The maiden sprang wildly to her feet, then cowered back in her chair and hid her face in her hands.
“Conradt? Oh, never, never!” she moaned.
“Come, come,” her guardian said, not unkindly. “Conradt is no beauty, I grant. God hath dealt hardly with him in a way that might well win him a maiden’s pity,” he added, with a sham piousness that made Elise shiver. “Thou must have a husband’s protection,” the baron went on. “Naught else will avail in these times. And ’twas thy father’s will.”
“Nay; I believe not that,” Elise cried, looking straight at him with flashing eyes. “Ne’er knew I my father, but ’twere not in any father’s heart, my lord, to will so dreadful a thing for his daughter. Not so will I dishonor that brave nobleman’s memory as to believe that this was his will for me!”
The baron sprang up, dashing the parchments aside.
“Heed thy words, girl!” he roared. “Thy father’s will or not thy father’s will, thou’lt wed my nephew on to-morrow’s morrow!”
“Nay; that will I not!” The fair face was lifted and the small hands clasped each other in their slender strength.
The baron laughed softly in his beard, a laugh not pleasant to hear.
“In sooth,” he said, “’tis a tilt of precious web, the ‘will not’ of a maid, but naught so good a wedding garment as that thou’lt need to find ’tween now and then.”
Elise came a step nearer, with a gesture of pleading.