enjoyment, and it was only when she had finished that a certain terror, which I had observed in both her and Silvain, again asserted itself.

"'Remain here a while, Avicia,' said Silvain, at the end of the meal; 'I wish to speak to our friend alone.'

"'Are we safe?' she asked.

"'I think so; I hope so. Sleep; it will do you good.'

"'Thank you, Silvain.'

"She was seated on a hard bench, not conducive to repose; nevertheless she closed her eyes, and was almost immediately asleep.

"'Poor girl!' said Silvain, with a sigh, 'she has suffered much--and in a few weeks will become a mother.'

"We strolled up and down outside the inn and conversed.

"'You have behaved to us with true friendship,' he said; 'and yet you can see we are beggars. Are you prospering?'

"I am not rich,' I replied, 'but I can spare to a friend.'

"'We are making our way to Avicia's home, to the lighthouse upon which I saw her for the first time otherwise than in my dreams. I doubt whether you can turn aside the finger of Fate as I behold it, pointing downwards to a grave, but you can perhaps help us to cheat it for a short time.'

"'You speak strangely, Silvain; the ominous fears which oppress you may be bred by a disordered fancy.'

"'In our former intercourse,' was his reply, 'was my fancy ever disordered? I advanced nothing that was not afterwards proved; I made no pretence of accounting for the warnings I received; I make none now. I shudder to think of the future, not so much for my own sake as for Avicia's. Helpless, penniless, without a friend----'

"'You are forgetting me, Silvain?'

"'Ah, yes, my friend, as you still declare yourself to be; I cannot but believe you. But Avicia----'

"'I am her friend as well as yours.'

"'For God's sake, do not speak lightly! You do not know to what a pass I am driven.'

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