came."

"Excuse me, what then do you want?" he asked gently.

"I had a suggestion for you."

Sonnenkamp composed himself to listen patiently, and nodded to her to
go on. She now said that she could not rest, she did not know whether
the Major had suggested it. Sonnenkamp broke off impatiently a
blossoming twig, and Fraeulein Milch continued,--she thought that the
Herr Captain Dournay might perhaps know where Roland was; they ought to
telegraph to him.

Sonnenkamp thanked the old dame with a very obliging smile, and said,
exercising great self-command, that he would wake up the Major, and
send him into the garden; but Fraeulein Milch begged that he might be
allowed to take his sleep quietly. She turned back to her house, and
Sonnenkamp walked on through the park.

The roses had bloomed out during the night, and from hundreds of stems
and bushes sent their fragrance to their owner, but he was not
refreshed by it. Here is the park, here are the trees, here is the
house, all this can be acquired, can be won. But one thing cannot be
won: a life, a child's life, a child's heart, a union of soul with
soul, which can never be sundered, and can never come to an end.

And again came to him that cutting sentence,--You have killed the
noblest impulses in your fellow-men, the feeling of father, and mother,
and child. Now it is you who suffer!

Why does the word of that opponent in the New World hover around him
to-day, today, as it did yesterday? Is that terrible man, perchance, on
board that boat which is now steaming up the stream in the first
morning light?

He could not imagine that, at this very moment, the child of this man
was speaking to his own child.

CHAPTER XII.

WHAT IS STIRRING BY NIGHT.

The roses in the garden, and in the youth's soul, all opened during the
night.

To Eric! Roland's open mouth would have said, but no sound was uttered,
he said it only to himself. It was a clear starlight-night, the waning
moon, in its third quarter, hung in the heavens, giving a soft light,
and Roland was penetrated with such a feeling of gladness, that he
often threw out his arms, as if they were wings with which he could
easily fly. He went at a quick pace, as if he were pursued; he heard
steps behind him, and stopped; it was only the echo of his own
footsteps.

At a distance a group of men, standing still, were waiting for him. He
came nearer; they wer