He threw himself into a chair. "Would you like to know how Fink got his protégé introduced into Frau von Baldereck's circle? You were so ready to admire this proof of his friendship! He has concocted a whole system of lies, and made the inexperienced Wohlfart play the part of a mere adventurer." And he went on to narrate all that we already know.
"But is it certain that Fink has done this?"
"Not a doubt of it. It is exactly like him. It is the same reckless, unscrupulous spirit, that neither heeds the life nor the reputation of a friend."
Sabine fell back in her chair, and again her heart swelled with indignation. "Oh, how sad it is!" cried she; "but Wohlfart is innocent, that I am convinced of. Such falsehoods are not in his nature."
"I shall know to-morrow," said the merchant; "for his own sake, I hope you are right."
The next day the principal summoned Anton to his own apartment, and telling him the rumors that had arisen, asked him what he had done to contradict them.
Anton replied in much amazement, "That he knew nothing of such rumors as these; that sometimes, indeed, he had been joked with as to his means, but that he had always avowed how small they were."
"Have you spoken decidedly?" asked the merchant, severely.
"I believe that I have," was the honest reply.
"These idle tales would not signify," continued the principal, "but that they expose you to the charge of having sought, by unworthy means, to gain a position to which you are not entitled, and also that they tend to degrade your parents' reputation, for it is given out that you are the son of a man of very high rank."