s as the sisters-in law of such a man?--her betrothed sister
Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan's name was infamous
in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned
to seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her
tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he
hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew
democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his
brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly
Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all,
perhaps to her father's military and diplomatic career principally: the
head of their house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by
having no other reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her
absent lover and her family; she was already disunited from him when she
shed them, feeling that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many
bosoms drained of self-pity will become.

Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and
had a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a
little by her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after
her heavy scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing
them to be selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality
made them seem a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone.
Her natural blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire
relinquishment; it knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had
committed an irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own
vain provoking, that was too severe for him: he was not the lover
he fancied himself, or not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her
excessive misery would not suffer a picture of him, not one clear
recollection of him, to stand before her. He who should have been at
hand, had gone, and she was fearfully beset, almost lifeless; and being
abandoned, her blank night of imagination felt that there was nothing
left for her save to fall upon those nearest.

She gave her submission to her mother. In her mind, during the last
wrestling with a weakness that was alternately her love, and her
cowardice, the interpretation of the act ran: 'He may come, and I am his
if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.' He had taught her
to rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting
herself lo