on the chilly forehead; but he dared
not stoop down to touch the sweet sad face with his lips. With no word
of farewell to Phebe, he rushed out into the dense darkness of the night
and made his way down the valley, and through the steep forest roads he
had traversed only a few hours ago with something like hope dawning in
his heart. For in the morning he had known that he should see Felicita
again, and there was expectation and a gleam of gladness in that; but
to-night his eyes had looked upon her for the last time.

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN LUCERNE.

Phebe found herself alone, with the burden of Jean Merle's secret
resting on her unshared. It depended upon her sagacity and tact whether
he should escape being connected in a mysterious manner with the sad
event that had just transpired in Engelberg. The footstep she had heard
on the stairs was that of the landlady, who had gone into the salon and
had thus missed seeing Jean Merle as he left the house. Phebe met her in
the doorway.

"I have sent a message by the guide who brought me here," she said in
slowly pronounced French; "he is gone to Lucerne, and he will telegraph
to England for me."

"Is he gone--Jean Merle?" asked the landlady.

"Certainly, yes," answered Phebe; "he is gone to Lucerne."

"Will he return, then?" inquired the landlady.

"No, I suppose not," she replied; "he has done all he had to do for me.
He will telegraph to England, and our friends will come to us
immediately. Good-night, Madame."

"Good-night, Mademoiselle," was the response. "May you sleep well!"

But sleep was far away from Phebe's agitated brain that night. She felt
herself alone in a strange land, with a great grief and a terrible
secret oppressing her. As the night wore on a feverish dread took
possession of her that she should be unable to prevent Felicita's burial
beside Roland Sefton's grave. Even Felix would decide that it ought to
be so. As soon as the dawn came she rose and went out into the icy
freshness of the morning air, blowing down from the snow-fields and the
glaciers around her.

The village was beginning to arouse itself. The Abbey bells were
ringing, and at the sound of them, calling the laborers to a new day's
toil, here and there a shutter was thrown back or a door was opened, and
light volumes of gray wood-smoke stole upwards into the still air. There
was a breath of serenity and peace in this early hour which soothed
Phebe's fevered brain, as she slowly