“Is Nita unwell, Emma?” asked Lewis early one morning, not long after the sad event narrated in the last chapter.

“I think not. She is merely depressed, as we all are, by the melancholy death of poor Le Croix.”

“I can well believe it,” returned Lewis. “Nevertheless, it seems to me that her careworn expression and deep despondency cannot be accounted for by that event.”

“You know that her father left last week very suddenly,” said Emma. “Perhaps there may be domestic affairs that weigh heavily on her. I know not, for she never refers to her family or kindred. The only time I ventured to do so she appeared unhappy, and quickly changed the subject.”

The cousins were sauntering near their hotel and observed Dr Lawrence hurry from the front door.

“Hallo! Lawrence,” called out Lewis.

“Ah! the very man I want,” exclaimed the Doctor, hastening to join them, “do you know that Miss Horetzki is ill?”

“How strange that we should just this moment have referred to her looking ill! Not seriously ill, I trust,” said Emma, with a troubled look in her sympathetic eyes.

“I hope not, but her case puzzles me more than any that I have yet met with. I fancy it may be the result of an overstrained nervous system, but there appears no present cause for that. She evidently possesses a vigorous constitution, and every one here is kind to her—her father particularly so. Even if she were in love, which she doesn’t seem to be (a faint twinkle in the Doctor’s eye here), that would not account for her condition.”

“I can’t help thinking,” observed Lewis, with a troubled look, “that her father is somehow the cause of her careworn looks. No doubt he is very kind to her in public, but may there not be a very different state of things behind the scenes?”

“I think not. The Count’s temper is gentle, and his sentiments are good. If he were irascible there might be something behind the scenes, for when restraint is removed and temper gets headway, good principles may check but cannot always prevent unkindness. Now, Emma, I have sought you and Lewis to ask for counsel. I do not say that Nita is seriously ill, but she is ill enough to cause those who love her—as I know you do—some anxiety. It is very evident to me, from what she says, that she eagerly desires her father to be with her, and yet when I suggest that he should be sent for, she nervously declines to entertain the proposal. If this strange state of mind is allowed to go on, it will aggravate the feverish attack from which she now suffers. I wish, therefore, to send for the Count without letting her know. Do you think this a wise step?”

“Undoubtedly; but why ask such a question of me?” said Emma, with a look of surprise.

“First, because you are Nita’s friend—not perhaps, a friend of long standing, but, if I mistake not, a very loving one; and, secondly, as well as chiefly, because I want you to find out from her where her father is at present, and let me know.”

“There is something disagreeably underhand in such a proceeding,” objected Emma.

“You know that a doctor is, or ought to be, considered a sort of pope,” returned Lawrence. “I absolve you from all guilt by assuring you that there is urgent need for pursuing the course I suggest.”

“Well, I will at all events do what I can to help you,” said Emma. “Shall I find her in her own room?”

“Yes, in bed, attended, with Mrs Stoutley’s permission, by Susan Quick. Get rid of the maid before entering on the subject.”

In a few minutes Emma returned to the Doctor, who still walked up and down in earnest conversation with Lewis. She had succeeded, she said, in persuading Nita to let her father be sent for, and the place to which he had gone for a few days was Saxon, in the Rhone valley. The Count’s address had also been obtained, but Nita had stipulated that the messenger should on no account disturb her father by entering the house, but should send for him and wait outside.

“Strange prohibition!” exclaimed Lawrence. “However, we must send off a messenger without delay.”

“Stay,” said Lewis, detaining his friend; “there seems to be delicacy as well as mystery connected with this matter, you must therefore allow me to be the messenger.”

Lawrence had no objection to the proposal, and in less than an hour Lewis, guided by Antoine Grennon, was on the road to Martigny by way of the celebrated pass of the Tête-Noire.

The guide was one of Nature’s gentlemen. Although low in the social scale, and trained in a rugged school, he possessed that innate refinement of sentiment and feeling—a gift of God sometimes transmitted through a gentle mother—which makes a true gentleman. Among men of the upper ranks this refinement of soul may be counterfeited by the superficial polish of manners; among those who stand lower in the social scale it cannot be counterfeited at all, but still less can it be concealed. As broadcloth can neither make nor mar a true gentleman, so fustian cannot hide one. If Antoine Grennon had been bred “at Court,” and arrayed in sumptuous apparel, he could not have been more considerate than he was of the feelings and wishes of others, or more gentle, yet manly, in his demeanour.

