"Perhaps it would be better to return at once," said Helen timidly. Her sensitive nature warned her that these two men were ready to quarrel, and that she herself, in some nebulous way, was the cause of their mutual enmity. Beyond this her intuition could not travel. It was impossible that she should realize how sorely her wish to placate Bower disquieted Spencer. He had seen the two under conditions that might, indeed, be explicable by Helen's fright; but he would extend no such charitable consideration to Bower, whose conduct, no matter how it was viewed, made him a rival. Yes, it had come to that. Spencer had hardly spoken a word to Stampa during the toilsome journey from Maloja. He had looked facts stubbornly in the face, and the looking served to clear certain doubts from his heart and brain. He wanted to woo and win Helen for his wife. He was enmeshed in a net of his own contriving, and its strands were too strong to be broken. If Helen was reft from him now, he would gaze on a darkened world for many a day. But he was endowed with a splendid self control. That element of cast steel in his composition, discovered by Dunston after five minutes' acquaintance, kept him rigid under the strain. "Sorry I should figure as spoiling your excursion, Miss Wynton," he was able to say calmly; "but, when all is said and done, the weather is bad, and you will have plenty of fine days later." Bower crept nearer. His action suggested stealth. Although the wind was howling under the deep eaves of the hut, he almost whispered. "Yes, you are right--quite right. Let us go now--at once. With you and me, Mr. Spencer, Miss Wynton will be safe--safer than with the guides. They can follow with the stores. Come! There is no time to be lost!" The others were so taken aback by his astounding change of front that they were silent for an instant. It was Helen who protested, firmly enough. "The lightning seems to have given us an attack of nerves," she said. "It would be ridiculous to rush off in that manner----" "But there is peril--real peril--in delay. I admit it. I was wrong." Bower's anxiety was only too evident. Spencer, regarding him from a single viewpoint, deemed him a coward, and his gorge rose at the thought. "Oh, nonsense!" he cried contemptuously. "We shall be two hours on the glacier, so five more minutes won't cut any ice. If you have food and drink in there, Stampa certainly wants both. We all need them. We have to meet that gale all the way. The two hours may become three before we reach the path." Helen guessed the reason of his disdain. It was unjust; but the moment did not permit of a hint that he was mistaken. To save Bower from further commitment--which, she was convinced, was due entirely to regard for her own safety--she went into the hut. "Stampa," she said, "I am very much obliged to you for taking so much trouble. I suppose we may eat something before we start?"