"Laura," he said, turning to the little one, "I must find them at once."
The child clung about his knees: "Oh, take me with you! Please, please take me! I can make mon père well when no one else can—he says so."
Arthur did not answer at first. He was thinking. He rang the bell and made inquiries about a guide, for it would have been dangerous on such a night to have made the attempt alone. He ascertained that it would be possible to obtain one with very little delay.
The distance which separated them from the chalet was not great. They would be two men. The child might easily be carried between them, and it was more than probable that her presence would do more than anything else to allay the fever-heat of the two men, one of whom must love her instinctively, while the other evidently loved her deeply already. The only fear—and it shot through Arthur's heart like a pain—was that they might be too late—that already in the fierce anger of that moment, in the awful solitude one of these two might have taken the life of the other.
"If I had only known, if I could only have guessed, I should never have left him," he said to himself.
But Laura was still looking up at him anxiously. He answered her with a smile: "If you will wrap yourself up well, little one, and submit to be carried."
"Yes, yes," answered the child joyfully; "mon père carries me sometimes; but"—she stopped, and there came a cloud over her face—"I will tire you; I am heavy."
She was answered by a knock at the door. There appeared on the threshold the burly figure of one of the true sons of the soil. He was accustomed to much heavier burdens than the little Laura, wraps and all. The honest Swiss was at a loss to understand why this little maiden should go with them on such a search, but he did not express his feelings in any way. He lifted her as lightly as if she had been a bird, placed her on his shoulder, and in a few moments the hotel, the astonished landlord, the hurt German and the glimmering village-lights were left in the distance.
The little party—the two men and the child—were threading the dark, lonely mountain-path that led to the chalet.