of small stones whizzing down the rocks and ice-gullies of the Aiguille Verte.  But on the whole this new world was silent, communing with the heavens.  She was in the hushed company of the mountains.  Days there would be when these sunlit ridges would be mere blurs of driving storm, when the wind would shriek about the gullies, and dark mists swirl around the peaks.  But on this morning there was no anger on the heights.

“Yes—­you could have had no better day for your first mountain, mademoiselle,” said Jean, as he stood beside her.  “But this is not your first mountain.”

She turned to him.

“Yes, it is.”

Her guide bowed to her.

“Then, mademoiselle, you have great gifts.  For you stood upon that ice-slope and moved along and up it, as only people of experience stand and move.  I noticed you.  On the rocks, too, you had the instinct for the hand-grip and the foothold and with which foot to take the step.  And that instinct, mademoiselle, comes as a rule only with practice.”  He paused and looked at her perplexity.

“Moreover, mademoiselle, you remind me of some one,” he added.  “I cannot remember who it is, or why you remind me of him.  But you remind me of some one very much.”  He picked up the Ruecksack which he had taken from his shoulders.

It was half past eleven.  Sylvia took a last look over the wide prospect of jagged ridge, ice pinnacles and rock spires.  She looked down once more upon the slim snow peak of Mont Dolent and the grim wall of rocks at the Col.

“I shall never forget this,” she said, with shining eyes.  “Never.”

The fascination of the mountains was upon her.  Something new had come into her life that morning which would never fail her to the very end, which would color all her days, however dull, which would give her memories in which to find solace, longings wherewith to plan the future.  This she felt and some of this her friend understood.

“Yes,” he said.  “You understand the difference it makes to one’s whole life.  Each year passes so quickly looking back and looking forward.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said.

“You will come back?”

But this time she did not answer at once.  She stood looking thoughtfully out over the bridge of the Argentiere.  It seemed to Chayne that she was coming slowly to some great decision which would somehow affect all her life.  Then she said—­and it seemed to him that she had made her decision: 

“I do not know.  Perhaps I never shall come back.”

They turned away and went carefully down the slope.  Again her leading guide, who on the return journey went last, was perplexed by that instinct for the mountain side which had surprised him.  The technique came to her so naturally.  She turned her back to the slope, and thus descended, she knew just the right level at which to drive in the pick of her ax that she might lower herself to the next hole in their ice-ladder.  Finally as they came down the rocks by the great couloir to the glacier, he cried out: