were only speaking on indifferent topics. But when he had finished she
spoke out, saying that, as a rule, she was not the woman to meddle in
her husband's affairs, but that _this_ was a matter which concerned
herself as well. His notion that to quit the service now would make him
feel like a deserter and a scoundrel seemed to her utter unpractical
nonsense. He would be sacrificing a couple of years to a mere fancy.

Finally she produced her trump-card. She knew that the rural quiet of
the little station had wound itself round her husband's heart during
the week of trial he had already passed there. So she confessed her own
secret journey.

And she conquered.

Each could describe as well as the other the charms of the unassuming
little retreat. What one omitted the other supplied. Thus the picture
in the sergeant-major's mind was revived afresh, and in such vivid
colours that it regained its old power over him, dissipating the cloud
of self-reproachful doubt. He saw before him a calm bright future in
the narrow valley between wooded heights, and it came over him suddenly
that there in the stillness, where one could live in touch with nature,
he would for the first time begin really to live.

CHAPTER III

"I vow to thee my duty,
My heart and my hand,
O land of love and beauty,
My German fatherland!"
(_Massmann._)

Lieutenant Reimers had reported himself to the colonel of the regiment
and to the major.

These officers had given him a hearty welcome, each after his own
fashion.

Major Schrader, who never let pass an opportunity of making a joke,
received his report at first in a very stiff official manner, assuring
him with a frown that he was very loth to have in his division officers
who had been in disgrace; then almost fell on his neck, and asked him
if it were true that the Kaffir girls had such an abominable smell.

Colonel Falkenhein gave him only a prolonged handshake; but Reimers
could read the great gladness in his eyes.

The colonel had treated the young man almost as a son; and a year
before, when the doctors had sent Reimers to Egypt as a consumptive
patient with a very doubtful prospect of recovery, had seen him depart
with a heavy heart. Now, looking upon him onc