e in the way I have told you."

"Indeed!" exclaimed he, looking with an unfeigned admiration at a young
girl capable of such rapid and decisive action, "so that you really may
consider yourself its owner."

"I do consider myself its owner," was her calm reply.

"Then pray excuse my officiousness in this sealing up. I hope you will
pardon my indiscreet zeal."

She smiled without answering, and the blood mounted to Mr. Hankes's face
and forehead till they were crimson. He, too, felt that there was a game
between them, and was beginning to distrust his "hand."

"Are we to be travelling-companions, Mr. Hankes?" asked she. And though
nothing was said in actual words, there was that in the voice and manner
of the speaker that made the question run thus: "Are we, after what we
have just seen of each other, to journey together?"

"Well, if you really wish me to confess the truth, Miss Kellett, I must
own I am rather afraid of my head along these mountain paths,--a sort of
faintness, a rushing of blood to the brain, and a confusion; in short,
Nature never meant me for a chamois-hunter, and I should bring no credit
on your training of me."

"Your resolve is all the wiser, sir, and so to our next meeting." She
waved him a half-familiar, half-cold farewell, and left the room.

Mr. Hankes saw her leave the town, and he loitered about the street
till he could mark two mounted figures ascending the mountain. He then
ordered a chaise to the door with all speed.

"Will you take it now, sir, or send for it, as you said at first?" asked
the innkeeper, as he stood with the oak box in his hands.

"Keep it till I write,--keep it till you hear from me; or, no, put it in
the chaise,--that's better."

CHAPTER XVII. THE DOUBLE BLUNDER

Short as had been Sybella's absence from the Hermitage, a vast number of
letters had arrived for her in the mean while. The prospect of a peace,
so confidently entertained at one moment, was now rudely destroyed by
the abrupt termination of the Vienna conferences, and the result was a
panic in the money-market.

The panic of an army rushing madly on to victory; the panic on shipboard
when the great vessel has struck, and after three or four convulsive
throes the mighty masts have snapped, and the blue water, surging and
bounding, has riven the hatchways and flooded the deck; the panic of
a mob as the charge of cavalry is sounded, and the flash of a thousand
sabres is seen through the long vist