When the door had closed behind the group, Barbara again turned to her friend, and in a low tone asked, “And suppose that you saw aright, and Geronimo were really my child?”
“Then—then,” Wolf faltered in bewilderment, “then Don Luis would—But surely it can not be! Then, after all, Quijada would be—”
Here a low laugh from Barbara broke the silence, and with dilated eyes he learned who Geronimo’s parents were.
Then the knight listened breathlessly to the young mother’s account of the robbery of her child, and how, in spite of her own boys and the vow which she had made the Dubois couple not to follow the Emperor’s son, she lived only in and through him.
“The Emperor Charles!” cried Wolf, as if he now understood for the first time what he might so easily have guessed if the fair-haired boy had not grown up amid such extremely plain surroundings. The belief that Geronimo owed his life to Quijada had been inspired by Massi himself.
But while the knight was striving to accustom himself to this wholly novel circle of ideas, Barbara, with passionate impetuosity, clasped his right hand and placed it on the crucifix which hung on her rosary.
Then she commanded her astonished friend to swear to guard this secret, which was not hers alone, from every living being.
Wolf yielded without resistance to her passionate entreaties, but scarcely had he lowered the hand uplifted to take the oath than he urged her at least to grant him permission to restore Dona Magdalena’s peace of mind; but Barbara waved her hand with resolute denial, hastily exclaiming: “No, no, no! Don Luis was the tool in every blow which Charles, his master, dealt at my happiness and peace. Let the woman who is dear to him, and who is already winning by her gifts the child’s love, which belongs to me, and to me alone, now feel how the heart of one who is deceived can ache.”
Here, deeply wounded, Wolf burst into a complaint of the harshness and injustice of such vengeance; but Barbara insisted so defiantly upon her will that he urged her no further, and seized his hat to retire.
Deep resentment had taken possession of him. This misguided woman, embittered by misfortune, possessed the power of rendering the greatest benefit to one infinitely her superior in nobility of soul, and with cruel defiance she refused it.