as her features
and her eyes."

"Yes," assented Falkenried gloomily, "her dark, demoniacal, glowing
eyes, which cast their spell upon all who knew her."

"And were your ruin," supplemented Wallmoden. "How often did I warn and
advise you then; but you would not listen. Your passion had seized you
like a fever and held you like chains. I declare I never have been able
to understand it."

Falkenried's lips were drawn in with a bitter smile.

"I can readily believe that you, the cool, calculating diplomat, you,
whose every word is weighed, are protected against all such witcheries."

"I should at least be cautious in my choice. Your marriage carried
unhappiness on its face from the very beginning. A women of a foreign
race, with strange blood in her veins and the wild, passionate Sclave
nature, without character, without understanding of what we here call
duty and morality; and you with your rigid principles, with your
sensitive feeling of honor, it could ultimately lead to but one end. And
I believe you loved her in spite of all, until your separation."

"No," said Falkenried, in a hard tone, "the fire burned out in the first
year; I saw that only too clearly. But I shrank back from publishing to
the world my household misery by a legal separation. So I bore it until
no choice remained, until I was forced. But enough of this."

He turned abruptly on his heel and looked from the window again; but the
quick movement betrayed rather than concealed the torture which he with
difficulty repressed.

"Yes, it takes a great deal to tear up a nature like yours by the
roots," said Wallmoden earnestly. "But the divorce freed you from the
unhappy bond, and why should you not bury the memory as well?"

Falkenried shook his head and sighed heavily. "One cannot bury such
memories; they are forever rising from their supposed sepulchres, and
just now--" he broke off suddenly.

"Just now; what do you mean?"

"Nothing; let us speak of other things. You have been in Burgsdorf
since day before yesterday; how long do you expect to remain?"

"About two weeks. I haven't much time at my disposal, and am for that
matter only nominally Willibald's guardian, for my diplomatic position
keeps me out of the country most of the time. The guardianship really
rests in the hands of my sister, who rules over everything."

"Well, Regine is equal to the position. She governs the great estate and
the numerous servants as though she were a man."