CHAPTER III.
THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE.
The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found himself again in the Corraterie.

A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, beyond which lay Chatillon and his home.
Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored for him as he dreamed.

Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he had crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount of evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one presence, one gracious personality.

A scarlet blister on a round white arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--these and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing.

He dreamed with his eyes on the hills, but it was not Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secret life of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part.
At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Tertasse startled him from his thoughts.