was in the very act of making
the same suggestion!"

Bob glared on me for an instant in spite of Eton and all his ancestors.

"We'll all go together," I cried before he could speak. "Why not?"

Nor was this mere unreasoning or good-natured impulse, since Bob could
scarcely have pressed his suit in my presence, while I should certainly
have done my best to retard it; still, it was rather a relief to me to
see him shake his head with some return of his natural grace.

"My idea was to show Mrs. Lascelles the gorge," said Bob, "but you can
do that as well as I can; you can't miss it; besides, I've seen it, and
I really ought to stay up here, as a matter of fact, for I'm on the
track of a guide for the Matterhorn."

We looked at him narrowly with one accord, but he betrayed no signs of
desperate impulse, only those of "climbing fever," and I at least
breathed again.

"But if you want a guide," said I, "Zermatt's full of them."

"I know," said he, "but it's a particular swell I'm after, and he hangs
out up here in the season. They expect him back from a big trip any
moment, and I really ought to be on the spot to snap him up."

So Bob retired, in very fair order after all, and not without his
laughing apologies to Mrs. Lascelles; but it was sad to me to note the
spurious ring his laugh had now; it was like the death-knell of the
simple and the single heart that it had been my lot, if not my mission,
to poison and to warp. But the less said about my odious task, the
sooner to its fulfilment, which now seemed close at hand.

It was not in fact so imminent as I supposed, for the descent into
Zermatt is somewhat too steep for the conduct of a necessarily delicate
debate. Sound legs go down at a compulsory run, and my companion was
continually waiting for me to catch her up, only to shoot ahead again
perforce. Or the path was too narrow for us to walk abreast, and you
cannot become confidential in single file; or the noise of falling
waters drowned our voices, when we stood together on that precarious
platform in the cool depths of the gorge, otherwise such an admirable
setting for the scene that I foresaw. Then it was a beautiful walk in
itself, with its short tacks in the precipitous pine-woods above, its
sudden plunge into the sunken gorge below, its final sweep across the
green valley beyond; and it was all so new to us both that there were
impressions to exchange or to compare at every turn. In fine, and with
all t