Their chief lack was news. English papers were beyond their pocket and almost unattainable, and the local ones contained but very one-sided and garbled statements of what was going on at the various fronts. Cook’s offices were closed, so no news could be got there. The ‘Feuille d’Avis’ was indeed stuck up each day in the office-window in the Market-Place, and they went along every morning and read it for what it was worth. But it was only by applying to their friend the consul that they could get any actual facts, and those not of the most recent nor of the most vital. And he was so terribly overworked that they disliked troubling him. At times, indeed, in sheer self-defence he locked his door and stuck up a notice saying that he was broken down and could see no one. Then the clamorous throng gnashed its teeth and leaned its elbows on his bell-push, and Lois and Ray were so ashamed of their fellows that they preferred getting along as best they could without news sooner than harass him further. They managed to keep brooding at bay very enjoyably by exploring all their surroundings,--from Chillon--they could not afford to go inside,--to Vevey;--to the Rochers-de-Naye by Veytaux and Recourbes; and up to Les Avants and the Chauderon Gorge. Anywhere and everywhere attainable to pedestrians they went, with unbounded energy and immense satisfaction, and savoured the joy of life to the very fullest. The restful beauty of the shimmering blue lake, and the uplifting glory of the peaks of the Valais and Vaudois and Savoy, viewed as they were through the glamour of their fulfilled love, wrought themselves into the very texture of their lives. To Lois it was a time of rare enchantment, heightened and intensified--like the shining of stars in a blue-black sky--by the grim horror of the war-clouds beyond. It might all come to an end any day. The future might have in it unthinkable sorrows. But this at least was theirs, and the joyous memory of it would never fail them. “Ray! I am so glad it has all happened just so;--as far as we are concerned, I mean. These days are my jewels. They will shine for me always and always, and I can never lose them. Oh I am glad, glad, glad to have lived them!” “And what do you think I am, dear? Do you think there ever were two happier people on this earth?” “Never! It is not possible.” They were perched in a little eyrie, high up the mountain-side near Crêt d’y Bau, shoulder to shoulder for the joyful feeling of one another, gazing out over the lake towards Geneva, eating the little wild raspberries of inexpressibly delicious flavour which they had gathered as they climbed. “Whatever may come to us now we can bear it because we have had all this,” she sighed contentedly. And asked presently, in a lower key,--“Do you think it is possible for people to be too happy, Ray? ... that we shall have to pay for it later on?”