the bridegroom, it is utterly without excuse."

"Your experience, Signore, has readily suggested the true points in a very
knotty case, and I shall proceed without delay to look into its merits."

Sigismund resumed his seat, his hand releasing the sword-hilt that it had
spontaneously grasped when he heard this declaration of the bailiff's
intentions.

"For the sake of thy poor sister, forbear!" whispered the terrified
Adelheid. "All will ye be well--all must be well--it is impossible that
one so sweet and innocent should long remain with her honor unavenged!"

The young man smiled frightfully, at least so it seemed to his companion:
but he maintained the appearance of composure. In the mean time Peterchen,
having secretly dispatched another messenger to the cooks, turned his
serious attention to the difficulty that had just arisen.

"I have long been intrusted by the council with honorable duties," he
said, "but never, before to-day, have I been required to decide upon a
domestic misunderstanding, before the parties were actually wedded. This
is a grave interruption of the ceremonies of the abbaye, as well as a
slight upon the notary and the spectators, and needs be well looked to.
Dost thou really persist in putting this unusual termination to a
marriage-ceremony, Herr Bridegroom?"

Jacques Colis had lost a little of the violent impulse which led him to
the precipitate and inconsiderate act of destroying an instrument he had
legally executed; but his outbreaking of feeling was followed by a sullen
and fixed resolution to persevere in the refusal at every hazard to
himself.

"I will not wive the daughter of a man hunted of society, and avoided by
all;" he doggedly answered.

"No doubt the respectability of the parent is the next thing to a good
dowry, in the choice of a wife," returned the bailiff, "but one of thy
years has not come hither, without having first inquired into the
parentage of her thou wert about to wed?"

"It was sworn to me that the secret should be kept. The girl is well
endowed, and a promise was solemnly made that her parentage should never
be known. The family of Colis is esteemed in Vaud, and I would not have it
said that the blood of the headsman of the canton hath mixed in a stream
as fair as ours."

"And yet thou wert not unwilling, so long as the circumstance was
unknown? Thy objection is less to the fact, than to its public exposure."

"Without the aid of parchments and tongues, Mo