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 passed 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