Reimers murmured in some confusion: "I am very much obliged to you, sir." And the two men sat for awhile opposite each other in silence. "After this," the colonel continued with some hesitation and difficulty, "you will probably wish to get away for a change. I therefore advise you to go up for the winter examination at the Staff College. There is no doubt about your getting through. The work will prevent you from brooding over your thoughts, and afterwards there will be Berlin and entire change of surroundings. All that will be helpful to you." Falkenhein's voice became softer, and shielding his eyes with his hand, he continued in a scarcely audible whisper: "It would be advisable that you should withdraw a little from society; and of course to any unavoidable questions it will be necessary to invent an answer of some sort. It seems to me it will be best to say that your old lung-trouble obliges you to take certain precautions. Is that agreed?" With a sob the senior-lieutenant stammered out, "You have always been like a father to me, sir." He had stood up and was about to depart without another word. Then suddenly the colonel took him in his arms. This seasoned, clear-headed man had great difficulty in restraining his emotion. "I have long looked on you as a son, Reimers," he said. "And that all this has turned out so differently from my expectations is a grief to me, a very great grief. I cannot tell you how great." Reimers took his departure. The colonel looked after him till the portière fell. Whose fault was it that the young man left the room with hanging head and miserable face, instead of with the beaming eyes of an accepted lover? Whose fault was it that the happiness of two young people had thus been shattered to pieces? The colonel sat down before his writing-table and let his clenched fist fall in helpless anger upon the desk. He had not even the satisfaction of being able to direct his wrath against anybody or anything. The fault lay in something uncalled-for and apparently unavoidable, an evil, and at the same time necessary, outcome of the existing order of things. Then he began to reflect. How should he break the bad news to Mariechen? By many little scarcely noticeable signs he had become convinced that she loved the unfortunate young officer. There was a delicate understanding, an unspoken engagement, between the two. How should he explain to her Reimers' sudden withdrawal? This talk about the examination at the Staff College, and Reimers' necessary care of his health, was not sufficient to break off an honourable attachment. He must rather think of some means for effecting a permanent, even if painful, cure, and put an end once for all to his daughter's dream of love.