s a name, I suppose?"

"Certainly, but--"

"Is it sufficiently important, think you, to make us run the risk of
being benighted on such roads as these?"

"Why, it is quite early in the day."

"But we have more than two leagues to go. Why will you not speak? there
can not be any great mystery."

"Well, perhaps not a mystery exactly, but just one of those subjects on
which we are usually reserved with others."

"So! so!" rejoined D'Effernay, with a little sneer. "Some love affair;
some girl or another who pursues him, that he wants to get rid of."

"Nothing of the kind, I can assure you," replied the captain, drily. "It
could scarcely be more innocent. He wishes, in fact, to visit his
friend's grave."

The listener's expression was one of scorn and anger. "It is worth the
trouble, certainly," he exclaimed, with a mocking laugh. "A charming
sentimental pilgrimage, truly; and pray who is this beloved friend, over
whose resting-place he must shed a tear, and plant a forget-me-not? He
told me he had never been in the neighborhood before."

"No more he had; neither did he know where poor Hallberg was buried
until I told him."

"Hallberg!" echoed the other in a tone that startled the captain, and
caused him to turn and look fixedly in the speaker's face. It was deadly
pale, and the captain observed the effort which D'Effernay made to
recover his composure.

"Hallberg!" he repeated again, in a calmer tone, "and was Wensleben a
friend of his?"

"His bosom friend from childhood. They were brought up together at the
academy. Hallberg left it a year earlier than his friend."

"Indeed!" said D'Effernay, scowling as he spoke, and working himself up
into a passion. "And this lieutenant came here on this account, then,
and the purchase of the estates was a mere excuse?"

"I beg your pardon," observed the captain, in a decided tone of voice;
"I have already told you that it was I who informed him of the place
where his friend lies buried."

"That may be, but it was owing to his friendship, to the wish to learn
something further of his fate, that we are indebted for the visit of
this romantic knight-errant."

"That does not appear likely," replied the captain, who thought it
better to avert, if possible, the rising storm of his companion's fury.
"Why should he seek for news of Hallberg here, when he comes from the
place where he was quartered for a long time, and where all his comrades
now are."

"Well, I don't know