sted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused
the tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason,
coldest reason, close as it ever is to the craven's heart in its hour of
trial, whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler's die by the
swollen conceit in his fortune rather than by his desire for the prize.
That frigid reason of the craven has red-hot perceptions. It spies the
spot of truth. Were the spot revealed in the man the whole man, then,
so unerring is the eyeshot at him, we should have only to transform
ourselves into cowards fronting a crisis to read him through and topple
over the Sphinx of life by presenting her the sum of her most mysterious
creature in an epigram. But there was as much more in Alvan than any
faint-hearted thing, seeing however keenly, could see, as there is more
in the world than the epigrams aimed at it contain.

'Courage!' said he: and she tremblingly: 'Be careful!' And then they
were in the presence of her mother and sister.

Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. Her
mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with a
woman's combative frown of great eyes, in which the stare is a bolt.

'Away with that man! I will not suffer him near me,' she cried.

Alvan advanced to her: 'Tell me, madame, in God's name, what you have
against me.'

She swung her back on him. 'Go, sir! my husband will know how to deal
with one like you. Out of my sight, I say!'

The brutality of this reception of Alvan nerved Clotilde. She went up to
him, and laying her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal,
said: 'Let us go: come. I will not bear to hear you so spoken to. No one
shall treat you like that when I am near.'

She expected him to give up the hopeless task, after such an experience
of the commencement. He did but clasp her hand, assuring the Frau von
Rudiger that no word of hers could irritate him. 'Nothing can make me
forget that you are Clotilde's mother. You are the mother of the lady I
love, and may say what you will to me, madame. I bear it.'

'A man spotted with every iniquity the world abhors, and I am to see
him holding my daughter by the hand!--it is too abominable! And because
there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk
of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that which you have to
do is to go. My ears are shut. You can annoy, you can insult, you cannot
move me