What had Ernestine heard of his fate?—that he was killed, wounded, or missing? He had no means of communicating with her now, and thus sparing her that which he would gladly have done—a single sigh, a single throb of pain.
There was no one at the chateau could tell him where the 95th were, whether in front of Metz, besieging Strasbourg, or fighting at Phalsburg. But, oh, how to relieve the grief of his betrothed! He would not, for worlds, have cost that warm, wilful, and impassioned heart one pang!
Yet there he lay on his back, with a closing wound, helpless.
Like an iron weight it bore on his heart, the remoteness and dubiety of their meeting again; and when all thought of his personal danger passed away, this reflection weighed more heavily on him than ever, while his very career as a soldier made the future more uncertain and gloomy.
He had but one fixed, yet vague, idea—that, at the risk of his life, he would see Ernestine before he returned to the regiment in which he was, as yet, unfit to serve, and assure her of his all-unaltered love. Times there were when he thought he would ask Célandine to write to her, but in turn was afraid to do so—to Herminia, or to Ernestine, over whose postal correspondence, doubtless, the Countess kept a strict vigil—or, if she did write, there was no other post than the field one between France and Prussia now, and that was with the German army.
So Charlie could but lie on his bed and writhe, though in the kindly hands of the sweetest of little nurses.
Would the Countess Adelaide, he sometimes asked himself, feel any compunction for her proud severity, any pity for her daughter's honest lover, on hearing of his probable fate? Alas! it seemed more likely that she would exult at it as a barrier, a bramble, removed from her path. The Count was an old soldier; perhaps he might relent and prove generous; and so, on and on, Charlie hoped, surmised, and pondered, till his very brain ached.
Célandine knew that Charlie was English by birth, yet Prussian by sympathy, which she deplored—they were such barbarians, those men in the spiked helmets. Thus when she played or sang to him, which she did with great taste and sweetness, with good taste she only chose neutral airs and songs, such as those from the Trovatore, etc., and in these Adolphe Guerrand frequently joined her.
As she was in her mere girlhood, it appeared that she was too young to marry, nor had ever thought of it; and more than all, as Adolphe was poor, having only his practice as a hard-working village practitioner, Monsieur de Caillé was by no means disposed to look upon him, even in the future, as an eligible suitor for his daughter, till a letter reached young Guerrand from Paris by which one morning he found himself rich by one of the most extraordinary chances in the world.
It happened that just a week before the Prussians crossed the Rhine, Adolphe Guerrand had been at Blankenberg with a patient, to whom he had prescribed sea-bathing, and, when walking on the beach there, had found a carefully sealed bottle among some sea-weed. Holding it between him and the light, he saw that it contained a written document, and conceiving naturally that it was a message from the sea—the last farewell from some sinking ship, he drew the cork, and perused the damp paper, which was properly signed and dated, from on board a French vessel, which had sprung a leak, and was going down in the middle of the Atlantic. And thus it ran on, in French: