who had just emerged from the tower door and was coming toward them;
Frau von Eschenhagen's glance was careless, too, but her look changed to
one both sharp and intense, and she cried out:

"Herbert, look!"

"At what?"

"At that stranger. What a strange resemblance."

"To whom?" asked Herbert, looking searchingly, too, into the face of the
stranger, who was nearer them now.

"It's impossible! That is no passing resemblance. It is he, himself,"
cried his sister.

She sprang up pale with excitement, with her eyes fixed and staring at
the young stranger, who was just putting his foot on the first step of
the shaded veranda. Now his eyes met hers, his large, dark, flaming eyes
which had so often looked into her own and pleaded for him in his
childhood, and all doubts vanished.

"Hartmut, Hartmut Falkenried! You!"

She stopped suddenly, for Wallmoden laid his hand heavily, very heavily,
on her arm, and said sharply: "You are in error, Regine, we do not know
this gentleman."

Hartmut was startled, when, upon reaching the top step, he recognized
Frau von Eschenhagen. The lattice-work had prevented his recognizing