As he said those words, Marguerite’s hand caught his, and pressed it significantly.  She was looking towards Obenreizer.  Before Vendale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled round, and was taking leave of Madame Dor.

“Adieu, my charming niece!” he said, turning to Marguerite next.  “En route, my friend, for Neuchatel!” He tapped Vendale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat and led the way to the door.

Vendale’s last look was for Marguerite.  Marguerite’s last words to him were, “Don’t go!”

ACT III.

IN THE VALLEY

It was about the middle of the month of February when Vendale and Obenreizer set forth on their expedition.  The winter being a hard one, the time was bad for travellers.  So bad was it that these two travellers, coming to Strasbourg, found its great inns almost empty.  And even the few people they did encounter in that city, who had started from England or from Paris on business journeys towards the interior of Switzerland, were turning back.

Many of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass easily enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then.  Some were not begun; more were not completed.  On such as were open, there were still large gaps of old road where communication in the winter season was often stopped; on others, there were weak points where the new work was not safe, either under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw.  The running of trains on this last class was not to be counted on in the worst time of the year, was contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through the months considered the most dangerous.

At Strasbourg there were more travellers’ stories afloat, respecting the difficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers to relate them.  Many of these tales were as wild as usual; but the more modestly marvellous did derive some colour from the circumstance that people were indisputably turning back.  However, as the road to Basle was open, Vendale’s resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed.  Obenreizer’s resolution was necessarily Vendale’s, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately:  He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it.

The state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards the other was this.  Obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin through Vendale’s quickness of action, and seeing the circle narrowed every hour by Vendale’s energy, hated him with the animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal.  He had always had instinctive movements in his breast against him; perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant; perhaps, because of the openness of his nature, perhaps, because of his better looks; perhaps, because of his success with Marguerite; perhaps, on all those grounds, the two last not the least.  And now