It was dawn when they began to pull up the road to Dreiberg. The return had been leisurely despite Carmichael's impatience. In the military field the troops were breaking camp for their departure to the various posts throughout the duchy. Only the officers, who were to attend the court ball that evening, and the resident troops would remain. The maneuvers were over; the pomp of miniature war was done. Carmichael peered through the window. What a play yonder scene was to what he had been through! To break camp before dawn, before breakfast, rain and hail and snow smothering one; when the frost-bound iron of the musket caught one's fingers and tore the skin; the shriek of shot overhead, the boom of cannon and the gulp of impact; cold, hungry, footsore, sleepy; here and there a comrade crumpling up strangely and lying still and white; the muddy ruts in the road; the whole world a dead gray like the face of death! What did those yonder know of war?
The carriage stopped.
"I shall not intrude, I trust?" said the old man, opening the door and getting in.
"Not now," replied Carmichael. "What is all this about?"
"A trifle; I might say a damn-fool trifle. But what did you mean when you said you knew all you wanted to know?" The mountaineer showed some anxiety.
"Exactly what I said. The only thing that confuses me is the motive."
The old man thought for a while. "Suppose you had a son who was making a fool of himself?"
"Or a nephew?"
"Well, or a nephew?"
"Making a fool of himself over what?"
"A woman."
"Nothing unusual in that. But what kind of a woman?"
"A good woman, honest, too good by far for any man."
"Oh!"
"Suppose she was vastly his inferior in station, that marriage to him was merely a political contract? What would you do?"
"I believe I begin to understand."
"I am grateful for that."
"But the risks you run!"
"I believed them all over last night."
"But you would dare handle him in this way?"
"When the devil drives, my friend!" The other smiled. "I was born in the heart of a war. I have taken so many risks that the sense of danger no longer has a keen edge. But now that you understand, I am sure a soldier like yourself will pardon the blunder of last night."
"Your nephew is an ungrateful wretch."
"What?" coldly.
"He knew all along who I was. I dragged him out of the Rhine upon a certain day, and he plays this trick!"
"You? Carmichael, Carmichael; of course; I should have remembered the name, as he wrote me at the time. Thank you! And you knew him all the while?"