him in
leaving the garrison, since she did not feel sure of a cordial
reception on his part. Hence she had sent her little son to her
parents, while she herself had taken up quarters in Berlin. Her chief
amusement just now consisted in the inditing of innumerable letters to
Kolberg, full of reproaches for "having succeeded by his diabolical
arts in alienating her affections from her husband," while the leisure
she could spare from these epistolary efforts was devoted to roaming
that broad international thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, which
presented to her, after her long "exile" close to the frontier, a
striking and highly appreciated contrast.

Kahle was firmly resolved to show the door to his faithless wife if
she should dare present herself before him; meanwhile he took
preliminary steps to obtain a legal separation from her.

But there was another thought heavy on his mind. It was the
unavoidable duel. Because his wife had deceived him, the army code
forced him to next expose himself to the bullet of her seducer,
instead of simply expelling the latter from the army and giving him a
much-needed period of reflection in jail.

He was expected to "save the honor of his wife" by mortal combat.

What an absurdity! he thought to himself. Is there any honor left in a
wife who deceives her husband? A coquette she was, heartless and
honorless, nothing more, and yet he must risk his life in defence of a
thing which did not exist any longer, and which, he now strongly
suspected, had from the first been nothing but a delusion on his
part--her honor! What a ludicrous farce!

And he began to reflect whether there was not some way in which he
could escape this impending duel. Not because he was a coward or
afraid of death; no, he was brave enough, but he could not see why he
should expose to blind chance not only the fruits of his own arduous
life, but also the future of his son, merely because another man had
acted in a despicable manner. It was quite possible that his adversary
might kill him in this duel. In that case he, the innocent party,
would suffer the supreme penalty which man can suffer,--death,--and
the criminal himself would go off scot-free.

But reflection showed him clearly that there was no way to avoid
mortal combat, for, if he refused or neglected to send a challenge to
the other, the Council of Honor was bound under the code to dismiss
him from the army, because, forsooth, he did not know how to "protec