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The Hôtel de la Haute Montagne is an old coaching house. It has about fifteen bedrooms, and in the season it's a skiing centre. Cidoton is a tiny hamlet--fifteen or twenty cottages, no more. The hotel is the only house of any size in the place; the hills sweep down to it all round, fine slopes of pasture dotted here and there with pinewoods. It's very quiet and peaceful in Cidoton, even in the winter season when the village is filled with young French people on their skis. That was as it had been when he was there before.

It was dark when they drew up at the hotel. Howard went slowly up the stone steps to the door, the concierge following behind him with the bags. The old man pushed open the heavy oak door and went into the hall. By his side, the door leading into the estaminet flew open, and there was Madame Lucard, buxom and cheerful as she had been the year before, with the children round her and the maids grinning over her shoulder. Lucard himself was away with the Chasseurs Alpins.