They had but just reached Lucerne, and were waiting for the next steamer starting to Stans, when Felix had caught sight of the boat afar off, with its long, narrow burden, covered by a black pall; and as it drew nearer he had distinguished Phebe sitting beside it alone. Until this moment it had seemed absolutely incredible that his mother could be dead, though the telegram to Canon Pascal had said so distinctly. There must be some mistake, he had constantly reiterated as they hurried through France to Lucerne; Phebe had been frightened, and in her terror had misled herself and them. No wonder his mother should be ill--dangerously so, after the fatigue and agitation of a journey to Engelberg; but she could not be dead. Phebe had had no opportunity of telegraphing again; for they had set off at once, and from Basle they had brought on with them an eminent physician. So confident was Felix in his asseverations that Canon Pascal himself had begun to hope that he was right, and but that the steamer was about to start in a few minutes, they would have hired a boat to carry them on to Stans, in order to lose no time in taking medical aid to Felicita. But as Felix stood there, only dimly conscious of the scene about them, the sight of the boat bringing Phebe to the shore with the covered coffin beside her, extinguished in his heart the last glimmering of the hope which had been little more than a natural recoil from despair. He was not taken by surprise, or hurried into any vehemence of grief. A cold stupor, which made him almost insensible to his loss, crept over him. Sorrow would assert itself by and by; but now he felt dull and torpid. When the coffin was lifted out of the boat, by bearers who were waiting at the landing-stage for the purpose, he took up his post immediately behind it, as if it were already the funeral procession carrying his mother to the grave; and with all the din and tumult of the streets sounding in his ears, he followed unquestioningly wherever it might go. Why it was there, or why his mother's coffin was there, he did not ask; he only knew that she was there. "My poor Phebe," said Canon Pascal, as they followed closely behind him, "why did you start homewards? Would it not have been best to bury her at Engelberg, beside her husband? Did not Felicita forgive him, even in her death?" "No, no, it was not that," answered Phebe; "she forgave him, but I could not bear to leave her there. I was with her just as she died; but she had gone up to Engelberg alone, and I followed her, only too late. She never spoke to me or looked at me. I could not leave Felicita in Engelberg," she added excitedly; "it has been a fatal place to her." "Is there anything we must not know?" he inquired.