Oh what a nicely balanced lever is the mind of youth! a breath will depress it, or a breath will raise. For days before, I had been gloomy and desponding. Existence, and all that surrounded it, I had looked upon with a jaundiced eye, which saw only defects. I could have quarrelled with the sunbeam for ever casting a shade--the summer breeze for ever bearing a vapour on its wings; and now I went away from Helen with a heart beating high with expectation and delight! One kind word, one affectionate look, one expression of interest and love, and every cloud was banished from my mind; and all was again sunshine, and summer, and enjoyment. My father and the Marquis had already set out, but a few steps brought me to their side; and, speeding on towards the heights above the valley of Argelez, we separated, to beat a narrow lateral dell, while the servants, spreading in a larger circle, drove the game in towards us. My father took his range along one side of the hollow, and I on the other; while the Marquis chose a path above mine, having a view of the whole side of the hill. For some time we met with little success, when suddenly an izzard bounded away along the path, about three hundred yards in advance. Before I could fire, it was out of shot; but springing after it, I followed eagerly along the shelf of rock, knowing that a little farther a precipice intervened, which I did not believe the animal could leap; and consequently, if it escaped me, it must run up the hill and cross the Marquis, or go down into the valley and come within my father's range. As I went on, circling round the mountain, a piece of rock jutted out across the path about thirty yards in advance, and hid the precipice from my view. The izzard I doubted not was there, hesitating on the brink, as they often do when the leap is dangerous; and hoping to obtain a shot at it before it turned, I was hurrying on, when suddenly I heard the ringing of a carbine, and a bullet whistled close to my ear. Its course must have lain within two inches of my head; and, not a little angry, I turned, and saw the Marquis standing on a rock a little way above me. "There! there!" cried he, pointing with his hand: "there, I have missed him! Why don't you fire?" At that moment I caught a sight of the izzard actually springing up the most perpendicular part of the mountain. It was almost beyond the range of my carbine, but, however, I fired, and the animal rolled down dead into the valley. Neither the Marquis nor myself alluded to the shot which he had discharged, and it remains a very great doubt in my mind whether he had missed me or the izzard. CHAPTER XIV. It may seem strange, very strange, that with such suspicions on my mind, I should accept an invitation to visit the man who had excited them. Nevertheless I did, and what is perhaps still more strange, those very suspicions were in some degree the cause of my doing so.