vement as she carefully gathered the soil about
the root of the little plant, which he vowed within himself should
grow. She was rather long about her task, for she wished this madman to
go away, and leave her alone beside Roland Sefton's grave. What her
father had told her about him was still strange to her, and she wanted
to familiarize it to herself. But still the haggard-looking peasant
lingered at her side, gazing at her with his glowering and sunken eyes;
yet neither moving nor speaking.

"You know English?" she said, as all at once it occurred to her that she
had spoken to him as she would have spoken to one of the villagers in
their own country churchyard at home, and that he had answered her. He
replied only by a gesture.

"Can you find me some one who will take charge of this little plant?"
she asked.

Jean Merle raised his head and lifted up his dim eyes to the eastern
mountain-peaks, which were still shining in the rays of the sinking sun,
though the twilight was darkening everywhere in the valley. Only last
night he had slept among some juniper-bushes just below the boundary of
that everlasting snow, feeling himself cast out forever from any glimpse
of his old Paradise. But now, if he could only find words and
utterance, there was come to him, even to him, a messenger, an angel
direct from the very heart of his home, who could tell him all that last
night he believed that he should never know. The tears sprang to his
eyes, blessed tears; and a rush of uncontrollable longing overwhelmed
him. He must hear all he could of those whom he loved; and then, whether
he lived long or died soon, he would thank God as long as his miserable
life continued.

"It is I who take care of this grave," he said; "I was with him when he
died. He spoke to me of Felix and Hilda and his mother; and I saw their
portraits. You hear? I know them all."

"Was it you who watched beside him?" asked Alice eagerly. "Oh! sit down
here and tell me all about it; all you can remember. I will tell it all
again to Felix, and Hilda, and Phebe Marlowe; and oh! how glad, and how
sorry they will be to listen!"

There was no mention of Felicita's name, and Jean Merle felt a terrible
dread come over him at this omission. He sank down on the ground beside
the grave, and looked up into Alice's bright young face, with eyes that
to her were no longer lit up with the fire of insanity, however intense
and eager they might seem. It was an undreamed-of