"Yes," she replied simply. "Then he will surely come back." Even as he spoke a tall figure loomed out of the blizzard and raised his hat with cold formality. "Your cousin is safe in the hospital at Interlaken," said Ralph, addressing Lord Tamerton with marked constraint. "He has merely sustained a fractured patella. With your permission we will now descend." "What is the matter, Ralph?" cried Lady Margaret pleadingly; but, ignoring her question, he busied himself in tying on the rope. The descent which followed is still spoken of with bated breath by the Swiss guides, than whom there is no more generous body of men in the world. Unerringly Ralph led his companions through aretes, glissades, bergschrunds, ruecksacs, gendarmes, vorwaerts, couloirs, aiguilles, never hesitating, never flinching from any obstacle, heedless, it seemed, alike of the raging blizzard and the ever-thickening darkness. At times he was obliged to carry the others one by one along razor edges of hard blue ice. At times he would cling precariously by one hand to a projecting splinter of rock, while with the other he lowered them all bodily into the depths of a crevasse, gripping his ice-axe meanwhile steadfastly between his teeth. Once at least he was compelled to hang downwards by his toes while he hewed steps beneath him in a perpendicular wall of ice. And through it all his face retained its stern impassivity and he addressed no word to his exhausted companions. At length the most wonderful feat in the history of climbing was finished, and the party, weary but thankful, stood at the foot of the mountain. The three guides fell on their knees before their rescuer, but he ignored them and turned his cold, hard gaze upon Lady Margaret. "You are now safe," he said icily. "My presence is no longer necessary. Take the third turning on the left, the second on the right and the fifth on the left, and then ask again. Before I leave I ought perhaps to congratulate you upon your approaching marriage to your--er--amiable cousin;" and without waiting for a reply he was gone. * * * * * Alone, Ralph Wonderson sat upon a rock and reflected that no food had passed his lips since that hurried breakfast in the Fahrjoch Hut. Wearily he drew out a packet of sandwiches from his pocket. A moment later he was racing back to his former companions. In his day he had been half-mile champion, but now he knocked a full minute off his previous best time. He found the others as he had left them. Lady Margaret looked up with a glad cry as he flew round the corner. "Madge," he cried, waving the piece of newspaper which had been wrapped round his sandwiches,--"Madge, you _can't_ marry him!" Lord Tamerton leaped forward with a white face. "What do you mean?" he hissed. "You are mad. She _must_ marry him, or the family is ruined." "She _can't_ marry him," repeated Ralph calmly. "Sir Ernest Scrivener _alias_ Marmaduke Moorsdyke is married already! Read this."