"I am off to-night by the mail-coach. My seat is already booked. Before I came to you, I went once more through the village. It was already dark, so I could venture--and I took leave of everything. I went to our parents' grave, and as far as the church door, and to the host of the 'Crown,' to whom I owed a trifle."
"And you forgot the mill?"
Johannes bites his lips and chews at his moustache; then he mutters: "That is still to come."
"Oh, how glad Martin will be," cries Franz Maas, quite red with pleasure himself.
"Did I say I was going to see Martin?" asks Johannes between his teeth, while his chest heaves, as if it had a load of embarrassment to throw off.
"What? You intend slinking about on your father's inheritance like a thief,--avoiding a meeting with any one?"
"Not that either. I have to bid good-bye to some one, but not to Martin!"
"To whom else then?--To whom else, man?" cries Franz Maas, in whom a horrible suspicion dawns.
"Lock the door and sit down here," says Johannes,--"now I will tell you."
The hours pass by; the storm rattles at the shutters. The oil in the lamp begins to splutter. The two friends sit with their heads together, their looks occasionally meeting. Johannes confesses--conceals nothing. He begins with that first meeting with Trude, up to the moment when horror drove him forth from Martin's embrace--out into the stormy night.