There were rousing cheers at this—the cheers of those who had grown suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again, begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say "good-bye" to it. It was eleven o’clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should have been an _al fresco_ fête upon the skating rink had become but a collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted twenty people on the road to Vermala. Benny had set out in the company of his brother Jack and the Abbé Villari, and the three pursued their way in silence toward the house. Usually, there would have been a beacon light to guide them, a lamp shining from the window of Lily Delayne’s chalet; but no such lamp shone out to-night, and the gables shaped amid the snowflakes as the grey and silent towers of some deserted citadel. When they drew a little nearer they saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the whole chalet was in darkness: a fact which the abbé explained by saying that the English lady had left for Sierre earlier in the day, and that he did not believe she would return. To this Benny made no other answer than to suggest that she must have found the presence of so many strangers unwelcome, and perhaps had done well to go. But he rested a moment at the door of the chalet for all that, and when he turned away neither of the others had the courage to mention the matter again. *CHAPTER XXIII* *THE NIGHT MAIL* Lily Delayne had left Andana at midday in an interlude when it was possible to get sleighs from the stable. They had told her that she would not be able to reach the valley at all that day if she left it until the afternoon; and this fell in with her own resolution, which was to go at once while she had the courage. So she set out when the excitement was at its height, and no one else in the village thought of anything but the mad Englishman. There were thousands grouped upon the plateau when the sleigh came for her; every commanding slope of snow was black with the people who stared into the ether as though their eyes might win a far vision if they had but the patience. She could hear the music of bands, the ebb and flow of carnival and a murmur of voices which betoken a great throng at its pleasures. When the sleigh came for her at length, André the driver, complained bitterly that he should be compelled to go down to Sierre at such a moment.