"'Behold, then!' she cried. 'We have opposed ourselves to this problem of
the ice, and we have mastered it. See how it rears itself to the
inaccessible peaks, the which to reach the poor innocents expend
themselves over rocks and drifts. But why should one not climb the
mountain by way of the glacier?'

"'Fidèle!' I gasped.

"'Ah!' she exclaimed, nodding her head; 'but poor men! They are mules.
They spill their blood on the scaling ladders when the town gate is
open.'

"Again I cried 'Fidèle!'

"'But, yes,' she said, 'it needs a woman to see. It is but two o'clock.
Let us ascend the glacier, like a staircase; and presently we shall stand
upon the summit of the mountain. Those last little peaks above the ice
can be of no importance.'

"I was touched, astounded by the sublimity of her idea. Had no one, then,
ever thought of this before?

"We began the ascent.

"I swear we must have toiled upwards half a mile, when the catastrophe
took place.

"It was raining then--a dense small mist; and the ice was as if it
had been greased. We were proceeding with infinite care, arm in arm,
tucked close together. A little doubt, I think, was beginning to oppress