by his side, the holy
scriptures open before him. How pale and suffering he looked; for in
the night, fatigue had overpowered him in his meditations. Edmond
approached softly, and with a beating heart. "He has given his angels
charge over thee, that they may keep thee in all thy ways." This
passage presented itself to his eyes from the open book. Inspired he
looked up, wrote his name on a slip of paper and placed it upon this
text of the bible. Then in his dream the old man sighed, "Edmond! my
son!"--"Oh how unworthy am I of these tones, this affection, this
attachment!" said Edmond to himself. He was impelled downwards, he
kissed his fathers feet and then departed.--He shut the window, caused
the ladder to be carried into the garden and then followed Cavalier's
troop through the night back into the wood.

CHAPTER II.

They proceeded with the troop in silence. In order to elude the king's
soldiers, who were in the neighbourhood, they were compelled to make a
circuit. Catinat with his band conducted the prisoners that they might
be delivered up to Roland, to pronounce sentence on them in the lonely
mountains, and Cavalier and Edmond separated from their companions in
order to reach the distant height by a footpath through the wood.

They walked together in silence for a long time. In Edmond's mind all
that had appeared to him solid was by the late crowding events thrown
confusedly together. The wound and the weakness that it occasioned, the
wandering in the night and the emotions which alternately shook him,
had at first wonderfully raised his mental and physical strength, and
now almost entirely exhausted it. As they advanced farther into the
obscurity of the wood, he thought of himself and his concerns as of a
stranger; what he had experienced, what desired and effected flitted in
his memory as a strange tale of by-gone times, and Cavalier appeared
either to respect his silence, or to be himself too much occupied with
weighty thoughts to require any conversation. On issuing from the wood,
the light of the moon broke forth from behind heavy, lowering clouds.
As the silvery light with its calm brightness spread over the rocks,
the venerable head of his father presented itself to the imagination of
the youth, and a refreshing and reviving flood of tears gushed from his
eyes. He turned to his companion to excuse his long protracted silence.

"Brother," replied the latter, "the spirit has also