one but you;
I have already dismissed the man who was employed by me. But now, one
question. Were you not, voluntarily, employed in the House of
Correction?"

"Why do you ask, since the asking tells me that you already know?"

"And do you think that you can now be Roland's preceptor?"

"Why not?"

"Do you think that it will not revolt the boy, or at least deeply wound
him, when he shall at some time learn by chance, that he is under a man
who has had the management of convicts?"

"Roland will not learn this by chance. I shall tell him myself, and he
will have understanding enough to perceive that this is no degradation
of my personal worth, but--I say it with all modesty--an exaltation of
it. With my own free will, and holding an honorable position, I desired
to devote myself to my fallen fellow-men; and I can only regret that I
must acknowledge myself to have no talent for this. I am of the
conviction that every man, whatever he has done, can become once more
pure and noble; I was not able, unfortunately, in that position, to
carry out my conviction."

Sonnenkamp listened, with closed eyes; he nodded, and thought that he
must say something laudatory to Eric, but he did not seem able to bring
it out.

At last he said,--

"I have introduced this matter only to show you that I keep nothing in
reserve; we are now, I hope, of one mind. Might I ask you to call the
Major, and let me join the ladies?"

The Major came, and when Eric was alone with him, naturally related
first of all the terrors of the extra train, and that the clattering
was no longer a perceptible beat, but one continued rumble. He knew how
to imitate it very exactly, and to give the precise difference of sound
when going by the stations, and the mountains, and over the dikes.

Eric could have replied that he was accurately acquainted with the
road; he had gone over it a few days before, without speaking a word,
engaged in his own meditations, but the Major did not suffer himself to
be interrupted; he asserted that no one had ever before so rode, and no
one would ever ride so again, so long as Europe had its iron rails, for
Sonnenkamp had fired up after the American fashion.

Then he said,--

"I have come to know Herr Sonnenkamp very thoroughly, since his son
went away. I have, indeed, no son, and cannot enter completely into his
way of expressing himself, but such lamentation, such reproaches
against himself, such raving, such cursing,--our h