e voice sounded, but it seemed doubly
terrible to Kate in its monotony.

Now it became a little louder: "Give me an answer--I will--I must
know it."

Kate shuddered. What inexorableness, what obstinacy lay in that "I
will"--"I must!" He would never stop asking again. She sank down as
though crushed, and shuddered.

Even the man's quiet voice betrayed a secret tremor. "Dear boy,
somebody--I will not ask who, there are always enough gossips and
abettors--has again put something into your head. Why do you treat us
as if we were your enemies? Haven't we always been like a father and
mother to you?"

Oh, that was wrong--_like_ a father and mother? Quite wrong. Kate
started up. She stretched out her arms: "My boy!"

But he remained standing as though he did not see those outstretched
arms; his brows were contracted, he only looked at the man. "I know
very well that you are my father, but she"--he cast a quick sidelong
glance at her--"she's not my mother."

"Who says that?" Kate shrieked it.

"Everybody."

"No, nobody. That's not true. It's a lie, a lie! You are my child,
my son, our son I And the one who denies that lies, deceives,
slanders!----"

"Kate!" Her husband looked at her very gravely, and there was a
reproach in his voice and a warning. "Kate!"

And then he turned to the boy, who stood there so sullenly, almost
defiantly--drawn up to his full height, with one foot outstretched, his
head thrown back--and said: "Your mother is naturally very much
agitated, you must take care of her--to-day especially. Go now, and
to-morrow we will----"

"No, no!" Kate did not let him finish speaking, she cried in the
greatest excitement: "No, don't postpone it. Let him speak--now--let
him. And answer him--now--at once that he is our son, our son alone.
Wolfgang--Woelfchen!" She used the old pet name from his childhood again
for the first time for months. "Woelfchen, don't you love us any more?
Woelfchen, come to me."

She stretched out her arms to him once more, but he did not see
those longing, loving, outstretched arms again. He was very pale and
his eyes were fixed on the ground.

"Woelfchen, come."

"I cannot."

His face never moved, and his voice had still the same monotonous
tone which sounded so terrible to her. She sobbed aloud, and her eyes
clung to her husband--he must help her now. But he looked at her with a
frown; she could plainly read the reproach in his face: "Why did you
not follow my advice? Ha