ven!"

"But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are setting forth to seek
them even now. We had to wait until the _Tourmente_ passed. It has been
fearful up here."

"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! Let me go with you. Let me go
with you for the love of GOD! One of those gentlemen is to be my
husband. I love him, O, so dearly. O so dearly! You see I am not
faint, you see I am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. I will show
you that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. I will do it
with my own hands. I will swear to be brave and good. But let me go
with you, let me go with you! If any mischance should have befallen him,
my love would find him, when nothing else could. On my knees, dear
friends of travellers! By the love your dear mothers had for your
fathers!"

The good rough fellows were moved. "After all," they murmured to one
another, "she speaks but the truth. She knows the ways of the mountains.
See how marvellously she has come here. But as to Monsieur there,
ma'amselle?"

"Dear Mr. Joey," said Marguerite, addressing him in his own tongue, "you
will remain at the house, and wait for me; will you not?"

"If I know'd which o' you two recommended it," growled Joey Ladle, eyeing
the two men with great indignation, "I'd fight you for sixpence, and give
you half-a-crown towards your expenses. No, Miss. I'll stick by you as
long as there's any sticking left in me, and I'll die for you when I
can't do better."

The state of the moon rendering it highly important that no time should
be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two men
quickly took their resolution. The rope that yoked them together was
exchanged for a longer one; the party were secured, Marguerite second,
and the Cellarman last; and they set out for the Refuges. The actual
distance of those places was nothing: the whole five, and the next
Hospice to boot, being within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened
out and sheeted over.

They made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two had taken
shelter. The second storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over it
since, that their tracks were gone. But the dogs went to and fro with
their noses down, and were confident. The party stopping, however, at
the further arch, where the second storm had been especially furious, and
where the drift was deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about and
about, in quest of a lost purpose.