“That was a proof of my perfect enjoyment, as you would know if you knew me better.  Fine scenery always affects me like music, and, with Jessica, ‘I am never merry when I hear sweet music.’  Besides, Mr. Lynde, I was forming a plan.”

“A plan?”

“A dark conspiracy”—­

“Is the spirit of Lucretia Borgia present?”

—­“in which you are to be chief conspirator, Mr. Lynde.”

“Miss Denham, the person is dead, either by steel or poison; it is all one to me—­I am equally familiar with both methods.”

As the girl lifted up her eyes in a half-serious, half-amused way, and gave him a look in which gentleness and a certain shadow of hauteur were oddly blended, Lynde started in spite of himself.  It was the very look of the poor little Queen of Sheba.

“With your bowl and dagger and monody,” said Miss Denham, breaking into one of her rare laughs, “you are in full tragedy this afternoon.  I am afraid my innocent plot will seem very tame to you in the face of such dreadful things.”

“I promise beforehand to regard it as the one important matter in the world.  What is it?”

“Nothing more than this:  I want you to insist that aunt Gertrude and I ought to make the ascent of Montanvert and visit the Mer de Glace—­ before uncle Denham arrives.”

“Why, would he object?”

“I do not think anything would induce him to trust either of us on one of those narrow mule-paths.”

“But everybody goes up Montanvert as a matter of course.  The bridle-way is perfectly safe.”

“Uncle Denham once witnessed a painful accident on the Wetterhorn—­ indeed, he himself barely escaped death; and any suggestion of mountain climbing that cannot be done on wheels always meets a negative from him.  I suspect my aunt will not strongly favor the proposal, but when I make it I shall depend on you to sustain me.”

“I shall surely do so, Miss Denham.  I have had this same excursion in my mind all along.”

“I was wondering how I should get the chance to ask the favor of you, when that special Providence, which your friend Mr. Flemming pretends not to believe in, managed it for me.”

“It wasn’t I, then, but Providence, that invited you to walk?”

“It looks like it, Mr. Lynde.”

“But at first you were disposed to reject the providential aid.”

“I hesitated about leaving aunt Gertrude alone.”

“If you had refused me, there would have been no end to my disappointment.  This walk, though it is sixty or seventy miles too short, is the choicest thing in the whole journey.”

“Come, Mr. Lynde, that is an improvement on your sigh.”

“Does it occur to you that this is the first time we have chanced to be alone together, in all these weeks?”

“Yes,” said Miss Ruth simply, “it is the first time.”

“I am a great admirer of Mrs. Denham”—­

“I do not see how you can help being; she is charming, and she likes you.”