kiss,--and now the opportunity has passed for time and
eternity!'

'Let it be past!' cried Arwed, 'I cannot outwardly honor what I
inwardly despise.'

'You will soon leave the royal service then;' grumbled the colonel:
'for in that service cases of the kind may often occur.'

'Have you any further need of me, colonel?' asked Arwed, his glance
impatiently turning towards the palace of Goertz.

'For to-night, no,' answered Brenner. 'But come to my quarters early in
the morning. We will then make arrangements for our return, I will not
trouble you to go with me to the governor's. After the captious remarks
which he let fall he might have various dangerous questions to ask
you--and if your hitherto passive awkwardness should become active, I
might in the end have cause to repent my willingness to take you with
me.'

'If I, however,' asked Arwed, seized with a sudden presentiment,
'should have occasion to set out upon a journey to-night, would you
give me a furlough upon my word of honor to appear at the camp before
Frederickshall in eight days?'

'Come not to me with such a strange request!' cried the colonel with
vehemence. 'I have no authority nor power to grant you such a
furlough.'

'But when the object is to save a good man?' asked Arwed earnestly,
seizing the colonel's hand and looking anxiously in his face with his
beautiful clear eyes.

The colonel gave him a piercing glance from under his gray bushy
eye-brows. But the severity of his eye soon melted into a more kindly
expression. 'My old friend Duecker is well disposed towards you,' said
he: 'and there is no falsehood in your face. I see that you are one who
will keep your word. Go upon your own terms whither you will.'

'May God reward you!' cried Arwed, hastening away.

CHAPTER XII.

Dark and gigantic in the evening dusk arose the proud palace of the
baron von Goertz, and the unlighted windows and the perfect silence
which reigned in and about it gave it the unpleasant appearance of a
deserted spectre-castle. Only in one room shone a dull light which
resembled the blue flame that burns in ruins over buried treasures.

'That is Georgina's light,' said Arwed to himself, agitated with the
conflicting emotions of sorrow and joy. He pushed open a little side
door near the great portal, and creeping softly up the deserted stairs
passed through the echoing corridors towards Georgina's chamber. As he
entered he saw hi