ed, as the son, real or fancied, of a person so powerful as the
Prince of Genoa.

As usually happens when there is a mutual wish to avoid extremities, and
when conflicting interests are managed with equal address, the
negotiation terminated in a compromise. As the result will be shown in
the regular course of the narrative, the reader is referred to the closing
chapter for the explanation.

Chapter XXXI.

"Speak, oh, speak!
And take me from the rack."

Young.

It will be remembered that three days were passed in the convent in that
interval which occurred between the arrival of the travellers and those of
the chatelain and the bailiff. The determination of admitting the claims
of Sigismund, so frankly announced by Adelheid in the preceding chapter,
was taken during this time. Separated from the world, and amid that
magnificent solitude where the passions and the vulgar interests of life
sank into corresponding insignificance as the majesty of God became hourly
more visible, the baron had been gradually won upon to consent. Love for
his child, aided by the fine moral and personal qualities of the young man
himself, which here stood out in strong relief, like one of the stern
piles of those Alps that now appeared to his eyes so much superior, in
their eternal beds, to all the vine-clad hills and teeming valleys of the
lower world, had been the immediate and efficient agents in producing this
decision. It is not pretended that the Bernese made an easy conquest over
his prejudices, which was in truth no other than a conquest over himself,
he being, morally considered, little other than a collection of the narrow
opinions and exclusive doctrines which it was then the fashion to believe
necessary to high civilization. On the contrary, the struggle had been
severe; nor is it probable that the gentle blandishments of Adelheid, the
eloquent but silent appeals to his reason that were constantly made by
Sigismund in his deportment, or the arguments of his old comrade, the
Signor Grimaldi, who, with a philosophy that is more often made apparent
in our friendships than in our own practice, dilated copiously on the
wisdom of sacrificing a few worthless and antiquated opinions to the
happiness of an only child, would have prevailed, had the Baron been in a
situation less abstracted from the ordinary circumstances of his rank and
habits, than that in which he had been so accidentally thrown. The pious
clavier,