mind he was obliged to admit that he could not greatly regret this. It
was indeed better so. The delightful intimate relations between himself
and those dear people had already been destroyed by scarcely
perceptible degrees.

The thought of Marie Falkenhein weighed on him the least heavily. When
he had once got over the first bitter sorrow at his ill fortune he
thought of her, strangely enough, with no desperate longing, but rather
with a feeling of shame. The young girl did not represent the immediate
necessity of his life which he now found lacking. That lay in a
different sphere.

For this reason he was glad that Falkenhein and Guentz had left the
garrison. No one should be there to see how the guiding star which he
had followed so ardently all his days was now setting in diminished
glory: no one should be by when his whole life suffered shipwreck.

The regiment was now under orders to march to the practice-camp. A few
days before the departure Reimers ordered his man to bring him his
portmanteau.

He wanted to see if the faithful old trunk, which had accompanied him
on all his travels, was still in proper condition. It needed no
attention.

"Shall I take off the labels?" asked his servant. "Then perhaps, I
could freshen it up a little with varnish."

The trunk displayed a vast number of hotel and luggage labels. His
journey to Egypt, in particular, had left brightly-coloured traces.

Reimers stood buried in thought. Suddenly he observed the waiting
servant.

"Yes, of course," he said; "see to it."

He had been thinking of his return from that long furlough.

What renewed vigour he had then felt in every limb! With what
exhilaration he had set foot on the quay at Hamburg, his first step on
German soil after a whole long year in foreign lands! He would have
liked to fall on the neck of the first gunner he met; and he could
hardly wait for the moment when he might again don the unpretending
coat that outshone in his eyes the most gorgeous robe of state in the
world, attired in which he might again perform the dear old wearisome
duty.

Were those high hopes to end in this sordid fashion?

He recollected how, amidst the jubilation of his home-coming, he had
been disquieted by a presentiment of evil, a visionary dream that now
confronted him in such cruel reality.

It was during his first visit to Frau von Gropphusen that the shadow
had fallen upon him. He saw the room again before him in the dim light