"Will you promise too, Cousin Leo?"
"Yes; but you need have no fear, neither Delmar nor I know what it is to have vertigo."
"Then follow me."
Hilda walked on before. In perfect security, and with an airy grace that enchanted Delmar, she sprang from stone to stone, and in a few minutes they had reached the base of the wall of rock, which here ascended nearly perpendicularly several hundred feet. Here she paused. "There is still time to turn back," she said, seriously, "and I beg you, Herr Delmar, and you, Cousin Leo, to do so; I ought not to show you the path up the rock, an accident might so easily happen for which I never should forgive myself."
"You shall have no cause for self-reproach," Paul replied, "for I see the path clearly now. You do not show it to me, I choose it myself. It leads up the rock just here; it has been worn by the goats, and is just what I like,--perfectly easy to follow."
The path was certainly plain to be seen by any one who chose to follow it. It was scarcely a foot broad, and went directly up the side of the mountain; on one hand was the perpendicular wall of rock, and on the other the abyss, and the higher it went the steeper and dizzier the path became.
Paul had taken in at a glance the difficulty and danger of the ascent; but he did not hesitate a moment to begin it, nor would he have done so had the path been twice as steep and giddy as it was.
"Herr Delmar, I pray you turn back!" Hilda exclaimed, anxiously; but he continued to advance fearlessly.
"Let us follow him, cousin," Leo said, with a smile. "Make your mind easy about Paul; he will carry through whatever he attempts; no power on earth can stay him. I am convinced that he would take that path even although he knew that he should fall into the abyss. But he will not fall; he has no fear, and he is never dizzy."
"And you, Cousin Leo?"