his room; like the glacier, an unchanging feature of the neighbourhood.

No one loved it better than the Disagreeable Man did; he watched the
sunlight on it, now pale golden, now fiery red. He loved the sky, the
dull grey, or the bright blue. He loved the snow forests, and the
snow-girt streams, and the ice cathedrals, and the great firs patient
beneath their snow-burden. He loved the frozen waterfalls, and the
costly diamonds in the snow. He knew, too, where the flowers nestled
in their white nursery. He was, indeed, an authority on Alpine botany.
The same tender hands which plucked the flowers in the spring-time,
dissected them and laid them bare beneath the microscope. But he did
not love them the less for that.

Were these pursuits a comfort to him? Did they help him to forget that
there was a time when he, too, was burning with ambition to distinguish
himself, and be one of the marked men of the age?

Who could say?


CHAPTER VI.

THE TRAVELLER AND THE TEMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE.


COUNTLESS ages ago a Traveller, much worn with journeying, climbed up
the last bit of rough road which led to the summit of a high mountain.
There was a temple on that mountain. And the Traveller had vowed that
he would reach it before death prevented him. He knew the journey was
long, and the road rough. He knew that the mountain was the most