er since, such obstinacy had become impossible to her. On the
morning of the seventh day she bowed her head, and though she did
not speak, she gave her aunt to understand that she had yielded. "We
will begin to purchase what may be necessary to-morrow," said Madame
Staubach.

But even now she had not made up her mind that she would in truth
marry the man. She had simply found it again impossible to say that
she would not do so. There was still a chance of escape. She might
die, for instance! Or she might run away again. If she did that,
surely the man would persecute her no further. Or at the last moment
she might stolidly decline to move; she might refuse to stand on her
legs before the altar. She might be as a dead thing even though she
were alive,--as a thing dead and speechless. Oh! if she could only be
without ears to hear those terrible words which her aunt would say
to her! And then there came another scheme into her mind. She would
make one great personal appeal to Steinmarc's feelings as a man.
If she implored him not to make her his wife, kneeling before him,
submitting herself to him, preferring to him with all her earnestness
this one great prayer, surely he would not persevere!

Hitherto, since her return from Augsburg, Peter had done very little
to press his own suit. She had again had her hand placed in his since
she had yielded, and had accepted as a present from him a great glass
brooch which to her eyes was the ugliest thing in the guise of a
trinket which the world of vanity had ever seen. She had not been a
moment in his company without her aunt's presence, and there had not
been the slightest allusion made by him to her elopement. Peter had
considered that such allusion had better come after marriage when his
power would, as he thought, be consolidated. He was surprised when he
was told, early in the morning after that second hand-pledging, by
Linda herself that she wanted to see him. Linda came to his door and
made her request in person. Of course he was delighted to welcome
his future bride to his own apartment, and begged her with as soft a
smile as he could assume to seat herself in his own arm-chair. She
took a humbler seat, however, and motioned to him to take that to
which he was accustomed. He looked at her as he did so, and perceived
that the very nature of her face was changed. She had lost the
plumpness of her cheeks, she had lost the fresh colour of her youth,
she had lost much of her