He bowed again and went. The General looked after him with fixed, terrified eyes. Evidently there was some understanding between Schönau and the Colonel, although they had not spoken to one another yet; evidently both knew something that Schönau had not said, and that the Colonel had now come to say. He shuddered as before when he had laid down Wallbach's letter; again there came upon him that agony of fear, only now it was no longer lingering at the threshold; now it had come close to him in the person of this iron soldier, in whom, though he had never formed any intimacy with him socially, he had always seen and honoured the pattern of a soldier after his own heart. The door was shut behind Schönau. "I know all," cried the General; and said to himself, at the same moment, that he had spoken falsely. The Colonel shook his head. "You do not know all, General; Schönau could not tell you all, or rather, as I suspect from his manner, would not tell you all." "Then I am prepared for anything," said the General in a hollow voice. Again the Colonel shook his head. "I wish you were, but I think it is impossible. You must be prepared for the worst; your son's bills, which fall due to-day, are all forgeries." The General fell back as if he had been shot, his hands convulsively grasping the air. The Colonel sprang forward to save him from falling, but with a frightful effort the unhappy man recovered himself before the other could touch him, and stammered: "I--I thank you--it is over--it is----" He could say no more, he could bear no more, but fell back into his chair, pressing his cold hands to his throbbing temples, and muttering with bloodless lips: "It is all over--all over!" The Colonel, who could only with great difficulty retain his own composure, drew forward a chair, and said: "It is terrible, I can offer you no word of consolation, for I know only too well that you will not take it as an extenuating circumstance that it was your name, his father's name, in and by which the fraud was carried out." "You are right, quite right," said the General; "the fact is irrelevant--absolutely irrelevant." Had he understood? Did he know what he was saying? The Colonel, who had not taken his eyes off him, almost doubted; the dark eyes, usually so steady, stared vacantly into nothing; the voice that had formerly been so strong and decided, sounded harsh and wavering as if his mind were giving way; the Colonel thought it best to recall him to a sense of the reality, however terrible, by a relation of the circumstances.