“I should never have believed you would espouse Zalika’s cause.  Once I injured you deeply for her sake.  I tore asunder a bond—­”

“Which never had been united,” broke in Frau von Eschenhagen, anxious to avoid the subject.  “It was only a plan of our parents, nothing more.”

“But the thought was a familiar and cherished one in our childhood’s years.  Do not seek to shield me, Regine, I know only too well how I treated you then—­and myself too.”

Regine looked straight at him with her clear, gray eyes, but there was something like moisture in them as she answered: 

“Well, well, Hartmut, it’s all over now, so many years that I do not hesitate to admit that I would have had you then, willingly enough, and perhaps you would have been able to make something more out of me than I have become.  I was always a headstrong creature, you know, and not easily ruled, but I should have obeyed you, perhaps you alone, of all the world.  But when Willibald Eschenhagen led me to the altar three months after your own marriage, the situation was reversed, and I took the reins in my own hands and began to govern, and have had plenty of practice since then.  But let’s not talk of that time so long gone by.  I never have borne any grudge against you, you know that; we have always been friends in spite of everything, and if you want my assistance or advice now—­here I am.”

She held out her hand and he placed his own in it.

“I know it, Regine, but in this matter I can only help and advise myself.  If you will send Hartmut to me now, I’ll speak with him.”

Frau von Eschenhagen arose at once to fulfil his wish, but as she left the room she murmured half aloud: 

“If it be not already too late.  She blinded the father and made him almost insane once; she has surely done as much for the son by this time.”

In about ten minutes Hartmut entered; he closed the door behind him, but remained standing near it.  Falkenried turned to him.  “Come near, Hartmut, I wish to speak with you.”

His son obeyed, but reluctantly.  He knew already that Willibald had confessed, and that Regine had summoned his father at once, but, united to the shyness with which he always approached his father, there was to-day an obvious defiance, which did not escape the Major.  He gave his handsome young son a long, gloomy look.

“My sudden arrival does not appear to surprise you.  Perhaps you know why I am come!”

“Yes father, I imagine why!”

“That is well; then we need waste no time with explanatory words.  You have learned that your mother still lives, she has seen you and spoken with you.  I know that already.  When did you see her first?”

“Five days ago.”

“And have you seen her daily since then?”

“Yes, at the Burgsdorf fish pond?”

Questions and answers were alike short and precise.  Hartmut was accustomed to the abrupt, military manner of his father, for in all his intercourse with him, no superfluous word, no hesitancy or evasion of an answer, was permitted.