Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down again in the arm-chair before the empty grate.  It was a strange and a haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts.  Men like Gabriel Strood always come back to the Alps.  They sleep too restlessly at nights, they needs must come.  And yet this man had stayed away.  There must have been some great impediment.  He fell into another train of thought.  Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen.  Had Gabriel Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the Brenva Glacier to the Calotte.  The story was still not unraveled, and while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold.  He was a man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone—­until he smiled.  And in the smile there was much companionship and love.  He smiled now as he stretched out his long, finely-molded hand.

“I am very glad to see you, Chayne,” he said, in a voice remarkable for its gentleness, “although in another way I am sorry.  I am sorry because, of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps.”

Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder and forced him down again with a friendly pressure.  “I read of Lattery’s death.  I am grieved about it—­for you as much as for Lattery.  I know just what that kind of loss means.  It means very much,” said he, letting his deep-set eyes rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man.  Kenyon put a whisky and soda by Chayne’s elbow, and setting the tobacco jar on a little table between them, sat down and lighted his pipe.

“You came back at once?” he asked.

“I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into Italy,” replied Chayne.

“Yes, yes,” said Kenyon, nodding his head.  “But you will go back next year, or the year after.”

“Perhaps,” said Chayne; and for a little while they smoked their pipes in silence.  Then Chayne came to the object of his visit.

“Kenyon,” he asked, “have you any photographs of the people who went climbing twenty to twenty-five years ago?  I thought perhaps you might have some groups taken in Switzerland in those days.  If you have, I should like to see them.”

“Yes, I think I have,” said Kenyon.  He went to his writing-desk and opening a drawer took out a number of photographs.  He brought them back, and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light fell clear and strong upon the little table, laid them down.

Chayne bent over them with a beating heart.  Was his suspicion to be confirmed or disproved?