very near the
principal Stahlberg factories. The new major's reputation had preceded
him; he was said to be a valiant soldier, devoted to the service, who,
when not on duty, gave all his time to the study of military tactics and
discipline, but who held all mankind, soldiers excepted, in abhorrence.
He had a house and lived among men, but for the rest, he turned his back
upon society and every one connected with it.

But the head of the house of Stahlberg took little heed of the gossip or
of the major's attitude toward his fellow-men, and approached him
without hesitation. The bitter, disappointed man, who shunned all the
world, could not fail to admire in the manufacturer much that was akin
to his own nature, and while their acquaintance never ripened into
friendship, Falkenried understood and appreciated Stahlberg's rugged
character, and in the years in which they lived near one another the
Stahlberg house was the only one which he ever entered willingly. So he
grew to know the children of the house intimately, and kept up his
intercourse with the family after his return to Berlin. When Wallmoden
married he felt that both he and Adelheid had been hardly treated by the
Colonel, when the latter sent some plausible excuse for not attending
the wedding. Adelheid knew little or nothing of the Colonel's fateful
history. She supposed him to be childless, and had only recently learned
from her husband that he had married very young, been divorced from his
wife for many years, and was now a widower.

Eight days after the return of the Wallmodens, as Adelheid was sitting
at her writing table late one afternoon, Colonel Falkenried was
announced. She rose at once, threw down her pen and hastened to greet
her old friend.

"How glad I am to see you, dear Colonel. We received your telegram, and
Herbert was just about to start to the station to meet you himself, when
he received a summons from the duke and had to go at once to the castle,
so we could only send the carriage for you." Her greeting was warm and
cordial, such as an old friend of her father might have expected, but
Falkenried, while not exactly distant, was certainly not hearty. He took
the extended hand, but his manner was cold and earnest, and he said
indifferently, as he took the chair offered him: "Well, we can talk to
one another until his return."

The colonel had changed, changed so greatly as to be past recognition.
Were it not for the tall and erect bearing