These impressions,
however, were but momentary and passing, due doubtless to the condition
of his nerves and to the semi-shock of the dramatic, even theatrical
entrance. Delane's senses, in this wild setting, were guilty of
exaggeration. For now, while helping the man remove his cloak, speaking
naturally of shelter, food, and the savage weather, he lost this first
distortion and his mind recovered sane proportion. The stranger, after
all, though striking, was not of appearance so uncommon as to cause
alarm; the light and the low doorway had touched his stature with
illusion. He dwindled. And the great eyes, upon calmer subsequent
inspection, lost their original fierce lightning. The entering
darkness, moreover, was but an effect of the upheaving night behind him
as he strode across the threshold. The closed door proved it. And yet, as Delane continued his quieter examination, there remained,
he saw, the startling quality which had caused that first magnifying in
his mind. His senses, while reporting accurately, insisted upon this
arresting and uncommon touch: there was, about this late wanderer of
the night, some evasive, lofty strangeness that set him utterly apart
from ordinary men. The Englishman examined him searchingly, surreptitiously, but with a
touch of passionate curiosity he could not in the least account for
nor explain. There were contradictions of perplexing character about
him. For the first presentment had been of splendid youth, while on
the face, though vigorous and gloriously handsome, he now discerned
the stamp of tremendous age. It was worn and tired. While radiant
with strength and health and power, it wore as well this certain
signature of deep exhaustion that great experience rather than physical
experience brings. Moreover, he discovered in it, in some way he could
not hope to describe, man, woman, and child. There was a big, sad
earnestness about it, yet a touch of humour too; patience, tenderness,
and sweetness held the mouth; and behind the high pale forehead
intellect sat enthroned and watchful. In it were both love and hatred,
longing and despair; an expression of being ever on the defensive, yet
hugely mutinous; an air both hunted and beseeching; great knowledge and
great woe. Delane gave up the search, aware that something unalterably splendid
stood before him. Solemnity and beauty swept him too. His was never
the grotesque assumption that man must be the highest being in the
universe, nor that a thing is a miracle merely because it has never
happened before. He groped, while explanation and analysis both halted. "A great teacher," thought fluttered through him, "or a mighty rebel! A distinguished personality beyond all question! Who can he be?" There
was something regal that put respect upon his imagination instantly. And he remembered the legend of the country-side that Ludwig of Bavaria
was said to be about when nights were very wild. He wondered. Into
his speech and manner crept unawares an attitude of deference that
was almost reverence, and with it--whence came this other quality?--a
searching pity. "You must be wearied out," he said respectfully, busying himself about
the room, "as well as cold and wet. This fire will dry you, sir, and
meanwhile I will prepare quickly such food as there is, if you will
eat it." For the other carried no knapsack, nor was he clothed for the
severity of mountain travel. "I have already eaten," said the stranger courteously, "and, with my
thanks to you, I am neither wet nor tired. The afflictions that I bear
are of another kind, though ones that you shall more easily, I am sure,
relieve." He spoke as a man whose words set troops in action, and Delane glanced
at him, deeply moved by the surprising phrase, yet hardly marvelling
that it should be so. He found no ready answer. But there was evidently
question in his look, for the other continued, and this time with a
smile that betrayed sheer winning beauty as of a tender woman:

"I saw the light and came to it. It is unusual--at this time." His voice was resonant, yet not deep. There was a ringing quality about
it that the bare room emphasised. It charmed the young Englishman
inexplicably. Also, it woke in him a sense of infinite pathos. "You are a climber, sir, like myself," Delane resumed, lifting his eyes
a moment uneasily from the coffee he brewed over a corner of the fire. "You know this neighbourhood, perhaps? Better, at any rate, than I can
know it?" His German halted rather. He chose his words with difficulty. There was uncommon trouble in his mind. "I know all wild and desolate places," replied the other, in perfect
English, but with a wintry mournfulness in his voice and eyes, "for I
feel at home in them, and their stern companionship my nature craves as
solace. But, unlike yourself, I am no climber." "The heights have no attraction for you?" asked Delane, as he mingled
steaming milk and coffee in the wooden bowl, marvelling what brought
him then so high above the valleys. "It is their difficulty and
danger that fascinate me always. I find the loneliness of the summits
intoxicating in a sense." And, regardless of refusal, he set the bread and meat before him, the
apple and the tiny packet of salt, then turned away to place the coffee
pot beside the fire again. But as he did so a singular gesture of the
other caught his eyes. Before touching bowl or plate, the stranger took
the fruit and brushed his lips with it. He kissed it, then set it on
the ground and crushed it into pulp beneath his heel. And, seeing this,
the young Englishman knew something dreadfully arrested in his mind,
for, as he looked away, pretending the act was unobserved, a thing
of ice and darkness moved past him through the room, so that the pot
trembled in his hand, rattling sharply against the hearthstone where he
stooped. He could only interpret it as an act of madness, and the myth
of the sad, drowned monarch wandering through this enchanted region,
pressed into him again unsought and urgent. It was a full minute before
he had control of his heart and hand again. The bowl was half emptied, and the man was smiling--this time the smile
of a child who implores the comfort of enveloping and understanding
arms. "I am a wanderer rather than a climber," he was saying, as though there
had been no interval, "for, though the lonely summits suit me well,
I now find in them only--terror. My feet lose their sureness, and my
head its steady balance. I prefer the hidden gorges of these mountains,
and the shadows of the covering forests. My days"--his voice drew the
loneliness of uttermost space into its piteous accents--"are passed in
darkness. I can never climb again." He spoke this time, indeed, as a man whose nerve was gone for ever. It
was pitiable almost to tears. And Delane, unable to explain the amazing
contradictions, felt recklessly, furiously drawn to this trapped
wanderer with the mien of a king yet the air and speech sometimes of a
woman and sometimes of an outcast child.