Bertram had not ventured to restrain Elise from visiting this solitary and secluded spot, but he had followed her on her visits to it.  There, hidden behind some tree he had, with the patience and perseverance of which love alone is capable, watched the young girl, who was neither desirous of nor grateful for guardianship.  This very day he had followed her softly and unperceived into the garden.  Then, when he had ascertained whither she directed her steps, he had returned into the house to complete some important business of Gotzkowsky.  But impelled by anxious and unaccountable restlessness, he had hastened back into the garden; at a distance he heard Elise’s cry for help, and, rushing forward, had come up just in time to see her raised over the wall by the Cossacks.

Stunned by horror at this sight, Bertram stood for a moment motionless.  He then felt but one desire, one resolve, and that was—­to rescue her.  He hurried to the house for the purpose of proceeding to General Tottleben and invoking his assistance and support.  But a sudden and painful thought arrested his steps.

Suppose that Elise had not gone against her will?  Suppose that this had been a preconcerted abduction to which the semblance of violence had only been given in order, in case of failure, to maintain Elise’s reputation free from stain?

With a sigh of anguish he recalled to mind when Elise had hidden her lover in her bedchamber that night when Gotzkowsky had delivered Feodor over to the Austrians.  Since then father and daughter had not met, and no word of reproach had passed Elise’s lips.  But Bertram understood that Gotzkowsky’s cruel and relentless sacrifice of her lover had forever estranged the heart of his daughter from him; that this hard though just deed had torn asunder the last link which bound her to him.

Elise could have learned just as well as Bertram had that Feodor had been accidentally saved.  Her lover himself could have sent her this information, and she, who in the bitterness of her grief had torn herself loose from her father, might not have had the strength to withstand his ardent prayers.  Perhaps in her sense of bereavement, trusting to her love, she might have found the sad courage to brave not only her father, but the judgment and scorn of the world, in order to be united to her lover.

Such thoughts as these arrested Bertram’s steps, and compelled him to reflection.  Only one thing was positive—­he must save her at every hazard, even against her will, even if he should reap, as the sole reward of his devoted love, her aversion; he must save her from her own passionate, foolish heart, or from the wild lust of the unprincipled man to whom she trusted her innocence, her youth, and beauty.