Confer with Professor Einsiedel about everything, but I beg you not to say anything about it to my mother.
[Lilian to the Professorin.]
"Write at once to Eric's mother," says Roland to me.
So you see, honored lady, that I have found him.
The terrible tidings reached us that Roland had either been killed or taken prisoner, and I could no longer endure it. I went down into the enemy's country. Oh, how much I have gone through! I have been on the battle-field, and looked into the faces of hundreds of the mangled and the dead. I have been in hospitals, and heard the moans and the groans of the sick and the wounded, but nowhere Roland, nowhere any trace of him.
I still travelled onward, and they had compassion for me, those terrible people; they pitied the lonely maiden who was seeking her beloved.
I found him at last—no, not I. Griffin found him, for the faithful animal was with me. We found him in a barn. He is wounded. Oh, he looked so emaciated, so changed, that I scarcely knew him! But now all is well.
Roland relates that a woman in man's clothing had him taken into the barn, and he asserts that it was the Countess Bella. I saw her once when I was at Mattenheim, I have seen her now. I think it was she—rushing past on horseback, and dressed like a man. She looked at me, and must have recognized me.
On, mother! it is very wonderful. Perhaps Roland has told you that he gave me a pebble, and I gave one to him, when we saw each other at Mattenheim. This pebble he kept and wore over his heart, and the pebble saved his life.
I have sent an account of everything to New York, but I do not know whether the letter will get there. Letters will reach Europe, and I beg you to forward the tidings to my father and to Eric. Say, besides, that Roland is wholly out of danger; a German physician in the army here gives me this assurance.