“Your – aunt’s child!”
The Count found it difficult to say the words.
“Are you saying,” Roxana asked in a very small voice, “that you asked me to be your wife thinking that I had a – child even though I was not – married?”
“Forgive me, my darling,” the Count replied. “I should have trusted you. I should have known it was something you could never do and yet the circumstantial evidence was against you.”
Roxana did not speak and he went on,
“The secrecy and the insinuations the Governor made and the fact that I found you asleep with the baby in your arms and you told me – ”
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” Roxana interrupted. “You frightened me and I was – panic-stricken in case after all Geertruida and I had been – through to keep Karel hidden, he would be – taken away and – sent to a dreadf
