Phebe found herself alone, with the burden of Jean Merle's secret resting on her unshared. It depended upon her sagacity and tact whether he should escape being connected in a mysterious manner with the sad event that had just transpired in Engelberg. The footstep she had heard on the stairs was that of the landlady, who had gone into the salon and had thus missed seeing Jean Merle as he left the house. Phebe met her in the doorway. "I have sent a message by the guide who brought me here," she said in slowly pronounced French; "he is gone to Lucerne, and he will telegraph to England for me." "Is he gone--Jean Merle?" asked the landlady. "Certainly, yes," answered Phebe; "he is gone to Lucerne." "Will he return, then?" inquired the landlady. "No, I suppose not," she replied; "he has done all he had to do for me. He will telegraph to England, and our friends will come to us immediately. Good-night, Madame." "Good-night, Mademoiselle," was the response. "May you sleep well!" But sleep was far away from Phebe's agitated brain that night. She felt herself alone in a strange land, with a great grief and a terrible secret oppressing her. As the night wore on a feverish dread took possession of her that she should be unable to prevent Felicita's burial beside Roland Sefton's grave. Even Felix would decide that it ought to be so. As soon as the dawn came she rose and went out into the icy freshness of the morning air, blowing down from the snow-fields and the glaciers around her.