"Yes, indeed, gracious lady!" Mr. Hegner seemed surprised, perhaps a thought disturbed, by her natural remark. "I took out my certificate before I built the Stores, and just after I had married my excellent little English wife. Glad indeed am I now that I did so!" "I am very glad too," said Mrs. Otway. And yet--and yet she felt a slight quiver of discomfort. The man standing there was so _very_ German after all--German not only in his appearance, but in all his little ways! If nothing else had proved it, his rather absurd nickname was clear proof that so he was even now regarded in Witanbury. "And how about your son, Mr. Hegner?" she asked. "I suppose he is in Germany now? You must feel rather anxious about him." He hesitated oddly, and looked round him before he spoke. Then, vanquished, maybe, by the obvious sincerity and kindness of the speaker, he answered, in German, and almost in a whisper. "He is, I fear, by now on his way to the frontier. But may I ask a favour of the gracious lady? Do not speak of my son to the people of Witanbury." "Then _he_ was never naturalised?" Mrs. Otway also spoke in a low voice--a voice full of pity and concern. "No, no," said Mr. Hegner hastily. "There was no necessity for him to be. His work was mostly, you see, over there." "Still he was educated here, surely?" "That is so, gracious lady. He talks English better even than I do. He and I did consider the question of his taking out a certificate. Then we decided that, as he would be so much in Germany, it was better he should remain German. But his wife is an English girl." "How sorry you must be now that he did not naturalise!" she exclaimed. An odd look came over Manfred Hegner's face. "Yes, it is very regretful--the more so that it would do me harm if it were known in the town that I had a son in the German Army. But he will not fight against the English," he added hastily. "No one will do that but the German sailors--is not that so, madam?" "I really don't know." "If at any time the gracious lady should hear anything of the sort, I should be grateful--nay, far more than grateful if she will let me know it!" He had lapsed back into German, and Mrs. Otway smiled very kindly at him. "Yes, I will certainly let you know anything I hear. I know how very anxious you must be about this sad state of things." Mrs. Otway had left the shop, and she was already some way back across the Market Place, when there came the rather raucous sound of an urgent voice in her ear. Startled, she turned round. The owner of the Witanbury Stores stood by her side. "Pardon, pardon!" he said breathlessly. "But would you, gracious lady, ask your servant" (he used the German word "Stuetze") "if she could make it convenient to join our gathering this evening at nine o'clock? Frau Anna Bauer is so very highly respected among the Germans here that we should like her to be present."