They passed on by the seventh refuge, and set out across the dreary tableland, beyond which lay the village of Simplon itself. They had out-distanced other travellers, and were alone upon this waste, which breaks into the hills as an oasis whose icy mirage mocks the wayfarer. Here, for the first time, they perceived the effects of last night’s storm: the profound drifts; the scarred rocks—even relics of the pilgrims who had dared the journey. A little farther on, and they entered the village, and heard the warning that the road to the Hospice was unsafe. No sleighs would be allowed to pass: there had been accidents upon the road, and the snow was not yet cleared. Some hours must intervene before permission could be given, they said, but Benny heard them with scorn, for he was determined to make the Hospice, and to hear the abbé’s news, cost him what it might. When he had talked a little way with one of the soldiers at the inn, it appeared that nothing would be said to those who cared to set out on foot, and this he did immediately, instructing Bajazet to follow him directly the road was open that they might continue the journey to Brigue. To Brigue—was that his destination? Lily, he remembered, should be at Sierre; it was even possible that her husband had joined her there, and that they would leave for England by the express to-night. He himself would follow after, but not for many weeks. The triumphs which awaited him in England had ceased to interest him. He had lost, as it were, in an hour the ambitions which had sustained him through the years, and the inspiration by which they had been gratified. It would be well enough to think of his future when all this were over, and he knew the best or the worst of it. The brain refusing to contemplate any other issue, it brought him back to the starting-point: would he be in time to save Delayne, or was the gendarme, Philip, already avenged?