But Roland Sefton felt himself exiled to their ice-bound solitudes, cut off from all companionship, and attended only by an accusing conscience.
Morning after morning, when his short and feverish night was ended, he went out in the early dawn while all the valleys below were still slumbering in darkness, self-driven into the wilderness of rock and snow rising above the wretched chalets.

With coarse food sufficient for the wants of the day he strayed wherever his aimless footsteps led him.

It was seldom that he stayed more than a night or two in the same herdsman's hut.

When he was well out of the track of tourists he ventured down into the lower villages now and then, seeking a few days of comparative comfort.

But some rumor, or the arrival of some chance traveller more enterprising and investigating than the mass, always drove him away again.