"No. I do not understand what you have told me. I cannot believe that she should have deceived me and kept the secret so long, nor can I understand Captain Arnold's conduct. Nevertheless, I trust Nora, and one day perhaps she will tell me everything."
His aunt shook her head. That "one day" seemed too far off, too impossible, and in the meantime she saw the man with the bowed head, and understood something of what he was suffering.
"Do what you think best," she said, and, obeying a sudden impulse of tenderness, she laid her hand upon his shoulder. "Only let no harm come to the name, Wolff. It is all I ask, for your sake and for mine."
He took the hand and lifted it to his lips.
"You have the right to ask everything," he said. "Your sacrifice—yours and Hildegarde's—made it possible for me to make Nora my wife. I owe you——"
"Not your happiness, armer Kerl!" she interrupted sadly. "That was what we wanted to give you, but we have not succeeded. And you must not call it a sacrifice. We never do. You are just my only son, for whom it is a joy to smooth the way as much as it lies in our power."
She knelt down beside him. All her proud severity had melted. Had she shown a quarter of this tenderness to Nora, they would never have parted as they had done. But then Nora had sinned against her rigid code of honour; Nora deserved punishment—not tenderness.
"There is another thing I want to say, Wolff," she went on gently. "Seleneck confessed to me that you had sold Bruno. I cannot understand why you should have done so—unless you were short of money."
He turned away his head, avoiding her steady, questioning eyes.
"Won't you confide in me, Wolff—like you did in the old days?"