"And how does he look? Has he aged any during these last years?"
Willibald shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course he has aged; you would hardly recognize him with his white, hair."
"White hair!" Hartmut burst forth. "He is hardly fifty-two years old. Has he been ill?"
"Not that I know of. It came quite suddenly--in a few months--at the time when he asked for his discharge."
Hartmut blanched, and his eyes were strained fixedly upon the speaker.
"My father sought a discharge? He who is a soldier through, body and soul; to whom his vocation---- In what year was it?"
"It did not come to an issue," said Willy, pacifyingly; "they did not let him go, but removed him to a distant garrison, and he has been in the Ministry of War for three years."
"But he wanted to leave--in what year?" panted Rojanow, in a sinking voice.
"Well, at the time of your disappearance. He believed his honor demanded it, and, Hartmut, you ought not to have done that to your father--not that. He almost died from it."