and
arid, or leaning in smooth lustre, hangs above the gulf. The mountains
are sovereign Alps, and the sea is beneath them. The whole gigantic body
keeps the sea, as with a hand, to right and left.

Nevil's personal rapture craved for Renee with the second long breath he
drew; and now the curtain of her tent-cabin parted, and greeting him with
a half smile, she looked out. The Adriatic was dark, the Alps had heaven
to themselves. Crescents and hollows, rosy mounds, white shelves, shining
ledges, domes and peaks, all the towering heights were in illumination
from Friuli into farthest Tyrol; beyond earth to the stricken senses of
the gazers. Colour was stedfast on the massive front ranks: it wavered in
the remoteness, and was quick and dim as though it fell on beating wings;
but there too divine colour seized and shaped forth solid forms, and
thence away to others in uttermost distances where the incredible
flickering gleam of new heights arose, that soared, or stretched their
white uncertain curves in sky like wings traversing infinity.

It seemed unlike morning to the lovers, but as if night had broken with a
revelation of the kingdom in the heart of night. While the broad smooth
waters rolled unlighted beneath that transfigured upper sphere, it was
possible to think the scene might vanish like a view caught out of
darkness by lightning. Alp over burning Alp, and around them a hueless
dawn! The two exulted they threw off the load of wonderment, and in
looking they had the delicious sensation of flight in their veins.

Renee stole toward Nevil. She was mystically shaken and at his mercy; and
had he said then, 'Over to the other land, away from Venice!' she would
have bent her head.

She asked his permission to rouse her brother and madame, so that they
should not miss the scene.

Roland lay in the folds of his military greatcoat, too completely happy
to be disturbed, Nevil Beauchamp chose to think; and Rosamund Culling, he
told Renee, had been separated from her husband last on these waters.

'Ah! to be unhappy here,' sighed Renee. 'I fancied it when I begged her
to join us. It was in her voice.'

The impressionable girl trembled. He knew he was dear to her, and for
that reason, judging of her by himself, he forbore to urge his advantage,
conceiving it base to fear that loving him she could yield her hand to
another; and it was the critical instant. She was almost in his grasp. A
word of sharp entreaty would have