“I saw two or three ordinary looking men as we drove up,” I answer, in a commonplace, matter-of-fact tone. “I did not notice anything remarkable about any of them; you know the fact is, darling, that you have had nothing to eat all day, nothing but a biscuit, and you are over-wrought, and fancy things.” “Fancy!” echoes she, with strong irritation. “How you talk! Was I ever one to fancy things? I tell you that as sure as I sit here--as sure as you stand there--I saw him--_him_--the man I saw in my dream, if it was a dream. There was not a hair’s breadth of difference between them--and he was looking at me--looking----” She breaks off into hysterical sobbing. “My dear child!” say I, thoroughly alarmed, and yet half angry, “for God’s sake do not work yourself up into a fever: wait till to-morrow, and we will find out who he is, and all about him; you yourself will laugh when we discover that he is some harmless bagman.” “Why not _now_?” she says, nervously; “why cannot you find out _now_--_this minute_?” “Impossible! Everybody is in bed! Wait till to-morrow, and all will be cleared up.” The morrow comes, and I go about the hotel, inquiring. The house is so full, and the data I have to go upon are so small, that for some time I have great difficulty in making it understood to whom I am alluding. At length one waiter seems to comprehend. “A tall and dark gentleman, with a pronounced and very peculiar nose? Yes; there has been such a one, certainly, in the hotel, but he left at ‘grand matin’ this morning; he remained only one night.” “And his name?” The garçon shakes his head. “That is unknown, monsieur; he did not inscribe it in the visitor’s book.” “What countryman was he?” Another shake of the head. “He spoke German, but it was with a foreign accent.” “Whither did he go?” That also is unknown. Nor can I arrive at any more facts about him. CHAPTER IV. A fortnight has passed; we have been hither and thither; now we are at Lucerne. Peopled with better inhabitants, Lucerne might well do for Heaven. It is drawing towards eventide, and Elizabeth and I are sitting hand in hand on a quiet bench, under the shady linden trees, on a high hill up above the lake. There is nobody to see us, so we sit peaceably hand in hand. Up by the still and solemn monastery we came, with its small and narrow windows, calculated to hinder the holy fathers from promenading curious eyes on the world, the flesh, and the devil, tripping past them in blue gauze veils: below us grass and green trees, houses with high-pitched roofs, little dormer-windows, and shutters yet greener than the grass; below us the lake in its rippleless peace, calm, quiet, motionless as Bethesda’s pool before the coming of the troubling angel. “I said it was too good to last,” say I, doggedly, “did not I, only yesterday? Perfect peace, perfect sympathy, perfect freedom from nagging worries--when did such a state of things last more than two days?”