“Where is Willibald?”

“He’ll be here in a few minutes, he waited to give some direction to the castle gardener; he does not know his mother is here.”

“To the castle-gardener!  Doubtless he wants some more roses,” Frau von Eschenhagen broke out afresh, while the father held out both his arms to Toni and said, in a trembling voice: 

“My child, my poor, deceived child, come to me.  Come to your father’s arms.”

He would have drawn his daughter into his arms, but Regine stepped before him and said in a husky voice: 

“Be composed, Toni, you will have a fearful blow from your false lover; you will despise him and his deceptions from your very soul.”

This sudden sympathy had in it something alarming, but fortunately Toni had never been troubled with weak nerves; she released herself now from this double embrace, and drew back from them both as she said, with quiet decision: 

“I could not do that, for Will is beginning to please me better now than he has ever pleased me before in his life.”

“So much the worse,” interrupted her father.  “Poor child, you know nothing, suspect nothing.  Your lover has fought a duel, and for a woman, too.”

“I know it, papa.”

“For Marietta,” screamed her aunt.

“I know it, dear aunt.”

“But he loves Marietta,” they both cried out with one voice.

“I know it all,” declared Toni in her quiet, drawling tone.  “Have known it for a week.”

The effect of this declaration was so depressing that the two angry parents were dumb, and looked at one another stupefied.  In the meantime Toni continued with the utmost composure: 

“Will told me all about it just as soon as he got here; and he spoke so simply and with such true heartedness that he made me weep from very sympathy; then a letter came from Marietta begging my pardon, and it was so loving and penitent in its tone that I was deeply moved.  There was nothing for me to do but to give back my lover his freedom.”

“Without asking us?” interposed her aunt.

“No questions were necessary in this case,” Antonie answered, quietly.  “I cannot marry a man who declares to me that he loves another woman.  So we dissolved our engagement without any further discussion.”

“Indeed, and I learn it now for the first time.  You two have become very independent, all at once,” cried the head forester, enraged.

“Will meant to explain to you the next day, papa, but after such an explanation he felt he could not remain here longer, and just then Marietta was called home by her grandfather’s illness.  She was nearly broken hearted when she thought he would die, and Will felt he could not leave her until he knew what would be the result of the illness.  So I said to keep silence until the danger was over, and then speak.  We have both gone daily to the cottage to cheer poor Marietta.  They are so grateful to me and call me the guardian angel of their love.”