d with
dust; therefore I had not goggled myself, and I think that Jack must
have gathered something of my thoughts from my long face.

"How would you like to get out and walk here, like pilgrims of old?"
he asked. "It will be too much for the girls, but Gotteland will drive
them up slowly, not to be too far in advance. American girls, you'll
find, if you ever make a study of one or more of them, can do
everything in the world except--walk. There they have to bow to
English girls."

"That's because we've got smaller feet," retorted Molly. "Where an
English girl can walk ten miles we can do only five, but it's quite
enough. And we have such imaginations that we can sit in this
automobile and fancy ourselves princesses on ambling palfreys."

It was close to the deserted distillery of the famous liqueur that we
parted company, the car, piled with our discarded great-coats, forging
ahead up the historic path. The little tramway that used to carry the
cases of liqueur to the station at Fourvoirie was nearly obliterated
by new-grown grass; the vast buildings stood empty. Never again would
the mellow Chartreuse verte and Chartreuse jaune he fragrantly
distilled behind the high grey walls, for the makers were banished and
scattered far abroad.

We lingered for a moment at the narrow entrance to Le Desert, where
the rushing river Guiers foams through the throttled gorge, giving
barely room for the road scored along the lace of the cliff. It was
like a doorway to the lost domain of the monks, and Jack and I agreed
that St. Bruno was a man of genius to find such a retreat. A retreat
it was literally. St. Bernard had taken his followers to a place
where, suffering great hardships, they could best devote their lives
to succouring others; but St. Bruno's theory had evidently been that
holy men can do more good to their kind by prayer in peaceful
sanctuaries than by offering more material aid.

Here,--at the doorway of St. Bruno's long corridor,--the ravine, the
old forge, the single-arched bridge flung high across the deep bed of
the roaring torrent, had all grouped themselves as if after a
consultation upon artistic effect. Once, there had been an actual
gate, built alike for defence and for limitation, but there were no
traces of it left for the eye of the amateur.

We passed into the defile, and the motor car was out of sight long
ago. Higher and higher the brown road climbed. The mountains towered
close and tall. Great pil