Miss Garland paced slowly to the end of the gallery and then came back. “If he had gone to Engelberg,” she said, “he would have reached the hotel before the storm began.” Rowland felt a sudden explosion of ferocity. “Oh, if you like,” he cried, “he can start for Interlaken as soon as he comes back!” But she did not even notice his wrath. “Will he come back early?” she went on. “We may suppose so.” “He will know how anxious we are, and he will start with the first light!” Rowland was on the point of declaring that Roderick’s readiness to throw himself into the feelings of others made this extremely probable; but he checked himself and said, simply, “I expect him at sunrise.” Miss Garland bent her eyes once more upon the irresponsive darkness, and then, in silence, went into the house. Rowland, it must be averred, in spite of his resolution not to be nervous, found no sleep that night. When the early dawn began to tremble in the east, he came forth again into the open air. The storm had completely purged the atmosphere, and the day gave promise of cloudless splendor. Rowland watched the early sun-shafts slowly reaching higher, and remembered that if Roderick did not come back to breakfast, there were two things to be taken into account. One was the heaviness of the soil on the mountain-sides, saturated with the rain; this would make him walk slowly: the other was the fact that, speaking without irony, he was not remarkable for throwing himself into the sentiments of others. Breakfast, at the inn, was early, and by breakfast-time Roderick had not appeared. Then Rowland admitted that he was nervous. Neither Mrs. Hudson nor Miss Garland had left their apartment; Rowland had a mental vision of them sitting there praying and listening; he had no desire to see them more directly. There were a couple of men who hung about the inn as guides for the ascent of the Titlis; Rowland sent each of them forth in a different direction, to ask the news of Roderick at every chalet door within a morning’s walk. Then he called Sam Singleton, whose peregrinations had made him an excellent mountaineer, and whose zeal and sympathy were now unbounded, and the two started together on a voyage of research. By the time they had lost sight of the inn, Rowland was obliged to confess that, decidedly, Roderick had had time to come back.