It was dated from a village somewhere near Metz, and briefly recapitulated what has been detailed in Chapter Eighteen, and added that a humane peasant woman, who, from a hiding-place, had witnessed the terrible scene in the garden, the moment the Francs-Tireurs retired, had rushed forth and cut him down. She had quickly and adroitly released his neck from the odious cord, chafed it with her hands, given him water, and thoroughly revived him, though animation had never been quite suspended.
Moreover, she had concealed him in her house for two days, and enabled him to join the regiment before Metz; but the shock to his system was such that the military surgeons advised his return home for a time, and that, doubtless, he would spend his Christmas with them all at Frankenburg.
They had all mourned so deeply over his supposed terrible fate, that the account this letter contained—the assurance of his perfect safety and speedy return in his own handwriting—seemed like a resurrection from the tomb! All the family embraced each other and shed tears of joy, and a new and sudden happiness was diffused over the whole household, even to the grooms in the stable, for all loved the handsome young Graf.
An enormous amount of beer was consumed on the occasion, and in 'the study,' the Count and Baron Grünthal over their pipes, and certainly more than one bottle of Rhenish wine, grasped each other's hands ever and anon, and shouted, in the melodious language of the Vaterland,
'Hoch, Heinrich! Ich habe die Ehre, auf Ihre Gesundheit zu trinken!' (I have the honour of drinking your good health.)
In his letter there was no mention of Carl Pierrepont, and no enclosure for her, thought Ernestine; but then, as Heinrich wrote to the Countess, he could not make a communication concerning him; so the girl, though her joy for her brother's safety was somewhat clouded by that circumstance and the wish that Heinrich had written to Herminia; could but wait and hope—hope and pray.
'A little time, and my dear brother will tell me all,' she said to herself; 'but, oh! this suspense—this mystery concerning the fate of my Carl, is intolerable!'
And now, in the excess of their happiness, the intended marriage of her and the Baron was revived in greater force than ever. Heinrich was returning, and his presence would make the happiness of all complete. Daily, Ernestine, while scanning the papers with keen and haggard eyes for intelligence of the lost one, heard the marriage arrangement schemed out; the projected breakfast; the cake which was to come from the most celebrated confectioner in Aix; the trousseau, which was to come from the most fashionable Putzmacherin (or modiste) in Berlin; the feast in the hall, and who were to be invited; whether the honeymoon was to be spent at Wiesbaden, at Carlsbad, or Bruckenau, and the girl listened to them as if she had been turned to stone. But there is a writer who says, 'Age legislates and youth trespasses; but the tide of love no more recedes at a bidding, than King Canute's waves.'
Only once, however, did the sympathizing Herminia think her pale cousin was about to yield, when one night she laid her head on her bosom, and said with a gasping shudder,
'Oh, how terrible it is to give one's hand to the living when one's heart has been given to the dead!'