“Oh, don’t! don’t!” gasped his sister; “don’t you lend a hand to breaking my heart.”

“Well, I won’t, darling, if you’ll only come out of that!  It is not worth so much grief.”

“I will—­stop—­as soon as—­I can!” sobbed the young woman, “but when I think—­of his reverent gray hairs—­brought to such dishonor—­by a mere adventuress—­and we—­so powerless—­to prevent it, I feel as if—­I should die.”

“Oh, nonsense; you look at it too gravely.  Besides, old men have married beautiful young women before now!” said Sylvan, troubled by his sister’s grief, and tacking around in his opinions as deftly as ever did any other politician.

“Yes, and got themselves laughed at and ridiculed for their folly!” sighed Cora, who had ceased to sob.

“Behind their backs, and that did not hurt them one bit.”

“Oh, if Uncle Fabian were only here!”

“Why, what could he do to prevent the marriage?”

“I do not know.  But I know this, that if any man could prevent this degradation, he would be Uncle Fabian!  It would be no use, I fear, to telegraph to Clarence!”

“Clarence!” said Sylvanus with a laugh, “Why he has no more influence with the Iron King than I have.  His father calls him an idiot—­and he certainly is weakly amiable.  He would back his father in anything the old man had set his heart upon.  But, Cora, listen here, my dear!  You and I are free at present.  We need not countenance this marriage by our presence.  I, your brother, can take you to another hotel, or take you off to Saratoga, where we can stay until I get my orders, and then you can go out with me wherever I go.  There! the Devil’s Icy Peak itself will be a holier home than Rockhold, for you.”

Cora had become quite calm by this time, and she answered quietly: 

“No; you misapprehend me, Sylvan.  It was not from indignation or resentment that I cried, and not at all for myself.  I grieved for him, the spellbound old man!  No, Sylvanus; since we feel assured that no power of ours, no power on earth, can turn him from his purpose, we must do our duty by him.  We must refrain from giving him pain or making him angry; for his own poor old sake, we must do this!  Sylvan, I must attend his bride to the altar; and you must attend him—­as he desired us to do.”

“‘Desired!’ by Jove, I think he commanded!  I do not remember ever to have heard his Majesty the King of the Cumberland Mines request anybody to do anything in the whole course of his life.  He always ordered him to do it!  Well, Cora, dear, I will be ‘best’ man to the bridegroom, since you say so!  I have always obeyed you, Cora.  Ah! you have trained me for the model of an obedient husband for some girl, Cora!  Now, I am going down stairs to smoke a cigar.  You don’t object to that, I hope, Mrs. Rothsay?” lightly inquired the youth as he sauntered out of the room.

He had just closed the door when Mrs. Stillwater entered.