"I arrived in this valley, disgusted with life, sad, and weary to death. But I saw you pass by my window, and some strange, new power entered my soul. Now I know that I shall live, and accomplish my work in the world. 'What does this matter to me?' you will say when you read these lines--and you will be right. My only excuse for writing to you in this way is that I shall depart in a few days, and that you will never see me, and never know who I am." After getting over her first impression of profound astonishment, Antoinette laughed, and then gave way to curiosity. Who had brought the flowers? "A little peasant boy," said the hotel porter, "but I did not know him. He must have come from another village." For some days, Mlle. Moriaz glanced at everybody she met, but she never found a single romantic figure in the crowd of invalids that sauntered about St. Moritz. If, however, she had always accompanied her father, who, growing stronger every day, began to go out on long geological excursions, she might have met a very picturesque and striking young man. For Count Abel Larinski now always followed M. Moriaz, and watched over him like a guardian angel. "Oh, if he would only fall down one of the rocks he is always hammering at, and break a leg, or even sprain an ankle!" said the gallant Polish nobleman. "Wouldn't that be a lucky accident for me!" All things, it is said, come to those who know how to wait. One afternoon M. Moriaz climbed up a very steep slope of crumbling rock, and came to a narrow gorge over which he was afraid to leap. He could not descend by the way he had come up, for the slope was really dangerous. It looked as though he should have to wait hours, and perhaps, days, until some herdsman passed by; and he began to shout wildly in the hopes of attracting attention. To his great joy, his shout was answered, and Count Larinski climbed up the other side of the gorge, carrying a plank, torn from a fence he passed on his way. By means of this, he bridged the gorge, and rescued the father of Antoinette, and naturally, he had to accompany him to the hotel, and stay to dinner. As we have said, Count Larinski was a very handsome man; tall, broad-shouldered, with strange green eyes touched with soft golden tints. When he began to talk, simply and modestly of the part he had played in the last Polish Revolution against the despotic power of Russia, Antoinette felt at last that she was in the presence of a hero. And what a cultivated man he was! He played the piano divinely, and they passed many pleasant evenings together. One night, the Count left behind him a piece of music, inscribed "Abel Larinski." "Surely," Mlle. Moriaz thought, "I have seen that writing somewhere!" Her breath came quickly, as with a trembling hand she took out of her bosom the letter which had been sent with the flowers, and compared the handwritings. They were identical. _II.--A Conversation with a Dead Man_