But the Major erred when he believed his son would, as formerly, bow to his stern decree. Hartmut had been for the past few days in a school where all the antagonism of his nature had been aroused against his father.
"Father, you cannot, you dare not order me thus," he cried out now in great excitement. "It is my own mother whom I have found at last, the only one in the whole world who loves me. I will not be separated from her again as I once was. I will not be forced to hate her; threaten, punish me, do what you will with me, but I will not obey this time, I will not obey!"
All the ungovernable passion of his nature broke out in these words; an unearthly fire gleamed in his eyes, and his hands were clenched; every fiber quivered in wild revolt; he was resolved to fight out this battle with his father to the bitter end.
But the burst of anger which he expected did not come. Falkenried looked silently at him, but with a glance of earnest, sad reproof.
"The only one in the whole world who loves you," he repeated slowly. "You seem to forget that you have a father."
"Who has never loved me," cried Hartmut with excessive bitterness. "Since I have found my mother, I have learned for the first time what love is."
"Hartmut!"
The boy seemed almost staggered by this strange tone, vibrating with pain, which he had never heard in all his life before, and the defiance which was about to break forth anew, died on his lips.
"Because I have had no flattering words and caresses for you, because I have been strict and severe in my training, have you doubted my love?" said Falkenried, even in that same strange tone. "Do you know what that severity has cost me against my only, my dearly loved child?"
"Father!" The word had a shy, hesitating sound, but it was not the old shyness and fear; there lay in it a joyful, almost incredulous astonishment, and Hartmut gazed on his father's face as if he could never take his eyes from it. Falkenried put his hand on his son's arm and drew him nearer, while he continued: