“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.

“Thou must find great delight, Sigismund, in reflecting on thine own good acts to others.  But for thee Melchior de Willading would have long since been childless; and but for thee his daughter would now be an orphan.  The knowledge that thou hast had the power and the will to succor thy friends must be worth all other knowledge!”

“As connected with thee, Adelheid, it is,” he answered in a low voice:  “I would not exchange the secret happiness of having been of this use to thee, and to those thou lovest, for the throne of the powerful prince I serve.  I have had my secret wrested from me already, and it is vain attempting to deny it, if I would.  Thou knowest I love thee; and, in spite of myself, my heart cherishes the weakness.  I rather rejoice, than dread, to say that it will cherish it until it cease to feel.  This is more than I ever intended to repeat to thy modest ears, which ought not to be wounded by idle declarations like these, but—­thou smilest—­Adelheid!—­can thy gentle spirit mock at a hopeless passion!”