fe were one continued torture. I do not
venture to think what would have happened though, had he been allowed to
carry out his intention at that time."

"I know," interrupted his sister, "that he asked for his discharge,
because, with his keen sense of honor, he could not bear to serve
longer, after his son had become a deserter. It was a step prompted by
despair."

"Yes, and it was his only salvation, that he, with his military
knowledge and skill, was not allowed to sink into oblivion. The chief of
the General's staff took up the matter and brought it before the King,
and they decided that the father should not be allowed to sacrifice
himself for a boy's rash action, and that the service could not lose
such a highly esteemed officer. So they would not accept his
resignation, but permitted him to go to a distant garrison, where the
matter was never mentioned in his presence. Now, after ten years, it's
buried and forgotten by the whole world."

"With one exception," said Regine sorrowfully. "My heart aches whenever
I think of what Falkenried once was, and what he is now. The bitter
experience of his marriage made him gloomy and unsocial, but in good
time he recovered himself a little, and his whole soul turned to his boy
and his boy's advancement. Now everything is lost and the rigid, stark
fulfilment of duty is all that remains; all else is dead within him, and
as a sequence, all his old friendships have become painful to him--we
must let him go his own way."

She broke off with a sigh, as the face of her girlhood's friend came
before her mind's eye. Then laying her hand on her brother's arm, she
said in conclusion:

"Perhaps you are right, Herbert, when you say that a man chooses more
wisely when he has come to years of discretion. You need not fear
Falkenried's fate; your wife has good blood in her veins. I knew Herr
Stahlberg well; he worked earnestly and with capability, too, or he
would never have succeeded as he did in life. And he was ever an honest
man, even after he became a millionaire, and Adelheid is her father's
daughter, bone and sinew. You have chosen well for yourself, and I
rejoice with you from the bottom of my heart."

* * * * *

The little hunting castle of Rodeck which belonged to the princely house
of Adelsberg, lay but a few miles distant from "Fuerstenstein," in the
midst of the deep forest. The small, plain building containing at most
but a dozen rooms, h