"Those infernal Jews!" he muttered again through his teeth as he knocked at the door. "Come in!" His father stood at his writing-table, above which a hanging lamp was burning. On the console before the looking-glass also the lamps were still burning. The room seemed disagreeably light and formal-looking, although it was exactly as Ottomar had always seen it, as long as he could remember. He had better have put on his uniform after all. "I must apologise for my dress, father; I was just going to bed, and August seemed to think you were in such a hurry." His father remained standing at the table, leaning on one hand, with his back towards him, without answering. The silence lay like a mountain on Ottomar's soul. With a great effort he shook off his vague dread. "What do you want, father?" "First that you should read this letter," said the General, turning round slowly, and pointing to a paper that was spread out before him on the table. "A letter to me?" "In that case I should not have read it; and I have read it." He had stepped back from the table, and paced slowly up and down the room with his hands behind his back, while Ottomar, standing where his father had stood just before, without taking the letter in his hand--the handwriting was legible enough--read as follows: "Honoured Sir,--I trust your honour will forgive your humble servant, the undersigned, for venturing to call your honour's attention to a circumstance which threatens seriously to endanger the welfare of your honoured family. It concerns the relations which have for some time subsisted between your son, Lieutenant von Werben, and the daughter of your neighbour, Herr Schmidt, the owner of the great marble-works. Your honour will excuse the undersigned from entering into details, with which he is thoroughly conversant, but which are better consigned to the obscurity in which the parties in question seek in vain to remain, and if the undersigned begs you to ask your son where, and in whose company he was this evening between eight and nine, it is only to prove to your honour how far the said relations have been carried. "It would be both foolish and unpardonable to suppose that your honour is acquainted with all this, and has connived at it till your son is on the point of being betrothed to the daughter of an ultra-radical democrat. On the contrary, the undersigned can imagine beforehand the painful astonishment which your honour will experience on reading these lines; but, your honour, the undersigned has also been a soldier, and knows what military honour is, as indeed all his life long he has cherished it, and he cannot endure any longer to see the honour of such a brave officer so criminally trifled with behind his back, by him who more than any other appears called to protect that honour. "The undersigned feels he need say no more in assertion of the great veneration with which he is of his honour and his honour's whole family