r lest she should wreck the thing she
praised. Otherwise she was not ill at ease. Alvan summoned his gaiety,
all his homeliness of tone, to give her composure, and on her quitting
the room she was more than ever bound to him, despite her gloomy
foreboding. A maid of her household, a middle-aged woman, gabbling of
devotion to her, ran up the steps of the hotel. Her tale was, that the
General had roused the city in pursuit of his daughter; and she heard
whither Clotilde was going.

Within half an hour, Clotilde was in Madame Emerly's drawing-room
relating her desperate history of love and parental tyranny, assisted
by the lover whom she had introduced. Her hostess promised shelter and
exhibited sympathy. The whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew
Alvan by reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and
menacingly in politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing
tongue, and the signal proof of his respect for the lady of his love and
deference toward her family, won her personally. She promised the best
help she could give them. They were certainly in a romantic situation,
such as few women could see and decline their aid to the lovers.

Madame Emerly proved at least her sincerity before many minutes had
passed.

Chancing to look out into the street, she saw Clotilde's mother and her
betrothed sister stepping up to the house. What was to be done? And
was the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, but
Alvan cried louder: 'Heaven-directed! and so, let me see her and speak
to her--nothing could be better.'

Madame Emerly took mute counsel of Clotilde, shaking her own head
premonitorily; and then she said: 'I think indeed it will be safer, if I
am asked, to say you are not here, and I know not where you are.'

'Yes! yes!' Clotilde replied: 'Oh! do that.'

She half turned to Alvan, rigid with an entreaty that hung on his coming
voice.

'No!' said Alvan, shocked in both pride and vanity. 'Plain-dealing;
no subterfuge! Begin with foul falsehood? No. I would not have you
burdened, madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our
account. And when it would be bad policy?... Oh, no, worse than the sin!
as the honest cynic says. We will go down to Madame von Rudiger, and she
shall make acquaintance with the man who claims her daughter's hand.'

Clotilde rocked in an agony. Her friend was troubled. Both ladies knew
what there would be to encounter better than he. But the man