ge so severely. You have no
conception what a wild, desperate life can make of a man who goes
through the world without home or family. You are right. I believed in
nothing in the heavens above or on the earth beneath--until this hour."

There was something in his tone and in his whole bearing which disarmed
Adelheid.

She felt she had no cause to fear a further explosion of passion, and
her voice grew milder as she answered:

"I judge no one, but I belong heart and soul to another world, with
other laws than yours. I am the daughter of a father whom I dearly
loved, who, all his life long, trod but one path, the earnest, rigid
path of duty. Upon this he raised himself from poverty and privation to
wealth and honor, and he taught his children to follow in the same way,
and it is this thought which has been my shield and protection in this
hard hour. I could not endure it if I were compelled to lower my eyes
before the noble image which my memory holds. Your father is no longer
alive?"

There followed a long, oppressive pause. Hartmut did not answer, but his
head sank under the words of whose crushing significance the questioner
had no knowledge, while his eyes seemed to pierce the ground.

"No," he said at last, slowly.

"But you have the memory of him and of your mother?"

"My mother!" Rojanow broke forth wildly now. "Do not speak of her, in
this hour--do not speak to me of my mother."

It was an alarming cry, a mixture of boundless bitterness, with reproach
and despair. In it the mother was sentenced by her son, he felt her
memory was but a desecration of this hour.

Adelheid did not understand him, she only saw that she had touched on a
point which admitted of no discussion, but she also saw that the man who
stood before her with his deep, dark glance, with his tone of despair,
was another than he who had stood there a quarter of an hour before. It
was a dark, fathomless mystery upon which she gazed, but she had no
longer any fear.

"Let us end this interview," she said, earnestly. "You will seek no
second one, I believe that; but one word more before we part. You are a
poet. I have felt that in spite of everything, as I have learned to know
your work. But poets are teachers of mankind, and can lead to good or to
ill. The wild flame of your 'Arivana' springs from a life which you,
yourself, seem to hate. Look yonder," and she pointed to the distant
heavens inflamed now with the lightning's play. "Those are