'Your tears, my own darling,' said he, 'are a rebuke, and more than a sufficient rebuke, for my suspicion; and bitter, indeed, would this parting-time have been to me, but for the knowledge--the sure conviction--that, even if a thousand cousins came, still we shall meet at Aix.' Herminia shook her head mournfully, and said, 'I pray to Heaven that it may be so, and with the hope these words inspire, I must now, dear, dear Ludwig, say--farewell!' And so they parted, with hearts that doubtless were aching sorely, for their future seemed dark and dubious. Yet he seemed more hopeful than her. He kissed her very tenderly, and, though his naturally brown cheek looked pale, she thought he smiled at their temporary separation--if temporary it was to be--more than she could account for. But doubtless, lover-like, he had some bold plan in view. 'Yet it was a sad, sad smile my darling gave me,' thought the girl, as, with her veil closely drawn, she slowly and wearily ascended the great oak staircase to the _étage_ off which her bed-room opened; 'but no doubt he only thought of cheering me.' Next morning the Countess's carriage took the trio to the Eisenbahnhof for Aix-la-Chapelle; and as Herminia from the swift-speeding train looked back to the sinking spires of Cologne, a curtain seemed to have fallen between her past and present existence. And oh! how weary was the night that followed, when tossing restlessly, defiantly, and petulantly on her laced pillow, she lay in broken slumber, with tears matting her long and lovely eyelashes. CHAPTER II. CHARLIE PIERREPONT. A week after this, a drochski deposited a smart-looking young officer, in the uniform of the 95th Thuringian regiment--blue with red facings and silver epaulettes, spike-helmet and black belt--at the entrance of the Pariser Hof of Cologne, a comfortable and moderate hotel, suitable to that style of economy continental military men are usually constrained to practise. Though wearing the well-known uniform of the Prussian army, it was impossible not to recognize in the new arrival, as he sprang lightly up the steps of the hotel, that he was an Englishman, a genuine Briton, for he was the Carl Pierrepont mentioned by young Frankenburg in his letter to the Countess. Carl--or Charlie, as he was known when he was wont to hold his wicket in the playing-grounds of Rugby against the best bowler in the three hundred, and to con his studies in the white brick Tudor school-house, or in the long avenue called Addison's Walk--was a great favourite with all his regiment, and already had the honour of being specially noticed on parade by our Princess Royal when her husband was reviewing the Prussian troops, and of receiving from his hand the much-coveted Iron Cross when almost in his boyhood.