"MY DEAR MISS BRUNEL,—Ever since you left I have bitterly reproached myself for having given you so much annoyance and trouble. I hear that you are living, without amusement or companions, in the Feldberg Inn. May I beg of you to return here, adding the assurance that you will not be troubled by my presence in any way whatever? Whether you do or not, I cannot permit you to leave without bidding you good-bye—especially as we may not see each other in England—and so, if you will forgive me this once, I propose to cross over to the Feldberg to-morrow and visit you," &c., &c. She read no more; the cramped left-hand writing had told her enough. She hurriedly wrote a reply, peremptorily forbidding him to be at the trouble and danger of such an expedition; and added that, before he could possibly be at the Feldberg, she would be on her way to Freiburg and Basle. Then she called the elder Holzmann, desired him to get a messenger to take over this letter to Schönstein that day, and informed him that on the next morning she and her companion would set out for the south. It was a point of maidenly honour with her that she should go away with her sad secret her own; and who could tell what disclosure might happen, were she to see him suffering from the effects of the wound, entreating her to stay, and with his own love for her speaking in his eyes? He was a man, and it did not matter; as for her, she closed this fatal tenderness in her heart, and would fain have deceived herself into denying its existence. Truth to say, she felt a touch of shame at her own weakness; was dimly conscious that her virginal purity of soul was tainted by a passion which she dreamed was a guilty one; and knew that her punishment lay in the loss of that innocent gaiety and thoughtlessness which had hitherto made her life so pleasant. "We may not see each other in England," she said to herself, gazing at the crooked and trembling lines on the paper. "Not in England, nor elsewhere, will be my constant prayer so long as I live." So they left the gloomy mountain, and passing through the Hollenthal once more, reached Freiburg; and from thence, by easy stages, they made the round of the Swiss lakes until, as fate would have it, they came to Thun. There they rested for a day or two, preparatory to their undertaking the voyage to England. Here a strange incident befel Annie Brunel. Their first walk lay along the shore of the lake; and no sooner had they left the side of the rapid bright-green Aar, than Mrs. Christmas noticed a strange intense look of wonder settling over her companion’s face. Wistfully, and yet curiously, the dark-grey eyes dwelt on the expanding lake, on the long curving bays, on the sunlit mountains opposite, and on the far-off snow-peaks of the Bernese Alps. "I have seen all this in a dream," she said. "Or in a picture," suggested Mrs. Christmas.