em slipping over the snow,
making for the waterfall as fast as they can hoof it, but none of them
look back--and if they were all your dearest friends you couldn't catch
a glimpse of their faces--unless, I suppose, you had the gumption to
start off by sitting up at the waterfall and waiting for 'em--which
nobody has, of course. The point of the story, if you can call it a
point, is that the last man in the procession isn't dead at all. He's a
sort of false spook of the living--taking his first turn in with
them--because as sure as fate he dies before the next year's out, and
when the other chaps have reached the waterfall, he stops short and
looks back toward Davos--that's how he's been spotted, and he's always
died all right before the end of the year. Rum tale, isn't it?"

"How did you get hold of it?" Lionel asked curiously. "It's not much in
your line, is it?"

"Well--I don't know," said Winn, taking out his pipe and preparing to
light it. "The last six months or so, I've thought a lot of funny
things. I came up here prepared to die; that's to say, I thought I'd got
to, which is as far as you can prepare for most things, but I'm not
going to die, as I told you yesterday, but what I didn't mention to you
then was that, on the whole, as it happens now, I'd jolly well rather."

"You mean," said Lionel, "that it's got too thick between you and
Estelle? I wish you'd tell me, old chap. I haven't an idea how it
stands, but I've been afraid ever since I stayed with you, that you'd
made a bit of a mistake over your marriage?"

"As far as that goes," said Winn, "I swallowed that down all right. It's
no use bothering about a thing that isn't there. It's what is that
counts. It counts damnably, I can tell you that. Look here, have you
ever had any ideas about love?"

"I can't say that I have," Lionel admitted cautiously. "Many. I dare say
I should like it if it came; and I've had fancies for girls, of course,
but nothing so far I couldn't walk off, not what people call the real
thing, I suppose. I've always liked women more than you have, and I
don't think you get let in so much if you honestly like 'em. I haven't
seen any one I particularly want to marry yet, if that's what you mean?"

"That's part of it," agreed Winn. "I supposed you'd been like that. I
shouldn't wonder if what you say about liking 'em being safer, isn't
true. I never liked 'em. I've taken what I could get when I wanted it. I
rather wish I hadn't now, b