"Somebody told me," he said casually.
"Jasper, were you ever at Montreux?" she asked, looking him straight in the eye.
"I have been to Montreux, or rather to Caux," he said. "That is the village on the mountain above, and one has to go through Montreux to reach it. Why did you ask?"
A sudden chill had fallen upon her, which she did not shake off that day or the next.
They made the usual excursions together, climbed up the wooded slopes of the Butte, and on the third morning after his arrival stood together in the clear dawn and watched the first pink rays of the sun striking the humped summit of Mont Blanc.
"Isn't it glorious?" she whispered.
He nodded.
The serene beauty of it all, the purity, the majestic aloofness of mountains at once depressed and exalted her, brought her nearer to the sublimity of ancient truths, cleansed her of petty fears. She turned to him unexpectedly and asked:
"Jasper, who killed John Minute?"
He made no reply. His wistful eyes were fixed hungrily upon the glories of light and shade, of space, of inaccessibility, of purity, of coloring, of all that dawn upon Mont Blanc comprehended. When he spoke his voice was lowered to almost a whisper.