chance which had
brought to her side the man who had watched by the death-bed of Felix's
father.

"Tell me all you remember," she urged.

"I remember nothing," he answered, pressing his dark hard hand against
his forehead, "it is more than thirteen years ago. But he showed to me
their portraits. Is his wife still living?"

"Oh, yes!" she answered, "but she will not let either of them come to
Switzerland; neither Felix nor Hilda. Nobody speaks of this country in
her hearing; and his name is never uttered. But his mother used to talk
to us about him; and Phebe Marlowe does so still. She has painted a
portrait of him for Felix."

"Is Roland Sefton's mother yet alive?" he asked, with a dull, aching
foreboding of her reply.

"No," she said. "Oh! how we all loved dear old Madame Sefton! She was
always more like Felix and Hilda's mother than Cousin Felicita was. We
loved her more a hundred times than Cousin Felicita, for we are afraid
of her. It was her husband's death that spoiled her whole life and set
her quite apart from everybody else. But Madame--she was not made so
utterly miserable by it; she knew she would meet her son again in
heaven. When she was dying she said to Cousin Felicita, 'He did not
return to me, but I go to him; I go gladly to see again my dear son.'
The very last words they heard her say were, 'I come, Roland!'"

Alice's voice trembled, and she laid her hand caressingly on the name of
Roland Sefton graved on the cross above her. Jean Merle listened, as if
he heard the words whispered a long way off, or as by some one speaking
in a dream. The meaning had not reached his brain, but was travelling
slowly to it, and would surely pierce his heart with a new sorrow and a
fresh pang of remorse. The loud chanting of the monks in the abbey close
by broke in upon their solemn silence, and awoke Alice from the reverie
into which she had fallen.

"Can you tell me nothing about him?" she asked. "Talk to me as if I was
his child."

"I have nothing to tell you," answered Jean Merle. "I remember nothing
he said."

She looked down on the poor ragged peasant at her feet, with his gaunt
and scarred features, and his slowly articulated speech. There seemed
nothing strange in such a man not being able to recall Roland Sefton's
dying words. It was probable that he barely understood them; and most
likely he could not gather up the meaning of what she herself was
saying. The few words he uttered were English, but th