"How beautiful your home is!" I cried. "How you must love it!"
A look almost of agony passed across his face. It came and went in a moment. "Yes! I love it!" he answered, "but it is not my home. Henceforth I have no home. I may well be thankful that I have even a name!"
I looked at him, waiting for an explanation, but he walked on in silence. It was not until we were half-way across the park that I spoke. "I do not understand!" I said softly. "Will you not tell me something of your trouble?"
"I would that I could, Adrea!" he answered. His voice was so gentle, and yet his face was so stern. "But no, I cannot. It is a secret. It is only a blotted page of our family history made clear to me. But it alters everything!"
"Does it make you poorer?" I asked falteringly.
He looked down in my eyes bravely; but his voice shook as he answered: "If it be true—as I scarcely doubt—it takes from me everything: my money, my home, my future. It brings everything but disgrace upon us, Adrea, and even that must touch our name. Even though the living are spared, the memory of the dead must suffer!"
I felt the tears flowing down my cheeks, but I dashed them away. "I do not understand. I——"
"Of course not! and I cannot explain. Yet it is simple! I have an elder brother, of whom I never heard, to whom everything belongs. I am going to find him!"
"Where is he?" I cried. He shook his head. "That I cannot tell. Father Adrian knows, but he will not speak. I am going in search of him myself. I am going to Cruta!"
To Cruta! The name rang in my ears, and earth and trees and sky seemed reeling before me. Then I clutched him by the arm, and cried out hysterically,—