within the hour."

[Illustration: "WINE OR BEER!"]

I breathed again. We set off. We had before us cliffs and hills,
with small Gothic towers printed on the blue of the sky; but the
mountain-path beneath our steps was sanded, graveled, packed, rolled,
weeded, and provided with coquettish sofas at every hundred steps.
I, who happened that afternoon to feel the emotions of Manfred, would
gladly have exchanged these detestable conveniences for precipices,
storms and eagles.

"How ridiculous," I said with a little temper, "to go to a ruin by way
of the boulevards!"

"Ah," said my companion of complaisant manners, "you like Nature? It
is but the choosing."

And Berkley, perfectly acquainted with the locality, directed our
steps into a narrow path hardly traced through the woods. Here at
least were flowers and grass and sylvan shadows. No sooner did I
smell the balm of the pine trees than my heart resigned itself, with
exquisite indecision, to the thoughts of Francine Joliet and the
memories of Mary Ashburton. I glanced at Berkley: he seemed, in Scotch
clothes, a little less impenetrable than he had appeared in white
cravat and dress-gloves. I cannot restrain my confidences when a man
is near me: I buttonholed Sylvester, and I made the plunge. "I used to
talk of the Alt-Schloss," I murmured, "with one whom I have lost."

"Ah, I comprehend: with my late uncle, perhaps."