"Disgrace, girl! To you alone I will confess it, that some day you may think of me more kindly when we are parted. I have no name save that the church gave me; no father save God; no home save the Casa al Gesu; no human dignity save that of my holy office. If I had belonged to the world, I should have been an outcast. But my parents turned the curse into a blessing when they dedicated to Heaven the life they denied on earth; and for the sake of that deed may God pardon the sin which gave me birth!" He raised his head, while his face kindled with enthusiastic feeling. "But I, Cornelia, will devote my strength, to my latest breath, to that Jesuitism which accomplished the miracle of making the child of sin the supporter of the highest and holiest cause, which produces everything great and noble that can be done for the honor of God, and desires nothing except by all means, both mild and gentle, to lead men to heaven." Cornelia gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, then suddenly looked earnestly at the regular features of the handsome man before her. "Severinus," she said, with strange eagerness, "who was your father?" "I do not know; I never saw him." "Did your mother tell you nothing about him? or did you not know her either?" "She could tell me nothing except how she loved him, and how he had deceived her. His accent betrayed that he was a German, but he concealed his name and residence. When I was scarcely a year old he disappeared, and no longer gave my mother any signs of existence except the remittance, through some unknown hand, of money for my education upon the condition that I should become a priest." "And your mother; what was her name?" "Girl, why do you ask me all these questions?" "You shall learn the reason after you have told me who your mother was." "I have no right to expose the name of the unhappy woman, and have never mentioned it to any one." "Not even to Heinrich?" "I never disclosed the secret of my past to him." Cornelia approached him; her breath came more quickly. "Was your mother's name Angelina, Severinus?" said she, her voice tremulous with some secret emotion. Severinus gazed at her in astonishment. "Yes, yes; how did you know?" "Was she the sister of a Carmelite monk in Compatri?" "Where did you learn this?" exclaimed Severinus, greatly agitated. "What connection have you with my past? Speak; of what are you thinking? Your eyes sparkle, your cheeks glow; do not torture me." "Are you your mother's only child?" "So truly as she expiated all her remaining days in a cloister, the one error of her life." "Then God has sent me to you to warn you at the right time not to commit a most grievous wrong. Do you know who the man is whom you thus inexorably pursue?" A suspicion began to arise in Severinus's mind; he recoiled and extended his hands repellently, as if he feared the words that hovered upon Cornelia's lips. "He is your brother!" she cried, tears gushing from her eyes.