"What could I do? Is she not her child a thousand times more than mine? Has she not borne it amid pains, fed it, sheltered it many, many years, in rain and in sunshine, in need and in poverty, in the dark woods and on the open highway? Has she not begged and robbed and done worse things than that perhaps for her child? What have I done for my child? Nothing! Nothing but to stamp the mother as a thief before the eyes of a mob of nobles, nothing but to drive her from me like a lost dog, for the sake of a wretched coquette! No! No! I have no right to the child!" While the baron was speaking he pushed with his foot the half-consumed, glowing firebrands into the pool, so that they turned black one by one. "Why did the Brown Countess wish to see you, then? Why did she manage to put the child into your hands? Why did she herself appoint this rendezvous?" "She wished to see once more the beloved of her youth, the only man she had ever really loved. She wished to put his child into his hands and then dive back into the darkness of the woods. But she cannot live without the child, and the child cannot live without her. I had to let them go both!" "But why not take them both with you to Cona?" "Shall I chain the falcon? The falcon is happy only in the immeasurable ether on high; he dies in the foul air of our houses. Come! It is high time for us civilized men to go to bed!" The baron pushed the last firebrand into the water; the men turned to go. From between the hurriedly drifting clouds the moon was peeping blear-eyed at the dark water of the pool, and the long reeds that grew near the edges whispered: Here is a pleasant resting-place for all the sorrows of earth! CHAPTER X. "Well! That embarrassment is luckily over!" said Albert, pushing a parcel of bank-notes into a bulky, worn-out pocket-book, which contained among other things a number of mercantile communications, unanswered yet in spite of their ancient date. "After all, she is a nice little woman; not over-bright--but that is in this case only an additional virtue. I really think I could deny my nature and marry the little Samaritan. Perhaps it would not be so bad. Who knows? There may, after all, be somewhere within me the germ of a most excellent steady citizen, which only needs the warmth of a domestic hearth to sprout merrily. The thing is problematic, I admit, but not impossible, for all that I see myself walking soberly of a Sunday, by the side of my wife, through the fields, listening to the quarrels among the sparrows and the complaints of my better half against the extortionate bills of butchers and bakers, while before us walk two young citizens of the world who bear a slight resemblance to myself, and behind us, in a little wagon drawn by a maid of all works, a shrill little voice is heard, which furnishes unmistakable evidence of my wife's admirable qualities! Oh!..."