CHAPTER
I. [TWO COUSINS]
II. [CHARLIE PIERREPONT]
III. [THE DREADED MEETING]
IV. [CHARLIE IN LOVE]
V. [WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DOM KIRCHE]
VI. [AN ALARM]
VII. [AMONG THE BREAKERS]
VIII. [CHARLIE'S VISITOR]
IX. [FOR LIFE AND DEATH]
X. [TO THE RHINE!]
XI. [SEPARATED]
XII. [THE BAPTISM OF FIRE]
XIII. [THE DREAM IN THE BIVOUAC]
XIV. [THE LETTER OF ERNESTINE]
XV. [WHAT THE 'EXTRA BLATT' TOLD]
XVI. [IN FRONT OF METZ]
XVII. [FACING A BATTERY OF MITRAILLEUSES]
XVIII. [IN THE ENEMY'S HANDS]
XIX. [THE CHATEAU DE CAILLÉ]
XX. [ERNESTINE]
XXI. [AT AIX ONCE MORE]
XXII. [AT BURTSCHEID]
[CONCLUSION]
THE DEAD TRYST.
CHAPTER I.
THE COUSINS.
On an evening in summer before the late siege of Paris, three ladies—one a matron of mature years, the other two both young and handsome girls, a brunette and a blonde—were seated in one of the lofty windows of a stately room on the first étage of the Grand Hotel Royal, which immediately overlooks the Rhine at Cologne.
The senior of these—Adelaide, Countess of Frankenburg, a woman grey-haired now, and with features somewhat of the heavy German type—had just received a letter, and was intent upon it, while her daughter Ernestine, and her orphan niece Herminia, watched her face with interest, and forgot the little Tauchnitz editions over which they had been idling.
'What does my brother Heinrich say?' asked Ernestine.
'That he has got extended leave of absence from Potsdam, and next week will arrive at Frankenburg, to spend some time with us. He brings with him a young English friend, Carl Pierrepont, an officer of his regiment. I trust, Herminia, you will receive my dear boy with all the affection he so justly merits.'
But Herminia made no reply, so the Countess repeated what she had said, and fixed her eyes steadily and inquiringly upon her. She only sighed, opened, and then tossed aside her Tauchnitz edition of an English novel. The Countess's ideas of propriety would not permit her to allow her girls to peruse any other light literature; but having an idea that a married woman might read works of a higher-flavoured nature, she sometimes read the works of MM. Dumas and De Kock, to 'keep up her French,' as she phrased it