"Seventy-seven," she said composedly. Recklow nodded:
"Do you happen to believe, either of you, that, at birth, the hours of our lives are already irrevocably numbered?"
Miss Erith said: "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
Recklow got up, made them a bow, and reseated himself. He touched a handbell; the blond sous-officier entered.
"Everything is in order; take care of the car; carry the luggage to the two rooms above," said Recklow.
To McKay and Miss Erith he added: "My name is John Recklow. If you want to rest before you wash up, your rooms are ready. You'll find me here or in the garden behind the house."
Toward sunset they found Recklow in the little garden, seated alone there on a bench looking up at the eastward mountains with the piercing, detached stare of a bird of prey. When they had seated themselves on the faded-green bench on either side of him he said, still gazing toward the mountains: "It's April up there. Dress warmly."
"Which is Mount Terrible?" inquired Miss Erith.
"Those are the lower ridges. The summit is not visible from where we sit," replied Recklow. And, to McKay: "There's some snow there still, I hear."
McKay's upward-turned face was a grim study. Beyond those limestone shouldering heights his terrible Calvary had begun—a progress that had ended in the wreckage of mind and soul had it not been for Chance and Evelyn Erith. After Mount Terrible, with its grim "Great Secret," had come the horrors of the prison camp at Holzminden and its nameless atrocities, his escape to New York, the Hun cipher orders to "silence him," his miraculous rescue and redemption by the girl at his side—and now their dual mission to probe the mystery of Mount Terrible.