"To-morrow? H'm!" he murmured.
The duel was to take place at half-past five. He considered; in a quarter of an hour one could easily cover the short distance between the shooting-ground and the barracks.
"Six sharp," he then answered decisively.
Heppner replied: "Yes, sir, six o'clock;" and wrote the time in the order-book.
"Yes, six o'clock," repeated Güntz.
If it were no longer possible for him, then Reimers would command the battery.
It was Wednesday, the day on which Reimers was engaged to dine with the Güntzes. He would have excused himself, so that his friend should devote himself undisturbed to his wife and child, but Güntz refused: "Nothing of the kind, my boy. Why, Kläre might smell a rat! No, no! you must come. But you'll have to put on another expression, you know!"
So Reimers went, but left unusually early, and when he returned to his quarters Gähler handed him a letter from Falkenhein.
The colonel wrote as follows:
"MY DEAR REIMERS,--I return from Kühren about eleven o'clock, and I beg of you to look me up this evening without fail. "Yours, "v. F."