"And the Council," he said, more embarrassed than ever, "had to try him for his complicity. He was tried and—condemned."
"To what?" she said, quite calmly.
"You must know, Natalie. He loses his life!"
She turned very pale.
"It was not so before," she managed to say, though her breath came and went quickly.
"It was; but then he was pardoned. This time there is no hope."
She stood silent for a second or two; then she said, regarding him with a sad look,
"You think me heartless, Stefan. You think I ought to be overwhelmed with grief. But—but I have been kept from my child for seventeen years. I have lived with the threat of the betrayal of my father hanging over me. The affection of a wife cannot endure everything. Still, I am—sorry—"
Her eyes were cast down, and they slowly filled with tears. Von Zoesch breathed more freely. He was eagerly explaining to her how this result had become inevitable—how he himself had had no participation in it, and so forth—when Natalie Lind stepped quickly up to them, looking from the one to the other. She saw something was wrong.
"Mother, what is it?" she said, in vague fear. She turned to Von Zoesch. "Oh, sir, if there is something you have