fulfilment of duty is all that remains; all else is dead within him, and
as a sequence, all his old friendships have become painful to him--we
must let him go his own way."

She broke off with a sigh, as the face of her girlhood's friend came
before her mind's eye. Then laying her hand on her brother's arm, she
said in conclusion:

"Perhaps you are right, Herbert, when you say that a man chooses more
wisely when he has come to years of discretion. You need not fear
Falkenried's fate; your wife has good blood in her veins. I knew Herr
Stahlberg well; he worked earnestly and with capability, too, or he
would never have succeeded as he did in life. And he was ever an honest
man, even after he became a millionaire, and Adelheid is her father's
daughter, bone and sinew. You have chosen well for yourself, and I
rejoice with you from the bottom of my heart."

* * * * *

The little hunting castle of Rodeck which belonged to the princely house
of Adelsberg, lay but a few miles distant from "Fürstenstein," in the
midst of the deep forest. The small, plain building containing at most
but a dozen rooms, had been hastily prepared for the unexpected coming
of the prince. It had not been used for years, and had a neglected
appearance. But as one stepped out from the dark, gloomy forest upon the
light greensward, and saw the old building with its high, pointed roof,
and its four little towers guarding the corners, it seemed very
picturesque in its loneliness.

The Adelsbergs were old-time princes of the German empire who had long