The Northern Light eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 408 pages of information about The Northern Light.

The Northern Light eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 408 pages of information about The Northern Light.

Hartmut bit his lips and his whole body trembled at these merciless words.  His voice had a hollow, half suffocated sound as he answered: 

“Listen, father, I cannot bear that.  I have bowed before you, have plead for forgiveness, and you drive me from you.  It is the same cruel hardness with which you once drove my mother away.  It was your severity alone which was accountable for her erratic life after you thrust her from you and for mine through hers.”

The colonel folded his arms and an expression of withering contempt played round his lips.

“And you heard all this from her own lips?  Possibly!  No woman falls so low that she reveals to her son the disgraceful truths of her life.  I would not soil your soul at that time with the truth, for you were yet innocent and pure.  Now you will understand me when I say that my honor demanded the separation from your mother.  The man who had stained it fell by my hand, and she, as you know—­I put her from me.”

Hartmut grew deadly pale at this revelation.  He had never known this, never dreamed of such a thing, had in fact, believed that it was his father’s cruel disposition which had separated husband and wife.

The image of his mother whom he had so dearly loved, was suddenly and ruthlessly despoiled of its purity and its charm, and in its place came the desolating conviction that she whom he had trusted and followed had been his destruction.

“I would have protected you from the poisonous atmosphere of such an influence,” continued Falkenried.  “Fool that I was!  Even without her persuasion you were lost to me.  You had your mother’s features, and it was her blood which flowed in your veins, and sooner or later you were bound to come to your own.  You became what you are—­a homeless adventurer who knows neither fatherland nor honor!”

“That is too much!” cried Hartmut, almost wild now.  “I will not be so insulted by any one, not even by you.  I see now that no reconciliation between us is possible.  I will go, but the world will judge otherwise than you.  It has already crowned me, and I will force from it the recognition which my own father denies me.”

The colonel looked at his son, and there was something frightful in his glance; then he said, slowly and distinctly, in his icy tone: 

“Better be careful that the world does not learn that the ’laurel crowned poet’ was suborned in Paris for over two years—­as a spy.”

Hartmut started back as though shot.

“I? in Paris? you must be out of your mind.”

Falkenried shrugged his shoulders contemptuously: 

“Still acting a comedy? you need give yourself no trouble; I know all.  Wallmoden laid before me the proofs of the game which Zalika Rojanow and her son played in Paris.  I know the sources from which the money came on which you lived after she had lost her fortune.  She was greatly sought after for her peculiar accomplishments, for she was very skillful.  He who paid the highest price—­secured her services!”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Northern Light from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.