“No, no!  Oh, child, how you torture me!  I know how I sinned against your father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved me, and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly.  But I cannot keep quiet a long time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in my blood; and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see nothing except himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the forest.  One day a fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going forth—­forth into the wide world, no matter with whom or whither.  The soldier only needed to hint and I fell.—­I did not stay with him long, he was a windy braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and accompanied the wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until he was shot.  Then ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend, he shares my feelings, I am necessary to his existence.  Do not laugh, Ulrich; I well know that youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet Pasquale loves me; since I have had him, I have been more content and, Holy Virgin! now—­I love him in return.  Oh, Heaven!  Oh, Heaven!  Why is it so?  This heart, this miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it did twenty years ago.”

“You will not leave him?”

“No, no, I love him, and I know why.  Every one calls him a brave man, yet they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do.  No one else is so good, so generous.  You must let me speak!  Do you suppose I ever forgot you?  Never, never!  But you have always been to me the dear little boy; I never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have you and longed so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to the soldiers’ orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of these poor things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same time.  It would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo rejoices in my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon bequeathed me and his own booty to the soldiers’ widows and the little naked babies in the camp.  He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases him.  I will not, cannot leave him!”

She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro, violently agitated.  At last he said firmly:  “Yet you must part from him.  He or I!  I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father’s wife.  I am Adam’s son, and will be constant to him.  Ah, mother, I have been deprived of you so long.  You can tend strangers’ orphaned children, yet you make your own son an orphan.  Will you do this?  No, a thousand times, no, you cannot!  Do not weep so, you must not weep!  Hear me, hear me!  For my sake, leave this Spaniard!  You will not repent it.  I have just been dreaming of the nest I will build for you.  There I will cherish and care for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as you choose.  Leave him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your child, your Ulrich!”