will plead my cause?"

"It is understood that I will sound the premises, that I will prepare
the way--"

"And that you will send me tidings shortly, and that these tidings will
be good. I shall await them here, at the Hotel Steinbock."

"As you please; but, for the love of Heaven, let me sleep!"

M. Camille Langis pressed his two arms and said, with much emotion: "I
place myself in your hands; take care how you answer for my life!"

"O youth!" murmured M. Moriaz, actually thrusting Camille from the room.
"One might search in vain for a more beautiful invention."

Ten hours later, a post-chaise bore in the direction of Engadine Mlle.
Antoinette Moriaz, her father, her _demoiselle de compagnie_, and
her _femme de chambre_. They breakfasted tolerably well in a village
situated in the lower portion of a notch, called Tiefenkasten, which
means, literally, _deep chest_, and certainly a deeper never has been
seen. After breakfast they pursued their way farther, and towards four
o'clock in the afternoon they reached the entrance of the savage defile
of Bergunerstein, which deserves to be compared with that of Via Mala.
The road lies between a wall of rocks and a precipice of nearly two
hundred metres, at the bottom of which rush the swift waters of the
Albula. This wild scenery deeply moved Mlle. Moriaz; she never had seen
anything like it at Cormeilles or anywhere about Paris. She alighted,
and, moving towards the parapet, leaned over it, contemplating at her
ease the depths below, which the foaming torrent beneath filled with its