pulp. He had a notion that Stampa would rush straight at him, and give
him an opportunity to strike from the shoulder, hard and true. He was
bitterly undeceived. The man who was nearly twenty years his senior
jumped from the top of a low monument on to the flat coping stones of
the wall. From that greater height he leaped down on Bower, who struck
out wildly, but without a tithe of the force needed to stop the impact
of a heavily built adversary. He had to change feet too, and he was
borne to the earth by that catamount spring before he could avoid it.
For a few seconds the two writhed in the snow in deadly embrace. Then
Stampa remained uppermost. He had pinned Bower to the ground face
downward. Kneeling on his shoulders, with the left hand gripping his
neck and the right clutching his hair and scalp, he pulled back the
wretched man's head till it was a miracle that the spinal column was
not broken.

"Now!" he growled, "are you content?"

There was no reply. It was a physical impossibility that Bower should
speak. Even in