We reached the little hill at the bottom of the park without having exchanged a word with each other. One can see from the top of it, as far as the horizon, the whole plain of the surrounding country, traversed by the winding waters of the Weidnitz. There is a little wooden bench on the flat of the hill's head. Father sat down there, and hid his face in his hands. I drew the dear old head gently against my bosom. Then, my tears began to fall at last, and his white hairs were wet with them. Without any settled thought, I sat thus, with the old man's head upon my breast, staring stupidly at the cold, cloudy distance before me. I could think of nothing. My mind had lost the thread of all things. The tears in my eyes bewildered my sight.

'On the large white water underneath there was a small black boat. The boat was lazily drifting down the sluggish stream. I could not see it distinctly. The whole land, whitened with the wandering mist, appeared to be one vast and livid sea. In the midst of the sea was an open coffin. In the coffin, stretched at full length, was the corpse of Edmond. The face of the corpse was sharply set against the hard gray sky. It was white as marble, but unmarred by any wound. The features were more placid than ever, and more stern. All at once the corpse began to move. It lifted itself, and sat half up in the coffin. I saw it stretch an imploring hand toward me. I tried to rush forward to reach it, but could not. Every time that I endeavored to move, an invisible hand retained me. Suddenly I awoke. The sea and the coffin had disappeared. I saw the boat drifted by the current into a bay of the river.

"Father,' I cried, 'look! look!'

"I could say no more.

"We both looked, and saw a man rise out of the boat, and step down on the bank of the river.

"It was Edmond.

"How we left the hill I know not. I only remember that we were instantly by the river-side, and clasping him in our arms. Father, for all his joy and all his pain, could find but one expression, and kept murmuring over and over again, as he embraced him, 'Edmond, my boy! my beloved boy!'

"Edmond let us talk on without answering a word. His face was deadly pale. His features were inert; and, being vacant of any expression strong enough to hold them together, they seemed to have no relation to each other. His teeth were chattering, his limbs were shivering, and his eye wandered listlessly over our faces with a heavy, leaden look. It was with the utmost difficulty we could get him to speak of himself.

"Yesterday evening, he said, he left the hunt immediately after the death, anxious to rejoin Felix, whose accident had made him uneasy. He tried to find a short cut to the chateau, and lost his way in the wood. There was still twilight in the fields when he entered the forest; but there the night had fallen already, and the bridle-paths were quite dark. The better to track his way through the thick underwood, he alighted and tied his horse to a tree. While he was still trying to make out his bearings, the horse, restless or frightened, broke loose and galloped off. For some way he followed the noise of the hoofs.

This only led him farther astray. After wandering about in the wood for more than two hours, he heard a noise of waters. He pushed on in that direction, and at last found himself on the banks of the Weidnitz. Then, for the first time, he knew where he was, and perceived that he had taken the wrong direction. He resolved to follow the course of the river, but was hindered at every step by the dense thickets. Worn out with prolonged exertion, he had made up his mind to pass the rest of the night in the wood, when he stumbled over something among the thick reeds along the river-side. It was an empty boat, probably left there by the foresters. With a good deal of difficulty he got it afloat. He found that it would hold out the

water.

"There were several pine-trees in that part of the forest. He cut a branch from one of them-the longest and straightest that his hunting-knife was strong enough to cut. With this he tried to punt the boat down the river; but the waters were so swollen that the spar was no use to him. Then he lay down in the boat, and let it float him down the stream without attempting to guide it. The cold on the river numbed him, and he soon lost consciousness. The grating of the keel against the shallow bottom of the little bay, where it touched land, was the first thing that aroused him.

"'Oh, Edmond,' says father, 'if you knew what anxiety you have caused us! I wish you had trusted the instinct of your horse: it would have brought you home safely. Those beasts can find the stable at any distance. And such a night as we have had of it!'

"Edmond answered nothing, but only dropped his head lower, as if he was weary of the weight of it. That man, so strong, so inured to fatigue, seemed broken by the work of a single night.

"'Well,' said I, 'we mustn't scold him. See how ill he looks, father, and how weary!'

"True, child, true! go in first and prepare mother!' father said. So I went in before them. Oh, how glad I was to be able to tell her!

"You guess, dear Theresa, how great our joy is now! I would not close this letter before I was able to give you this best news. Felix, who had returned before us, was almost beside himself with the joy of it. But my eyelids are beginning to drop, and I am very, very tired.

"Thank God, Edmond is safe! How soundly I shall sleep now! Rejoice with us, dear friend. Goodnight!"

CHAPTER IX.

THE INTERIOR OF A SOUL.

I SUBJOIN six pages from the Journal of Count Edmond:

FIRST PAGE.

"When I started the beast on his road with a stroke of my riding-whip, I thought So be it, Death! there goes thy messenger. Let him snort his good news at the doors I shall not enter .

"Fear no more.

He will not return to frighten you. He will never come back. Fear no more, young lovers. But, if you would never see him again, then, when you two walk arm-in-arm about the pleasant places, heed well that you walk not near the hollow oak; for there, when the grass is black, and the useless blood is filtering through the dead red leaves, his face might vex you if you chanced to see it.'

"What power was it that held back my uplifted arm?

"Was it that puissant impuissance-cowardice?

"How, fool! can that man be a coward who trucks a life of torment against the short, swift stroke that brings the long release?

"Was it filial piety?

"Not in that moment didst thou think of father nor of mother.