This is the treasure which Martin Rockhammer entrusted to him the Sunday before, with instructions to hand it over to Johannes. He also left a letter in which the various items of the inheritance are set down to a penny. Every morning since then he has knocked at the door, and each time asked the selfsame question, "Has he been?" Then when Franz Maas shook his head, has silently departed again. To-day the same. To-day is Friday; today he must come if he wants to be in time for the Bremen ship. Noiselessly he has opened the door and is standing behind him, just as he is about to lock the money away. "I suppose that is all for me," he asks, laying his hand on his shoulder. "Thank heaven I you have come," cries Franz, agreeably startled. Then he casts a critical glance over his friend's figure. Martin must have been exaggerating when, with tears in his eyes, he described his dilapidated appearance. He looks decent and respectable, is wearing a brand new waterproof, beneath the turned-back flaps of which a neat gray suit is visible. His hair is smoothly brushed--he is even shaved. But of course his dark, dulled gaze, the bagginess under his eyes, the ugly red of his cheeks, are sad witnesses in this face, eretime so youthfully joyous. And then he grasps both his hands and says: "Johannes, Johannes, what has come over you?" "Patience; you shall hear all!" he replies, "I must confide in one living soul, or it will eat my very heart out over there." "Then you really mean it? You intend--" "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.