custody of his
child. This, while it gave him at least an object in life, was for a
man in his circumstances an additional grave burden; for his little
son was still of that tender age to require a woman's constant
ministrations.

The small fortune which his divorced wife had brought into their
marriage had, of course, been handed back to her by the law.

And why had all this misfortune overtaken him?

Because the army code and social conventions had bidden him to save as
much of the "honor" of his wife as he could. To this mistaken idea he
had been sacrificed.

And Kolberg was domiciled by the vine-clad borders of the Rhine, and
in his new garrison led a life as dissipated and as free of care as he
had in his former one.

CHAPTER VII

AN AIRY STRUCTURE COLLAPSES

Seated at his desk in his elegantly furnished apartments, we see First
Lieutenant Borgert.

Before him lay a large sheet of paper covered with rows of figures,
and all around him whole mountains of documents, bills, and
vari-colored envelopes.

One after another he took up these bits of paper, and from them noted
down amounts on the big sheet. He had already reached the third column
when he suddenly ceased his labors and threw the pencil disgustedly
away. Then he grasped the whole pile and threw it into the fire, where
in a few moments it was consumed in the leaping flame and reduced to a
tiny mass of ashes.

His laudable purpose had been to go through all the claims against
him, so far as they had been presented. Usually his simple method was
to throw bills, as they reached him, into the stove; but for once he
had been curious to find out how much he really owed in the world, or
at least to gain an approximate idea of his indebtedness.

But we have seen that he gave it up as an impossible task. To tread
the mazes of these bundles of dunning letters, plaints, simple bills,
and formal orders issued to him by the colonel to discharge certain
debts submitted to his authority, was more than Borgert felt himself
equal to, especially as the conviction had very soon dawned on him
that his was labor lost. This much had become quite clear: to pay his
debts was impossible, for their total rose far and away above his
surmises. When he had left off in sheer disgust, the neat little sum
of eleven thousand marks had been reached, and to that had to be added
the other mountain of bills which he had just consigned to the flames.

Most of all, the sev