"Did your mother tell you nothing about him? or did you not know her either?"
"She could tell me nothing except how she loved him, and how he had deceived her. His accent betrayed that he was a German, but he concealed his name and residence. When I was scarcely a year old he disappeared, and no longer gave my mother any signs of existence except the remittance, through some unknown hand, of money for my education upon the condition that I should become a priest."
"And your mother; what was her name?"
"Girl, why do you ask me all these questions?"
"You shall learn the reason after you have told me who your mother was."
"I have no right to expose the name of the unhappy woman, and have never mentioned it to any one."
"Not even to Heinrich?"
"I never disclosed the secret of my past to him."
Cornelia approached him; her breath came more quickly. "Was your mother's name Angelina, Severinus?" said she, her voice tremulous with some secret emotion.
Severinus gazed at her in astonishment. "Yes, yes; how did you know?"