One by one he took the photographs, closely examined them, and laid them aside while Kenyon stood upright on the other side of the table.  He had turned over a dozen before he stopped.  He held in his hand the picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open space before the door.  In the open space men were gathered.  They were talking in groups; some of them leaned upon ice-axes, some carried Ruecksacks upon their backs, as though upon the point of starting for the hills.  As he held the photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and bent his head a little lower, Kenyon made a slight uneasy movement.  But Chayne did not notice.  He sat very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph.  On the outskirts of the group stood Sylvia’s father.  Younger, slighter of build, with a face unlined and a boyish grace which had long since gone—­but undoubtedly Sylvia’s father.

The contours of the mountains told Chayne clearly enough in what valley the hotel stood.

“This is Zermatt,” he said, without lifting his eyes.

“Yes,” replied Kenyon, quietly, “a Zermatt you are too young to know,” and then Chayne’s forefinger dropped upon the figure of Sylvia’s father.

“Who is this?” he asked.

Kenyon made no answer.

“It is Gabriel Strood,” Chayne continued.

There was a pause, and then Kenyon confirmed the guess.

“Yes,” he said, and some hint of emotion in his voice made Chayne lift his eyes.  The light striking upward through the green shade gave to Kenyon’s face an extraordinary pallor.  But it seemed to Chayne that not all the pallor was due to the lamp.

“For six seasons,” Chayne said, “Gabriel Strood came to the Alps.  In his first season he made a great name.”

“He was the best climber I have ever seen,” replied Kenyon.

“He had a passion for the mountains.  Yet after six years he came back no more.  He disappeared.  Why?”

Kenyon stood absolutely silent, absolutely still.  Perhaps the trouble deepened a little on his face; but that was all.  Chayne, however, was bent upon an answer.  For Sylvia’s sake alone he must have it, he must know the father into whose clutches she had come.

“You knew Gabriel Strood.  Why?”

Kenyon leaned forward and gently took the photograph out of Chayne’s hand.  He mixed it with the others, not giving to it a single glance himself, and then replaced them all in the drawer from which he had taken them.  He came back to the table and at last answered Chayne: 

“John Lattery was your friend.  Some of the best hours of your life were passed in his company.  You know that now.  But you will know it still more surely when you come to my age, whatever happiness may come to you between now and then.  The camp-fire, the rock-slab for your floor and the black night about you for walls, the hours of talk, the ridge and the ice-slope, the bad times in storm and mist, the good times in the sunshine, the cold nights of hunger when you were caught by the darkness, the off-days when you lounged at your ease.  You won’t forget John Lattery.”