The friendship between an English writer and an artist is tested when they both fall in love with the same woman. An accident while crossing a glacier tempts Lawrence, the artist, and he cuts the rope supporting his friend leaving him for dead. The woman seems to encourage his suit a little but the letters cease, he receives anonymously a section of the cut rope, and learns that the writer had been rescued by another group of climbers and married the beauty in Florence. Friendship betrayed; romance destroyed. (PB)