"Be still—fool!" commanded Paul, studying the paper.
"Oh, but Doctor Herschall will make something of it," the nurse broke in once more, wringing her hands, quite beside herself with fear and excitement.
"See, blockhead, what you have done," snarled Paul.
"Call me no more names, scoundrel!" roared Carl. "I have fought you at school and beat you. And—Herr Gott!—I can do it again!"
He whipped out the saber he wore on duty and sprang at his cousin. Paul drew his pistol from its sheath—a deadly weapon.
"For that you are a dead man, Carl Baum!" he vowed, and would have shot his cousin through the heart on the instant.
Belinda, uttering a horrified cry, threw herself between the enraged young men.
She was aroused as she had never been aroused before. These men bent upon each other's murder were but boys in her eyes. She remembered them as joyous playfellows in pinafores; later as promising youths who vied for her favor.
Now she had been thrown in contact with them again and found them grown men—full of the faults—perhaps of the virtues, too—of soldiers.
What this awful war had done to them, to change them so utterly, smote upon Belinda Melnotte's mind with withering force.