Part 54 (1/2)
One afternoon Lorand found courage enough to take hold of Melanie's hand. They were standing on a bridge that spanned the brook which was winding through the park, and, leaning upon its railing, were gazing at the flowers floating on the water--or perhaps at each other's reflection in the watery mirror.
Lorand grasped Melanie's hand and asked:
”Why are you always so sad? Whither do those everlasting sighs fly?”
Melanie looked into the youth's face with her large, bright eyes, and knew from his every feature that heart had dictated that question to heart.
”You see, I have enough reason for being sad in that no one has ever asked me that question; and that had someone asked me I could never have answered it.”
”Perhaps the question is forbidden?”
”I have allowed him, whom I allowed to remark that I have a grief, also to ask me the reason of it. You see, I have a mother, and yet I have none.”
The girl here turned half aside.
Lorand understood her well:--but that was just the subject about which he desired to know more; why, his own fate was bound up with it.
”What do you mean, Melanie?”
”If I tell you that, you will discover that I can have no secret any more in this world from you.”
Lorand said not a word, but put his two hands together with a look of entreaty.
”About ten years have pa.s.sed since mother left home one evening, never to return again. Public talk connected her departure with the disappearance of a young man, who lived with us, and who, on account of some political crime, was obliged to fly the same evening.”
”His name?” inquired Lorand.
”Lorand aronffy, a distant relation of ours. He was considered very handsome.”
”And since then you have heard no news of your mother?”
”Never a word. I believe she is somewhere in Germany under a false name, as an actress, and is seeking the world, in order to hide herself from the world.”
”And what became of the young man? She is no longer with him?”
”As far as I know he went away to the East Indies, and from thence wrote to his brother Desiderius, leaving him his whole fortune--since that time he has never written any news of himself. Probably he is dead.”
Lorand breathed freely again. Nothing was known of him. People thought he had gone to India.
”In a few weeks will come again the anniversary of that unfortunate day on which I lost my mother, my mother who is still living: and that day always approaches me veiled: feelings of sorrow, shame, and loneliness involuntarily oppress my spirit. You now know my most awful secret, and you will not condemn me for it?”
Lorand gently drew her delicate little hand towards his lips, and kissed its rosy finger-tips, while all the time he fixed his eyes entreatingly on that ring which was on one of her fingers.
Melanie understood the inquiry which had been so warmly expressed in that eloquent look.
”You ask me, do you not, whether I have not some even more awful secret?”
Lorand tacitly answered in the affirmative.
Melanie drew the ring off her finger and held it up in her hand.