The general leaned heavily upon the back of the arm-chair by which he stood as he listened to this hasty report, but he lost not a syllable of it; and at the last word, which might well have crushed him, he stood erect again with much of his old vigour. "You are right. There is still a chance of overtaking him." He did not mention Raoul's name. "If any one can come to the rescue it is you, Michael! This I know. Recover the papers from him, living--or dead!" "Grandfather!" exclaimed the young officer, recoiling. "On my head be the consequences. You shall be scathless. I once required you to spare my blood flowing in the veins of each of you,--now I tell you not to spare the traitor. Wrest his booty from him,--you know what is at stake,--wrest it from him, living or dead!" The words were terrible, and more terrible still was the expression in the old man's eyes, gleaming with no ray of pity, but filled with the iron resolution of the inexorable judge. It was plain that he would have sacrificed his grandson, the heir of his name, who had once been so dear to his heart, without the quiver of an eyelash. "I shall do my duty," Michael said, in an undertone that, nevertheless, had in it an echo of that other voice. The general went to his writing-table and took up a pen; his hand trembled and almost refused to perform its duty, but he controlled the weakness and wrote a few lines, which he handed to the captain. "I trust everything to you, Michael. Go! Perhaps you will succeed in saving me from the worst. If I hear nothing from you in the course of the next twenty-four hours I must speak, and must declare the last Steinrück----" He could not finish the sentence; his voice broke, but he grasped Michael's hand in a convulsive clasp. The repudiated son of the outcast daughter was to be the saviour of the honour of the family; he was the old Count's last, sole hope, and the young man answered the clasp of his hand,-- "Rely upon me, grandfather! Have you not said that I can do all that can be done? You shall hear from me at your head-quarters. Farewell!" * * * * * The confusion and bustle reigning in the South-German railway-station at E---- had increased incredibly, for the comparatively insignificant little town was the point of meeting of three railway lines, and lay in the direct road to the Rhine. Trains for the transportation of troops were running day and night, and the town itself was crowded with soldiers. Some hundred paces from the station there was a third-rate inn, usually frequented by peasants only, and certainly no fit stopping-place for the strangers who had reached it an hour previously,--a young lady, apparently of high rank, accompanied by an elderly priest and a servant. The apartment to which they had been shown was neither comfortable nor clean, and yet it was the only shelter that they could find.