n
of being two men one of whom twice owes his life to the other."

"Ah, but you forget to consider what unending kindness I too owe--I, a
stranger in a strange land; nor what your example, your society, have
been to me."

"Thank you, Rene; I could gather more of good from you than you from
me."

"Oh, sir!"

"Yes, yes; but all that I have said is but to lead up to the wide
obligation to be frank with me."

"I shall be."

"When I was ill I babbled. I was sometimes half-conscious, and was as
one man helplessly watching another on the rack telling about him things
he had no mind to hear spoken."

"You wandered much, sir."

"Then did I speak of a woman?"

"Yes; and of courts and battles."

"Did I speak of--did I use my own name, my title? Of course you know
that I am not Herr Schmidt."

"Yes; many have said that."

"You heard my name, my title?"

"Yes; I heard them."

For a minute there was silence. Then Schmidt said: "There are reasons
why it must be a secret--perhaps for years or always. I am Graf von
Ehrenstein; but I am more than that--much more and few even in Germany
know me by that name. And I did say so?"

"Yes, sir."

"It must die in your memory, my son, as the priests say of what is heard
in confession."

This statement, which made clear a good deal of what De Courval had
heard in the German's delirium, was less singular to him than it would
have seemed to-day. More than one mysterious titled person of importance
came to the city under an assumed name, and went away leaving no one the
wiser.

"It is well," continued Schmidt, "that you, who are become so dear to
me, should know my story. I shall make it brief."

"Soon after my marriage, a man of such position as sometimes permits men
to insult with impunity spoke of my wife so as to cause me to demand an
apology. He fell back on his higher rank, and in my anger I struck him
on the parade-ground at Potsdam while he was reviewing his regiment. A
lesser man than I would have lost his life for what I did. I was sent to
the fortress of Spandau, where for two years I had the freedom of the
fortress, but was rarely allowed to hear from my wife or to write. Books
I did have, as I desired, and there I learned my queer English from my
only English books, Shakespeare and the Bible."

"Ah, now I understand," said De Courval; "but it is not Shakespeare you
talk. Thanks to you, I know him."

"No, not quite; who could? After two years my father's int