Melanie looked into the youth's face with her large, bright eyes, and knew from his every feature that heart had dictated that question to heart.
"You see, I have enough reason for being sad in that no one has ever asked me that question; and that had someone asked me I could never have answered it."
"Perhaps the question is forbidden?"
"I have allowed him, whom I allowed to remark that I have a grief, also to ask me the reason of it. You see, I have a mother, and yet I have none."
The girl here turned half aside.
Lorand understood her well:—but that was just the subject about which he desired to know more; why, his own fate was bound up with it.
"What do you mean, Melanie?"
"If I tell you that, you will discover that I can have no secret any more in this world from you."
Lorand said not a word, but put his two hands together with a look of entreaty.
"About ten years have passed since mother left home one evening, never to return again. Public talk connected her departure with the disappearance of a young man, who lived with us, and who, on account of some political crime, was obliged to fly the same evening."