112 THE SHIPWRECK,

quite delirious. He still imagined Philip to be his brother,
and spoke to him in an affecting tone of the many sufferings
he had undergone.

Philip, deeply touched, and forgetting that Charles was
in a delirious fever, asked him very seriously, Why he had
not returned to the valley? “Because,” replied the count,
« | was sick and alone, and I could not endure to live with
that insolent Merville, who threatened my life if I did not
speak to him respectfully.”

Philip shuddered. Charles continued to speak on this
subject, sometimes accusing himself, and anon censuring
his preserver, in the most unmeasured terms.

Merville was surprised and agitated when Charles re-
sumed, “ You used to reproach me, dear Augustus, with
my hatred of this Merville; you said that you knew his
good qualities, and that I hated him without reason: but
what would you have thought had you seen him menacing
your poor brother, when grief and debility had deprived
him of all means of self defence ?”

Philip blushed, and owned to himself that he could never
sufficiently repent of the misconduct the count justly com-
plained of. Charles now fancied himself in his father’s
chateau, and with impatience and hauteur called for ices,
strawberries and grapes. The latter fruit was growing on