It was not an easy or short ascent for her cavalier to a promontory which arose to the side; and they still met people who were descending, chatting harshly in German, while further off the rest of the party followed them. Turning suddenly, they perceived that they had climbed higher than the wall of the glacier, and that it was spreading before their eyes from top to bottom in an immeasurable breadth, bounded on the right by two great moraines of black rocks, all white in the middle, and at the back climbing, heaping, sinking, rugged and profound, towards the two lofty peaks of Bellavista and Morteratsch, towards the beautiful and virginal Bernina, the mistress of the mountains. They sat down on a large rock, and both were seized and conquered by the solemn, majestic, and terrible spectacle. They were alone; before them was the potent immensity of things that had lasted for ages and would last through the ages.
Suddenly Mabel Clarke turned to Vittorio Lante and asked him in a clear, precise voice:
"You really are free, Lante?"
He looked into the quiet eyes that questioned him and replied sincerely:
"Yes, I am free, Miss Clarke."
Mabel still contemplated for a moment the whiteness of the far-away ice and the purity of the neighbouring snow; her accent was again firm and fierce as she asked:
"You are poor, are you not, Lante?"
There rose before the eyes of the Italian gentleman the more than ever impressing spectacle that elevates souls and exalts them to supreme truth. Beside him was a creature of truth and beauty. From his ardent heart there burst forth a pure flame of truth. Courageously, without shame and with simplicity, he declared:
"I am very poor, Miss Clarke."
Mabel smiled as never before, and her hand brushed Vittorio's in a grateful, loyal, pure caress.