She sprang up and faced him, her cheeks flaming with anger. I suppose the questions he had put to her had made no distinct impression on her mind.
'Oh,' she cried, in the voice of a shrew, 'how you prate! By night it will be found, will it? How do you know? But the child is nothing to you--nothing!'
'Girl,' he said solemnly, yet gently, 'the child is my child--my only child, and the hope of my house.'
She looked at him wildly. 'Who are you, then?' she said, her voice sinking almost to a whisper.
'I am his father,' he answered; when I looked to hear him state his name and titles. 'And as his father, I thank and bless you for all that you have done for him.'
'His mother?' she whispered, open-eyed with awe.
'His mother is dead. She died three years ago,' he answered gravely. 'And now tell me your name, for I must go.'
'You must go!' she exclaimed. 'You will go--you can go--and your child lost and wandering?'
'Yes,' he replied, with a dignity which silenced her, 'I can, for I have other and greater interests to guard than those of my house, and I dare not be negligent. He may be found to-morrow, but what I have to do to-day cannot be done to-morrow. See, take that,' he continued more gently, laying a heavy purse on the table before her. 'It is for you, for your own use--for your dowry, if you have a lover. And remember always that, in the house of Hugo of Leuchtenstein, at Cassel, or Marburg, or at the Schloss by Leuchtenstein, you will find a home and shelter, and stout friends whenever you need them. Now give me your name.'
She stared at him dumfounded and was silent. I told him Marie Wort of Munich, at present in attendance on the Countess of Heritzburg; and he set it down in his tablets.