You wrote and told me so, if you remember, from some place on your way down from the mountains.

Your letter and Bob arrived the same night." I nodded.
"It was so clever of you!" pursued Catherine.

"Quite brilliant; but I don't quite know what to say to your letting my baby climb that awful Matterhorn; in a fog, too!" And there was real though momentary reproach in the firelit face.
"I couldn't very well stop him, you know.

Besides," I added, "it was such a chance." "Of what ?" "Of getting rid of Mrs.Lascelles.I thought you would think it worth the risk." "I do," declared Catherine, on due consultation with the fire.

"I really do! Bob is all I have--all I want--in this world, Duncan; and it may seem a dreadful thing to say, and you mayn't believe it when I've said it, but--yes!--I'd rather he had never come home at all than come home married, at his age, and to an Indian widow, whose first husband had divorced her! I mean it, Duncan; I do indeed!" "I am sure you do," said I."It was just what I said to myself." "To think of my Bob being Number Three!" murmured Catherine, with that plaintive drollery of hers which I had found irresistible in the days of old.
I was able to resist it now.