od, Schumann, the van is ready. Here
are the keys. It's quite time for me to go to the station, isn't it?"

Schumann looked at his watch and growled: "Certainly, quite!"

"Then I'll be off," said the little woman.

But she remained standing in the middle of the room, seemingly unable
to tear herself away.

"Dear, dear!" she said, "for years I have wished to leave this place,
and now that we are really going I feel quite sad; don't you,
Schumann?"

The sergeant-major muttered something unintelligible. If it had
depended on him the house would not now have been empty and the
furniture-van before the door. It was his wife who had worried him into
it, and yet now probably she would begin to snivel.

Indeed, she had just taken her handkerchief out of her pocket and
raised it to her eyes, when suddenly her face changed: "Good gracious!
our bean-poles are still in the garden! I'm not going to leave them
behind. Fancy it's only occurring to me now!"

She was hurrying out. But the sergeant-major got in the way and held up
his watch in her face.

"Look here!" he said. "If you don't stir your stumps you'll miss your
train."

She was alarmed: "Good heavens, yes, of course! I'm going. Good bye,
Schumann! Look after everything, and--and--good bye."

Standing on tiptoe she reached up for a kiss from her husband and was
quickly out of the door.

Schumann drew a long breath. She was his dear wife, but now that he had
to say farewell to the battery he preferred to be alone, without her.

He stood still in the doorway.

A driver had just brought two horses out of the stable and was
harnessing them to the furniture van.

Schumann had not taken much to do with the horses of late years; he
knew that they were thoroughly well cared for under Heppner's
superintendence, and the deputy sergeant-major was rather apt to resent
any interference with his department. But he would have failed in his
duty if he had not, in spite of this, kept himself informed of all that
concerned the horses; if, in fact, he had not been individually
acquainted with each one of them.

Sergeant Schumann went down the steps. He must begin his
leave-taking--so he would first say good-bye to the horses.

Slowly he passed between the stalls. At that moment the strong smell of
the stable seemed to him more delicious than the most fragrant scent,
more delicious than the resinous forest breeze which blew through the
valley where the little station of the m