“You have to come away from Mont Blanc to see it,” said Flemming, lowering the glass.  “When I had my nose against it at Chamouni I didn’t see it at all.  It overhung me and smothered me.  Old boy”—­reaching up his hand to Lynde who was leaning on the back of the chair—­“who would ever have thought that we two”—­Flemming stopped short and looked earnestly into his comrade’s face.  “Why, Ned, I didn’t notice how thin and pale you are.  Are you ill?”

The color which had mantled Lynde’s cheeks in the first surprise and pleasure of meeting his friend had passed away, leaving, indeed, a somewhat haggard expression on the young man’s countenance.

“Ill?  Not that I know.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“There is nothing wrong,” replied Lynde, with some constraint.  “That is to say, nothing very wrong.  For a month or six weeks I have been occupied with a matter that has rather unsettled me—­more, perhaps, than I ought to have allowed.”

“What is that?”

“It doesn’t signify.  Don’t let’s speak of it.”

“But it does signify.  You are keeping something serious from me.  Out with it.”

“Well, the truth is,” said Lynde after a moment’s hesitation, “it is something serious and nothing very positive:  that’s the perplexing part of it.”

“You are not making it clear to me.”

“I don’t know that I can, Flemming.”

“Try, then.”

Lynde reflected a few seconds, with his eyes fixed on the remote mountain lines imperceptibly melting into the twilight.  “Do you remember our walk home from the theatre, one night, two or three days before you sailed from New York?”

“Perfectly,” replied Flemming.

“Do you recollect my telling you of a queer thing that happened to me up in the New Hampshire hills?”

“Your encounter with the little lunatic?  Perfectly.”

“Don’t!” said Lynde, shrinking as if some sharp instrument had pierced him.  “She is here!”

“Here!” exclaimed Flemming, half rising from the chair, and glancing towards a draped door which connected the suite of apartments.

“Not in these rooms,” said Lynde, with a short laugh, “but in Geneva—­in this hotel.”

“You do not mean it.”

“When I say it is she, I’m not sure of it.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“That’s what I say, and the next moment I know it is.”

“And is this your trouble?”

“Yes,” answered Lynde, knitting his brows.  “I felt that I shouldn’t make it clear to you.”

“I am afraid you haven’t, Ned.  What earthly difference does it make to you whether or not it’s the same girl?” “What difference!” cried Lynde impetuously; “what difference—­when I love the very ground she walks on!”

“Oh, you love her!  Which one?”

“Don’t laugh at me, Flemming.”

“I am not laughing,” said Flemming, looking puzzled and anxious.  “It is not possible, Ned, you have allowed yourself to go and get interested in a—­a person not right in her mind!”