Said one of the officers:  “And it is the express command of General Ducwitz that you will return here under the pain of death.  Is that explicit?”

“It is.”  The colonel got into his compartment and slammed the door viciously.

In the next compartment sat Grumbach.  He was smoking his faithful pipe.  He was, withal, content.  This was far more satisfactory than standing up before the firing-line.  And, besides, he had made history in Ehrenstein that night; they would not forget the name of Breunner right away.  To America, with a clean slate and a reposeful conscience; it was more than he had any reasonable right to expect.  Tekla!  He laughed sardonically.  She was no doubt sound asleep by this time, and the end of the chapter would never be written for her.  What fools these young men a-courting were!  War and famine and pestilence; did these not always follow at the heels of women?

As the station-master’s bell rang, the door opened and a man jumped in.  He tossed his bag into the corner and plumped down in the seat.

“Captain?”

“You, Hans?”

“Yes.  Where are you going?”

“I am weary of Dreiberg, so I am taking a little vacation.”

“For how long?” suspiciously.

“Oh, for ever so long!” evasively.  And Carmichael lifted his feet to the opposite seat and prepared to go to sleep.

Hans said nothing more.  He was full of wisdom.  He had an idea.  The fleeing chancellor and his daughter were on the train, and he was certain that his friend Carmichael knew it.

The lights of the city presently vanished, and the long journey began, through the great clefts in the mountains, over gorges, across rivers, along wide valleys, and into the mountains again; a journey of nearly seventy hours.  At each stop Carmichael got out, and every time he returned Hans could read disappointment on his face.  Still he said nothing.  He was an admirable comrade.

By the aid of certain small briberies on the train and in Paris Carmichael gathered, bit by bit, that the destination of the woman he loved was America.  But never once did he set eyes upon her till she and her father mounted the gang-plank to the vessel which was to carry them across the wide Atlantic.  The change in Herbeck was pitiable.  His face had aged twenty years in these sixty odd hours.  His clothes, the same he had worn that ever-memorable night, hung loosely about his gaunt frame, and there was a vacancy in his eyes which was eloquent of mental collapse.  The girl quietly and tenderly guided him to the deck and thence to his stateroom.  Carmichael abided his time.

A French newspaper contained a full account of Herbeck’s coup and his subsequent flight.  It also recounted the excitement of the following day, the appearance of Gretchen on the steps of the palace, and the great shouting of the people as they acclaimed her the queen of Jugendheit.