must have no past; and now his future is to be taken from
him!

"Am I to have no son because I was no son?" he cried once, but quickly
controlling himself he added: "Do not heed me, dear lady; I am speaking
myself like a man in fever."

The Mother begged him to compose himself, for she was sure that by the
mysterious laws of sympathy, any excitement in those about him would
react upon the patient.

In the stillness of the night the Mother sat by the boy's sick-bed,
listening to the chimes that rang out the hours from the church tower;
and these bells, heard in the night by the sick-bed of the poor rich
boy, brought up her own life before her.

Eric often reproached himself for his too great indulgence, in having
allowed Roland to be drawn into that whirl of excitement which was now
perhaps killing him; and he remembered that day in the cold gallery
before the Niobe, when the fever first showed itself. He was another
whom the Mother had to soothe. She alone preserved a firm balance, and
offered a support on which all others could lean. She handed Eric the
letter she had received from Professor Einsiedel on New Year's day, and
asked about the scientific work which she had not before heard of. Eric
explained how it had all come about. His mother perceived that he had
yet learned nothing of Sonnenkamp's past life, and took care to tell
him nothing, thinking he ought not to have the additional burden of
such knowledge at this time of anxiety for the sick boy, and of
increased difficulties in the way of his training.

In obedience to Dr. Richard's strict directions, the Mother often went
out to visit her old friends, among them the wife of the Minister of
War, and was greatly comforted at learning that Eric could have a
professorship in the school of cadets, when Roland entered the academy.
She always returned home greatly cheered from these visits.

Eric, too, made calls, spending many hours with Clodwig. Bella he
seldom saw, and then but for a short time; she evidently avoided now
any interview with him alone.

Pranken took great offence at Eric's mother having been sent for
without his advice; these Dournays seemed to him to be weaving a net
about the Sonnenkamp family. He came sometimes to inquire for Roland,
but spent most of his time at Herr von Endlich's, in the society of the
young widow lately returned from Madeira.

Much as Eric had desired to become better acquainted with Weidmann, the
whirl of society h