e depths. The common impulse to cast himself down the
precipices along whose margin he crept had only to be yielded to, and
all his earthly woe would be over. Even to give way to the weary
drowsiness that overtook him at times as the sun went down, and the
night fell upon him far away from shelter, might have soothed him into
the slumber from which there is no awaking. But he dared not. He was
willing enough to die, if dying had been all. But he believed in the
punishment of sin here, or hereafter; in the dealing out of a righteous
judgment to every man, whether he be good or evil.

As the autumn passed by, and the mountain chalets were shut up, the
cattle and the herdsmen descending to the lower pastures, Roland Sefton
was compelled to descend too. There was little chance of encountering
any one who knew him at this late season; yet there were still
stragglers lingering among the Alps. But when he saw himself again in a
looking-glass, his face burned and blistered with the sun, and now
almost past recognition, and his ragged hair and beard serving him
better than any disguise, he was no longer afraid of being detected. He
began to wonder in mingled hope and dread whether Felicita would come
out to seek him. The message he had sent to her by Phebe could be
interpreted by her alone. Would she avail herself of it to find him out?
Or would she shrink from the toil and pain and danger of quitting
England? A few weeks more would answer the question.

Sometimes he was overwhelmed with terror lest she should be watched, and
her movements tracked, and that behind her would come the pursuers he
had so successfully evaded. At other times an unutterable heart-sickness
possessed him to see her once more, to hear her voice, to press his
lips, if he dared, to her pale cheeks; to discover whether she would
suffer him to hold her in his arms for one moment only. He longed to
hear from her lips what had happened at home since he fled from it six
months ago; what she had done, and was going to do, supposing that he
were not arrested and brought to justice. Would she forgive him? would
she listen to his pleas and explanations? He feared that she would hate
him for the shame he had brought upon her. Yet there was a possibility
that she might pity him, with a pity so much akin to love as that with
which the angels look down upon sinful human beings.

Every day brought the solution of his doubts nearer. The rains of autumn
had begun, and f