ndage of that position.

Clotilde had been in this room; she had furnished proof that she could be
trusted now. She had committed herself, perished as a maiden of society,
and her parents, even the senseless mother, must see it and decide by it.
The General would bring her to reason: General von Rudiger was a man of
the world. An honourable son-in-law could not but be acceptable to
him--now, at least. And such a son-in-law would ultimately be the pride
of his house. 'A flower from thy garden, friend, and my wearing it shall
in good time be cause for some parental gratification.'

The letter despatched, Alvan paced his chamber with the ghost of
Clotilde. He was presently summoned to meet Count Walburg and another
intimate of the family, in the hotel downstairs. These gentlemen brought
no message from General von Rudiger: their words were directed to extract
a promise from him that he would quit his pursuit of Clotilde, and of
course he refused; they hinted that the General might have official
influence to get him expelled the city, and he referred them to the
proof; but he looked beyond the words at a new something of extraordinary
and sinister aspect revealed to him in their manner of treating his
pretensions to the hand of the lady.

He had not yet perfectly seen the view the world took of him, because of
his armed opposition to the world; nor could he rightly reflect on it
yet, being too anxious to sign the peace. He felt as it were a blow
startling him from sleep. His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly
polite; they did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect
between man and man. The strange matter was behind their bearing, which
indicated the positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one
such as he, and struck at the curtain covering his history. He could not
raise it to thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the implied
contempt of his character: with a boiling gorge he was obliged to swallow
both the history and the insult, returning them the equivalent of their
courtesies, though it was on his lips to thunder heavily.

A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him
admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing. The
bearer of it was dismissed without an answer.

Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance. The fate of the noble Genoese
conspirator, slipping into still harbour water on the step from boat to
boat, and borne down by th