lt on piles of stones, with deep, sheltering eaves, but with a broken
roof, and no light except such as entered it by the door. In the dimness
of the interior they just caught sight of a gray-headed man, sitting on
the floor, with his face hidden on his knees. It was an attitude telling
of deep wretchedness, and heaviness of heart; and though neither of them
spoke of the glimpse they had had, they drew nearer to one another, and
walked closely together until they reached the hotel.

It was still broad daylight, though the sun had sunk behind the lofty
mountains when they strolled out again into the picturesque, irregular
street of the village. The clear blue sky above them was of the color of
the wild hyacinth, the simplest, purest blue, against which the pure and
simple white of the snowy domes and pinnacles of the mountain ranges
inclosing the valley stood out in sharp, bold outlines; whilst the dark
green of the solemn pine-forests climbing up the steep slopes looked
almost black against the pale grey peaks jutting up from among them,
with silver lines of snow marking out every line and crevice in their
furrowed and fretted architecture. Canon Pascal bared his head, as if he
had been entering his beloved Abbey in Westminster.

"God is very glorious!" he said, in a low and reverent tone. "God is
very good!"

In silence they sauntered on, with loitering steps, to the little
cemetery, where lay the grave they had come to seek. They found it in a
forlorn and deserted corner, but there was no trace of neglect about the
grey unpolished granite of the cross that marked it. No weeds were
growing around it, and no moss was gathering upon it; the lettering,
telling the name, and age, and date of death, of the man who lay beneath
it, was as clear as if it had just come from the chisel of the graver.
The tears sprang to Alice's eyes as she stood before it with reverently
bowed head, looking down on Roland Sefton's grave.

"Did you ever see him, father?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"I saw him once," he answered, "at Riversdale Towers, when Felix was
still only a baby. He was a finer and handsomer man than Felix will ever
be; and there was more foreign blood in his veins, which gave him greater
gaiety and simpler vivacity than Englishmen usually have. I remember how
he watched over Felicita, and waited on her in an almost womanly fashion;
and fetched his baby himself for us to see, carrying him in his own arms
with the de