Out
with you!"
The socialists could not have emptied the cellar any quicker had there
been a fire.
Gretchen alone remained. It was her duty to carry the steins up to the
bar. The officer, rather thorough for his kind, studied the floor under
the window. He found a cutting from a newspaper. This interested him.
"Do you know who this fellow was?" with a jerk of his head toward the
window.
"He is Leopold Dietrich, a vintner, and we are soon to be married."
There was a flaw in the usual sweetness of her voice.
"So? What made him run away like this?"
"He is new to Dreiberg. Perhaps he thought you were going to arrest
every one. Oh, he has done nothing wrong; I am sure of that."
"There is one way to prove it."
"And what is that?"
"Ask him if he is not a spy from Jugendheit," roughly.
The steins clicked crisply in Gretchen's arms; one of them fell and
broke at her feet.
CHAPTER XII
LOVE'S DOUBTS
Gretchen, troubled in heart and mind over the strange event of the
night, walked slowly home, her head inclined, her arms swinging
listlessly at her side. A spy, this man to whom she had joyously given
the flower of her heart and soul? There was some mistake; there must be
some mistake. She shivered; for the word spy carried with it all there
was in deceit, treachery, cunning.
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