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of the glacier and then descended on to ice. They went forward partly on
moraine, partly on ice at the foot of the crags of the Aiguille Verte.
And gradually the darkness thinned. Dim masses of black rock began to
loom high overhead, and to all seeming very far away. The sky paled, the
dim masses of rock drew near about the climbers, and over the steep
walls, the light flowed into the white basin of the glacier as though
from every quarter of the sky.

Sylvia stopped and Chayne came up with her.

"Well?" he asked; and as he saw her face his thoughts were suddenly
swept back to the morning when the beauty of the ice-world was for the
first time vouchsafed to him. He seemed to recapture the fine emotion of
that moment.

Sylvia stood gazing with parted lips up that wide and level glacier to
its rock-embattled head. The majestic silence of the place astounded her.
There was no whisper of wind, no rustling of trees, no sound of any bird.
As yet too there was no crack of ice, no roar of falling stones. And as
the silence surprised her ears, so the simplicity of color smote upon her
eyes. There were no gradations. White ice filled the basin and reached


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