"Yes, the other," began Brian, hurriedly, but the innkeeper stolidly continued his story. The other had made his way back with the guide to the nearest town. He was there still, and had been making expeditions every day upon the mountain to find the dead body of his friend. But he had given up the search now, and was returning to England on the morrow. He had done all he could, poor gentleman, and it was more than a week since the accident took place.
Brian suddenly put his head down on his pillow and lay still. Here was the chance for which his soul had yearned! If the innkeeper spoke the truth, he—Brian Luttrell—was already numbered amongst the dead. Why should he take the trouble to come back to life?
"Were none of the Englishman's clothes or effects found?" he asked, presently.
"Oh, yes, monsieur. His pocket-book—his hat. They were close to a dangerous crevasse. A guide was lowered down it for fifty, eighty, feet, but nothing of the unfortunate Englishman was to be seen. If he did not fall into the crevasse his body may be recovered in the spring—but hardly before. Yes, his pocket-book and his hat, monsieur." A sudden gleam came into the little innkeeper's eyes, and he spoke somewhat interrogatively—"Monsieur arrived here also without his hat?"
For the first time the possibility occurred to the innkeeper's mind of his guest's identity with the missing Englishman. Brian answered with a certain reluctance; he did not like the part that he would have to play.
"I lost my way in walking from V——," he said, mentioning a town at some distance from the mountain-pass by which he had really come; "and my hat was blown off by a gust of wind. The weather was not good. I lost my way."
"True, monsieur. There was rain and there was wind: doubtless monsieur wandered from the right track," said the innkeeper, accepting the explanation in all good faith.
When he left the room, Brian examined his belongings with care. Nothing in his possession was marked, owing to the fact that his clothes were mostly new ones, purchased with a view to mountaineering requirements. His pocket-book was lost. Mrs. Luttrell's letter and one or two other papers, however, remained with him, and he had sufficient money in his pockets to pay the innkeeper and preserve him from starvation for a time. He wondered that nobody had reported an unknown traveller to be lying ill in the village; but it was plain that his escape had been thought impossible. Even Gunston had given him up for lost. As he learnt afterwards, it was believed that he had not been able to sever the rope, and that he, with one of the guides, had fallen into a crevasse. The rope went straight down into the cleft, and he was believed to be at the end of it. There was not the faintest doubt in the mind of the survivors but that Brian Luttrell was dead. It remained for Brian himself to decide whether he should go back to the town, reclaim his luggage, and take up life again at the point where he seemed to have let it drop—or go forth into the world, penniless and homeless, without a name, without a hope for the future, and without a friend.
Which should he do?