But “Auf wiedersehen!” was all she said, as she left the room with a speaking glance from her violet eyes; and, towards the evening, from the confused bustling about which he heard going on within the villa, and the sound of carriage wheels without driving off, Fritz knew that the Baroness Stolzenkop and her party—amongst whom, of course, was Madaleine—had quitted Mézières, on their way back to the banks of the Rhine.
Chapter Ten.
On the Move again.
“I wonder if she cares about that French fellow still?” thought Fritz to himself when Madaleine had gone. “I don’t believe she could have felt for him much, from the manner in which she listened when I told her of his death and the way she looked at that ring. Himmel! Would she receive the news of my being shot in the same fashion, I wonder?”
Fritz, however, could not settle this momentous question satisfactorily to his own mind just then; so he had, consequently, to leave the matter to be decided at that blissful period when everybody thought that “everything would come straight”—the period to which he had alluded at the interesting instant when his slightly confidential conversation with Madaleine was so inopportunely interrupted by the maladroit entrance of Doctor Carl. In other words, “when the war should be over!” But, as the worthy disciple of Aesculapius had sapiently remarked on the occasion of his accidental interference with what might have been otherwise a mutual understanding between the two, the war was not over yet. The halcyon time had not arrived for the sword to be beaten into a ploughshare, nor did there seem much prospect of such a happy contingency in the near immediate future; for, although the contest had already lasted three months—during which a series of terrible engagements had invariably resulted in the defeat of the French—from the commencement of the campaign to the capitulation of Metz, each crushing disaster only seemed to have the effect of nerving the Gallic race to fresh resistance and so prolong the struggle. Indeed, at the beginning of November, 1870, with Paris laughing the idea of a siege to scorn and new armies being rapidly organised, in the north at Saint Quentin, in the west at Havre, and in the south at Orleans, the end of the war appeared as far off as ever!
Fritz missed the attentions of his unwearying little nurse much, and his convalescence did not progress so rapidly in consequence; but one morning, some three weeks after the departure of the party of the baroness’ from Mézières, he was agreeably surprised by Doctor Carl giving him permission to rejoin his corps.
“I don’t quite think you exactly strong enough yet, you know; but I’ve received orders to clear out the hospitals here, sending forward all such as are fit to their respective regiments, while those not sufficiently recovered I am to invalid to Germany. Now, which is it to be, Herr Lieutenant? I candidly don’t believe you’re quite up to the mark for campaigning again yet; but still, perhaps, you would not like being put on the shelf, and no doubt you’d gain strength from the change of air as you moved on with the army. Which course will you select, Herr Lieutenant? I give you the choice.”
“To rejoin my regiment, certainly, doctor!” answered Fritz, without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m tired of doing nothing here, and I fancy I’ve been well enough to move for the past fortnight.”