"I suppose because he is kind"; and at that simple explanation Sylvia's
mother laughed with a bitter amusement. Sylvia sat scraping the gravel
with her slipper.
"Don't do that!" cried her mother, irritably. Then she asked suddenly a
question which startled her daughter.
"Did you meet any one last night on the mountain, at the inn?"
Sylvia's face colored, but the moonlight hid the change.
"Yes," she said.
"A man?"
"Yes."
"Who was it?"
"A Captain Chayne. He was at the hotel all last week. It was his friend
who was killed on the Glacier des Nantillons."
"Were you alone at the inn, you and he?"
"Yes."
"Did he know your father?"
Sylvia stared at her mother.
"I don't know. I suppose not. How should he?"
"It's not impossible," replied Mrs. Thesiger. Then she leaned on the
table. "It was he who put these ideas into your head about going away,
about leaving me." She made an accusation rather than put a question, and
made it angrily.
"No, mother," Sylvia replied. "He never spoke of you. The ideas have been
growing in my mind for a long time, and to-day--" She raised her head,
and turning slightly, looked up to where just behind her the ice-peaks of
the Aiguilles du Midi and de Blaitiere soared into the moonlit sky.
"To-day the end came. I became certain that I must go away. I am very
sorry, mother.
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