"
"Mother, this is the Baron de Willading's heiress," said Christine: "would
she come here, did she not pity us?"
"Yes, she can pity us--and yet I find it hard even to be pitied! Sigismund
has told us of her goodness, and she may, in truth, feel for the
wretched!"
The allusion to her son caused the temples of Adelheid to burn like fire,
while there was a chill, resembling that of death, at her heart. The first
arose from the quick and uncontrollable alarm of female sensitiveness; the
last was owing to the shock inseparable from being presented with this
vivid, palpable picture of Sigismund's close affinity with the family of
an executioner. She could have better borne it, had Marguerite spoken of
her son less familiarly, or with more of that feigned ignorance of each
other, which, without stopping to scan its fitness, she had been led to
think existed between the young man and his family.
"Mother!" exclaimed Christine reproachfully, and in surprise, as if a
great indiscretion had been thoughtlessly committed.
"It matters not, child; it matters not. I saw by the kindling eye of
Sigismund to-day, that our secret will not much longer be kept.
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