Men rarely confess to their most secret thought, even in the confessional of the intimate hours. Benny would have been ashamed to tell his oldest friend that he had dwelt for an instant there, at the gate of the chalet, in a shadowland of dreams, and that it had shown him this gracious lady as his wife. His destiny linked to hers, imagination led him to the high places of the world. He shared her kingdom in his thoughts, and wore the armour of a chivalry as true as any in the human story. Recreated by the dream, he struck off the shackles of birth and obliterated the scars of a mean heritage. For such a woman, a man could give life itself, he thought; for her there would be no sacrifice from which the mind would shrink. Nor could calamity cast down this idol from its pedestal. He worshipped more surely because she no longer commanded worship as a right. The world’s contempt would dower her anew in his eyes, would give him a title which otherwise he had not possessed. For a little while these vain thoughts afflicted him, to give place to others of a very different order. So many strangers were at Andana that he was not surprised to discover an intruder even here upon the mountain path, but when that intruder emerged suddenly from the shadows, and Benny saw that it was the little gendarme, Philip, his interest was awakened while his false gods were shattered. The gendarme, on his part, recognised him immediately, and with hardly a gesture of apology set out to follow him to his house. "I wish you success for to-morrow, sir," he said, and then, as simply, "I may not be here, unfortunately, to offer my compliments then." Benny looked at him with curiosity. "You are going away, Monsieur Philip?" "Yes, sir, into Italy; the man who killed my brother is there." Benny walked a little faster, but he did not turn his head. "How do you know that he is in Italy, Monsieur Philip?" "Because I have discovered that he left the hotel at Brigue on the night of the murder. I have a friend here, and he knows. The man did not go to Paris; then he has gone to Milan, and I shall find him." "Do you know who he is?" The lad stood still and repeated the words very slowly. "He is an Englishman. They call him Sir Luton Delayne, and his wife is at the chalet down yonder." Benny stopped also. They stood together, looking down to the window whence the light shone out upon the snow. "Oh, but that is nonsense. Sir Luton Delayne is a great man in his own country. What do your superiors say to it?" Monsieur Philip answered without emotion. "They will give me leave of absence, sir. I am to go to Milan." "And if you do not find him at Milan?" "Then the Italian police will help me. I have their promise. It is impossible now that he will escape arrest, sir. I thought you would be glad to know that." He saluted respectfully and went down toward the valley.