o his at some far distant period.
Half shy, half fascinated, he stood looking at this stranger, who
suddenly threw her arms around him.

"My son, my only child! Do you not know your own mother?"

"My mother is dead," he answered, half aloud.

The stranger laughed bitterly, shrilly, and her laugh seemed but an echo
of the hard, joyless sounds which had come from Hartmut's lips a few
moments since.

"So that's how it is. They would even say I was dead and not leave you
the memory of a mother. It is not true, Hartmut. I live, I stand before
you; look at me, look at my features, are they not your very own? That
at least they could not take from you. Child of my heart, do you not
feel that you belong to me?"

Still Hartmut stood motionless, looking into that face in which his own
was so faithfully mirrored. He saw the same lines, the same luxuriant,
blue-black hair, the same dark, flashing eyes; and the same demoniacal
expression which was a flame in the eye of the mother, was a spark in
the eye of the son. Their close resemblance to one another was witness
enough that they were of one blood. The young man felt the influence of
the mysterious tie.

He demanded no explanation, no proof; the dreamy, confused recollections
of his childhood were suddenly clear, and after a second's hesitation he
threw himself into the arms which were stretched out to him.

"Mother!"

In this cry lay the whole fervid intensity of the boy, who had never
known what it was to have a mother, and who had longed for one with all
the passion of his nature. His mother! And now he lay in her arms, now
she covered him with warm kisses, and called him by sweet, tender names,
which had been strangers to his ear until that moment--everything else
seemed forgotten by him in this flood of stormy ecstasy.

After a few minutes Hartmut loosed himself from the arms which still
enfolded him.

"Why have you never been with me, mamma?" he asked vehemently. "Why have
I always been told that you were dead?"

Zalika stepped back, and in an instant all tenderness had died out of
her eyes, and in its place was a wild, deadly hate, as the answer came
like a hiss from between her set lips.

"Because your father hates me, my son--and because he wishes to deny me
the love of my only child since he thrust me from him."

Hartmut was silent. He knew well enough that the name of his mother
dare not be mentioned in his father's presence, and that he had been
sharpl