"
"You are Mr. Garratt Skinner?"
"Yes."
"I am your daughter Sylvia."
"My daughter Sylvia!" he exclaimed in a daze. Then he sat down and held
his head between his hands.
"Yes, by George. I _have_ got a daughter Sylvia," he said, obviously
recollecting the fact with surprise. "But you are at Chamonix."
"I was at Chamonix yesterday."
Garratt Skinner looked sharply at Sylvia.
"Did your mother send you to me?"
"No," she answered. "But she let me go. I came of my own accord. A letter
came from you--"
"Did you see it?" interrupted her father. "Did she show it you?"
"No, but she gave me your address when I told her that I must come away."
"Did she? I think I recognize my wife in that kindly act," he said, with
a sudden bitterness. Then he looked curiously at his daughter.
"Why did you want to come away?"
"I was unhappy. For a long time I had been thinking over this. I hated it
all--the people we met, the hotels we stayed at, the life altogether.
Then at Chamonix I went up a mountain."
"Oho," said her father, sitting up alertly. "So you went up a mountain?
Which one?"
"The Aiguille d'Argentiere. Do you know it, father?"
"I have heard of it," said Garratt Skinner.
"Well, somehow that made a difference. It is difficult to explain. But I
felt the difference. I felt something had happened to me which I had to
recognize--a new thing.
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