Foster hesitated for a few moments, studying the girl. She had courage and he liked the way she took care of his comrade. In some respects, Lawrence needed to be guarded.
"I hoped you would stop when your mother went," he said.
She nodded. "Yes; I knew you had something to say."
"It's important. But first of all, I expect you had a bad time when
Lawrence didn't come back from the mountain."
"I shall not forget it," Lucy said with a shudder. "While I waited and wondered why he didn't come I thought the anxiety intolerable, but it was worse after we met Walters and the drunken guide. He wanted to join us, but I knew he was somehow to blame."
"Afterwards you had to wait alone upon the glacier. That wouldn't make you think any better of him."
"It did not," Lucy agreed, with a hard, fixed look. "I—you see, Lawrence was my lover—I spent two or three hours in agonizing suspense. I knew what I should feel when I stopped, but couldn't go on with the others, because I might have kept them back. It was freezing hard and now and then a little snow fell, but I scarcely noticed this; I was listening, as I hope I shall never listen again. Sometimes the ice cracked and a snow-bridge fell into the crevasse, but that was all, and afterwards the silence was awful. It seemed as if the men would never come. I couldn't go to meet them because of the crevasse; I dream about the horrible black opening yet. Lawrence was on the other side, out of my reach; he might be slowly freezing on the couloir, and I couldn't help. But I knew he was suffering for Walters' negligence or perhaps his treachery."
Foster made a sign of sympathetic comprehension. "You hate him for this?"
"Yes," said Lucy frankly; "but not altogether because I'm vindictive. The man who could make people suffer as Lawrence and I did ought to be punished."
"He ought. Well, I'm going to warn Lawrence, and no doubt the proper thing would be to be satisfied with this, but somehow I'm not. You see, Walters probably doesn't know we suspect him."