Twice the porter called after them: "_Monsieur! Madame! C'est ici!_" and neither had heard.

Then the girl had gone to her room smiling, but pale with fatigue, and with aching head.

Giovanni went out again to wander among the level gardens and orchards of Hergyswyl, breathing hard like a man exhausted by excess of feeling, blessing every stone and every leaf of this verdant corner of a foreign land, the lake, sleeping in its bosom, the crowd of great religious mountains; blessing God, who at his time of life had sent him such a love.

And he had returned soon, too soon, to the hotel.

The only other guests there on that May day, an old German professor and his daughter, had gone up Mount Pilatus.