Part 39 (2/2)
”You shall learn the reason after you have told me who your mother was.”
”I have no right to expose the name of the unhappy woman, and have never mentioned it to any one.”
”Not even to Heinrich?”
”I never disclosed the secret of my past to him.”
Cornelia approached him; her breath came more quickly. ”Was your mother's name Angelina, Severinus?” said she, her voice tremulous with some secret emotion.
Severinus gazed at her in astonishment. ”Yes, yes; how did you know?”
”Was she the sister of a Carmelite monk in Compatri?”
”Where did you learn this?” exclaimed Severinus, greatly agitated.
”What connection have you with my past? Speak; of what are you thinking? Your eyes sparkle, your cheeks glow; do not torture me.”
”Are you your mother's only child?”
”So truly as she expiated all her remaining days in a cloister, the one error of her life.”
”Then G.o.d has sent me to you to warn you at the right time not to commit a most grievous wrong. Do you know who the man is whom you thus inexorably pursue?”
A suspicion began to arise in Severinus's mind; he recoiled and extended his hands repellently, as if he feared the words that hovered upon Cornelia's lips.
”He is your brother!” she cried, tears gus.h.i.+ng from her eyes.
Severinus involuntarily pressed his hand upon his brow, his fingers quivered slightly as they touched the broad scar upon it, and he gazed absently before him as if in a dream.
”Oh, do not crush the feeling that stirs in your heart! Give me your hand, and let me tell you how warmly I greet the brother of my beloved!
Oh, G.o.d, to see the two men dearest to me on earth united, the souls which always struggled with each other, and yet could never resist the impulse of sympathy, reconciled in brotherly love! And it is I, I who am permitted to bring you together, to give you to each other! Ah, my friend, this is inexpressible joy!”
”And are you so sure you are not deceiving yourself?” asked Severinus, gloomily.
”Deceiving? Oh, you incredulous man! Heinrich's father is yours also.
Ten years before his marriage in Germany he traveled in Italy. In wild, romantic Compatri he was attracted by the beauty of your mother, Angelina, who was living in the greatest poverty upon the products of her vines and the scanty gifts of the Carmelite convent in that place, then falling to decay. He took her to Rome, and remained there two years,--until his duties compelled him to return to Germany and desert Angelina, with her eleven-months-old boy. What afterwards became of her and her child, Heinrich did not know.”
”And how did Heinrich happen to tell you this?”
”He told me a great many things about his father's life.”
”And where did he learn this sad history?”
”From Anton, who, as valet, accompanied old Herr von Ottmar on his travels, and whose statements were confirmed by the dead man's papers.
Heinrich did not then foresee how important this discovery might some day become. But if all this is not sufficient proof for you, question your own heart; remember what an inexplicable affection still bound you to Heinrich, even after you believed him lost to the church. Does not this impulse of the heart harmonize with all that has been so strangely revealed to you? Oh, you feel it yourself at this moment! I see it by the tears that will steal out from beneath your lashes; you feel, you believe, that he is your brother!”
Severinus covered his face. ”He is! he is! Oh, G.o.d, and I must ruin my brother!”
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