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Updated: June 6, 2025
Perhaps now when his great triumph was but just begun, the hour for reconciliation had come; perhaps, when Falkenried saw what the freedom and life for which his son had craved so long ago, had developed, he would forgive the boy for the sake of the man. He was his child still, his only son, whom he had clasped to his arms with such passionate tenderness on that last evening at Burgsdorf.
"Then he would be beneath contempt, a liar," said Falkenried, "a deserter too, for he already carries arms at his side. But do not insult me with such thoughts, Herbert. It is my son of whom you speak." "He is Zalika's son also. But we won't discuss it any more. They are waiting for you in the dining-room; you will not go to-night?" "Yes, in two hours," answered the Major, steadily and quietly.
His arrogant self-consciousness clung to him even in this hour. He was the author of "Arivana," who acknowledged neither obligation nor duty. "The boyish trick," said Falkenried in a harder voice than ever. "Yes, that's what they called it in order to make it possible for me to remain in the service. I called it something else, and many of my comrades with me.
I shall not prevent you, but I must then do what I think best." His voice sounded hard as ever, but there was a tone underlying his words which fairly frightened the ambassador. "For God's sake, Falkenried, what do you mean?" "Do as you choose. You diplomats have peculiar ideas of honor at times, with which ordinary mortals may not agree I leave it to you."
Now, after ten years, it's buried and forgotten by the whole world." "With one exception," said Regine sorrowfully. "My heart aches whenever I think of what Falkenried once was, and what he is now. The bitter experience of his marriage made him gloomy and unsocial, but in good time he recovered himself a little, and his whole soul turned to his boy and his boy's advancement.
She supposed him to be childless, and had only recently learned from her husband that he had married very young, been divorced from his wife for many years, and was now a widower. Eight days after the return of the Wallmodens, as Adelheid was sitting at her writing table late one afternoon, Colonel Falkenried was announced. She rose at once, threw down her pen and hastened to greet her old friend.
The ambassador, and more especially Colonel von Falkenried, had reason to be contented with the result, for they had acquired everything which they demanded for their government, and could count with full reliance on the duke. It was whispered that some matter of more than ordinary import was on the tapis, but none of the gossipers knew what, and the few who did know kept their own counsel.
Falkenried did not seem the same man he had been for the past ten years. The war which, despite its victories and final triumph, had made so many old before their time, had affected him apparently in a different manner.
But in the same instant the rider had sprung from the saddle, and hastened to the commander-in-chief. "I come from General M ." Falkenried drew a sharp, quick breath; he had not recognized the blood-stained face, he only knew that the man must have come on some important mission, but the tone of the man's voice gave him some premonition of the truth.
That thought alone kept her by his side, while Falkenried suffered intensely, hid his misery in his own breast, and gave a brave front to the world. But, in spite of all, the world knew the truth; it knew things of which the husband had never dreamed, and was only silent out of compassion for him.
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