to be accompanied by such undistinguished climbers. Let me
introduce ourselves. This is my cousin, Sir Ernest Scrivener. This is my
brother, Lord Tamerton. I am Margaret Tamerton."

"Lady Margaret Tamerton!" cried Ralph in amazement. "Little Madge! Don't
you remember me--Ralph Wonderson, your playmate as a child?"

"Ralph!" exclaimed Lady Margaret. "Oh, of course! And I haven't seen you
since you whitewashed all the guinea-pigs and were sent away to school."

* * * * *

Several hours later Lady Margaret stood with Ralph on the terrace
outside the hut. Her eyes plunged into the awful abyss at their feet,
swept along the moonlit valley thousands and thousands of feet below
them, and fastened themselves upon the sinister crags of the Lyskamm and
the stupendous dome of Mont Blanc. A lump came into her throat.

"I don't know why," she said softly, "but I have a presentiment of evil.
Is the Wetterhorn _very_ dangerous?"

Ralph laughed lightly. "A child could climb it blindfolded in
midwinter," he said. "Trust yourself to me, little Madge, to-morrow
and--and----"

"For ever!" added Margaret almost inaudibly as they went into the hut
together.

Mingled happiness and foreboding strangely disturbed her breast, and she
sighed as she trod heavily on the face of one of the guides in climbing
to her shelf. She heard his low sleepy murmur of apology as she drew her
straw about her. There is no more courteous body of men in the world
than the Swiss guides.

Next morning, after a hasty toilet with a handful of snow, the party set
off shortly before sunrise. Ralph by general consent assumed the
leadership. Taking careful soundings with his ice-axe and using his
crampons with almost uncanny certitude, he guided his companions through
a moraine and debouched on to a tremendous glacier.

As he turned to survey those behind them he perceived for the first time
a scar under the left ear of Sir Ernest Scrivener.

"_Teufel!_" he exclaimed under his breath. "It is he! Moorsdyke! My
mortal enemy!" But his meditations were interrupted by the stern nature
of the work before them. Their route led them along the foot of a line
of towering and trembling _seracs_. The vibration of a whisper might
send them crashing down upon the party.

Placing one hand on his lips as a warning for silence, he dexterously
cut steps in the ice with the other. Progress was slow and nerve
racking. Every step had to be taken wi