“What do you mean?” he asked hoarsely. “Tell me what you have to say.”
“That there is no need to abandon hope.”
“Ah!” he cried. “You have reason to doubt? No! no! In Heaven’s name, speak, monsieur. What do you mean?”
“There is,” I said, “great doubt.”
Then he seemed to see intuitively what I was aiming at. By what must have been an intense effort he restrained his excitement and said quite quietly, “You have come to tell me that my daughter is alive?”
I smiled, and at my smile he broke down and turned away.
“It is a long and extraordinary story,” I said, “but the end of it is that Fräulein Asta is alive and in Verona.”
“Thank God!” he half sobbed. “Thank God! I must see her. Let me——”
“I will bring her to you. But Madame von Winterstein——?”
“Ask my wife to come to me here,” he said the fever of excitement getting stronger hold of him every moment. “She must hear the good news from my lips. Ah, God be thanked! My Asta comes back to us from the grave.”