If, on an excursion, you wished to proceed in a certain direction, Antoine never suggested that you should go in another, unless there were insurmountable difficulties in the way. If you chanced to grow weary, you could not have asked Antoine to carry your top-coat, because he would have observed your condition and anticipated your wishes. If you had been inclined to talk he would have chatted away by the hour on every subject that came within the range of his knowledge, and if you had taken him beyond his depth, he would have listened by the hour with profound respect, obviously pleased, and attempting to understand you. Yet he would not have “bored” you. He possessed great tact. He would have allowed you to lead the conversation, and when you ceased to do so he would have stopped. He never looked sulky or displeased. He never said unkind things, though he often said and did kind ones, and, with all that, was as independent in his opinions as the whistling wind among his native glaciers. In fact he was a prince among guides, and a pre-eminently unselfish man.

Heigho! if all the world—you and I, reader, included—bore a stronger resemblance to Antoine Grennon, we should have happy times of it. Well, well, don’t let us sigh despairingly because of our inability to come up to the mark. It is some comfort that there are not a few such men about us to look up to as exemplars. We know several such, both men and women, among our own friends. Let’s be thankful for them. It does us good to think of them!

From what we have said, the reader will not be surprised to hear that, after the first words of morning salutation, Lewis Stoutley walked smartly along the high road leading up the valley of Chamouni in perfect silence, with Antoine trudging like a mute by his side.

Lewis was too busy with his thoughts to speak at first. Nita’s illness, and the mystery connected somehow with the Count, afforded food not only for meditation, but anxiety, and it was not until the town lay far behind them that he looked at his guide, and said:—

“The route over the Tête-Noire is very grand, I am told?”

“Very grand, Monsieur—magnificent!”

“You are well acquainted with it, doubtless?”

“Yes; I have passed over it hundreds of times. Does Monsieur intend to make a divergence to the Col de Balme?”

“No; I have urgent business on hand, and must push on to catch the railway. Would the divergence you speak of take up much time? Is the Col de Balme worth going out of one’s way to see?”

“It is well worthy of a visit,” said the guide, replying to the last query first, “as you can there have a completely uninterrupted view—one of the very finest views of Mont Blanc, and all its surroundings. The time required for the divergence is little more than two hours; with Monsieur’s walking powers perhaps not so much; besides, there is plenty of time, as we shall reach Martigny much too soon for the train.”

“In that case we shall make the détour,” said Lewis. “Are the roads difficult?”

“No; quite easy. It is well that Monsieur dispensed with a mule, as we shall be more independent; and a mule is not so quick in its progress as an active man.”

While they chatted thus, walking at a quick pace up the valley, Antoine, observing that his young charge was now in a conversational frame of mind, commented on the magnificent scenery, and drew attention to points of interest as they came into view.

Their route at first lay in the low ground by the banks of the river Arve, which rushed along, wild and muddy, as if rejoicing in its escape from the superincumbent glaciers that gave it birth. The great peaks of the Mont Blanc range hemmed them in on the right, the slopes of the Brévent on the left. Passing the village of Argentière with rapid strides, and pausing but a few moments to look at the vast glacier of the same name which pours into the valley the ice-floods gendered among the heights around the Aiguille Verte and the Aiguille du Chardonnet, which rise respectively to a height of above 13,400 and 12,500 feet they reached the point where the Tête-Noire route diverged to the left at that time, in the form of a mere bridle-path, and pushed forward towards the Col, or pass.

On the way, Antoine pointed out heaps of slabs of black slate. These, he said, were collected by the peasants, who, in spring, covered their snow-clad fields with them; the sun, heating the slabs, caused the snow beneath to melt rapidly; and thus, by a very simple touch of art, they managed to wrest from Nature several weeks that would otherwise have been lost!

As they rose into the higher grounds, heaps and rude pillars of stone were observed. These were the landmarks which guided travellers through that region when it was clad in its wintry robe of deep snow, and all paths obliterated.

At last they stood on the Col de Balme. There was a solitary inn there, but Antoine turned aside from it and led his companion a mile or so to one side, to a white stone, which marked the boundary between Switzerland and France.

It is vain to attempt in words a description of scenes of grandeur. Ink, at the best, is impotent in such matters; even paint fails to give an adequate idea. We can do no more than run over a list of names. From this commanding point of view Mont Blanc is visible in all his majesty—vast, boundless, solemn, incomprehensible—with his Aiguilles de Tour, d’Argentière, Verte, du Dru, de Charmoz, du Midi, etcetera, around him; his white head in the clouds, his glacial drapery rolling into the vale of Chamouni, his rocks and his pine-clad slopes toned down by distance into fine shadows. On the other side of the vale rise the steeps of the Aiguilles Rouges and the Brévent. To the north towers the Croix de Fer, and to the north-east is seen the entire chain of the Bernese Alps, rising like a mighty white leviathan, with a bristling back of pinnacles.

Splendid though the view was, however, Lewis did not for a moment forget his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he hastened back to the Tête-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof, and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region; now, he was involved in its rocky, ridgy, woody details. Here and there long vistas opened up to view, but, for the most part, his vision was circumscribed by towering cliffs and deep ravines. S............