Antoinette was no longer mistress of her nerves:  during the entire evening she was so preoccupied that M. Moriaz could not fail to notice it; but he had no suspicion of the cause.  He was profoundly versed in qualitative and quantitative analysis, but less skilled in the analysis of his daughter’s heart.  “How pale you are!” he said to her.  “Are you not well?  You are cold.—­Pray, Mlle. Moiseney, make yourself useful and prepare her a mulled egg; you know I do not permit her to be sick.”

It was not the mulled egg that restored Mlle. Moriaz’s color.  The next morning as she was giving a drawing lesson to her protegee, Count Abel was announced.  She trembled; the blood rose in her cheeks, and she could not conceal her agitation from the penetrating gaze of the audacious charmer.  It might easily be seen that he had just descended from where the eagles themselves seldom ascend.  His face was weather-beaten by the ice and snow.  He had successfully accomplished the double ascent, of which he was compelled to give an account.  In descending from Morteratsch he had been overtaken by a storm, and had come very near never again seeing the valley or Mlle. Moriaz.  He owed his life to the presence of mind and courage of his guide, on whom he could not bestow sufficient praise.

While he modestly narrated his exploits, Antoinette had dismissed her pupil.  He seemed embarrassed by the tete-a-tete which, nevertheless, he had sought.  He rose, saying:  “I regret not being able to see M. Moriaz; I came to bid him farewell.  I leave this evening.”

She summoned courage and replied:  “You did well to come; you left a volume of Shakespeare—­here it is.”  Then drawing from her notebook a paper—­“I have still another restitution to make to you.  I have had the misfortune to discover that it was you who wrote this letter.”

With these words she handed him the anonymous note.  He changed countenance, and it was now his turn to grow red.  “Who can prove to you,” he demanded, “that I am the author of this offence, or rather crime?”

“Every bad case may be denied, but do not you deny.”

After a moment’s silence, he replied:  “I will not lie, I am not capable of lying.  Yes, I am the guilty one; I confess it with sorrow, because you are offended by my audacity.”

“I never liked madrigals, either in prose or verse, signed or anonymous,” she returned, rather dryly.

He exclaimed, “You took this letter for a madrigal?” Then, having reread it, he deliberately tore it up, throwing the pieces into the fireplace, and added, smiling:  “It certainly lacked common-sense; he who wrote it is a fool, and I have nothing to say in his defence.”

Crossing her hands on her breast, and uplifting to him her brown eyes, that were as proud as gentle, she softly murmured, “What more?”