'Salome,' said he, when his wife came to him with her fresh bright face full of sympathy and cheering? 'thank you for going on playing on the piano yesterday evening. Whilst you played I could forget the roar, but it returned directly that your fingers left the keys. I take it most unkind of Miss Durham that she would not sing.'
'Oh, Philip! don't you know that she has come to the high mountains to husband her voice, and it is possible that to sing at this great altitude—we are nearly seven thousand feet above the sea—might do it serious injury.'
'Why did she laugh when I was drawn out of the chasm?'
'Philip, dear, I cannot tell; but neither she nor I had any idea of the danger you had been in. The ravine was completely blocked up and sheeted over with snow, and we did not know anything of the horrible chasm down which the river plunged and through which it struggled. We only knew that you had gone through a crust of snow, and that you had to be drawn out.'
'But did you not hear the thunder of the torrent?'
'We did not particularly notice it—the roof of snow muffled it. You who were beneath heard it, but we—we may have heard something, but had no more idea of what there was beneath than you can have had when you slipped through.'
'It was very unfeeling of her to laugh.'
'Look here, Philip,' said Salome. 'In turning the sleeves of your coat inside out I have found these flowers—edelweiss, and fresh.'
'Yes, I found them.'
He considered for a moment, and then said: 'They are for you. Wear them, and let our party know that I did not encounter the risks I passed through without bringing back with me a prize.'