in obedience to my wish, my beloved, shall never be forgotten. Never can
I sufficiently thank you. I know how much it has cost you. But here is
the end of your trials. All the rest is now my task. Rely on me with
your whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding.
Be sure of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of
injustice I shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that,
and be not unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit a
short while to the will of your parents: mine you will find the stronger.
Resolve it in your soul that I, your lover, cannot fail, for it is
impossible to me to waver. Consider me as the one fixed light in your
world, and look to me. Soon, then! Have patience, be true, and we are
one!'

He kissed cold lips, he squeezed an inanimate hand. The horribly empty
sublimity of his behaviour appeared to her in her mother's contemptuous
face.

His eyes were on her as he released her and she stood alone. She seemed
a dead thing; but the sense of his having done gloriously in mastering
himself to give these worldly people of hers a lesson and proof that he
could within due measure bow to their laws and customs, dispelled the
brief vision of her unfitness to be left. The compressed energy of the
man under his conscious display of a great-minded deference to the claims
of family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of the
present achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad
reputation among these people, from whom he was about to lead forth a
daughter for Alvan's wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his
exhibition of generosity--which was brought out in strong relief when he
delivered his retiring bow to the Frau von Rudiger's shoulder--that the
worst was over; he had to deal no more with silly women: now for