“Frederick, why do you talk always about dying? If you come back——”
“Ah! if!” he repeated with a sigh.
As the day was beginning to dawn, my eyes, weary with weeping, closed, a light slumber fell on both of us. We lay there with our arms linked together, but without losing the consciousness that this was our parting hour.
Suddenly I started up and broke out into loud groans. Frederick got up at once.
“In God’s name, Martha, what is the matter with you? It is not yet come? Oh speak! Is it——”
Was it a cry, or a curse, or an ejaculation of prayer, that escaped his lips? He clutched the bell and gave the alarm.
“Run at once for the doctor—for the nurse,” he shouted to the maid who had hurried in. Then he threw himself down on his knees beside me, and kissed my hand as it hung down.
“My wife! my all! and now, now I have to go.”
I could not speak. The most violent physical pain that one can conceive was racking and wringing my body; and besides this, the agony of my soul was yet more horrible, that he “had to go now, now”; and that he was so wretched about it. Those who had been summoned came quickly, and at once made themselves busy about me. At the same time Frederick had to make his last preparations for the march. After he had done this: “Doctor, doctor,” he cried, seizing the physician by both hands, “you promise me, do you not, that you will bring her through? And you will telegraph to me to-day, and afterwards there and there,” naming the stations which he had to pass on the march. “And if there is any danger—— Ah! but what good is it?” he interrupted himself. “If even the danger were ever so great, could I come back then?”