Alice Pascal looked up into Jean Merle's face with the frank and easy self-possession of a well-bred English woman; coloring a little with girlish shyness, yet at the same time smiling with a pleasant light in her dark eyes. The oval of her face, and the color of her hair and eyes, resembled, though slightly, the more beautiful face of Felicita in her girlhood; it was simply the curious likeness which runs through some families to the remotest branches. But her smile, the shape of her eyes, the kneeling attitude, riveted him to the spot where he stood, and struck him dumb. A fancy flashed across his brain, which shone like a light from heaven. Could this girl be Hilda, his little daughter, whom he had seen last sleeping in her cot? Was she then come, after 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 movement as she carefully gathered the soil about the root of the little plant, which he vowed within himself should grow. She was rather long about her task, for she wished this madman to go away, and leave her alone beside Roland Sefton's grave. What her father had told her about him was still strange to her, and she wanted to familiarize it to herself. But still the haggard-looking peasant lingered at her side, gazing at her with his glowering and sunken eyes; yet neither moving nor speaking.

"You know English?" she said, as all at once it occurred to her that she had spoken to him as she would have spoken to one of the villagers in their own country churchyard at home, and that he had answered her. He replied only by a gesture.

"Can you find me some one who will take charge of this little plant?" she asked.

Jean Merle raised his head and lifted up his dim eyes to the eastern mountain-peaks, which were still shining in the rays of the sinking sun, though the twilight was darkening everywhere in the valley. Only last night he had slept among some juniper-bushes just below the boundary of that everlasting snow, feeling himself cast out forever from any glimpse of his old Paradise. But now, if he could only find words and utterance, there was come to him, even to him, a messenger, an angel direct from the very heart of his home, who could tell him all that last night he believed that he should never know. The tears sprang to his eyes, blessed tears; and a rush of uncontrollable longing overwhelmed him. He must hear all he could of those whom he loved; and then, whether he lived long or died soon, he would thank God as long as his miserable life continued.

"It is I who take care of this grave," he said; "I was with him when he died. He spoke to me of Felix and Hilda and his mother; and I saw their portraits. You hear? I know them all."

"Was it you who watched beside him?" asked Alice eagerly. "Oh! sit down here and tell me all about it; all you can remember. I will tell it all again to Felix, and Hilda, and Phebe Marlowe; and oh! how glad, and how sorry they will be to listen!"

There was no mention of Felicita's name, and Jean Merle felt a terrible dread come over him at this omission. He sank down on the ground beside the grave, and looked up into Alice's bright young face, with eyes that to her were no longer lit up with the fire of insanity, however intense and eager they might seem. It was an undreamed-of chance which had brought to her side the man who had watched by the death-bed of Felix's father.

"Tell me all you remember," she urged.

"I remember nothing," he answered, pressing his dark hard hand against his forehead, "it is more than thirteen years ago. But he showed to me their portraits. Is his wife still living?"

"Oh, yes!" she answered, "but she will not let either of them come to Switzerland; neither Felix nor Hilda. Nobody speaks of this country in her hearing; and his name is never uttered. But his mother used to talk to us about him; and Phebe Marlowe does so still. She has painted a portrait of him for Felix."

"Is Roland Sefton's mother yet alive?" he asked, with a dull, aching foreboding of her reply.

"No," she said. "Oh! how we all loved dear old Madame Sefton! She was always more like Felix and Hilda's mother than Cousin Felicita was. We loved her more a hundred times than Cousin Felicita, for we are afraid of her. It was her husband's death that spoiled her whole life and set her quite apart from everybody else. But Madame—she was not made so utterly miserable by it; she knew she would meet her son again in heaven. When she was dying she said to Cousin Felicita, 'He did not return to me, but I go to him; I go gladly to see again my dear son.' The very last words they heard her say were, 'I come, Roland!'"

Alice's voice trembled, and she laid her hand caressingly on the name of Roland Sefton graved on the cross above her. Jean Merle listened, as if he heard the words whispered a long way off, or as by some one speaking in a dream. The meaning had not reached his brain, but was travelling slowly to it, and would surely pierce his heart with a new sorrow and a fresh pang of remorse. The loud chanting of the monks in the abbey close by broke in upon their solemn silence, and awoke Alice from the reverie into which she had fallen.

"Can you tell me nothing about him?" she asked. "Talk to me as if I was his child."

"I have nothing to tell you," answered Jean Merle. "I remember nothing he said."

She looked down on the poor ragged peasant at her feet, with his gaunt and scarred features, and his slowly articulated speech. There seemed nothing strange in such a man not being able to recall Roland Sefton's dying words. It was probable that he barely understood them; and most likely he could not gather up the meaning of what she herself was saying. The few words he uttered were English, but they were very few and forced.

"I am sorry," she said gently, "but I will tell them you promised to take care of the ivy I have planted here."

She wished the dull, gray-headed villager would go home, and leave her alone for awhile in this solemn and sacred place; but he crouched still on the ground, stirring neither hand nor foot. When at last she moved as if to go away, he stretched out a toil-worn hand, and laid it on her dress.

"Stay," he said, "tell me more about Roland Sefton's children; I will think of it when I am tending this grave."

"What am I to tell you?" she asked gently, "Hilda is three years younger than me, and people say we are like sisters. She and Felix were brought up with me and my brothers in my father's house; we were like brothers and sisters. And Felix is like another son to my father, who says he will be both good and great some day. Good he is now; as good as man can be."

"And you love him!" said Jean Merle, in a low and humble voice, with his head turned away from her, and resting on the lowest step of the cross.

Alice started and trembled as she looked down on the grave and the prostrate man. It seemed to her as if the words had almost come out of this sad, and solitary, and forsaken grave, where Roland Sefton had lain unvisited so many years. The last gleam of daylight had vanished from the snowy peaks, leaving them wan and pallid as the dead. A sudden chill came into the evening air which made her shiver; but she was not terrified, though she felt a certain bewilderment and agitation creeping through her. She could not resist the impulse to answer the strange question.

"Yes, I love Felix," she said simply. "We love each other dearly."

"God bless you!" cried Jean Merle, in a tremulous voice. "God in heaven bless you both, and preserve you to each other."

He had lifted himself up, and was kneeling before her, eagerly scanning her face, as if to impress it on his memory. He bent down his gray head and kissed her hand humbly and reverently, touching it only with his lips. Then starting to his feet he hastened away from the cemetery, and was soon lost to her sight in the gathering gloom of the dusk.

For a little while longer Alice lingered at the grave, thinking over what had passed. It was not much as she recalled it, but it left her agitated and disturbed. Yet after all she had only uttered aloud what her heart would have said at the grave of Felix's father. But this strange peasant, so miserable and poverty-stricken, so haggard and hopeless-looking, haunted her thoughts both waking and sleeping. Early the next morning she and Canon Pascal went to the hovel inhabited by Jean Merle, but found it deserted and locked up. Some laborers had seen him start off at daybreak up the TrÜbsee Alps, from which he might be either ascending the Titlis or taking the route to the Joch-Pass. There was no chance of his return that day, and Jean Merle's absence might last for several days, as he was eccentric, and bestowed his confidence on nobody. There was little more to be learned of him, except that he was a heretic, a stranger, and a miser. Canon Pascal and Alice visited once more Roland Sefton's grave, and then they went on their way over the Joch-Pass, with some faint hopes of meeting with Jean Merle on their route, hopes that were not fulfilled.