"Good God! You do not know----?"
He paused, for, for the first time, Alice looked up at him with eyes filled with such misery, such despair, that all other reply was needless. He hastily went up to her and took her hand.
"How could it be? Who could have been so cruel, so dastardly, as to distress you with that?"
"No one!" the girl said, with an evident effort, "By chance--I overheard a conversation between my father and Herr Gronau----"
"You cannot believe I had any share in it!" Benno hastily interposed. "I did all that I could to restrain Gronau; I refused to give him my sanction."
"I know it,--and for my sake!"
"Yes, for your sake, Alice. What can you fear from me? There was no need that you should come hither to entreat my silence."
"I did not come for that," Alice said, softly. "I wanted to ask your pardon--your forgiveness for----"
Her voice was lost in a burst of sobs; suddenly she felt herself clasped in Benno's arms. She was no longer Wolfgang's betrothed; he was no traitor to his friend; he might for once clasp his love in his arms, while she wept convulsively upon his breast.
Just at this moment Veit Gronau opened the side-door, and paused in dismay upon the threshold. He would have been less amazed if the skies had fallen than he was by the sight that met his eyes. Unfortunately, he did not possess Frau Gersdorf's diplomatic talent for noiselessly disappearing and pretending not to have observed anything; on the contrary, his surprise expressed itself in a long-drawn "A--h!"