He laughed bitterly. "You would ridicule me if I told you that a desire for a reconciliation with you brought me hither, and more still when you hear that I have other reasons to give other people. But all the same it is a fact that the breach between us grows more intolerable to me every day."
"Why did you not write?" asked Magelone.
"Because you made Johanna your go-between. She wrote me so cold and stiff a note. The wind at Dönninghausen seems to blow from a quarter strangely unfavourable to me."
Magelone knew only too well what had influenced the tone of Johanna's letter; she blushed slightly and turned away her eyes, but before she could reply Aunt Thekla and Johanna entered the room.
"You came to escort your grandfather?" the old lady said, after salutations had been exchanged. "Unfortunately, he left this morning."
"So they told me in Thalrode," the young man replied. "But I am not going to Vienna. I have come to you, dear Aunt Thekla. You must help me. Come, sit down, and let me make my confession. Please stay; you must hear it too," he added, as Johanna and Magelone were about to leave the room.
Aunt Thekla sat up stiffly. "Confession?" she repeated, in a troubled tone. "Otto, you have not been——" she hesitated.
"Playing again?" He completed her sentence, as he took a chair opposite her. "Yes, dear aunt; unfortunately, I have broken my promise and played, and have lost. Do not reproach me, I entreat; I do that myself. Rather let us consult how I can be extricated from my embarrassments; nay, even more than that,—how I can be relieved in my extremity."
"Otto, how could you?" Magelone exclaimed, reproachfully. Aunt Thekla stared at him in dismay, and Johanna was mute with terror.
Otto shrugged his shoulders. "It is easy to ask and to condemn. Try being mewed up in a wretched garrison, where you have lost interest in what amuses others, because you have learned to wish for something better and higher. Find yourself disappointed in your wish,"—here both Johanna and Magelone were convicted by his reproachful glance,—"and then in your desolation and distress see others enjoying the intoxicating, all-engrossing delights of play. I wonder whether your lofty virtue would hold out?"