“Good day to you, Herr,” was her greeting.

“When is the wedding?”

Gretchen blushed.

“I should like to come to it.”

“You will be welcome, Herr.”

“And may I bring along a little present?”

“If it so please you.  I must be going,” she added to Fraeu Bauer.

“May I walk along with you?” asked Hans.

“If you wish,” diffidently.

So Grumbach walked with her to the Krumerweg, and he asked her many questions, and some of her answers surprised him.

“Never knew father or mother?”

“No, Herr.  I am only a foundling who fell into kind hands.  This is where I live.”

“And if I should ask to come in?”

“But I shall be too busy to talk.  This is bread-day,” evasively.

“I promise to sit very quiet in a chair.”

Her laughter rippled; she was always close to that expression.  “You are a funny man.  Come in, then; but mind, you will be dusty with flour when you leave.”

“I will undertake that risk,” he replied, with a seriousness not in tune with the comedy of the situation.

Into the kitchen she led him.  She was moved with curiosity.  Why should any man wish to see a woman knead bread?

“Sit there, Herr.”  And she pointed to a stool at the left of the table.  The sunlight came in through the window, and an aureola appeared above her beautiful head.  “Have you never seen a woman knead flour?”

“Not for many years,” said Hans, thinking of his mother.

Gretchen deliberately rolled up her sleeves and began work.

There are three things which human growth never changes:  the lines in the hand, the shape of the ear, and scars.  The head grows, and the general features enlarge to their predestined mold, but these three things remain.  Upon Gretchen’s left arm, otherwise perfection, there was a white scar, rough and uneven, more like an ancient burn than anything else.  Grumbach’s eyes rested upon the scar and became fixed.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.  He spoke with a strange calm.

“The scar?  I do not remember.  Grandmother says that when I was little I must have been burned.”

“Gott!”

“What did you say, Herr?”

“Nothing.  You can’t remember?  Think!” tensely now.

“What’s all this nonsense about?” she cried, with a nervous laugh.  “It’s only a scar.”

She went on with the kneading.  She patted the dough into four squares.  These she placed on the oven-stove.  She wiped her hands on a cloth for that purpose, and sighed contentedly.

“There!  It’s a fine mystery, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”  But Grumbach was shaking as with ague.

“What is the matter, Herr?” with concern.

“I grow dizzy like this sometimes.  It doesn’t amount to anything.”

Gretchen turned down her sleeves.  “You must go now, for I have other work.”