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His face gave no sign. She was terribly troubled. "Penny points," said Garratt Skinner. "Nothing more." "Oh come, I say," cried Hine, as he pulled out a handful of sovereigns. "Nothing more than penny points in my house. Put that money away, Wallie. We will use counters." Garratt Skinner had a box of counters if he had no pack of cards.
"You see, I have enough to go on with. In fact " and he looked northward toward the mountains. Dimly they could be seen under the sickle of a new moon. "In fact, I propose to-morrow to take your friend Simond and cross on the high-level to Zermatt." "But afterward?" asked Chayne. Garratt Skinner laughed and laughed like a boy. There was a rich anticipation of enjoyment in the sound. "Afterward?
He led quickly and with great judgment or knowledge Pierre Delouvain at the end of the rope wondered whether it was judgment or knowledge and suddenly Walter Hine found himself standing on the crest with Garratt Skinner, and looking down the other side upon a glacier far below, which flows from the Mur de la Côte on the summit ridge of Mont Blanc into the Brenva glacier.
She had always, even to those who knew her to be a woman, something of the child in her appearance, which made a plea from her lips most difficult to refuse. Now she seemed a child on whom the world pressed heavily before her time for suffering had come; she had so motherless a look. Even Garratt Skinner moved uncomfortably in his chair; even that iron man was stirred.
The rope was put on; Pierre Delouvain led the way, Walter Hine as the weakest of the party was placed in the middle, Garratt Skinner came last; the three men mounted by a snow-slope and a gully to the top of the rocks which supported the upper Brenva glacier. "That's our road, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner.
Far away to the left there was a depression up which possibly a way might be forced. "I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said Pierre. "But you should know" said Garratt Skinner. "It is some time since I was here. I have forgotten;" and Pierre began to traverse the ice-slope to the left. Garratt Skinner followed without a word.
"I will never forgive you the distress you have caused to Sylvia," he said. But Garratt Skinner's eyes were upon Sylvia, and in his face, too, there was a humorous look of pride. She had courage. He remembered how she had confronted him when Walter Hine lay sick.
He stood trembling, his face distorted with fear, and his body swaying a little from side to side. Garratt Skinner called sharply to Pierre Delouvain. "Quick, Pierre." There was no time for Garratt Skinner to return; but he gathered himself together on the ridge, ready for a spring.
"There will be little sun to-day," he said. "We shall all die here." Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this way and that.
"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays," he said, taking careful aim at a tulip in the garden. "Any cartridges, Skinner?" "I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied, testily. The newspapers had only this moment been brought into the room, and he did not wish to be disturbed.
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