Bertram had the same impression at first, but he knew Erna too well; there was assuredly something else going on in her mind, something which had tried to find expression in the abrupt No. She was very pale, and had pressed her teeth against her under lip, whilst her eyes looked gloomily and fixedly straight in front of her. One might have expected her to burst into a flood of tears the next moment. To turn the attention of the rest from her, and also to overcome his own feelings of uneasiness, he began once more diligently to spell away at the signature, and suddenly exclaimed-- "I have got it, I think--Volinzov--Alexandra Paulovna Volinzov!" "Let me see, please?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Really, Volinzov; and quite plain too. How blind we have been! Dear me, Herr Baron, what is the matter with you?" "I beg a thousand pardons," said the Baron from behind his handkerchief, which he held pressed to his face, rising from the table as he spoke, and swiftly withdrawing from the room. Hildegard looked sadly after his retreating figure. "Poor fellow!" she said, "I am so sorry. He is in a terrible state of excitement. And now, in addition, this home news--if I only knew what it is all about, but he is discretion personified." Bertram, still pondering over Erna's strange demeanour, had almost mechanically cast his eye over the whole letter, and only became conscious of this on coming to a passage which he did not remember having heard in Hildegard's translation. "Here," he said, "is one line, my fair friend, which has escaped you, and which yet strikes me as important. Listen: 'thorough egotist who has the courage to follow her letter at once, and has the honour,' &c." "Impossible!" exclaimed Hildegard. "There it stands; see for yourself. You passed from the last line but two on to the last." "Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed the hostess. "She will be wanting to dine of course; and that is not the worst, but all the rooms will be occupied by to-morrow afternoon." "The officers must do with a little less accommodation," said Otto. "It will be all right." "No, it will not be all right," said his wife, "if each of them is to have a room of his own; and we cannot put less than two each at the disposal of the two Majors and the Colonel." "Let me help you in your embarrassment," said Bertram. "You know, I originally intended leaving early to-morrow, let us adhere to the old plan; the more so, because I have just received a letter which necessitates my very speedy return to Berlin." "That is an excuse," exclaimed his friend. "No excuse, my dear fellow; you may see the letter yourself. But I may as well say what it is about. I have been selected by my political friends for a forthcoming vacancy in the _Reichstag_." "But you will surely not stand?" "Indeed, I mean to do so." "And your Italian trip?" "Postponed to some future day." "But your illness?" "Thanks to your excellent nursing, I never felt better in my life."