s.

Zalika had, as might be supposed, cast all the blame of the separation
upon her husband and his countless tyrannies, and her son, who had
suffered so much from his father's austerity, gave a willing ear to all
her tirades. And yet these few short, earnest words had more effect than
all Zalika's passionate outbreaks. Hartmut felt instinctively on which
side the truth lay.

"And now, to the main point," Falkenried went on. "What was the tenor of
your daily interviews?"

Perhaps Hartmut had not expected this question; a deep red overspread
his face, he was silent and cast his eyes on the ground.

"Ah, you do not care to repeat it. I desire to know it. I command you
to answer me!"

But Hartmut was still silent; he only pressed his lips closer together,
and looked defiantly at his father, who had come close to him now.

"You will not speak? Perhaps a command from the other side keeps you
silent? No matter, your silence tells me more than any words. I see how
much you are estranged from me already; a little longer with such
influences, and you would be lost to me forever. These meetings with
your mother are now at an end. I forbid you to see her again. You will
go home with me to-day and remain under my protection. Whether that
appears cruel to you or not, it must be, and you must obey."

But the Major erred when he believed his son would, as formerly, bow to
his stern decree. Hartmut had been for the past few days in a school
where all the antagonism of his nature had been aroused against his
father.

"Father, you cannot, you dare not order me thus," he cried out now in
great excitement. "It is my own mother whom I have found at last, the
only one in the whole world who loves me. I will not be separated from
her again as I once was. I will not be forced to hate her; threaten,
punish me, do what you will with me, but I will not obey this time, I
will not obey!"

All the ungovernable passion of his nature broke out in these words; an
unearthly fire gleamed in his eyes, and his hands were clenched; every
fiber quivered in wild revolt; he was resolved to fight out this battle
with his father to the bitter end.

But the burst of anger which he expected did not come. Falkenried looked
silently at him, but with a glance of earnest, sad reproof.

"The only one in the whole world who loves you," he repeated slowly.
"You seem to forget that you have a father."

"Who has never loved me," cried Hartmut with excessive