“I fear you accomplish little by this same severity,” interrupted Wallmoden.  “You should take my advice and leave your son to his studies.  He has not the qualifications for a soldier.  You must see that for yourself by this time.”

“He shall and must acquire those qualifications.  It is the only possible career for such an intractable nature as his, which revolts at every restraint and to which every duty is a burden.  The life of a student at the university would give him unrestrained liberty; only the iron dicipline of the service will force him to bend.”

“The only question is, how long will you be able to force him to do your will?  You should not deceive yourself; there are inherited tendencies which will not allow themselves to be repressed or eradicated.  Hartmut, now, is in appearance the counterpart of his mother; he has her features and her eyes.”

“Yes,” assented Falkenried gloomily, “her dark, demoniacal, glowing eyes, which cast their spell upon all who knew her.”

“And were your ruin,” supplemented Wallmoden.  “How often did I warn and advise you then; but you would not listen.  Your passion had seized you like a fever and held you like chains.  I declare I never have been able to understand it.”

Falkenried’s lips were drawn in with a bitter smile.

“I can readily believe that you, the cool, calculating diplomat, you, whose every word is weighed, are protected against all such witcheries.”

“I should at least be cautious in my choice.  Your marriage carried unhappiness on its face from the very beginning.  A women of a foreign race, with strange blood in her veins and the wild, passionate Sclave nature, without character, without understanding of what we here call duty and morality; and you with your rigid principles, with your sensitive feeling of honor, it could ultimately lead to but one end.  And I believe you loved her in spite of all, until your separation.”

“No,” said Falkenried, in a hard tone, “the fire burned out in the first year; I saw that only too clearly.  But I shrank back from publishing to the world my household misery by a legal separation.  So I bore it until no choice remained, until I was forced.  But enough of this.”

He turned abruptly on his heel and looked from the window again; but the quick movement betrayed rather than concealed the torture which he with difficulty repressed.

“Yes, it takes a great deal to tear up a nature like yours by the roots,” said Wallmoden earnestly.  “But the divorce freed you from the unhappy bond, and why should you not bury the memory as well?”

Falkenried shook his head and sighed heavily.  “One cannot bury such memories; they are forever rising from their supposed sepulchres, and just now—­” he broke off suddenly.

“Just now; what do you mean?”

“Nothing; let us speak of other things.  You have been in Burgsdorf since day before yesterday; how long do you expect to remain?”