"You have only to be firm with Emilia and the point is carried. After what she has gone through, and plunged into despair as she will be, she can be made to believe anything, especially when she learns that you are prepared to behave generously to her. To resume, Gerald, dying unmarried, you come into all the property. Therefore his death is a distinctly desirable event in your eyes. Do not, therefore, my dear comrade, in this little affair, attempt to shirk your share of the responsibility, or I will throw it all upon your shoulders, and send you to the gallows. Mr. Leonard Paget, I should be inclined to call you a fool if I did not know you better. What is done cannot be undone, nor, with all your cant, would you wish it undone."
"But," said Leonard, inwardly acknowledging the weight of his companion's arguments, "we are in danger."
"We are in none. Your step-brother Gerald, ardently desiring to gather with his own hands some edelweiss for his lady love, is informed by my unfortunate patient that he knows where the flower is to be found. Unwilling that they shall go alone, we express our intention to accompany them. Off we start with merry hearts. But we have not gone far before the young gentlemen beg to be allowed to enjoy their excursion without our society, and we, two fond and indulgent guardians, yield to their implorings, and leave them to themselves. Lured by the balmy weather, we stroll up the mountains, scarcely noting in which direction we are wandering. We stop and dilate upon the sublime beauty of the scenery, our souls exalted by the thoughts it inspires, when our ecstatic musings are rudely interrupted by screams of anguish. We hasten to the spot from which they proceed, and see--nothing. But our ears, ever open to the calls of humanity, cannot have deceived us. No, that is impossible. So we hunt and look about, calling out all the while to the poor souls who may be in peril to give us some indication how we can assist them. At length our attention is attracted by signs of a disturbance at the edge of this precipice, and kneeling"--he suited the action to the word, and Leonard knelt by his side--"we observe marks in the soil which engender the suspicion that a human creature has fallen over. We call out loudly, and are answered by a groan and scarcely distinguishable but undeniably pathetic appeals for help."