154 The Brothers of Gdschenen. 



ing out from the snow. Often, often, during a long day, there I sat, 

 looking down into the valley. I could see them, as they walked back- 

 ward and forward under yon old trees his arm round her now dis- 

 appearing beneath "the branches now seen in the sunshine stopping 

 every little while to gaze in one another's faces. Aye, I could even 

 see them press their warm lips together, ere they returned to the cot- 

 tage. At such moments I have looked with a horrid longing down 

 the precipice that went sheer from beneath my feet, but some devil 

 held me back. I could not. It was not fear. Death I could 

 have welcomed like a bride ; but still, still a low voice in my inmost 

 soul murmured Franz and Louise husband and wife. I shrunk 

 back from the leap as I swore Never! 



"' They were now I saw betrothed;, their hearts had been laid 

 bare the one to the other ; they no longer entwined their arms when 

 I met them in the walk, and Louise sat with her head resting on his 

 shoulder, as she rallied me in the mirthfulness of her heart on my wan 

 cheek and darkened brow. I was in love, she said. How truly, 

 this wasted frame now tells. 



" ' This day seven-and-fi fty years ago my brother and I went in 

 pursuit of the gemsen. Louise kissed us both as we left the cottage. 

 I walked moodily after Franz up the valley, while he gaily strode on, 

 humming to himself a love-liedchen that Louise had sung to us the 

 night before. From time to time he spoke to me. My replies were 

 hasty, for my heart was seared. He, rallied me. I answered briefly 

 and fiercely. He looked at me for a few seconds, and again went on, 

 humming his song. The thought struck me that he had read my 

 heart, that he was triumphing in my torture. I was mad with an- 

 ger, but I had no words. We walked on in silence. 



" ' We crossed the Rhone Gletscher about half-way up. He was 

 a little distance before me, and I lost sight of him for a few seconds 

 behind one of the frozen ridges. I sat down in the hollow, for I was 

 sick at heart. A horrible thought had seized me. A slip of his foot, 

 thought I, on the edge of one of these clefts, and Louise may be mine. 

 The thought became a wish. I felt faint, and gasped for breath. I 

 thought of the solitude around us. There was nought but glacier 

 and snow-peak, no sound but the distant fall of the summer lauwine. 

 I ground my teeth in desperation. My brow, as I passed my clammy 

 hands over it, was bathed in a cold sweat. Franz called me he had 

 missed, and feared, perhaps, I had fallen into an ice-reft. Karl ! he 

 shouted. Brother Karl ! Where are you, my brother ? Oh, God ! 

 at that moment hell was burning in my heart. He came nearer I 

 heard his voice more distinctly I cocked rny rifle he came nearer 

 still: I sprang on my feet he stopped, gazing in astonishment on 

 my features, distorted as they were with the fiend within and the 

 next instant here ! here ! in the centre of his broad forehead rny 

 bullet crashed through skull arid brain. I was a Cain upon the earth 

 my brother's murderer murdered by this hand.' 



" The old man," proceeded the Capuchin, " stretched out his yellow 

 clammy hand and gazed upon it with his white lips apart and his eyes 

 starting from their sockets as he muttered again and again * Mur- 

 dered by this hand. 9 The muscles of his face quivered with an 



