ld beast. Oh! God forgive me, and God help me!"

"Doubtless, dear young lady, He will do the first, for your temptations
were really considerable; I, who have more experience, outwitted you,
that was all. Possibly, also, He may do the second, though many have
uttered that cry unheard. For my own sake, I trust that He was sleeping
when you uttered yours. But it is your affair and His; I leave it to be
arranged between you. Till this evening, Jufvrouw," and he bowed himself
from the room.

But Elsa, shamed and broken-hearted, threw herself upon the bed and
wept.

At mid-day she arose, hearing upon the stair the step of the woman who
brought her food, and to hide her tear-stained face went to the barred
lattice and looked out. The scene was dismal indeed, for the wind
had veered suddenly, the snow had ceased, and in place of it rain was
falling with a steady persistence. When the woman had gone, Elsa washed
her face, and although her appetite turned from it, ate of the food,
knowing how necessary it was that she should keep her strength.

Another hour passed, and there came a knock on the door. Elsa shuddered,
for she thought that Ramiro had returned to torment her. Indeed it was
almost a relief when, instead of him, appeared his son. Once glance at
Adrian's nervous, shaken face, yes, and even the sound of his uncertain
step brought hope to her heart. Her woman's instinct told her that now
she had no longer to do with the merciless and terrible Ramiro, to whose
eyes she was but a pretty pawn in a game that he must win, but with
a young man who loved her, and whom she held, therefore, at a
disadvantage--with one, moreover, who was harassed and ashamed, and
upon whose conscience, therefore, she might work. She turned upon him,
drawing herself up, and although she was short and Adrian was tall, of a
sudden he felt as though she towered over him.

"Your pleasure?" asked Elsa.

In the old days Adrian would have answered with some magnificent
compliment, or far-fetched simile lifted from the pages of romancers.
In truth he had thought of several such while, like a half-starved dog
seeking a home, he wandered round and round the mill-house in the snow.
But he was now far beyond all rhetoric or gallantries.

"My father wished," he began humbly--"I mean that I have come to speak
to you about--our marriage."

Of a sudden Elsa's delicate features seemed to turn to ice, while, to
his fancy at any rate, her brown eyes became f