“Herr Dr. Eyuhardt!”

“What!  Is it you or your ghost?  Well, I must say—­” cried Paul, overjoyed, receiving him with open arms.

The first tempestuous greetings over, he pressed him, down upon the sofa, seated himself beside him, and rained down a torrent of questions upon him—­Where had he come from?  How had he fared all this time?  What were his plans?  And, above all things, where was his luggage?

“At the hotel,” Wilhelm answered, a little nervously.

“At the hotel?  Are you in your right senses?  There is only one hotel for you in Hamburg, and that is the hotel Haber.  Were you so uncomfortable there before that you have withdrawn your custom from it?”

“Don’t try to persuade me, my good Paul.  Believe me, it is best so.  Your hospitality oppresses me.”

“Is that the remark of a friend?” grumbled Paul.

“It is a fault in me, I know, but I do beg of you to let me have my own way.”

“Just wait till I send Malvine to you—­you will have to lay down your arms before her.”

“No, Paul, I really cannot live in your house again.  I will come and see you—­so often that you will get tired of me—­”

“Never!”

“But let me live here as I am accustomed to in Berlin, especially as it will probably be for a long time.”

“Then you are going to stay in Hamburg?  That is splendid!”

“For the present at least.  I see nothing else to be done.”

“But in the summer you will surely come and spend some weeks at Friesenmoor?”

“That is more likely.”

The door opened and Malvine hurried in, and ran up to Wilhelm as he rose to meet her.

“To think of you falling from the clouds like this!” she cried, and shook both his hands warmly.  “Not a letter, not a telegram, nothing!  Well, you knew, at any rate, that you would always be welcome.”

Again he had to make a determined stand against having their hospitality forced upon him, and kind, persistent Malvine would not give up the struggle as easily as Paul.  As Wilhelm, however, was equally persistent in his refusal, and would not even divulge the name of his hotel till they had sworn to leave him his independence, they finally gave up the fight.

“And now tell us all that has happened to you,” said Paul, patting him on the shoulder.  “You must have had a very good time, for you either did not write at all or only in a flash—­like this:  ’Dear friend, am quite well—­how are you all?  Best love—­always yours.’  Well, I don’t think any the worse of you.  In gay Paris one has something better to do than to think of dull old fogies on the Uhlenhorst.”

“You don’t think that seriously,” answered Wilhelm, pressing his hand.

“I should rather be inclined to think that the doctor had been ill,” said Malvine, whose woman’s eye had instantly remarked the pallor and weariness of Wilhelm’s thin face.