But since you, my brother, failed to identify me,
certainly his excellency will not. I shall make no slip as in your case.
And you will not betray me when I tell you that I have returned
principally to find out whence came those thousand crowns."
"Ah! Find that out, Hans; yes, yes!" Hermann began to look more like
himself. "But what was your part?"
"Mine? I was to tell where her highness and her nurse were to be at a
certain hour of the day. Nothing more was necessary. My running away was
the expression of my guilt; otherwise they would never have connected me
with the abduction."
"Have you any suspicions?"
"None. And remember, you must not know me, Hermann, no matter where we
meet. I am sleepy." Hans rose.
And this, thought Hermann, his bewilderment gaining life once more, and
this calm, unruffled man, whose hair was whiter than his own, a veteran
of the bloodiest civil war in history, this prosperous mechanic, was his
little brother Hans!
"Hans, have you no other greeting?" Hermann asked, spreading out his
arms.
The wanderer's face beamed; and the brothers embraced.
"You forgive me, then, Hermann?"
"Must I not, little Hans? You are all that is left me of the blood.
True, I swore that if ever I saw you again I should curse you.
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