"That's a bad letter," said Challoner. "He left Frobisher still alive upon the ridge," and the desolation of that death in the cold and the darkness and the utter loneliness of those storm-riven pinnacles soaring above the world seemed to him appalling. But the manageress had no thoughts to spare for the letter.
"Who will tell her?" she asked, rocking her body to and fro, and fixing her troubled eyes on Challoner. "It is you. You are her countryman."
Challoner was startled.
"What do you mean?"
"I told you. Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him. Yes. They had only been married a couple of months. She is a year or two younger than he is--a child. Oh, and she was so proud of him. For my part I did not like him very much. I would not have trusted him with the happiness of anyone I cared for. But she had given him all her heart. And now she must be told!"
"She is in the hotel now?" Challoner asked.
"Yes. You were talking to her yesterday."
Challoner did not need the answer.
"Very well. I will tell her." And he turned away, his heart sick at the task which lay before him. But before he had reached the door the woman called him back.
"Could we not give her just one more night of confidence and contentment? Nothing can be done until to-morrow. No one in the hotel knows but you and I. She will have sorrow enough. She need not begin to suffer before she must. Just one more night of quiet sleep."