The retriever gave a long sniff here to express his thorough sympathy with her, and the girl proceeded, musingly, thinking aloud.
“Yes, I mean, doggie, when Armand and I parted for the last time. Poor mamma was alive then, and we never dreamt that this terrible war would come to pass, severing us so completely! Poor Armand, he said he would be true and return to me again when he was old enough to be able to decide for himself without the consent of that stern father of his, who thought that the daughter of a poor German pastor was not good enough mate for his handsome son—although he was only a merchant, while my mother was a French countess in her own right. Still, parents have the right to settle these things, and I quite agreed with dear mamma that I would never consent to enter a family against their will, especially, too, when they despised our humble position!”
The girl drew herself up proudly as she said this.
“Never mind,” she went on again presently, “it is all over and done for. But, still, I believe Armand loved me. How handsome he looked that last time I saw him when he came to our little cottage to say good-bye, before he went to join his regiment in Algeria, where his father had got him ordered off on purpose to separate us. However, perhaps it was only a boy and girl affection at the best, and would never have lasted; my heart has not broken, I know, although I thought it would break then; for, alas! I have since seen sorrow enough to crush me down, even much more than parting with Armand de la Tour. Fancy, poor darling mamma gone to her grave, and I, her cherished child, forced to earn my bread as companion to this haughty old baroness, who thinks me like the dust under her feet! Ah, it is sad, is it not, doggie?”
The retriever sniffed again, while the blue eyes continued to look down upon him through a haze of tears; and then, the girl was silent for a time.
“Heigho, doggie,” she exclaimed, after a short pause of reflection, brushing away the tear drops from her cheeks and shaking her dainty little head as if she would fain banish all her painful imaginings with the action, “I must not repine at my lot, for the good Father above has taken care of me through all my adversity, giving me a comfortable home when I, an orphan, had none to look after me. And, the good baroness, too—she may be haughty, but then she is of a very noble family, and has been brought up like most German ladies of rank to look down upon her inferiors in position; besides, she is kind to me in her way. I am pleased that she took it into her head to come off here to seek for her son, and bring him presents from home in person. Nothing else would suit her, if you please, on his birthday, although the young baron, I think, was not over-delighted at his mother coming to hunt for him in war time, as if he were a little boy—he on the staff of the general! I fancy he got no little chaff from his brother officers in consequence. However, ‘it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,’ for the good baroness being here has been seized with a freak for looking after the wounded, because the Princess of Alten-Schlossen goes in for that sort of thing; and thus it is, doggie, that I’m now attending to this poor fellow here. Though, how on earth Armand parted with you, and you became attached to this new master, whom you seem to love with such affection, I’m sure I cannot tell!”
Fritz at this moment turned in the little pallet bed on which he was lying, and in an instant the girl was up from her seat and bending over him.
“Restless?” she said, smoothing the pillows and laying her cool hand on the hot brow of her patient, who gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction in his sleep. “Ah! you’ll be better bye-and-bye. Then, you will wake up refreshed and have some nourishment; and then, too, you’ll be able to tell me all about yourself and master doggie here, eh?”
But, it was many days before poor Fritz was in a condition to offer any explanation about the dog—many days, when the possibility was trembling in the balance of fate as to whether he would ever speak again, or be silent for aye in this world!
When he woke up, he was delirious; and the doctor, a grave German surgeon of middle age, on coming into the room to examine him, when making the rounds of the house—a villa in the suburbs of Mézières, which had been transformed into a sort of field hospital for the most dangerous cases in the vicinity—declared Fritz to be in a very critical state. His life, he said, was in serious peril, a change having taken place for the worse.