"Nothing at all. I have just told Wolfgang so; he asked me the same question."
"The engineer-in-chief? What made him do that?"
"He thought he saw the president's hand in the offer that has just been made me, and he surmised--but no, no! Not a word more of such a shameful suspicion. It is impossible----"
"Much seems impossible to you, doctor; you have preserved the heart of a child," Veit said, gravely. "But when a man has seen as much of men as I have, he comes to disbelieve in such impossibilities. You are sure that Nordheim took out a patent for the mountain-locomotive?"
"Certainly; of that fact I am sure."
"Then he is a thief!" Gronau exclaimed, in a burst of indignation,--"a trebly disgraced thief, for he robbed his friend!"
"Hush, hush!" Benno interposed, but fruitlessly: Veit went on to prove his accusation.
"Tell me why your father, who was loyalty itself to his friends, should have broken with the one who was nearest to him? Why did Nordheim, if he were possessed of so inventive a genius, never achieve more than one invention? and why did he entirely abandon engineering shortly afterwards? Can you answer these questions?"
Reinsfeld was silent; under other circumstances he would have rejected all idea of such a suspicion, but the tone of conviction in which the terrible accusation was made, his conversation with Wolfgang, the mystery of the quarrel which had left so bitter a sting behind it that his gentle, amiable father had forbidden the mention of the name of a friend once so dear to him,--all this rushed upon his mind, almost paralyzing his power of thought.
"We must be sure," Gronau said, resolutely. "Where are your father's old papers,--his drawings and sketches? You told me you had preserved them all carefully. There must be something to be found among them, and if not, I will go myself to the president and question him. I am curious to see how he will look. Where are the papers, Benno? Produce them; we have no time to lose."