He was soon undeceived, however, in the hope that the end of the proceedings against him had now come; for the court was by no means satisfied with his _ex-parte_ showing. They demanded an expert examination of his ledgers for the last three years, and this task required fully three months. At the trial his innocence of the charge was, of course, fully established, and an acquittal was the result. It had been proven that there had been no diversion of funds, but that the captain’s equivocal statement to that effect made to Borgert and admitted by the captain himself had been a mere pretext. The motive for this had also been shown to be that, as may be remembered, of preventing further requests for loans from so bad a debtor as Borgert. A bald statement of these facts was contained in the finding of the court-martial. König had expected no other finding; but in the officers’ circle the acquittal called forth nothing but disappointment. Some four months later H. M.’s confirmation of the court’s finding reached the little garrison. And that was the signal for another procedure, for now it became the duty of the Council of Honor to undertake a new investigation of the same facts, but from a different point of view,--namely, whether König had failed in any one point against the professional honor of an officer, and hence merited reprimand or punishment at the hands of his second judges. The captain accepted this new ordeal with the long-suffering patience which had become habitual to him by this time. The final issue was still involved in slight doubt, but he felt himself safe in the firm conviction of his own innocence. During this whole period of anxiety his domestic hearth had been almost his sole source of comfort. His family life had always been one of unalloyed happiness, and his wife, though young and pretty, had never been fond of that ceaseless round of noisy dissipation which had been such a feature of the little garrison for years past. So she did not miss the social pleasures which she now perforce had to deny herself; for, along with her husband, the ladies of the garrison now made it their business to cut her whenever she met any of them in the streets. Nevertheless, Frau Clara had felt this whole time of trial quite severely. A loving wife is jealous of her husband’s reputation and of the honor due him, and, as for herself, she had been degraded from being the most popular woman in the regiment to the level of a social outcast; but her proud soul refused to submit to this ostracism, and it was no small gratification to her that the wives of the leading civilians made it a point to visit her at frequent intervals, and with some ostentation. Meanwhile Lieutenant Bleibtreu, the ever-faithful, was no less zealous in his attendance.