"I sorely need it," was the bitter answer. "I have sacrificed myself to the duty I owe my sole surviving parent."
The old woman rubbed her hands and chuckled as she noted the tone of anguish in which these words were uttered.
"I can now speak out," she said. "After long years of silence, the seal is removed from my lips. I can now repay your childish scorn, and bitter jests, by a bitterer jest than any you have yet dreamed of. Countess Radetsky——"
"Spare me that name," said the countess.
"Nay, sweet, it is one you will bear through life," said the hag, "and you had better accustom yourself early to its sound. Know, then, my sweet lady, that the count, my master, had no claims on your obedience."
"How?"
"He is a childless man. He found you an abandoned orphan. Struck with your beauty, he brought you to his lady, and, though they loved you not, they adopted you, with a view to making your charms useful to them when you should have grown up. The count has amply paid himself to-day for all the expense and trouble you have put him to. He has sold you to an eager suitor for a good round price. Ha, ha!"
"And you knew this, and never told me!" cried the hapless girl.
"I was bound by an oath not to reveal the secret till you were married. And I did not love you enough to perjure myself."
"Wretch—miserable wretch!" cried Alvina. "Alas! to what a fate have I been doomed! Ah! why did they not let me rather perish than rear me to this doom? My heart is given to Alexis—my hand to Radetsky!"