"And then you will do as I wish?"
"But it will take three weeks to have the banns published, and you know father would never allow that."
"That is the very reason why I wish you to do without his consent. If you will board the steamer with me to-morrow night, we will go to England and there we can be married without the publishing of banns, and before any one can overtake us."
"But that would be very wrong, wouldn't it? I think the Bible says so, somewhere."
"In Bible times marriages were on a different basis from what they are now. Moreover, love was not such an inexorable thing then, nor engagements so pressing."
She looked up with eyes full of pathetic remonstrance, and was sadly puzzled.
"Then you will come, darling?" he urged, with lover-like persuasiveness. "Say that you will."
"I will—try," she whispered, tearfully, and hid her troubled face on his bosom.
"One thing more," he went on. "Your house is built on the brink of eternity. The glacier is moving down upon you silently but surely. I have warned your father, but he will not believe me. I have chosen this way of rescuing you, because it is the only way."
The next evening Maurice and his servant stood on the pier, waiting impatiently for Elsie, until the whistle sounded, and the black-hulled boat moved onward, ploughing its foamy path through the billows. But Elsie did not come.