“Well, this friend hinted something more; he hinted that it was the husband of this young wife who had sent Konrad on this mission, and that the means employed had not been quite fair.”

“Mother, what do you mean?” Natalie said, breathlessly.

“I am telling you a story that really happened, Natalushka,” said the mother, calmly, and with the same pathetic touch in her voice.  “Then the young wife, without consideration—­so anxious was she to save the life of her cousin—­went straight to the highest authorities of the association, and appealed to them.  The influence of her family aided her.  She was listened to; there was an examination; what the friend had hinted was found to be true; the commission was annulled; Konrad was given his liberty!”

“Yes, yes!” said Natalie, eagerly.

“But listen, Natalushka; I said I would tell you the whole story; it has been kept from you for many a year.  When it was found that the husband had made use of the machinery of the association for his own ends—­which, it appears, was a great crime in their eyes—­he was degraded, and forbidden all hope of joining the Council, the ruling body.  He was in a terrible rage, for he was mad with ambition.  He drove the wife from his house—­rather, he left the house himself—­and he took away with him their only child, a little girl scarcely two years old; and he threatened the mother with the most terrible penalties if ever again she should speak to her own child!  Natalushka, do you understand me?  Do you wonder that my face is worn with grief?  For sixteen years that mother, who loved her daughter better than anything in the world, was not permitted to speak to her, could only regard her from a distance, and not tell her how she loved her.”

The girl uttered a cry of compassion, and wound her arms round her mother’s neck.

“Oh, the cruelty of it!—­the cruelty of it, mother!  But why did you not come to me?  Do you think I would not have left everything to go with you—­you, alone and suffering?”

For a time the mother could not answer, so deep were her sobs.

“Natalushka,” she said at length, in a broken voice, “no fear of any danger threatening myself would have kept me from you; be sure of that.  But there was something else.  My father had become compromised—­the Austrians said it was assassination; it was not!” For a second some hot blood mounted to her cheeks.  “I say it was a fair duel, and your grandfather himself was nearly killed; but he escaped, and got into hiding among some faithful friends—­poor people, who had known our family in better times.  The Government did what they could to arrest him; he was expressly exempted from the amnesty, this old man, who was wounded, who was incapable of movement almost, whom every one expected to die from day to day, and a word would have betrayed him and destroyed him.  Can you wonder, Natalushka, with that threat hanging over me—­that menace