He leaned a little forward. It seemed as though he recognised something familiar amongst the treetops, or down in the mist-clad valleys.
“Naudheim!” he cried hoarsely. “I shall go to Naudheim!”
EPILOGUE
THE MAN
About half-way up, where the sleighs stopped, Lady Mary gave in. Pauline and Rochester went forward on foot, and with a guide in front. Below them was a wonderful unseen world, unseen except when the snow for a moment ceased to fall, and they caught vague, awe-inspiring glimpses of ravines and precipices, tree-clad gorges, reaching down a dizzy height to the valley below. Above them was a plateau, black with pine trees. Higher still, the invisible mountain tops.
“It is only a few hundred yards further,” Rochester said, holding his companion by the arm. “What a country, though! I wonder if it ever stops snowing.”
“It is wonderful!” she murmured. “Wonderful!”
And then, as though in some strange relation to his words, the storm of whirling snow-flakes suddenly ceased. The thin veil passed away from overhead like gossamer. They saw a clear sky. They saw, even, the gleam of reflected sunshine, and as the mist lifted, the country above and beyond unrolled itself in one grand and splendid transformation scene: woods above woods; snow-clad peaks, all glittering with their burden of icicles and snow; and above, a white chaos, where the mountain-peak struck the clouds.