It was just a year after the blow-out, and near the close of a lovely afternoon among the Alps, whose tall peaks cut the sky like needles in some points and again spread out in a broad snow-clad surface, glistening in the sunshine like flames of fire, and shining like a sea of glass. Along the mountain road which leads from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen two young people were slowly walking. They had been out for two or three miles, and were returning to the little village over which the Jungfrau keeps watch. They had turned aside from the principal thoroughfare into a circuitous path by the side of a brook which, fed by the glaciers above, went rippling over stones with a musical sound, very soothing in that quiet spot and at that hour of the day. Behind them as they walked was the great mountain which greets you at so many points in Switzerland, and nowhere more cheerily than in the vicinity of Interlaken. Before them were the roofs of the town, while across the fields came the tinkle of the cow bells and faintly in the distance was the echo of an Alpine horn, blown for the benefit of some tourists. It was just the hour and place for love making, and that something of this kind was in progress was evident in the faces of the young couple. He was a handsome young man, with dark hair and eyes, and a voice and smile which seldom failed to win the hearts of strangers. The girl was like a lovely flower, tall and slender, blue eyed and fair, but with a troubled look upon her face and in her eyes, on whose long lashes tears were standing. There had been a pause in their walk just where the brook made a dash over a pile of rocks and fell with a splash into the basin below. Here on a huge bowlder they sat and exchanged vows the nature of which the girl did not understand, except that they bound her to the man who had power to thrill her every nerve and make her as clay in his hands.