ts nail in the passage.

For a moment he stood listening. The Heppner baby was crying; the
soothing murmurs of its mother could be plainly heard: "Sh, sh!"

He stepped back on tiptoe, drew the door gently to, and began hastily
to undress. Then he lay down quietly in bed, taking pains not to make
the bedstead creak.

His precautions were superfluous; Albina slept soundly. An earthquake
would hardly have awakened her.

The deputy sergeant-major lay and listened. He could only hear the
beating of his own heart, and through the wall the muffled sound of the
child's crying.

"Widow and orphan," he thought.

The wailing voice subsided by degrees. The child had fallen asleep, or
the mother had taken it to her breast.

Its father was lying up there on the hill-side, his huge body blocking
the pathway.

Schellhorn, the fat paymaster of the regiment, whom Surgeon-major
Andreae sent every spring to Carlsbad for a cure, found the corpse
during his early morning constitutional.

He hastened to the barracks and gave the alarm.

After all particulars had been noted, the dead man was carried away.
Four gunners bore the heavy body down the hill on a stretcher, and laid
it on the bed in the Heppners' dwelling, the poor wife looking on with
bewildered eyes.

There was no doubt as to the case being one of suicide. The direction
of the shot, as shown by the post-mortem examination, was not against
this theory; but the most unmistakable proof lay in the motive for the
deed, which was only too clear. From the various cash-boxes under the
charge of the deceased one hundred and twenty marks were missing.

Sergeant-major Heppner, in dread of this being discovered, had shot
himself.

The colonel, Major Schrader, and Captain von Wegstetten unanimously
decided to hush up the affair, in view of the certain censure of the
higher authorities; and Schrader replaced the missing sum without more
ado.

Heppner's gambling companions were seriously warned.

Sergeant-major Blechschmidt, who was most to blame, received an
official intimation that he must not count upon a further term of
service.

Finally the widow was informed that her husband had committed suicide
in a moment of temporary mental aberration.

A few days after the funeral Heimert was installed in Heppner's place.

It gave him an immense deal of trouble to fulfil his new duties, and
yet no man could have set himself to the task more zealously and
conscientiously.