Algernon Blackwood

“ What an idiot he had been, to be sure, to come out with a knapsack merely to work himself into a state of exhaustion climbing over toilsome mountains that led to nowhere⁠—resulted in nothing. A dreariness of the grave possessed him. Life was a ghastly fraud! Religion childish humbug! Everything was merely a trap⁠—a trap of death; a coloured toy that Nature used as a decoy! ”

“ And into every corner of his usually vigorous personality crept the insidious poison of a muscular fatigue⁠—at first⁠—that in a few seconds, it seemed, translated itself into spiritual inertia. A sudden consciousness of the foolishness, the crass futility, of life, of effort, of fighting⁠—of all that makes life worth living, shot into every fibre of his being, and left him utterly weak. ”

“ But the schoolmaster took the room without inquiring too closely into the puzzle that had somehow provided it so suddenly. The ethics of hotel-keeping had nothing to do with him. If the woman offered him quarters it was not for him to argue with her whether the said quarters were legitimately hers to offer.
But the porter, evidently a little thrilled, accompanied the guest up to the room and supplied in a mixture of French and English details omitted by the landlady⁠—and Minturn, the schoolmaster, soon shared the thrill with him, and found himself in the atmosphere of a possible tragedy. ”

“ And this interest he began to feel was the first sign of his returning normal Self. For to feel interest is to live, and to love life.
He sprang into the middle of the room⁠—then switched on the electric light. And the first thing that struck his eye was⁠—the big cupboard.
“Hallo! There’s that⁠—beastly cupboard!” he exclaimed to himself, involuntarily, yet aloud. It held all the clothes, the swinging skirts and coats and summer blouses of the dead woman. ”

“ They talked endlessly, this gold-braided porter and the hard-faced old woman⁠—her face was hard, he noticed⁠—gesticulating all the time, and pointing all about the village with suggestions that he ill understood, for his French was limited and their patois was fearful.
“There!”⁠—he might find a room, “or there! But we are, hélas full⁠—more full than we care about. Tomorrow, perhaps⁠—if So-and-So give up their rooms⁠—!” And then, with much shrugging of shoulders, the hard-faced old woman stared at the gold-braided porter, and the porter stared sleepily at the schoolmaster. ”

“ For the same power that insisted he should open the cupboard door also impelled him to utter words over which he apparently had no control.
“It’s not you I rang for!” he said with decision and impatience, “I want a man. Wake the porter and send him up to me at once⁠—hurry! I tell you, hurry⁠—!”
And when the girl had gone, frightened at his earnestness, Minturn realised that the words surprised himself as much as they surprised her. ”

“ All who know the peculiar excitement that belongs to high mountain valleys where dangerous climbing is a chief feature of the attractions, will understand a certain faint element of high alarm that goes with the picture. ”

“ The route was difficult and dangerous, yet not impossible for a skilled climber, even a solitary one. And the Englishwoman was an experienced mountaineer. Also, she was self-willed, careless of advice, bored by warnings, self-confident to a degree. Queer, moreover; for she kept entirely to herself, and sometimes remained in her room with locked doors, admitting no one, for days together: a “crank,” evidently, of the first water.
This much Minturn gathered clearly enough from the porter’s talk while his luggage was brought in and the room set to rights ”