"I was not prepared for this summons, Miss Forest. After our meeting in the village it seemed to me as if you wished to avoid every approach on my side. I followed your command; it is you now who have summoned me." There lay perhaps some bitterness in these words, but Fernow's bitterness was seldom cutting or harmful. Jane recognized only a gentle, deeply painful reproach nothing more. "My conduct may seem enigmatical to you Lieutenant Fernow," she said; "I owe you an explanation; but before I make it, I beg you to answer a few questions." He nodded in silent assent. "In the first place, will you tell me your given name?" Of all questions, Fernow seemed least to have expected this. "My given name?" "Yes." "I am called Walter." "Walter?" A deep breath of relief came involuntarily from Jane's breast. "Walter! I do not know that name." "And why should you know it, Miss Forest?" he asked in evident surprise. "We were strangers until the moment you trod the soil of Germany." "Perhaps so!" Her glance fastened itself gloomily upon the lurid flame-images which in endless transformations darted forth and fell back dissolved in nothingness; "and perhaps not! You told me once that you had been thrust out into life without parents and without a home; that you had fallen into the hands of a learned man who had led you also into the paths of science.--Was this learned man a clergyman?" "Yes; but after a time he left his parish and his vocation to give himself entirely up to science." Jane convulsively pressed her left hand against her breast. "And--his name?" "Pastor Hartwig!" A deep, momentous pause! The flames darted yet higher and threw their quivering light upon a deathly-pale, deathly-cold face; not a syllable came from her lips; she remained motionless in her place. "Miss Forest, what does all this mean?" Walter's voice was low and anxious. "Why these strange questions? Did you know my foster-father? Were you in any way connected with him?" At these last words, he had stepped nearer, and now stood close to her; Jane seemed not to have heard the question; she gave no answer. "Johanna!" A light shudder passed over her. This name! Only once before had she heard it from his lips, in that parting-hour, and it sounded like a melody out of the sweet, faraway days of her childhood. Her mother had once called her so, but only for a short space; the German name of his child had fallen a sacrifice to the rigid will of her father; it had been changed to the English, "Jane." Never since then, had she heard it again, and now as it came from his lips, it had such a soft, entreating tone--all her strength gave way before this one word.