She looked through the
subsequent papers in the volume, but could find no further mention of his
name. She perplexed her fancies that morning. She speculated whether
having made this climb he had stopped and climbed no more; or whether he
might not get out of this very train on to the platform at Chamonix. But
as the train slowed down near to Annemasse, she remembered that the
exploit of which she had read had taken place more than twenty years ago.
CHAPTER II
INTRODUCES ONE OF STROOD'S SUCCESSORS
But though Gabriel Strood occupied no seat in that train, one of his
successors was traveling by it to Chamonix after an absence of four
years. Of those four years Captain Chayne had passed the last two among
the coal-stacks of Aden, with the yellow land of Arabia at his back,
longing each day for this particular morning, and keeping his body lithe
and strong against its coming. He left the train at Annemasse, and
crossing the rails to the buffet, sat down at the table next to that
which Mrs. Thesiger and her daughter already occupied.
He glanced at them, placed them in their category, and looked away,
utterly uninterested. They belonged to the great class of the continental
wanderers, people of whom little is known and everything
suspected--people with no kinsfolk, who flit from hotel to hotel and
gather about them for a season the knowing middle-aged men and the
ignorant young ones, and perhaps here and there an unwary woman deceived
by the more than fashionable cut of their clothes.
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