'For to-night, no,' answered Brenner. 'But come to my quarters early in the morning. We will then make arrangements for our return, I will not trouble you to go with me to the governor's. After the captious remarks which he let fall he might have various dangerous questions to ask you--and if your hitherto passive awkwardness should become active, I might in the end have cause to repent my willingness to take you with me.' 'If I, however,' asked Arwed, seized with a sudden presentiment, 'should have occasion to set out upon a journey to-night, would you give me a furlough upon my word of honor to appear at the camp before Frederickshall in eight days?' 'Come not to me with such a strange request!' cried the colonel with vehemence. 'I have no authority nor power to grant you such a furlough.' 'But when the object is to save a good man?' asked Arwed earnestly, seizing the colonel's hand and looking anxiously in his face with his beautiful clear eyes. The colonel gave him a piercing glance from under his gray bushy eye-brows. But the severity of his eye soon melted into a more kindly expression. 'My old friend Duecker is well disposed towards you,' said he: 'and there is no falsehood in your face. I see that you are one who will keep your word. Go upon your own terms whither you will.' 'May God reward you!' cried Arwed, hastening away. CHAPTER XII. Dark and gigantic in the evening dusk arose the proud palace of the baron von Goertz, and the unlighted windows and the perfect silence which reigned in and about it gave it the unpleasant appearance of a deserted spectre-castle. Only in one room shone a dull light which resembled the blue flame that burns in ruins over buried treasures. 'That is Georgina's light,' said Arwed to himself, agitated with the conflicting emotions of sorrow and joy. He pushed open a little side door near the great portal, and creeping softly up the deserted stairs passed through the echoing corridors towards Georgina's chamber. As he entered he saw his beloved sitting at a table and with streaming eyes reading the note in which he had warned her of her father's danger. Her right hand supported her drooping head,--her left had been taken possession of by the little Magdalena, who was endeavoring to administer friendly and childlike consolation. 'Heaven be praised!' said Arwed. 'Thou hast received my letter in time, and thy father is saved!'-- 'Would to God it were so!' cried Georgina, with a sorrow so deep that it left no room in her heart for joy at again seeing her lover. 'My father departed yesterday for Frederickshall. He is accustomed to travel with rapidity, and before my courier can overtake him he will be already in the hands of his enemies.'