to him. He changed countenance, his
face flushed, and he cried out abruptly, "I regained my strength
and will on the summit of Morteratsch, and I only return to bid you
farewell, and to give you the assurance that I never will see you
again."

"It is a strange case," she replied; "but I pardon you, on condition
that you do not execute your threat. You are resolved to be wise; the
wise avoid extremes. You will remember that you have friends in Paris.
My father has many connections; if we can be of service to you in any
way--"

He did not permit her to finish, and responded proudly: "I thank you,
with all my heart. I have sworn to be under obligations to none but
myself."

"Very well," she replied, "you will visit us for our pleasure. In a
month we shall be at Cormeilles."

He shook his head in sign of refusal. She looked fixedly at him, and
said, "It must be so."

This look, these words, sent to Count Abel's brain such a thrill of joy
and of hope that for a moment he thought he had betrayed himself. He
nearly fell on his knees before Mlle. Moriaz, but, speedily mastering
his emotions, he bowed gravely, casting down his eyes. She herself
immediately resumed her usual voice and manner, and questioned him on
his journey. He told her, in reply, that he proposed to go by the route
of Soleure, and to stay there a day in order to visit in Gurzelengasse
the house where Kosciuszko, the greatest of Poles, had died. He had
thought of this pilgrimage for a long time. He added: "Still another
useless action. Ah! when shall I improve?"

"Don't improve too much," she said, smiling. And then he went away.

M. Moriaz returned to the hotel about noon: his guide being engaged
elsewhere, he had taken only a short ramble. After breakfast his
daughter proposed to him that he should go down with her to the banks
of the lake. They made the descent, which is not difficult. This
pretty piece of water, that has been falsely accused of resembling a
shaving-dish, is said to be not less than a mile in length. When the
father and daughter reached the entrance of the woods that pedestrians
pass through in going to Pontresina, they seated themselves on the
grass at the foot of a larch. They remained some time silent. Antoinette
watched the cows grazing, and stroked the smooth, glossy leaves of a
yellow gentian with the end of her parasol. M. Moriaz busied himself
with neither the cows nor the yellow gentian--he thought of M. Camille
Langis, a