e wrote directly on a card to Herr Sonnenkamp, begging him to make no
engagement, as a highly educated gentleman, formerly an artillery
officer, was about to apply in person for the situation. He carefully
avoided speaking as a personal friend of the applicant, as he wished to
take no decided step without his sister's approval.

The card was sent off immediately, and Pranken played for some minutes
with the india-rubber strap of his pocket-book, before putting it back
into his pocket.

CHAPTER IV.

COMRADES WITHOUT COMRADESHIP.

Seated in an open carriage, the two young men were soon winding along a
road which led up the mountain. The air was full of dewy freshness, and
high above the vineyards the nightingales in the leafy woods poured
forth a constant flood of melody. The two men sat silent. Each knew
that the other had come within the circle of his destiny, but could not
anticipate what would be the consequence.

Eric took off his hat, and as Pranken looked at his handsome face with
its commanding, self-reliant expression, it seemed to him that he had
never really seen it before; a thrill of alarm passed through him, as
he began to realize that he was forming ties whose results could not be
foreseen. His face now darkened with anger and scorn, now brightened
with benevolence and good-humored smiles; he murmured to himself some
unintelligible words, and burst forth at intervals into an inexplicable
fit of laughter.

"It is truly astonishing, most astonishing!" he said to himself. "I
could hardly have believed it of you, my good Otto, that you could be
so generous and self-forgetful, so wholly and completely a friend.
People have always told you, and you have had the conceit yourself,
that through all your whims you were better than you would own to
yourself. Shame on you, that you would not recognize your innocence and
virtue! Here you are showing yourself a friend, a brother, a most noble
minister of destiny to another, who is a bit of humanity, nothing but
pure humanity, in a full beard. All his thoughts are elevated and
manly, but a good salary pleases even his noble manliness."

Pranken laid his head back on the cushions of the carriage, and looked
smiling up to the sky. He resolved to take good care that this specimen
of noble manhood, who was sitting by him in the carriage, should not
thwart his plans, and that what he could not bring about himsel