e utmost. We are not
far from the House of Refuge, and should the storm increase to a tempest,
as, to conceal the danger no longer, well may happen in this late month,
we will seek its shelter for a few hours."

This intelligence was happily communicated, for the certainty that there
was a place of safety within an attainable distance, had some such
cheering effect on the travellers as is produced on the mariner who finds
that the hazards of the gale are lessened by the accidental position of a
secure harbor under his lee. Repeating his admonitions for the party to
keep as close together as possible, and advising all who felt the sinister
effects of the cold on their limbs to dismount, and to endeavor to restore
the circulation by exercise, Pierre resumed his route.

But even the time consumed in this short conference had sensibly altered
the condition of things for the worse. The wind, which had no fixed
direction, being a furious current of the upper air diverted from its true
course by encountering the ragged peaks and ravines of the Alps, was now
whirling around them in eddies, now aiding their ascent by seeming to push
against their backs, and then returning in their faces with a violence
that actually rendered advance impossible. The temperature fell rapidly
several degrees, and the most vigorous of the party began to perceive the
benumbing influence of the chilling currents, at their lower extremities
especially, in a manner to excite serious alarm. Every precaution was used
to protect the females that tenderness could suggest; but though Adelheid,
who alone retained sufficient self-command to give an account of her
feelings, diminished the danger of their situation with the wish not to
alarm their companions uselessly, she could not conceal from herself the
horrible truth that the vital heat was escaping from her own body, with a
rapidity that rendered it impossible for her much longer to retain the use
of her faculties. Conscious of her own mental superiority over that of all
her female companions, a superiority which in such moments is even of more
account than bodily force, after a few minutes of silent endurance, she
checked her mule, and called upon Sigismund to examine the condition of
his sister and her maids, neither of whom had now spoken for some time.

This startling request was made at a moment when the storm appeared to
gather new force, and when it had become absolutely impossible to
distinguish e