some green slope, or clamber over rocks and
boulders to the snow near by, or they would wander to a dark valley not
far away, where a third lake lay quite inclosed by steep rocky walls,
and known to very few people in all the world. Simmen kept a boat on
this lake, a homely old thing with only one oar. When Vincenza brought
Cain over here one day, he was much excited and' thought that he had
never in his life seen anything so beautiful as this water and the
perfect stillness that brooded over it, and he would go to see it again
and again, whenever he had time enough. Vincenza always went with him.

One Sunday afternoon they both found their way to the lake once more.
It was Vincenza's sixteenth birthday.

At the north entrance to the mountain pass they turned off from the
main road into a little rough stony path, on one side of which was a
swift mountain stream, on the other a high rocky wall, and then the
path disappeared in the dark valley of this black lake, like a snake
creeping in among the stones. They soon reached the broad, unpainted
boat, whose rusty chain was passed around a rock on the bank. Cain
stepped in, took the oar and pushed the bow of the boat further up on
the bank, so that Vincenza could get in more easily. With a quick
spring she jumped in and sat down on the movable seat that was
laid across the boat. Cain stood in the stern and dipped his old
weather-beaten oar slowly and quietly. Imperceptibly they slid away
from the shore. The water was black, and as smooth and still as if no
breath of wind could find its way into the walled valley. The dark
walls of the bank descended abruptly to the lake, and only here and
there lay a gentler slope of the mountain, but even such spots were
desolate and strewn with rocky debris, and the valley had no outlet
excepting the way by which Cain and Vincenza had entered. The lake was
as dark and still as night, but now a bit of sky, as large and still as
the water, lay above it and lent the lake its beauty. It rested on the
dark and jagged mountains that dipped their feet in the water, and
every change of light and shade and color in the sky was mirrored in
the lake.

The late afternoon was clear, and beautiful in its deep stillness, as
it often is before bad weather comes on, when the storm is drawing a
deep, long breath and only the clouds are moving. The clouds mounted
silently and solemnly in the west above the black, rocky peaks, now a
heavy brown one, that