Elise did not come to meet him. No one bade him welcome but his servant Peter. Gently at last, indeed almost timidly, he ventured to inquire after his daughter.
"She is in the large hall, busy nursing the wounded who have been carried there."
Gotzkowsky's countenance expressed great delight and relief at this report. Elise had not, then, buried herself in the solitude of her room in idle complaint, but had sought, like himself, comfort for her suffering in helping and sympathizing with others. In this moment he appreciated the infinity of his love. He yearned to take her to his heart, and pour out to her all his unappreciated, doubted love, and convince her that she, his daughter, the only child of his wife, was the true end and object of his life. But unhappy, oppressed Berlin left him no time to attend to the soft and gentle dictates of his father's heart. He had scarcely got into his house, when two messengers arrived from the town Council, bringing him six thousand dollars in cash, with the urgent request that he would take charge of this sum, which would be safe only with him. The town messengers had scarcely left him, when there arrived the rich manufacturers, Wegeli and Wuerst, with a wagon-load of gold and silver bars which Gotzkowsky had promised to keep in his fire-proof cellars.
His house had become the treasury of the whole of Berlin; and if it had been destroyed, with all these gold and silver ingots, these diamonds and silver ware, money and papers, all the Exchanges of Europe would have felt the disastrous consequences.
At last, all these treasures were stowed away, and Gotzkowsky addressed himself to rest, when the door of his room was suddenly opened, and General von Bachmann entered hastily.
"Gotzkowsky," said he, "I have come with important intelligence, and to redeem the promise I made to my friend Sievers." Approaching more closely to Gotzkowsky, he said to him in an undertone: "General von Tottleben has just received orders to destroy and burn all royal factories and mills."
Gotzkowsky turned pale, and inquired with horror, "Why this barbarous proceeding?"
General Bachmann shrugged his shoulders. "It is the order of the commander-in-chief, Count von Fermore," said he; "and Tottleben will have to be all the more particular from the fact that, instead of the arsenal, fifty of our soldiers were blown into the air. Here, in the mean while, take this paper, and see whether, among the factories to be destroyed, one of yours has been included by mistake."
Gotzkowsky looked over the list with dismay. "Did not your excellency say that only royal factories were to be destroyed?"
"Yes, so runs the order."