"And—what? Go on, can't you?"
"Meinherr should also know that weather like this at present never lasts very long about here."
"So much the better. Is that all you wished to tell me?"
"Meinherr would for the few days be so much better at the hotel. If he should please we might go there to-morrow and rest till the weather shall be a little more clear. There are not a great many people travelling just now. Meinherr would have a good apartment and would be very little annoyed."
The poor man's voice trembled with fear and anxiety. It was one word for his master and several for himself. Karl was beginning to feel that he could scarcely bear another week of such horrors as those to which he had lately been exposed. His master himself, by his dark moodiness and mysterious surroundings, peculiarly awe-inspiring, his only companion; the dark gorges and mountain-caverns yawning round him like so many graves; no creature to whom he could unfold the tale of the fears that beset him,—nothing less than such a combination could have emboldened the submissive Karl to make the proposition which he had advanced in so timorous a manner.
After the murder was out he stood silent, aghast at his own audacity, waiting for the torrent of angry words with which the Englishman would answer him.
To his surprise no such answer came. Maurice rose from his seat and burst into a loud laugh. The diversion had been salutary: "You would make a first-rate special pleader, Karl. A word for me and a dozen for yourself, eh? Well, what are we to do? Some one must be left in charge here. Since you are so anxious about my welfare, I had better go to Grindelwald and leave you behind me."
Karl smiled pleasantly. Matters were taking a favorable turn.
"Meinherr is pleased to joke. He would most certainly require the services of a valet in Grindelwald as well as here, and no one else would understand his ways so well. I spoke—it is perhaps a few days since—to an old woman who is well known in the village. She would be very glad for a small sum to look after the chalet. Meinherr will excuse this liberty. I feared for him the severity of the winter season."