Again there was a short pause, and the prince was thinking how he should say what lay nearest his heart, when Frau von Wallmoden asked a question, speaking indifferently, but with a slight falling in her voice.

“When I last saw your highness you were in doubt about your friend’s whereabouts.  Has he given any signs of life yet?”

Egon’s eyes fell to the ground, and the shadows which had disappeared when the baroness entered the room, come back now, darker than ever.

“Yes!” he answered coldly.  “Rojanow is again in Germany.”

“Since the declaration of the war?”

“Yes, he came—­”

“In order to enter the army?  O, I knew it!”

The prince looked at her in great surprise.

“You knew it, baroness?  I supposed you only knew Hartmut through me, and considered him a Roumanian!”

The young widow’s face flushed as she realised how unwise she had been to make this outcry, but she answered quickly: 

“I learned to know who Herr Rojanow was last winter when he was at Rodeck.  I have known his father, however, for many long years, and the—­I take it for granted that your highness knows the whole story?”

“Yes, I know it all,” said Egon in a hopeless tone.

“Colonel Falkenried was a near friend of my father, and a constant guest at our house.  I had never heard of his son, and took it for granted that he was childless, until that frightful hour at Rodeck, on the day of my husband’s death.  I was witness to the painful conversation between father and son.”

The young prince breathed more freely; and an uncomfortable, suspicious feeling was set at rest for the moment.

“Now I understand your interest and sympathy,” he responded.  “Colonel Falkenried is to be pitied indeed.”

“Why he?” inquired Adelheid, struck by the hard tone.  “And how about your friend?”

“I have no friend.  I have lost him,” cried Egon with a passionate burst.  “What he told me two days ago made a break between us, but what I have since heard has parted us forever.”

“You judge a seventeen year old boy—­he could not have been much older—­very severely.”

There was deep reproof in Adelheid’s voice as she spoke, but the prince shook his head passionately.

“I’m not speaking of his flight, or his broken word, though they were both bad enough, considering he was an officer’s son, but what I learned yesterday—­I see, my dear madam, you do not know the worst.  How should you?  I should not have spoken.”

“I beg your highness,” began Adelheid again, “to tell me the truth.  You say that Rojanow has come back to enter the army.  I am not surprised.  I expected it, for it was the only thing left for him to do to expiate his old fault.  Does he march beneath our colors yet?”

“So far he has not been able to gain admission, and I have been saved a fearful responsibility,” said Egon, with intense bitterness.  “He endeavored to get into several regiments but was refused every time.”