rd all. She rushed into her father's arms, and he pressed her
convulsively to his breast.

"What is the matter with thee, my daughter?" he asked.

"If I had only a spring here," said she, putting her hand on her
heart, "I would not love you as I do, father."

Master Zacharius looked intently at Gerande, and did not reply.
Suddenly he uttered a cry, carried his hand eagerly to his heart,
and fell fainting on his old leathern chair.

"Father, what is the matter?"

[Illustration: "Father, what is the matter?"]

"Help!" cried Aubert. "Scholastique!"

But Scholastique did not come at once. Some one was knocking at
the front door; she had gone to open it, and when she returned to
the shop, before she could open her mouth, the old watchmaker,
having recovered his senses, spoke:--

"I divine, my old Scholastique, that you bring me still another
of those accursed watches which have stopped."

"Lord, it is true enough!" replied Scholastique, handing a watch
to Aubert.

"My heart could not be mistaken!" said the old man, with a sigh.

Meanwhile Aubert carefully wound up the watch, but it would not
go.

CHAPTER III.

A STRANGE VISIT.

Poor Gerande would have lost her life with that of her father,
had it not been for the thought of Aubert, who still attached her
to the world.

The old watchmaker was, little by little, passing away. His
faculties evidently grew more feeble, as he concentrated them on
a single thought. By a sad association of ideas, he referred
everything to his monomania, and a human existence seemed to have
departed from him, to give place to the extra-natural existence
of the intermediate powers. Moreover, certain malicious rivals
revived the sinister rumours which had spread concerning his
labours.

The news of the strange derangements which his watches betrayed
had a prodigious effect upon the master clockmakers of Geneva.
What signified this sudden paralysis of their wheels, and why
these strange relations which they seemed to have with the old
man's life? These were the kind of mysteries which people never
contemplate without a secret terror. In the various classes of
the town, from the apprentice to the great lord who used the
watches of the old horologist, there was no one who could not
himself judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens
wished, but in vain, to get to see Master Zacharius. He fell very
ill; and this enabled his daughter to withdraw him from those
incess