The paternal affection of Melchior now took the alarm, and he gave an eager attention to his child.  Adelheid returned his evident solicitude by a smile of love, but its painful expression was so unequivocal as to heighten the baron’s fears.

“Art not well, love?  It cannot be that we have been deceived—­that some peasant’s daughter is thought worthy to supplant thee?  Ha!—­Signor Grimaldi, this matter begins, in sooth, to seem offensive;—­but, old as I am—­Well, we shall never know the truth, unless thou speakest frankly—­this is a rare business, after all, Gaetano—­that a daughter of mine should be repulsed by a hind!”

Adelheid made an imploring gesture for her father to forbear, while she resumed her seat from farther inability to stand.  The two anxious old men followed her example, in wondering silence.

“Thou dost both the honor and modesty of Sigismund great injustice, father;” resumed the maiden, after a pause, and speaking with a calmness of manner that surprised even herself.  “If thou and this excellent and tried friend will give me your attention for a few minutes, nothing shall be concealed.”

Her companions listened in wonder, for they plainly saw that the matter was more grave than either had at first imagined.  Adelheid paused again, to summon force for the ungrateful duty, and then she succinctly, but clearly, related the substance of Sigismund’s communication.  Both the listeners eagerly caught each syllable that fell from the quivering lips of the maiden, for she trembled, notwithstanding a struggle to be calm that was almost superhuman, and when her voice ceased they gazed at each other like men suddenly astounded by some dire and totally unexpected calamity.  The baron, in truth, could scarcely believe that he had not been deceived by a defective hearing, for age had begun a little to impair that useful faculty, while his friend admitted the words as one receives impressions of the most revolting and disheartening nature.

“This is a damnable and fearful fact!” muttered the latter, when Adelheid had altogether ceased to speak.

“Did she say that Sigismund is the son of Balthazar, the public headsman of the canton!” asked the father of his friend, in the way that one reluctantly assures himself of some half-comprehended and unwelcome truth,—­“of Balthazar—­of that family accursed!”

“Such is the parentage it hath been the will of God to bestow on the preserver of our lives,” meekly answered Adelheid.

“Hath the villain dared to steal into my family-circle, concealing this disgusting and disgraceful fact!—­Hath he endeavored to engraft the impurity of his source on the untarnished stock of a noble and ancient family!  There is something exceeding mere duplicity in this, Signor Grimaldi.  There is a dark and meaning crime.”

“There is that which much exceeds our means of remedying, good Melchior.  But let us not rashly blame the boy, whose birth is rather to be imputed to him as a misfortune than as a crime.  If he were a thousand Balthazars, he has saved all our lives!”