"You were wise to come as you did," he said. "Many lose their lives up there; three have done so this week, Monsieur." No answer was made, and they entered the monastery. The bell still tolled, and the brethren were crossing the court toward the chapel. The Englishman, however, was conducted immediately to the guest hall, where a great fire blazed and a table was spread. The monk had already told him that the Abbé Villari was at the Hospice, and the desire to see him brooked no control. Benny had almost forgotten where he was; the events of the night and the journey of the day were as nothing when the abbé at last entered the room and greeted him with hand uplifted and a hushed word upon his lips. "Yes, yes, I had expected you," he said, nodding his head slowly while he spoke. "It was natural that you should not have heard. We found him lying just above the seventh shelter. He was quite dead; he had been dead for some hours." Benny drew a step nearer, as though afraid of the sound of his voice. "You found him—are you speaking of Luton Delayne?" The abbé looked bewildered. "Of whom, then? They would have kept him at Iselle, but he would not hear reason. He tried to cross on foot at the height of the storm. I had an idea that it might be so. Yes, yes, the Almighty God made this known to me, and so I came." And then he said, turning away: "She will be here this afternoon—I have spoken to her myself; she is now upon her way from Sierre." There was no response. Benny stood at the window and looked down the valley as though fearing to see her carriage already upon the high road. *CHAPTER XXVII* *BENNY SETS OUT FOR ENGLAND* He left the hospice at three o’clock, while it was yet light, and the journey to Brigue could be made in safety. He had not spoken to her, but he knew that she was then in the chapel where the dead lie, and that she was aware of his presence. An instinct told him that it were better they should not meet in such a house of shadows. He had already determined to set out for England that night, and to think of Switzerland no more. In his own country he would find the place and the hour. Of the future, his ideas were vague and indefinable. A call of ambition had returned in the interlude of reckoning, and found him resolute in response. A new world opened to his vision, a world which should recognise his genius and bid him profit by it. he would go to England this night and make himself known to those who would honour him. Thereafter strenuous days must follow, and the reaping of the harvest. He was as one whose life’s task began upon a foundation of success; the stones of whose house were already hewn. In England he would come to his own. They waited for him impatiently there.