officer desired to take Elsa for his wife. Their marriage would be a consecration of the new peace.
The father listened to him silently, except for that hard noise of breathing. When his son uttered those last words, the old man leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes glittered.
"Get out of my house, Schweinhund! Do not come near me again, or I will denounce you as a traitor, and shoot you like a dog."
He turned to Elsa with outstretched hand.
"Go up to bed, girl. If you were younger I would flog you with my hunting-whip."
For the first time he spoke to Brand, controlling his rage with a convulsive effort.
"I have not the power to evict you from the house. For the time being the German people of the Rhineland are under hostile orders. Perhaps you will find another billet more to your convenience, and more agreeable to myself."
"To-night, sir," said Brand, and he told me that he admired the old man's self-control and his studied dignity.
Elsa still clasped his hand, and before her family he kissed her.
"With your leave, or without leave," he said, "your daughter and I will be man and wife, for you have no right to stand between our love."
He bowed and left the room, and in an hour, the house.
Franz von Kreuzenach came into his room before he left, and wrung his hand.
"I must go, too," he said. "My father is very much enraged with me. It is the break between the young and the old—the new conflict, as we were saying, one day."
