"With Ella?" asked Reinhold, and there was again the old mixture of pity and contempt, which betrayed itself in his voice the moment he spoke of his wife. "What good could that have done? You know how I left; it was done by a complete rupture with her parents, and therefore naturally a narrow, dependent nature like Ella's would join in the verdict of condemnation if it were ever even able to raise itself to a verdict of its own. If the breach between us was formerly wide, now, after all that has happened, it has become impassable. No, there could be no talk of that, but I wished to receive news of my child. I could not bear longer to have my boy so far away, not to be able to see him, not even to possess a picture of him. I wanted his at any price, therefore I chose the shortest means, and wrote to the mother." "Well, and--?" asked Hugo, with interest. Reinhold laughed bitterly-- "T might have spared myself the humiliation. No answer came--that certainly was answer enough, but I wanted just to know how the child was; I thought of the possibility of a mistake, of its being lost--what does one not think of in such a case?--and wrote again. The letter came back unopened"--he clenched his fist in wild anger--"unopened, to me! It is my uncle's work; there is no doubt of it. Ella would never have dared to offer it to me." "Do you think so? You do not know your wife. She certainly has 'dared' to offer it, and she alone could dare it, as her parents have been dead some years." Reinhold turned round quickly-- "How do you know that? Are you still in communication with H----?" "No," said the Captain, quietly; "you may imagine that the state of mind which existed in the family towards you was also partly carried over to me. Since I left H---- at that time, a few days after you did, I have never revisited it, but I correspond still with the former bookkeeper of the firm of Almbach, who has taken over the business, and continues it on his own account. I heard a few things from him." "And you only tell me this now, after being together for nearly a fortnight?" cried Reinhold, almost furiously. "I have naturally not wished to touch upon a subject which it seemed to me you wished to avoid," answered Hugo coolly. Reinhold walked up and down the room a few times-- "Her parents are dead, then? And Ella and the child?" "You need not be anxious about them; my uncle left a good fortune, much more than people thought." "I knew he was richer than he wished to be deemed," said Reinhold quickly, "and this certainly alone gave me perfect freedom of action in my departure. I was not necessary for my wife and child. They were safe from any change of fate, without even my presence. But where are they now? Still in H----?"