"Oh, mademoiselle. I loved him so dearly—he died so valiantly! An arquebusier was taking aim at the Prince. Wilhelm threw himself in front and received the ball in his chest. He dropped, never to rise again."
"Generous lad!" exclaimed Anna Bell, and silently she thought: "To die for Franz! Under his own eyes. That is a death to be envied!"
"Poor Wilhelm!" continued the page sadly, "his last words were for his mother. He asked me, if ever I return home again, to carry to her a sash that she embroidered for him, and which he left at our lodging together with his gala suit."
The lad's words seemed to have suggested an unexpected line of thought to Anna Bell, when she suddenly saw Odelin from a distance, returning at full gallop in the company of other horsemen. She cried: "There is father! Thank God, he is not wounded. But where is brother?"
Not daring, out of a sense of modesty, to be seen by the strangers who accompanied her father, Anna Bell stepped back into the room. Odelin led his horse to a stable where also the horses of Franz of Gerolstein were kept, and hastened back to join his daughter in the house. The girl ran to him, kissed his hands respectfully several times, and said:
"Thank heaven, father, you are safe and sound—but brother, dear Antonicq, did he also come off scathless?"
"You may feel at ease," answered Odelin, embracing his daughter, "Antonicq is not wounded. Together with other volunteers he is escorting a number of prisoners to places of safety in the camp. Poor child, great must have been your anxiety since I left you. Come to your father's arms!"
"Oh, I counted the hours—the minutes—"
"Let me embrace you again—and yet again," said Odelin with tears in his eyes, and fondly holding her in his arms. "Oh, divine power of happiness! It brings with it the balm of forgetfulness of the past! I have found you again—dear child! In one day, years of sorrow are blotted out!"
Hardly able to repress her tears, Anna Bell responded unrestrainedly to Odelin's caresses. His ineffable clemency was not belied.