But the man remained, though he had become but a shadow in the house. All night he drank in the little study behind the billiard room, and a light still burned there at six o’clock next morning, as Jelf, the under-gardener, could testify. If he made any effort to recall the wife, who would willingly have stood by him in the darkest hour, none knew of it. For a few days, Morris carried his meals to the study and would discover him there, sitting at a table and staring blankly over the drear park as though dim figures of his own life’s story moved beneath the stately trees. Then, following an outburst which surpassed all the servants could remember, an outburst of passion and of obscenity inconceivable, he was driven one morning to Mildenhall Station, and Holmswell heard with a satisfaction it made no attempt to conceal that this was the end. The New House was the scene of a great sale shortly afterwards, and brokers came from London to buy the porcelain and the pictures, while many a country gentleman drove in to bid for the well-proved ’63 port and the fine bin of Steinberg Cabinet. Few in the village could be more than spectators at such a scene as that; but the old clergyman, Mr. Deakins, bought Lady Delayne’s mirror for three pounds fifteen shillings, and when they asked him why, had a ready answer. "An old man’s fancy," he said; "and yet—who knows that some day it may not show me again the face of the gentlest lady I have ever known?" *CHAPTER I* *THE GRAND PRIX AT ANDANA* The sleigh climbed the heights laboriously, jolting heavily in the ruts which last night’s frost had hardened. Minute by minute now new pictures were revealed. The Rhone valley appeared to be shaping itself more clearly at every zigzag; so that, while Sierre below had become but a toy village upon a child’s board, the majestic Weisshorn now stood up in detached sovereignty and all the encircling peaks could be named with assurance. There had been a blizzard blowing for thirty hours, and it had detained the little company at Sierre; but the morning of the day broke gloriously fine, so that the travellers set off at eight o’clock and were to reach the hotel at Andana before eleven. A truly British company, some of them had come to winter in Switzerland for the first time. Others were veterans, who brought their own skis, talked knowingly of Vermala and the Zaat, and could show you, even when far down the valley, exactly where the Palace Hotel lurked behind a forest of pines. Of these the gentle old clergyman, Harry Clavering, was the most prominent—and he, as one of whom much was expected, offered generous and courtly help to the more timid of the wayfarers.