"Thank you!" he said, and ran off to give some further directions about
his guns.




CHAPTER VII

THE NEW DAY


It need not be wondered at that during the night I slept little. It
seemed such a strange thing which had happened to me. That a great lady
should lean upon my arm--a lady of whom before that day I had never
heard--seemed impossible to my slow-moving Scots intelligence.

I sat most of the night by my window, from which I looked down the
valley. The moonlight was filling it. The stars tingled keen and frosty
above. Lucent haze of colourless pearl-grey filled the chasm. On the
horizon there was a flush of rose, in the midst of which hung a snowy
peak like a wave arrested when it curves to break, and on the upmost
surge of white winked a star.

I opened the casement and flung it back. The cool, icy air of night took
hold on me. I listened. There came from below the far sound of falling
waters. Nearer at hand a goat bleated keenly. A dull, muffled sound,
vast and mysterious, rose slumberously. I remembered that I was near to
the great Alps. Without doubt it was the rumble of an avalanche.

But more than all these things,--under this roof, closed within the