Chayne was freed from the dread which during the last two days had oppressed him.

Perhaps after all Sylvia was right and the plot was definitely abandoned.

Chayne knew very well that Garratt Skinner's passion for the Alps was a deep and real one.

Perhaps it was that alone which had brought him back to Chamonix.

Perhaps one day in the train, traveling northward from Italy, he had looked from the window and seen the slopes of Monte Rosa white in the sun--white with the look of white velvet--and all the last twenty years had fallen from him like a cloak, and he had been drawn back as with chains to the high playground of his youth.