'You would spoil any man with kindness, Mademoiselle de Caillé,' said he, one day; 'or any dog, too.'
'Often the most loving animal of the two,' replied the French girl, laughing.
During that protracted convalescence how often, in the waking hours of the night, had he thought of Ernestine, and strove to sleep in the hope to dream of her; of their moonlight walks in the garden of the old Schloss, when she had held his arm, with her little hands interlaced so confidingly on his sleeve, and he used to pet and caress them as she leant with all her weight upon his wrist; or of the mad gallops they were wont to have through the glades and dingles of the lovely Reichswald, when the green woods seemed to sleep under the dusky purple of the summer sky; but one night he had a dream that startled, and, like that one in the bivouac, made a deep impression upon him by its vividness and the sense of pain it left.
In imagination she bent over him sadly and caressingly; her dark eyes were tender and beautiful as of old; but the rose-leaf tint had left her cheeks, as if for ever. Her smile was full of sweetness. Then a change came suddenly over her; the soft light died out of her eyes; her cheeks became hollow, her lips pallid; her whole expression and aspect painful and ghastly; the grasp of her hands became cold and chilling, and her voice grew faint and husky, as she said,
'At Burtscheid, dearest Carl; meet me at Burtscheid, where last we met.'
Then she seemed to melt away from before him, and Charlie started and awoke, to find it was happily but a mere dream, born too probably of his nervous and enfeebled condition, yet one so vivid, we have said—so terrifically vivid and painful, that he was trembling in every limb, a cold perspiration covered his whole frame; and by some strange association of ideas, the dying curse, if curse it was, of the French captain came rushing on his memory.
And now the time came when he was to leave the Chateau de Caillé.
'And you go, you go to her,' said Célandine, making a great effort to appear calm, on the day of his departure.
'To her whose miniature I showed you, dear friend yes.'
'Oh, may you both be happy—very, very happy!'