The Silent Barrier (Illlustrated)

"The Silent Barrier," by Louis Tracy, begins in a rather promising way.

It certainly does not often "The Silent happen that a man, Barrier" seated in a hotel balcony and overhearing the conversation of a couple of young women just beneath him, conceives a sudden desire to befriend one of the two who, he learns, is not sufficiently prosperous to afford a much needed vacation.

The young woman in question. Helen Wynton by name, is an occasional contributor to an obscure London magazine. So her would-be benefactor, a certain Charles K. Spencer, visits the editor of the magazine and makes it well worth his while to offer Miss Wynton a surprisingly generous sum for a series of articles on summer travel in Switzerland.

Spencer means well, but he does not foresee that he is to have a rival who will make both him and the girl serious trouble, nor that, the fact that he is paying the girl's expenses will, when discovered, seriously compromise her.

Furthermore, he is naturally unaware that his middle-aged rival has an unsavoury record in Switzerland, and that there is at least one old and half-crazed guide who will not halt at murder, in order to avenge the wrongs of his dead daughter.

The story has interesting situations in it; for example, a pervading sense of imminent death from a single mis-step on ice-coated crags, overhanging unmeasured chasms, keeps up a fairly constant tingle of interest.

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Illustrations By J. V. McFall and page decorations by A. W. Parsons