’Alvan, I have; that is all.  They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what possesses them!’

‘They have not met me yet!’

‘They will not, will not ever—­no!’

‘They must.’

’They refuse.  Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested.  Take me—­take me away!’

‘Run?—­facing the enemy?’ His countenance was the fiery laugh of a thirster for strife.  ‘They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made of!’

Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion.  ’I found them celebrating the betrothal of my sister Lotte with the Austrian Count Walburg; I thought it favourable for us.  I spoke of you to my mother.  Oh, that scene!  What she said I cannot recollect:  it was a hiss.  Then my father.  Your name changed his features and his voice.  They treated me as impure for mentioning it.  You must have deadly enemies.  I was unable to recognize either father or mother—­they have become transformed.  But you see I am here.  Courage! you said; and I determined I would show it, and be worthy of you.  But I am pursued, I am sure.  My father is powerful in this place; we shall barely have time to escape.’

Alvan’s resolution was taken.

’Some friend—­a lady living in the city here—­name her, quick!—­one you can trust,’ he said, and fondled her hastily, much as a gentle kind of drillmaster straightens a fair pupil’s shoulders.  ’Yes, you have shown courage.  Now it must be submission to me.  You shall be no runaway bride, but honoured at the altar.  Out of this hotel is the first point.  You know some such lady?’

Clotilde tried to remonstrate and to suggest.  She could have prophesied certain evil from any evasion of the straight line of flight; she was so sure of it because of her intuition that her courage had done its utmost in casting her on him, and that the remainder within her would be a drawing back.  She could not get the word or even the look to encounter his close and warm imperiousness; and, hesitating, she noticed where they were together alone.  She could not refuse the protection he offered in a person of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where they were together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of entreating a man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged to it.  She felt herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a Madame Emerly, living near the hotel.  Her heart sank like a stone.  ’It is for you!’ cried Alvan, keenly sensible of his loss and his generosity in temporarily resigning her—­for a subsequent triumph.  ’But my wife shall not be snatched by a thief in the night.  Are you not my wife—­my golden bride?  And you may give me this pledge of it, as if the vows had just been uttered . . . and still I resign you till we speak the vows.  It shall not be said of Alvan’s wife, in the days of her glory, that she ran to her nuptials through rat-passages.’