CHAPTER XIII


Do you know the Belvedere at the Rigi Kaltbad, looking over the corner to
a vast world below, on a fair day in May, when the air is clear as crystal
and the lake ultra-marine? When the Bernese Oberland undulates away in
unbroken snow, its pure whiteness like cold marble, the shadows grey-blue?

Have you seen the tints of the beeches, of the pines, of the firs,
clinging like some cloak of life to the hoary-headed mountains, a reminder
that spring is eternal, and youth must have its day, however grey beards
and white heads may frown?

Ah--it is good!

And so is the air up there. Hungry and strong and--young.

Paul and his lady stood and looked down in rapt silence. It was giving
her, as she said, an emotion, but of what sort he was not sure. They were
all alone. No living soul was anywhere in view.

She had been in a mood, all day when she seldom raised her eyes. It
reminded him of the first time he had seen her, and wonder grew again in
his mind. All the last night her soul had seemed melted into his in a
fusion of tenderness and trust, exalted with the exquisite thought of the
wish which was between them. And he had felt at last he had fathomed its
inmost recess.

But to-day, as he gazed down at her white-rose paleness, the heavy lashes
making their violet shadow on her cheek--her red mouth mutinous and