not shrink from bearing her share of any burden of his. But
he must keep out of the dock, lest their father and husband should be
branded as a convict.

A dreary round his thoughts ran. But ever in the centre of the circling
thoughts lay the conviction that he had lost his wife and children
forever. Whether he dragged out a wretched life in concealment, or was
discovered, or gave himself up to justice, Felicita was lost to him.
There were some women--Phebe Marlowe was one--who could have lived
through the shame of his conviction and the dreary term of his
imprisonment, praying to God for her husband, and pitying him with a
kind of heavenly grace, and at the end of the time met him at the prison
door, and gone out with him, tenderly and faithfully, to begin a new
life in another country. But Felicita was not one of these women. He
could never think of her as pardoning a transgression like his, though
committed for her sake. Even now she would not stoop so low as to seek a
meeting with one who deserved a penal punishment.

Night had set in, and he was trudging along the road, still heavy with
recent rains, though the sky above was hung with glittering stars, and
the crystal snow on Titlis shone against the deep blue depths, casting a
wan light over the valley. Suddenly upon the stillness there came the
sound of several voices, and a shrill yodel, pitched in a key that rang
through the village, to call attention to the approaching party. It was
in advance of him, nearer to Engelberg; yet though he had been watching
the route from Stans all day, and was satisfied that Felicita could not
have entered the valley unseen by himself, the hope flashed through him
that she was before him, belated by the state of the roads. He hurried
on, seeing before him a small group of men carrying lanterns. But in
their midst they bore a rude litter, made of a gate taken hastily off
the hinges. They passed out of sight behind a house as he caught sight
of the litter, and for a minute or two he could not follow them, from
the mere shock of dread lest the litter held her. Then he hurried on,
and reached the hotel door as the procession marched into the hall and
laid their burden cautiously down.

"An accident?" said the landlord.

"Yes," answered one of the peasants; "we found him under Pfaffenwand. He
must have been coming from Engstlensee Alp; how much farther the good
God alone knows. The paths are slippery this wet weather, and he had no