on his journey. Late
in the afternoon he alighted at the hotel he called Clotilde's. A letter
was handed to him. His eyes all over the page caught the note of it for
her beginning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. 'And now my
turn!' said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and
baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him.
But Clotilde's parents were yet to learn that this Jew, demagogue, and
champion of an injured lady, was a gentleman respectful to their legal
and natural claims upon their child while maintaining his own: they were
to know him and change their tone.

As he was reading the letter upstairs by sentences, his door opened at
the answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield's welcome to the
birdlike applicant for admission. Clotilde stood hesitating.

He sent the introducing waiter speeding on his most kellnerish legs, and
drew her in.

'Alvan, I have come.'

She was like a bird in his hands, palpitating to extinction.

He bent over her: 'What has happened?'

Trembling, and very pale, hard in her throat she said, 'The worst.'

'You have spoken to them both subsequent to this?' he shook the letter.

'It is hopeless.'

'Both to father and mother?'

'Both. They will not hear your name; they will not hear me speak. I
repeat, it is past all hope, all chance of moving them. They hate--hate
you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once and
followed my letter; I ran through the streets; I pant for want of breath,
not want of courage. I prove I have it, Alvan; I have done all I can do.

She was enfolded; she sank on the nest, dropping her eyelids.

But he said nothing. She looked up at him. Her strained pale eyes
provoked a closer embrace.

'This would be the home for you if we were flying,' said he, glancing
round at the room, with a sensation like a shudder, 'Tell me what there
is to be told.'

'Alvan, I have; that is all. They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what
possesses them!'

'They have not met me yet!'

'They will not, will not ever--no!'

'They must.'

'They refuse. Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested.
Take me--take me away!'

'Run?--facing the enemy?' His countenance was the fiery laugh of a
thirster for strife. 'They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made of!'

Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion. 'I found
them celebrating the betrothal of my siste