his thoughts to other things. By an unforeseen
fatality, the very expedient adopted hastened the explanation she would
now have given so much to postpone.

"My father has often extolled the site of the Baron de Blonay's castle,"
said Adelheid, gazing from the window, though all the fair objects of the
view floated unheeded before her eyes: "but, until now, I have always
suspected that friendly feeling had a great influence on his
descriptions."

"You did him injustice then," answered Sigismund, advancing to the
opening: "of all the ancient holds of Switzerland, Blonay is perhaps
entitled to the palm, for possessing the fairest site. Regard yon
treacherous lake, Adelheid! Can we fancy that sleeping mirror the same
boiling cauldron on which we were so lately tossed, helpless and nearly
hopeless?"

"Hopeless, Sigismund, but for thee!"

"Thou forgett'st the daring Italian, without whose coolness and skill we
must indeed have irredeemably perished."

"And what would it be to me if the worthless bark were saved, while my
father and his friend were abandoned to the frightful fate that befell the
patron and that unhappy peasant of Berne!"

The pulses of the young man beat high, for there was a tenderness in the
tones of Adelheid to which he was unaccustomed, and which, indeed, he had
never before discovered in her voice.

"I will go seek this brave mariner," he said, trembling lest his
self-command should be again lost by the seductions of such a
communion:--"it is time he had more substantial proofs of our gratitude."

"No, Sigismund," returned the maiden; firmly, and in a way to chain him
to the spot, "thou must not quit me yet--I have much to say--much that
touches my future happiness, and, I am perhaps weak enough to believe,
thine."

Sigismund was bewildered, for the manner of his companion, though the
color went and came in sudden and bright flashes across her pure brows,
was miraculously calm and full of dignity. He took the seat to which she
silently pointed, and sat motionless as if carved in stone, his faculties
absorbed in the single sense of hearing. Adelheid saw that the crisis was
arrived, and that retreat, without an appearance of levity that her
character and pride equally forbade, was impossible. The inbred and
perhaps the inherent feelings of her sex would now have caused her again
to avoid the explanation, at least as coming from herself, but that she
was sustained by a high and holy motive.

"T