“And you wanted to seek me out and nurse me? How heroic and how foolish, Martha!”
“Foolish! Yes, there I agree with you. The appealing voice which drew me on was imagination—superstition—for you were not calling for me. But heroic? No. If you knew how cowardly I showed myself when face to face with misery! It was only you, if you had been lying there, that I could have nursed. I have seen horrors, Frederick, that I can never forget. Oh! this beautiful world of ours, how can people so spoil it, Frederick? A world in which two beings can so love each other as you and I do, in which there can glow such a fire of bliss as is our union, how can it be so foolish as to rake up the flames of hate which brings death and woe in its train?”
“I also have seen something horrible, Martha—something that I can never forget. Just think of Godfrey v. Tessow rushing wildly upon me with uplifted sword—it was in the cavalry action at Sadowa.”
“Aunt Rosalie’s son?”
“The same; he recognised me in time, and let the blade sink which he had already raised.”
“He acted in that directly contrary to his duty. How? To spare an enemy of his king and country, under the worthless pretext that he was his own dear friend and cousin.”
“Poor fellow! He had scarcely let his arm fall when a sabre whistled over his head. It was my next man, a young officer, who wanted to defend his lieutenant-colonel, and——”
Frederick stopped and covered his face with both hands.
“Killed?” I asked shuddering. He nodded.
“Mamma, mamma,” resounded from the next room, and the door was burst open. It was my sister Lilly, leading little Rudolf by the hand.