Stop! _Then_ the obvious person was the innocent one. I was alone, free, an orphan; it was a positive blessing to me to escape from the grind of the office. You, on the other hand, had your mother still living; and, besides, you had just got secretly engaged to Betty, and she was devoted to you. What would have become of her if she had learnt——? BERNICK. True, true, true; but—— JOHAN. And was it not just for Betty’s sake that you broke off the entanglement with Madam Dorf? It was for the very purpose of putting an end to it that you were up at her house that night—— BERNICK. Yes, the fatal night when that drunken brute came home——! Yes, Johan, it was for Betty’s sake; but yet—that you should have the generosity to turn appearances against yourself and go away—— JOHAN. You need have no qualms, my dear Karsten. We agreed that it should be so; you had to be saved, and you were my friend. I can tell you I was proud of that friendship! Here was I, poor stay-at-home, plodding along, when you came back like a very prince from your great foreign tour—from London and Paris, no less! Then what should you do but choose me for your bosom friend, though I was four years younger than you. Well, that was because you were making love to Betty; _now_ I understand it well enough. But how proud I was of it then! And who would not have been proud! Who would not gladly have served as your scapegoat, especially when it only meant a month’s town-talk, and an excuse for making a dash into the wide world. BERNICK. H’m—my dear Johan, I must tell you frankly that the story is not so entirely forgotten yet. JOHAN. Isn’t it? Well, what does it matter to me when once I am back again at my farm? BERNICK. Then you are going back? JOHAN. Of course. BERNICK. But not so very soon, I hope? JOHAN. As soon as possible. It was only to please Lona that I came over at all. BERNICK. Indeed! How so? JOHAN. Well, you see, Lona is not so young as she once was, and for some time past a sort of home-sickness has come over her, though she would never admit it. [_Smiling._] She dared not leave behind her a scapegrace like me, who, before I was out of my teens, had been mixed up in—— BERNICK. And then? JOHAN. Well, Karsten, now I must make a confession I am really ashamed of. BERNICK. You haven’t told her the whole story? JOHAN.