Penniman's; so that
whenever the Doctor handed her a packet addressed in his sister's
hand, he was an involuntary instrument of the passion he condemned.
Catherine made this reflexion, and six months earlier she would have
felt bound to give him warning; but now she deemed herself absolved.
There was a sore spot in her heart that his own words had made when
once she spoke to him as she thought honour prompted; she would try
and please him as far as she could, but she would never speak that
way again. She read her lover's letters in secret.
One day at the end of the summer, the two travellers found themselves
in a lonely valley of the Alps. They were crossing one of the
passes, and on the long ascent they had got out of the carriage and
had wandered much in advance. After a while the Doctor descried a
footpath which, leading through a transverse valley, would bring them
out, as he justly supposed, at a much higher point of the ascent.
They followed this devious way, and finally lost the path; the valley
proved very wild and rough, and their walk became rather a scramble.
They were good walkers, however, and they took their adventure
easily; from time to time they stopped, that Catherine might rest;
and then she sat upon a stone and looked about her at the hard-
featured rocks and the glowing sky. It was late in the afternoon, in
the last of August; night was coming on, and, as they had reached a
great elevation, the air was cold and sharp.
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