d manufacturer might
have been supposed to choose for his eldest daughter, and, indeed, after
they were married he would go and stay for days together at his
son-in-law's house--a place less gloomy for him now that the light had
gone out of his own; for Sara, having pleaded in vain, fled with her
lover to the north and there they were married. After this they hoped
and believed that the old man would relent. He never relented, or at
least never to their knowledge. As his sweet fair daughter knelt to him,
her golden hair streaming about her, her hands held up in supplication,
he denounced her in words taken from Holy Scripture, and would have
struck her but that the young husband stood with earnest eyes and folded
arms, he having knelt in vain, or, as he said, bent his pride to his
love for his sweet wife's sake.

So Sara Dufarge went out cursed, undowered, and an orphan, from the old
house, and Pere Dormeur was left desolate indeed.

Yet amidst the gloom that settled on his life, and the hard unyielding
determination which resisted any attempts on the part of her sister to
bring him to receive his disowned daughter again, the manufacturer had
frequent struggles with his pride and obstinacy. They were scarcely
acknowledged even to himself. He thought he could trample the
suggestions of nature under foot, and he succeeded in so far as to
suffer in silence, and to make no sign of yielding, nor of admitting
the possibility of foregoing his resentful purpose.

He had much to occupy his thoughts at that time, for there were rumours
of renewed persecutions of the Protestants by command of bishops and
clergy. Not contented with refusing them the legal registration of
marriage and the certificate of death, it was said that a general
confiscation of property was ordered, and that recantation or death by
fire and sword might once more be the doom of the sectaries. Anton
Dormeur was frequently at Alais with Bartholde, and the people there
whispered that it would go hard with the manufacturer when the dragoons
came. He had already made some preparations, however. Always in
communication with the refugees who had settled in Spitalfields and
Coventry, he held money in England. This was pretty well understood; but
what few people knew was, that for weeks before the blow fell he had had
a ship ready, and that some of his most valuable effects and merchandise
were stowed among the cargo. This very cup was hidden away in a case,
surrou