He stood at the window, lost in melancholy brooding, for the moment entirely alone, and slowly turned around when the door was opened, believing that some new announcement was about to be made. In the next second, though, he shrank back and stared at the intruder, as though he could not believe his own eyes.
"Egbert!"
Egbert closed the door behind him, but paused on its threshold, while he said in a low voice:
"I beg your pardon for having once more made use of my old privilege, of entering unannounced--it happens for the last time."
Dernburg had already recovered his self-command, his eyes flashed portentously, and his voice was chilling in the extreme.
"I certainly did not expect to see you again at Odensburg. Here Runeck, pray what leads the new delegate to me? I thought that we two were to have no more to say to one another."
Runeck might have expected such a reception, but his glance was fixed reproachfully upon the speaker.
"Herr Dernburg, you are too just to make me responsible for the excesses of election-day evening. I was in town----"
"I know--with Landsfeld. And from there the movement was directed."
Egbert turned pale and quickly drew one step nearer. "Am I to bear this reproach, too? Is it possible that you believe I could have had a share in those insults, that I could have known of them and not prevented them?"