After an
hour's broad daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at Neuchatel,
having been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty English
miles.
When they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went together to the
house of business of Defresnier and Company. There they found the letter
which the wine-carrier had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons
of handwriting essential to the discovery of the Forger. Vendale's
determination to press forward, without resting, being already taken, the
only question to delay them was by what Pass could they cross the Alps?
Respecting the state of the two Passes of the St. Gotthard and the
Simplon, the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both passes
were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the
benefit of any recent experience of either. Besides which, they well
knew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described conditions
in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated. But, on the whole,
the Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, Vendale decided to take
it. Obenreizer bore little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely
spoke.
To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to Vevay, so
into the winding valley between the spurs of the mountains, and into the
valley of the Rhone. The sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled
on, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great
clock, recording the hours.
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