“How did it happen you were not an officer?” continued Egon.  “The cadets are promoted while very young in the north!  Then in a few years you could have resigned.  Just at the age, too, when life was beginning, and been free—­with honor.”

Hartmut was dumb; that was what his father had said to him once, but he would not wait.  The barriers were an obstruction, and he threw them down, not recking that he trampled duty and honor in the dust at the same time.

“You do not understand how many things pressed upon me at the time,” he explained with difficulty.  “My mother—­I will not complain, but she has been my fate.  My father was divorced from her when I was little more than a baby, and I thought she was dead.  Then suddenly she appeared in my life and I was tossed and torn by her hot mother love and her extravagant promises of freedom and happiness.  She alone is accountable for my broken word—­”

“What broken word?” asked Egon, excitedly.  “You had not yet taken the oath?”

“No, but I had promised my father to return, when he permitted me a last interview with my mother.”

“And instead of doing so, you ran away with her?”

“Yes.”

The answer was almost inaudible, and then followed a long pause.  The young prince spoke no word, but a deep, bitter pain lay on his sunny face, the bitterest of his lifetime, for in this minute he lost the friend he had loved so passionately.

Hartmut began again, but did not look at his friend while he spoke.

“Now you understand why I will force myself into the army at any price.  On the battle-field I can expiate my boyhood’s offense.  When I saw in Sicily that war was imminent, I flew in haste to Germany.  I hoped to be able to enter the service at once.  I did not dream of the difficulties which I should encounter; but you can help me if you will.”

“No, I cannot,” said Egon, coldly.  “After what I now know it would be an impossibility.”

Hartmut grew pale to his very lips as he stepped excitedly before him.

“You cannot?  That means you will not.”

The prince was silent.

“Egon”—­there was a tone of wild entreaty in his voice.  “You know I have never asked a favor of you, this is the first and last, but now I beg, I implore your friendship.  It is my release from the fatality which has followed me since that hour.  It means reconciliation to my father, reconciliation to myself—­you must help me!”

“I cannot,” repeated the prince, solemnly.  “The repulses which you have received are hard to bear, I doubt not, but they are right.  You have broken faith with your country and with duty.  You fled from the service—­you, an officer’s son—­so it is closed against you—­and you must bear it.”