And again Lyon Berners smiled most kindly and indulgently on her, and again Sybil Berners sickened at heart. Every time Lyon so smiled on Rosa, Sybil so sickened. She strove against this feeling, but she could not overcome it. As the day declined and the coach went on, wilder, drearier, and lonelier became the road, until, at nightfall, it entered a pass so gloomy, so savage, so terrific in its aspect, that the young stranger involuntarily caught her breath and clung for protection to the arm of Lyon Berners. "I have never _dreamed_ of a place like this," she gasped. "You think," he said indulgently, "that if the other pass was called the 'Devil's Descent,' this should be the 'Gates of Hell.' Yet to us, it is the 'Gates of Heaven;' since it is the entrance to our Valley Home." And this affectionate mention of their mutual home almost consoled the wife for the smile he bestowed on their beautiful guest while speaking. Then all the women except Sybil held their breath in awe. It was indeed an awful pass! a road roughly hewn through the bottom of a deep, narrow, tortuous cleft in the mountains where, at some remote period, by some tremendous convulsions of nature, the solid rocks had been rent apart, leaving the ragged edges of the wound hanging at a dizzy height between heaven and earth! The dark iron-gray precipices that towered on each side were clothed in every cleft, from base to summit, with clumps of dark stunted evergreens as sombre as themselves. So tortuous, besides, was the pass, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them at any time. There was but one cheering sight in earth or sky, and that was the young crescent moon straight before them in the west, and shining down in tender light upon the rudest precipice of all. "It does remind one of Dante's descriptions of the 'Entrance into the Infernal Regions,' does it not?" inquired Lyon Berners. "All except the little moon! Without that, its gloom would be perfectly horrible! and it is horrible enough now," answered Rosa with a shudder. "But I love it! Even its gloom and horror have a weird fascination for me. It is my abode. I only seem to live my own life in my own Black Valley," said Sybil, in a low, deep voice that thrilled with emotion. They were suddenly silenced, for they were at the sharpest, steepest, most difficult and dangerous turn in that most dangerous pass; and to go down with any chance of safety required the utmost care and skill on the part of the coachman, whose anxiety was shared by all within the coach. Each passenger clung for support to what was nearest at hand, and might reasonably have expected every instant to be dashed to pieces on the rocks by the coach pitching over the horses' heads, as it tossed and tumbled and thundered down the falling road, more like a descending avalanche than a well-conducted four-wheeled vehicle. Our travellers only let go their holdings and loosed their tongues again at the foot of the precipice.