“Ay; God hath blessed thee!—­and a great blessing it should be, as I know by bitter experience—­that is, being a bachelor, I understand the misery of being childless—­I would say no more.  Sign the contract, honest Balthazar, with thy wife and daughter, that we may have an end of this.”

The family of the proscribed were about to obey this mandate, when Jacques Colis abruptly threw down the emblems of a bridegroom, tore the contract in fragments, and publicly announced that he had changed his intention, and that he would not wive a headsman’s child.  The public mind is usually caught by any loud declaration in favor of the ruling prejudice, and, after the first brief pause of surprise was past, the determination of the groom was received with a shout of applause that was immediately followed by general, coarse, and deriding laughter.  The throng pressed upon the keepers of the limits in a still denser mass, opposing an impenetrable wall of human bodies to the passage of any in either direction, and a dead stillness succeeded, as if all present breathlessly awaited the result of the singular scene.

So unexpected and sudden was the purpose of the groom, that they who were most affected by it, did not, at first, fully comprehend the extent of the disgrace that was so publicly heaped upon them The innocent and unpractised Christine stood resembling the cold statue of a vestal, with the pen raised ready to affix her as yet untarnished name to the contract, in an attitude of suspense, while her wondering look followed the agitation of the multitude, as the startled bird, before it takes wing, regards a movement among the leaves of the bush.  But there was no escape from the truth.  Conviction of its humiliating nature came too soon, and, by the time the calm of intense curiosity had succeeded to the momentary excitement of the spectators, she was standing an exquisite but painful picture of wounded feminine feeling and of maiden shame.  Her parents, too, were stupified by the suddenness of the unexpected shock, and it was longer before their faculties recovered the tone proper to meet an insult so unprovoked and gross.

“This is unusual;” drily remarked the bailiff, who was the first to break the long and painful silence.

“It is brutal!” warmly interposed the Signor Grimaldi.  “Unless there has been deception practised on 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!”