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All day long the upper reaches of the glacier would be pelted by avalanches. It struck him that an early stroll to the highest point of the path beyond Cavloccio might be rewarded with a distant view of several falls. The temperature of his bath water induced doubts as to the imminence of the thaw. Indeed, the air was bitterly cold as yet. The snow lay closely on roads and meadow land.
Addio, sigñorina," and he lifted his hat with the inborn grace of the peasantry of Southern Europe. Helen was hoping that he might elect to accompany her to Cavloccio. She would willingly have paid him for loss of time. Her ear was becoming better tuned each moment to his strange patois.
As the guidebook spoke of a carriage road to Lake Cavloccio, and a bridle path thence to within a mile of the Forno glacier, she came to the conclusion that she was taking a short cut. At any rate, on the summit of the next little hill she would be able to see her way quite distinctly, so she jumped across the brook and climbed through the undergrowth. Before she had gone twenty yards she stopped.
She did not decline his aid when the path was steep and slippery. In delightful snatches of talk they managed to say a good deal to each other, and Helen did not fail to make plain the exact circumstances under which she first caught sight of Spencer outside the hut. When they arrived at the carriage road, which begins at Lake Cavloccio, they could walk side by side and chat freely.
Their guide, a man named Josef Barth, and the porter, who answered to "Karl," awaited them at the milk chalet by the side of Lake Cavloccio. Bower, evidently accustomed to the leadership of expeditions of this sort, tested their ice axes and examined the ropes slung to Barth's rucksack.
While Spencer strolled off by the side of the lake, the old guide lumbered into the village street, and waited there, knowing that he would waylay the bella Inglesa on her return. Though she came from the château and not from Cavloccio, he did not fail to see her.
Struggling awkwardly to his feet, he said in broken and halting German, "I pray your forgiveness, fräulein. I fear I have alarmed you." "It is I who should ask forgiveness," she said. "I came here by accident. I thought I could go to Cavloccio by this path." She could have hit on no other words so well calculated to bring him back to every day life.
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