"You have both been satisfied with mere separation," continued Hugo, "without requiring judicial divorce. You did not need it, and what restrains Ella from it I understand only too well. In such a case final decisions as to the possession of the boy must be made. She knew that you would never quite sacrifice your paternal rights, and trembled at the thought of giving you the boy even for a time. Your tacit resignation of him was sufficient for her; she preferred to give up all satisfaction, in order to remain in undisturbed possession of her child."
Reinhold stood there as if struck by lightning. The glow of agitation which had so lately coloured his brow disappeared; he had become deadly pale again, as he asked, in a suppressed voice--
"And this--this you think was the sole reason?"
"So far as I know Ella, the sole one which could prevent her completing the step which you had commenced."
"And you think that Cesario has hopes?"
"I do not know it," said Hugo, seriously, "but we both know that nothing stands in the way of Ella's freedom, if she were really disposed to assert it still. You forsook her, gave her up entirely for years, and all the world knows why it was done, and what kept you continuously away from her. She has not only law, but also public opinion on her side, and I fear the latter would compel you to leave the boy with her. Beatrice stands terribly in the way of your paternal rights."
"You think that Cesario has hopes?" repeated Reinhold, but this time the words sounded moody and full of menace.
"I believe that he loves her, loves her passionately, and that sooner or later he will try to woo her. He will then certainly learn that the imaginary widow was the wife of his friend, and still bears that friend's name, but I doubt if this will exercise any influence upon him, as not the slightest shadow falls upon Ella. Only your friendship may receive an irrecoverable blow; but even without this, it would be at an end, so soon as passion speaks; consider this, Reinhold, and do not let yourself be carried away to any rash act. You broke your bonds in order to set yourself free. Thereby you also made Eleonore free--perhaps for another."
Captain Almbach's voice fell at the last words, and, as if to suppress or conceal some violent emotion, he turned quickly to depart. Although his brother's agitation, whom he left alone, did not escape him, he had not the remotest suspicion of the firebrand which his words threw into the other's breast.
If Reinhold had shown almost nothing but fatigue and indifference lately to those around him, if a sensation often overcame him that for him there was an end of life and love, this moment proved that the same wild passion could still rage in his heart which had once drawn the young artist away from his bonds at home; and the manner in which the storm had been loosed, betrayed, if not to others yet to himself, that which hitherto he would not know, and which now disclosed itself to him with merciless distinctness. The defiance and bitterness with which he had armed himself against the wife who dared to let him feel that he had once deeply offended her, and that she would now and never more pardon this offence, succumbed before the burning pain which suddenly blazed forth in his breast. But although his pride taught him to meet the coldness, indifference and irreconciliation with harshness, he still could not prevent it that so soon as the picture of his child rose before him its mother's form also stood by its side. Certainly it was no longer the same Ella, who a few months previously barely held a place in his recollection, but the woman, who on that evening, when for the first time he recognised what he had so frivolously given up, and what he had irretrievably lost, had shown him such an energetic will, and such a never dreamed of depth of feeling. Near the child's fair curly head there hovered, ever and ever, the face with those large, deep blue eyes, whose glance had struck him so annihilatingly. He did not confess to himself with what passion he clung to this picture, with what longing he dreamed away hours in these recollections; he did not even confess the thought which lay unexpressed in his soul, that the woman who still bore his name, who was the mother of his child, notwithstanding all that had happened, still belonged to him, and although he had forfeited the right of possession, at any rate no other dared approach her.