He had yet to learn that the storm which brought about a good deal of the preceding twenty-four hours' excitement had not acted in any niggardly fashion. It had laid low whole sections of the telegraph system on both sides of the pass during the night. Gangs of men were busy repairing the wires. Later in the day, said a civil spoken attendant at the _bureau des postes_, a notice would be exhibited stating the probable hour of the resumption of service. "Are the wires down beyond St. Moritz?" asked Spencer. "I cannot give an assurance," said the clerk; "but these southwest gales usually do not affect the Albula Pass. The road to St. Moritz is practicable, as this morning's mail was only forty minutes behind time." Spencer ordered a carriage, wrote a telegram, and gave it to the driver, with orders to forward it from St. Moritz if possible. And this was the text: "MACKENZIE, 'FIREFLY' OFFICE, FLEET-ST., LONDON. Wire Miss Wynton positive instructions to return to England immediately. Say she is wanted at office. I shall arrange matters before she arrives. This is urgent. SPENCER." A heavy weight gradually lifted off his shoulders as he watched the wheels of the vehicle churning up the brown snow broth along the valley road. Within two hours his message would reach a telegraph office. Two more would bring it to Mackenzie. With reasonable luck, the line repairers would link Maloja to the outer world that afternoon, and Helen would hie homeward in the morning. It was a pity that her holiday and his wooing should be interfered with; but who could have foretold that Millicent Jaques would drop from the sky in that unheralded way? Her probable interference in the quarrel between Stampa and Bower put Mrs. de la Vere's suggestion out of court. A woman bent on requiting a personal slight would never consent to forego such a chance of obtaining ample vengeance as Bower's earlier history provided. In any case, Spencer was sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the year was much older. He disliked this secret plotting and contriving. He adopted such methods only because they offered the surest road to success. Were he to consult his own feelings, he would go straight to Helen, tell her how chance had conspired with vagrom fancy to bring them together, and ask her to believe, as all who love are ready to believe, that their union was predestined throughout the ages.