-day I will set about looking you up a
boat and fishing tackle, and cut a cross on the bow of yours, so that
you may know yours, and never use mine. All this is very necessary: you
cannot dream how much: but I know how much. Do not run any risks in
climbing, now, or with the motor, or in the boat ... little Leda ...'

I saw her under-lip push, and I turned away in haste, for I did not care
whether she cried or not. In that long voyage, and in my illness at
Venice, she had become too near and dear to me, my tender love, my dear
darling soul; and I said in my heart: 'I will be a decent being: I will
turn out trumps.'

* * * * *

Under this castle is a sort of dungeon, not narrow, nor very dark, in
which are seven stout dark-grey pillars, and an eighth, half-built into
the wall; and one of them which has an iron ring, as well as the ground
around it, is all worn away by some prisoner or prisoners once chained
there; and in the pillar the word 'Byron' engraved. This made me
remember that a poet of that name had written something about this
place, and two days afterwards I actually came upon three volumes of the
poet in a room containing a great number of books, many of them English,
near the Grand Bailli's _bureau_: and in one I read the poem, which is
called 'The Prisoner of Chillon.' I found it very affecting, and the
description good, only I saw no seven rings, and where he speaks of the
'pale and livid light,' he should speak rather of the dun and brownish
gloom, for the word 'light' disconcerts the fancy, and of either pallor
or blue there is there no sign. However, I was so struck by the horror
of man's cruelty to man, as depicted in this poem, that I determined
that she should see it; went up straight to her rooms with the book,
and, she being away, ferreted among her things to see what she was
doing, finding all very neat, except in one room where were a number of
prints called _La Mode_, and _debris_ of snipped cloth, and medley.
When, after two hours, she came in, and I suddenly presented myself,
'Oh!' she let slip, and then fell to cooing her laugh; and I took her
down through a big room stacked with every kind of rifle, with
revolvers, cartridges, powder, swords, bayonets--evidently some official
or cantonal magazine--and then showed her the worn stone in the dungeon,
the ring, the narrow deep slits in the wall, and I told the tale of
cruelty, while the splashing of the lake upon