r many
years, to visit her father's grave?

There had always been a corroding grief to him in the thought that it
was Felicita herself who had erected that cross over the tomb of the
stranger, with whom his name was buried. He did not know that it was Mr.
Clifford alone who had thus set a mark upon the place where he believed
that the son of his old friend was lying. It had pained Jean Merle to
think that Felicita had commemorated their mutual sin by the erection
of an imperishable monument; and it had never surprised him that no one
had visited the grave. His astonishment came now. Was it possible that
Felicita had revisited Switzerland? Could she be near at hand, in the
village down yonder? His mother, also, and his boy, Felix, could they be
treading the same soil, and breathing the same air as himself? An agony
of mingled terror and rapture shot through his inmost soul. His lips
were dry, and his throat parched: he could not articulate a syllable.

He did not know what a gaunt and haggard madman he appeared. His grey
hair was ragged and tangled, and his sunken eyes gleamed with a strange
brightness. The villagers, who were wont at times to call him an
imbecile, would have been sure they were right at this moment, as he
stood motionless and dumb, staring at Alice; but to her he looked more
like one whose reason was just trembling in the balance. She was alone,
her father was no longer in sight; but she was not easily frightened.
Rather a sense of sacred pity for the forlorn wretch before her filled
her heart.

"See!" she said, in clear and penetrating accents, full, however, of
gentle kindness, and she spoke unconsciously in English, "see! I have
carried this little slip of ivy all the way from England to plant it
here. This is the grave of a man I should have loved very dearly."

A rapid flush of color passed over her face as she spoke, leaving it
paler than before, while a slight sadness clouded the smile in her eyes.

"Was he your father?" he articulated, with an immense effort.

"No," she answered; "not my father, but the father of my dearest
friends. They cannot come here; but it was his son who gathered this
slip of ivy from our porch at home, and asked me to plant it here for
him. Will it grow, do you think?"

"It shall grow," he muttered.

It was not his daughter, then; none of his own blood was at hand. But
this English girl fascinated him; he could not turn away his eyes, but
watched every slight mo