"What text did you get?" she asked quickly, so as to take his thoughts away from it. "I don't know it by heart," he said evasively, and his cheeks that had grown pale flamed. "But it suited." And with that he went out of the door. He went straight home--why should he waste any more time? the matter was urgent. He did not notice the starlings flying in and out of their boxes on the tall pines, did not notice that there was already a bright crescent in the evening sky that was growing darker and darker, and a golden star near it, he only noticed with satisfaction as he entered the hall at the villa that the coats and hats had disappeared from the pegs. That was good, the visitors had left. He rushed to the drawing-room, he almost fell into the room. His father and mother were still sitting there--no, his father and she, the--the---- "Come, tell us where you've been such along time," inquired his father, not without a touch of vexation in his voice. "To-day, just on this day," said his mother. "They all sent you their love, they waited for you. But it's almost eight o'clock now." Wolfgang cast an involuntary glance at the clock on the mantel-piece--right, nearly eight o'clock. But all that was immaterial now. And, staring straight in front of him as though his eyes were fixed on some object, he placed himself in front of the two. "I have something to ask you," he said. And then--it came out quite suddenly, quite abruptly. "Whose child am I?" Now it was said. The young voice sounded hard. Or did it only sound so cutting to Kate's ears? She heard something terribly shrill, like the dissonant blast of a trumpet. O God, there it was, that awful question. A sudden wave of blood laid a thick veil covered with glittering spots before her eyes; she could not see her boy any more, she only heard his question. She stretched out her hand gropingly, helplessly--thank God, there was her husband! He was still there. And now she heard him speak. "What makes you ask that question?" said Paul Schlieben. "Our son of course. Whose child could you be otherwise?" "I don't know. That's just what I want to know from you," the boy went on in his hard voice. It was strange how calm the voice sounded, but it seemed doubly terrible to Kate in its monotony. Now it became a little louder: "Give me an answer--I will--I must know it." Kate shuddered. What inexorableness, what obstinacy lay in that "I will"--"I must!" He would never stop asking again. She sank down as though crushed, and shuddered. Even the man's quiet voice betrayed a secret tremor. "Dear boy, somebody--I will not ask who, there are always enough gossips and abettors--has again put something into your head. Why do you treat us as if we were your enemies? Haven't we always been like a father and mother to you?" Oh, that was wrong--_like_ a father and mother? Quite wrong. Kate started up. She stretched out her arms: "My boy!"