tent with the sofa, if Francis
will consent to my staying here."

"Very well," she answered; "only you must promise that to-morrow,
before daybreak, you will be far away. It is your father's birthday,
and there will be many visitors at the Castle."

"I will start early, I promise you, Francis."

"Well, I will once more trust to your word of honour. And now
good-bye. It is time for me to go; otherwise my absence will be
remarked upon by the gentlemen of the house."

"Take this purse, Francis; it is a little commencement of restitution;
I would I could offer you more, but I have not yet become a veritable
Yankee uncle. I have not discovered a gold mine. Accept at least what
I can return to you."

And he spread out the American greenbacks before her.

"Are they real ones, Rudolf?" she asked in a grave tone.

"By heavens, Francis, what do you mean by such a question? I
have committed many follies in my life--I have been a fool, a
ne'er-do-weel, a spendthrift, I am a deserter--but a forger of false
bank-notes! Francis, could you suspect me of such infamy?"

"I wish I had only suspicions, Rudolf; unfortunately I have the
proofs."

"The proofs!" he cried, in a sorrowful tone of voice; "but that's
impossible."

"What am I to think of the false letters of exchange in which you
forged your father's signature? We have got them under lock and key,
these terrible proofs, and they have cost us dear. I have pardoned
this fault with the rest, Rudolf; but facts are facts."

"It is impossible, I tell you!" he answered with firmness. "There
must be some terrible mistake in this case, and I trust you will
assist me in clearing it up. If my father believes that of me, I am
not surprised he should rejoice at my death, nor am I astonished you
despise me. However, I solemnly protest to you by all that's dear to
me, I am innocent, Francis."

"Yet these bills were presented to Baron von Zwenken, and we paid
them to prevent a lawsuit. It could not have affected you very much,
for you were in America; but my grandfather would have been obliged
to retire from the army."

"Francis, you are possessed of good, sound sense. How dared I have
committed such an offence just at the time I was in hiding near
Zutphen, at the moment when you were so generously raising funds
for my enterprise in America; nay, at the moment when my sincerest
desire was to carry my father's forgiveness with me into exile? Show
me these accursed bills, and I wil