"O my God, what matter that I should grow wise--if
Kitty is lost and desolate?"
And he trampled on his own thoughts--feeling them a mere hypocrisy and
offence.
As they left the Gondo ravine and began to climb the zigzag road to the
Simplon inn, the storm grew still wilder, and the driver, with set lips
and dripping face, urged his patient beasts against a deluge. The road
ran rivers; each torrent, carefully channelled, that passed beneath it
brought down wood and soil in choking abundance; and Ashe watched the
downward push of the rain on the high, exposed banks above the carriage.
Once they passed a fragment of road which had been washed away; the
driver pointing to it said something sulkily about "
frane" on the
"other side."
This bad moment, however, proved to be the last and worst, and when they
emerged upon the high valley in which stands the village of Simplon, the
rain was already lessening and the clouds rolling up the great sides and
peaks of the Fletschhorn. Ashe promised himself a comparatively fine
evening and a rapid run down to Brieg.
Outside the old Simplon posting-house, however, they presently came upon
a crowd of vehicles of every description, of which the drivers were
standing in groups with dripping rugs across their shoulders--shouting
and gesticulating.
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