shady nooks, or hidden summer-houses, or open
lawns fragrant with violets, and musical with
ever-playing fountains. Up and down, in and
out of these paths, Signer Colonna wandered for
nearly half an hour without meeting a living soul,
or hearing any sound but the rushing of the
rivers and the echoes of his own steps on the
gravel. Saxon and his cousin had disappeared
as utterly as if the green sward had opened and
swallowed them, or the grey Rhine had swept
them away in its eddying current.

CHAPTER X. MENTOR TAKES TELEMACHUS
                         IN HAND.

PASTOR MARTIN never closed his eyes in sleep
that night after William Trefalden paid his first
visit at the Chateau Rotzberg. His anxieties
had been increasing and multiplying of late, and
this event brought them en masse to the surface.
He scarcely knew whether to feel relieved or
embarrassed by the arrival of his London kinsman.
Harassed as his mind had been for some
time past, he yet dreaded to lay the source of his
troubles before an arbiter who might tell him
that he had acted unwisely. Yet here was the
arbiter, dropped, as it were, from the clouds; and,
be his verdict what it might, the story of Saxon's
education could not be withheld from him. The
good priest shrunk from this confession. It was
true that he had done all for the best. It was
also true that he would have given his own life
to make that boy a good and happy man. And
yet—and yet there remained the fatal possibility
which had so haunted him during these last few
months. His own judgment might all this time
have been at fault; and the fair edifice which he
had been building up with such love and devotion
for the last twenty years or more, might, after
all, have its foundations in the sand. This was a
terrible thought, and so hard to bear that the
pastor made up his mind to go down to Reichenau
early in the morning, and talk the whole matter
over with William Trefalden before he and Saxon
should have started for Chur. When the morning
came, however, a goat was missing from the
flock. This mischance threw all the farm-work
out of its daily course, so that the pastor started
a good half-hour too late, quite expecting to find
them both gone by the time he reached the
Adler.

In the mean while, Saxon had overtaken his
cousin in the garden of the Château Planta.

"Well," said Mr. Trefalden, "I began to
think you were never coming. Take a cigar?"

Saxon shook his head.

"I don't smoke, thank you," said he, hurriedly.
"This way."

Mr. Trefalden noted the flush upon his cheek,
and the agitation of his manner, and followed in
silence.

The young man plunged down a labyrinth of
narrow side-walks, till they came to one that
sloped to the water-side. At the bottom of this
slope, only a wire fence and a slip of gravelly
bank lay between them and the river. A covered
bridge spanned the stream a few yards higher up,
and beyond the bridge lay the meadows and the
mountains. Saxon, without deigning to touch
the wire with his hand, sprang lightly over. Mr.
Trefalden, less lightly, and more leisurely,
followed his example. In a few minutes more,
they had both passed through the gloom of the
covered bridge, and emerged into the sunshine
beyond. Saxon at once struck across the road,
and took the field-path opposite.

"Is this the way to Chur?" asked Mr.
Trefalden, somewhat abruptly.

Saxon started, and stopped.

"No, indeed," he replied. " I—I had forgotten.
We must turn back."

"Not till I have finished my cigar. See—
here is a shady nook, and an old pine-trunk, that
looks as if it had been felled on purpose. Let us
sit and chat quietly for half an hour."

"With all my heart," said Saxon. So they sat
down side by side, far enough out of sight or
hearing of the garden, in which Signor Colonna
was searching for them on the opposite side of
the river.

"By the way, Saxon, what kept you so long,
just now?" said Mr. Trefalden. "Were you
flirting with the fair Olimpia?"

Saxon's face was scarlet in an instant.

"I—I offered to carry her letter," he replied,
confusedly.

"The deuce you did! And she declined?"

"She misunderstood me."

"I am heartily glad of it. I would not have
had you mixed up in any of the Colonna intrigues
for a trifle. In what way did she misunderstand
you?"

Saxon bit his lip, and the colour which had
nearly faded from his face came back again.

"She thought I wanted to be paid for going,"
he said, reluctantly.

"Offered you money, in short?"

"Yes—that is, her father did so."

"And what did you say?"

"I hardly know. I was greatly vexed—more
vexed, perhaps, than I ought to have been. I
left them, at all events, and here I am."

"Without the letter, I trust?"

"Without the letter."

There was a brief silence. Mr. Trefalden looked
down, thoughtfully, and a faint smile flitted
over his face. Saxon did not see it. His thoughts
were busy elsewhere, and his eyes were also bent
upon the ground.

"I am sorry you don't join me in a cigar,"
said Mr. Trefalden. " Smoking is a social art,
and you should acquire it."

"The art is easy enough," said Saxon. "It
is the taste for it which is difficult of acquisition."

"Then you have tried?"

"Yes."

"And it made you giddy?"

"Not at all; but it gave me no pleasure."

"That was because you did not persevere long