"I am sorry, but I cannot do it," replied the young man, growing a shade paler. "It is not for me to beg pardon."
"You are an obstinate set, and that is all there is about it," thundered Uncle Henry. "We are glad that the scoundrel is dead, and now here we are in just the same place as we were before."
"The scoundrel's death is a very unfortunate event for me, uncle."
"You will not?" asked the old gentleman again.
"Then good-bye!" And Uncle Henry put on his hat and hastily left the room and the house.
"Allow me to accompany you down," said Frank, following the little man, who jumped into the carriage as if he were fleeing from some one.
But before the horses started he bent forward and an expression of intense anxiety rested on his honest old face.
"See here, Frank," he whispered, "it is a foolish pride of yours. Women have their little whims and caprices. It is true I never had a wife--thank Heaven for that!--but I know them very well for all that. They have such ideas, they must all be worshipped, and the little one is particularly sharp about it. She is like her father, my good old Lebrecht, a little romantic--I always said the child read too much. Now do you be the wise one to give in. You have not been so hurt either, and--besides she is a charming little woman."
"As soon as Gertrude comes back everything shall be forgotten," replied Linden, shutting the carriage door.
"But she won't come so, my boy. Don't you know the Baumhagen obstinacy yet?" cried Uncle Henry in despair.
He shrugged his shoulders and stepped back.
"To Waldruhe!" shouted the old man angrily to the coachman, and away he went.
"My young gentleman is playing a dangerous game as injured innocence," he growled, pounding his cane on the bottom of the carriage. The nearer he came to the villa, the redder grew his angry round face. When he reached "Waldruhe" he did not have to go upstairs. Gertrude was in the park. She was standing at the end of a shady alley and perceiving her uncle she came towards him, in her simple white summer dress.
"Uncle," she gasped out, and two anxious eyes sought to read his face.
"Come," said the old man, taking her hand, "let us walk along this path. It will do me good. I shall have a stroke if I stand still. To make my story short, child--he will not."