"I thank you for your protection," said she, bowing once more in lowly reverence; "whoever you may be, to me you have been a benefactor, and such a one has a right to my confidence. But tell me how you read my heart and learned my love for Tony? For you know already what its burden is. I am troubled about what has happened to-day; I cannot understand it. Above all, I am disappointed at not having seen Tony, after I had looked forward so joyfully to meeting him." The old man cast a searching glance on her lovely face, as she stood there with the firelight falling brightly on her, and her blue eyes turned towards him in sorrow and touching confidence. "And wouldst thou like to see him now?" he asked gravely. Vreneli's eyes shone with delight. "But, Vreneli, the fulfilment of our wishes often brings something quite different from our hopes; we go to seek faithfulness, and we find treachery." "Ah!" said she, with the smile of unshaken trust, "that will not be the case with me. Tony is good and truer than gold, and did he not swear to me beneath the cross?" "Thou dear child!" answered the old man, while painful memories troubled his grave features; "if every broken oath could make a step, we would soon be able to reach the moon." "Stranger," said Vreneli, confidently, "you may have met with faithlessness enough in your long life to make you lose your confidence in human nature, but you do not know my Tony!" "Come then, Vreneli, since thou wishest it," said the old man, rising, "though I would fain have spared thee this pain." And they stepped out together into the night. Led by the old man's hand, Vreneli climbed up to the point of rock from which he had kept nightly watch over her and her herds. They went forward to the edge of the precipice. Far below, veiled by the darkness, lay Tony's home. High walls of rock and wide pasture-lands separated them from the farm-house, so that no human eye could pierce the distance.