His friend suggested that he knew not where she was.  But already the pen was at work, the brain pouring as from a pitcher.

Writing was blood-letting, and the interminable pages drained him of his fever.  As he wrote, she grew more radiant, more indistinct, more fiercely desired.  The concentration of his active mind directed his whole being on the track of Clotilde, idealizing her beyond human.  That last day when he had seen her appeared to him as the day of days.  That day was Clotilde herself, she in person; he saw it as the woman, and saw himself translucent in the great luminousness; and behind it all was dark, as in front.  That one day was the sun of his life.  It had been a day of rain, and he beheld it in memory just as it had been, with the dark threaded air, the dripping streets; and he glorified it past all daily radiance.  His letter was a burning hymn to the day.  His moral grandeur on the day made him live as part of the splendour.  Was it possible for the woman who had seen him then to be faithless to him?  The swift deduction from his own feelings cleansed her of a suspicion to the contrary, and he became lighthearted.  He hummed an air when he had finished his letter to her.

Councils with his adherents and couriers were held, and some were despatched to watch the house and slip the letter to her maid; others were told off to bribe and hound their way on the track of Clotilde.  His gold rained into their hands with the directions.

Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; a friend of both, and a warm one.  Men coming into contact with Alvan took their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy of no dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he opposed.  The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness’s grief over this love-passion of Alvan’s, and her resignation.  He shared her doubts of Clotilde’s nobility of character:  the reports were not favourable to the young lady.  But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan in love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel.  He dropped a word of the whispers of Clotilde’s volatility.

Alvan nodded his perfect assent.  ’She is that, she is anything you like; you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil.  She is matchless, colour her as you please.’  Adopting the tone of argument, he said:  ’She writes that letter.  Well?  It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as hers, I would not have it unwritten.  I love it!’ He looked maddish with his love of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly:  ’The point is, that she has the charm for me.  She is plastic in my hands.  Other men would waste the treasure.  I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and knows that she hangs on me to flourish worthily.  I breathe the very soul of the woman into her.  As for that letter of hers—­’ it burnt him this time to speak of the letter:  ’she may write and write!  She’s weak,