This was rather a sad interruption, in many ways, to the young man’s careless life; and they all felt it as a shock. He left Herbert under the pine-trees, weak but hopeful, looking as if any breeze might make an end of him, so fragile was he, the soul shining through him almost visibly, yet an air of recovery about him which gave all lookers-on a tremulous confidence; and Reine, with moisture in her eyes which she did not try to conceal, and an ache in her heart which she did conceal, but poorly. Everard had taken his cousin’s privilege, and kissed her on the forehead when he went away, trying not to think of the deep blush which surged up to the roots of her hair. But poor Reine saw him go with a pang which she could disclose to nobody, and which at first seemed to fill her heart too full of pain to be kept down. She had not realized, till he was gone, how great a place he had taken in her little world; and the surprise was as great as the pain. How dreary the valley looked, how lonely her life when his carriage drove away down the hill to the world! How the Alpine heights seemed to close in, and the very sky to contract! Only a few days before, when they arrived, everything had looked so different. Now even the friendly tourists of the Kanderthal would have been some relief to the dead blank of solitude which closed over Reine. She had her brother, as always, to nurse and care for, and watch daily and hourly on his passage back to life, and many were the forlorn moments when she asked herself what did she want more? what had she ever desired more? Many and many a day had Reine prayed, and pledged herself in her prayers, to be contented with anything, if Herbert was but spared to her; and now Herbert was spared and getting better--yet lo! she was miserable. The poor girl had a tough battle to fight with herself in that lonely Swiss valley, but she stood to her arms, even when capable of little more, and kept up her courage so heroically, that when, for the first time, Herbert wrote a little note to Everard as he had promised, he assured the traveller that he had scarcely missed him, Reine had been so bright and so kind. When Reine read this little letter, she felt a pang of mingled pain and pleasure. She had not betrayed herself. “But it is a little unkind to Everard to say I have been so bright since his going,” she said, feeling her voice thick with tears. “Oh, he will not mind,” said Herbert, lightly, “and you know it is true. After all, though he was a delightful companion, there is nothing so sweet as being by ourselves,” the sick boy added, with undoubting confidence. “Oh, what a trickster I am!” poor Reine said to herself; and she kissed him, and told him that she hoped he would think so always, always! which Herbert promised in sheer lightness of heart.