this away, and lead here a lonesome, desolate life, without pity or sympathy?  If my father loved me, would he have left me during these days so full of danger?  After the terrible scene in which I, in the desperation of my heart, offended him, he would at least have given me some opportunity of asking his pardon, of begging him for forbearance and pity.  But he seems purposely to have secluded himself, and avoided any meeting with me.  He has shut me out from his heart, and withdrawn his love from me forever.  And so I am forced to carry my heart full of boundless affection over to my lover.  He will never repulse, neglect, or forget me; he will adore me, and I will be his most cherished possession.”

As these thoughts passed through her mind, she pressed his note to her lips, each word seeming to greet her, and with Feodor’s imploring looks to entreat her to fulfil the vow she had made him.  There was no longer any hesitation or wavering in her, for she had come to a determined resolution, and with glowing cheeks and panting breast she hastened to the writing-table, in order to clothe it in words, and answer Feodor’s note.

“You remind me of my pledged word,” she wrote.  “I am ready to redeem it.  Come, then, and lead me from my father’s house to the altar, and I will be your wife; and wherever you go I will be with you.  Hence-forth I will have no other home than your heart.  But while I cheerfully elect this home, at the same time I am shutting myself out from my father’s heart forever.  May God forgive the sins that love causes me to commit!”

But when this note had been sent, when she knew that her lover had received it, and that her decision was irrevocable, she was seized with trembling faintness, with the oppression of conscious guilt; and it seemed to her as if a new spring of love had suddenly burst forth in her heart, and as if she had never loved her father so sincerely, so devotedly, so tenderly, as now that she was on the point of leaving him.

But it was too late to draw back; for in the mean, time she had received a second letter from Feodor, imparting the details of a plan for their joint flight, and she had approved of this plan.

Every thing was prepared, and all that she had to do was to remain in her room, and await the concerted signal with which Feodor was to summon her.

As soon as she heard this signal she was to leave the house with her maid, who had determined to accompany her, come out into the street, where Feodor would be in waiting with his carriage, and drive in the first place to the church.  There a priest, heavily bribed, would meet them, and, with the blessing of the Church, justify Feodor in carrying his young wife out into the world, and Elise in “leaving father and home, and clinging only unto her husband.”

Some hours were yet wanting to the appointed time.  Elise, condemned to the idleness of waiting, experienced all the anxiety and pains which the expectation of the decisive moment usually carries with it.