eck.
You can send me word there, and I'll be in the city in a few hours."

"As you please. Will you not go to Rodeck castle?"

Hartmut give him a long, sorrowful glance.

"No, I will stay at the forestry. Farewell, Egon."

"Farewell!"

So they parted without one pressure of the hand, without one cordial
word, these two who had been more than brothers, and as the door closed
between them Hartmut knew that he had lost the dearest friend of his
life. Here, too, he had been judged and sentenced! Surely his punishment
was being meted out to him with no scant measure!

CHAPTER XV.

A dark, misty vapor enveloped the forest like a veil, and from time to
time the rain fell in torrents. The tree tops swayed in the wind, and
the raw, wet atmosphere reminded one of November rather than of
midsummer.

The mistress of Ostwalden was in her forest home and alone; she had
received news from her brother telling her he would march at once, and
as her journey to Berlin to see him would be futile, she had been
persuaded to remain in the south until after Willibald's marriage. The
marriage had been a very quiet, simple affair, and Marietta had
accompanied her husband to Berlin, where he was to join his regiment,
and when he marched, she was to go to Burgsdorf, where her mother-in-law
was again established.

Early one morning Prince Adelsberg drove over to Ostwalden.

He had obtained a day's leave that he might give some necessary orders
at Rodeck, but it was toward Ostwalden not Rodeck that he ordered the
horses' heads to be turned. He came to say good-bye to Adelheid, whom he
had not seen again since that first visit.

When he reached Ostwalden, he found its mistress away on some errand of
mercy, and he was ushered into a reception room to await her return. He
paced the room restlessly, thinking of many things, of the struggle for
life or death which lay before him, of the morrow's march, but mainly of
the beautiful woman whose face had warmed with fire and sympathetic
light while discussing his friend, of her dignity, her goodness and
gentleness, and his heart was filled with the hope that he might take
with him some word, some assurance to make him feel that when the strife
was over he could return to peace--and her. He had no foreboding that
the warmth and fire had not been from sympathy with him.

But in spite of everything, a shadow lay upon the sunny young face. It
was not the war which troubled him, he went int