"You mistake me, William," replied Emily; "I mean the Englishman. My father's strange agitation—his boundless joy—certain hints that he has let fall—I am convinced he has discovered in this stranger some rich son-in-law for whom he had written to England."
"You pierce my very heart!" plaintively exclaimed Elben. "Unhappy day! Accursed festival, date of my last hope's annihilation! How all this merriment grates upon my soul! So might the condemned soldier feel, marching to execution to the sound of joyous music!"
"William! William! what frightful images!" sobbed Emily from behind her handkerchief.
"Romance! poetry!" continued the incensed attorney; "now, indeed, might I hope to compose some tragic history, which should thrill each reader's heart. Despair not, dearest Emily. There is still justice upon earth. I will bring an action against your father. Or perhaps—from this to the new-year there is yet time to invent tales and write volumes. As to yonder lame foreigner, I will try some other plan with him. By the bye, who knows if he has got a passport? I don't think he has, by his looks. Respectable people do not travel about on horseback. I must find out what he is, and his name."
And Elben was moving off, to commence his investigations, but Emily detained him.
"Such means are unworthy your noble nature, my William," she said. "In your cooler moments you will assuredly reject them."
Elben shrugged his shoulders. "At your command," he said, "even stern Themis would drop the sword. But what can I do? Must I resort to a pistol-ball, or to prussic acid, as sole exit from my misery? That would be unbusinesslike, very unbefitting a respectable attorney. Nor would it rescue you from persecution."
"Is there no way out of this labyrinth?" said Emily pensively, apparently little apprehensive of her lover's resorting to suicide. "No flight from the clutches of this odious foreigner?"
"Flight!" repeated Elben, catching at the word. "What a bold idea!"
"Realise it," said Emily, speaking low and very quickly. "Run away with me!"