to preeminence save that of most diligently
serving his fellow-men. She endeavored to picture herself receiving him
back again from the convict prison, with all its shameful memories
branded on him, and looking upon him again as her husband and the father
of her children; and she found herself crying out to her own heart that
it would have been impossible to her. Phebe might have done it, but
she--never!

The journey, though not more than fourteen miles from Stans to
Engelberg, occupied several hours, so broken up the narrow road was by
the winter's rains and the melting snow. The steep ascent between
Grafenort and Engelberg was dangerous, the more so as a heavy
thunderstorm broke over it; but Felicita remained insensible to any
peril. At length the long, narrow valley lay before her, stretching
upwards to the feet of the rocky hills. The thunderstorm that had met
them on the road had been raging fiercely in this mountain caldron, and
was but just passing away in long, low mutterings, echoed and prolonged
amid the precipitous walls of rock. Tall, trailing, spectre-like clouds
slowly followed each other in solemn and stately procession up the
valley, as though amid their light yet impenetrable folds of vapor they
bore the invisible form of some mysterious being; whether in triumph or
in sorrow it was impossible to tell. The sun caught their gray crests
and tinged them with rainbow colors; and as they floated unhastingly
along, the valley behind them seemed to spring into a new life of
sunshine and mirth.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MOST MISERABLE.

It was past noon when Felicita was driven up to the hotel in the
village, where, when she had last been at Engelberg, she had gone to
look upon the dead face of the stranger, who was to carry away the sin
of Roland Sefton, with the shame it would bring upon her, and bury it
forever in his grave. It seemed but a few days ago, and she felt
reluctant to enter the house again. In two or three hours when the
horses were rested, she said to the driver, she would be ready to return
to Stans. Then she wandered out into the village street, thinking she
might come across some peasant at work alone, or some woman standing
idly at her door, with whom she could fall into a casual conversation,
and learn what she had come to ascertain. But she met with no solitary
villager; and she strayed onward, almost unwittingly in the direction of
the cemetery. In passing by the church, she pushe