"Open it," he said; "I haven't got the strength to do it, you know."

Madaleine unfastened the silken string that confined the mouth of the bag, now stained with Fritz's blood; and then she pulled out the little silver ring it contained.

One glance was enough for her.

"Yes," she faltered through her sobs. "It is the ring I gave him; but that was months before the date engraved upon it, 'July 18th, 1870,'

which was the day he said he would come back to Bingen, as then he would be of age."

"And he never came, then?" inquired Fritz.

"No, never again," said she mournfully.

"Ah, I would come if I had been in his place," exclaimed Fritz eagerly, with a flashing eye. "I never fail in an appointment I promise to keep; and to fail to meet a betrothed--why it is unpardonable!"

He had raised his voice from the whisper in which he had previously spoken, and its indignant tone seemed quite loud.

"Perhaps he couldn't come," said Madaleine more composedly. "Besides, we were not engaged; all was over between us."

"I'm very glad to hear that," replied Fritz. "It would have been dastardly on his part otherwise! But, would you like to keep the dog for his sake, Fraulein Vogelstein? I have got no claim to him, you know."

"Oh dear no, I would not like to deprive you of him for the world, much as I love the poor faithful fellow. Why, he would think n.o.body was his proper master if he were constantly changing hands like this!"

"Poor old Gelert!" said Fritz; and the dog, hearing himself talked about, here raised himself up again from his rec.u.mbent att.i.tude by the side of the bed and thrust his black nose into the hand of his master, who tried feebly to caress him.

"'Fritz,' you mean," corrected Miss Madaleine, determined to have her point about his right name.

"Well, if you call him so, I shall think you mean me," said Fritz jokingly, as well as his feeble utterance would permit his voice to be expressive. He wanted, however, to imply much more than the mere words.

"That would not be any great harm, would it?" she replied with a little smile, her tears of sorrow at Armand de la Tour's untimely fate having dried up as quickly as raindrops disappear after a shower as soon as the sun shines out again; however, she apparently now thought the conversation was becoming a little too personal, for she proceeded to ply the invalid with more soup in order to stop his mouth and prevent him from replying to this last speech of hers!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE "LITTLE FAT MAN."

"Hullo! What fails with the well-born and most worthy lady, her to make in such pitiable plight?" inquired Burgher Jans, poking his little round face into the parlour of the house in the Gulden Stra.s.se, just as Lorischen, bending over her mistress, was endeavouring to raise her on to the sofa, where she would be better enabled to apply restoratives in order to bring her to.

The old nurse was glad of any a.s.sistance in the emergency; and, even the fat little Burgher, disliked as he was by her, as a rule, with an inveterate hatred, was better than n.o.body!

"Madame has fainted," she said. "Help me to lift her up, and I'll be obliged to you, worshipful Herr."

"Yes, so, right gladly will I do it, dearest maiden," replied Burgher Jans politely, with his usual sweeping bow, taking off his hat and depositing it on an adjacent chair, while he lent a hand to raise the poor lady and place her on the couch.

This done, he espied the letter that had caused the commotion, which Madame Dort still held tightly clutched in her hand when she fell; and he tried to pull it away from her rigid fingers. "Ha, what have we here?" he said.

"You just leave that alone!" snapped out Lorischen. "Pray take yourself off, with your wanting to spy into other people's business! If I were a man I'd be ashamed of being so curious, I would. Burgher Jans, I'll thank you to withdraw; I wish to attend to my mistress."

"I will obey your behests, dearest maiden," blandly replied the little man, taking his hat from the chair and backing towards the door, although casting the while most covetous eyes on the mysterious letter, which he would have cheerfully given a thaler to have been allowed to peruse. "I will return anon to inquire how the gracious lady is after her indisposition, and--"

"If you are not out of the room before I count five," exclaimed the old nurse, angrily interrupting him, "I declare I'll pitch this footstool at your little round turnip-top of a head, that I will. One--two--three--"

"Why, whatever is the matter, Lorischen?" interposed Madame Dort, opening her eyes at this juncture, while the old nurse yet stood with the footstool raised in her uplifted hands facing the door, half in and half out of which peered the tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles of the little fat burgher. "Who is there?"

The poor lady spoke very faintly, and did not seem to know where she was at first, her gaze wandering round the room.

Lorischen quickly put down the heavy missile with which she was threatening Burgher Jans; and he, taking advantage of this suspension of hostilities, at once advanced again within the apartment, although still keeping his hand on the door so as to be ready to beat a retreat in a fresh emergency, should the old nurse attempt to renew the interrupted fray.

"High, well-born, and most gracious madame," said he obsequiously. "It is me, only me!"

"Hein!" grunted Lorischen. "A nice 'me' it is--a little, inquisitive, meddlesome morsel of a man!"

"Oh, Meinherr Burgher Jans," said Madame Dort, rising up from the sofa.

"I'm glad to see you; I wanted to ask you something. I--"

Just at that moment she caught sight of the letter she held between her fingers, when she recollected all at once the news she had received, of which she had been for the time oblivious.

"Ah, poor Fritz!" she exclaimed, bursting into a fit of weeping. "My son, my firstborn, I shall never see him more!"

"Why, what have you heard, gracious lady?" said Burgher Jans, abandoning his refuge by the door, and coming forwards into the centre of the room.

"No bad news, I trust, from the young and well-born Herr?"

"Read," said the widow, extending the letter in her hand towards him; "read for yourself and see."

His owlish eyes all expanded with delight through the tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles, the fat little man eagerly took hold of the rustling piece of paper and unfolded it, his hands trembling with nervous anxiety to know what the missive contained--and which he had been all along burning with curiosity to find out.

Lorischen actually snorted with indignation.

"There, just see that!" she grumbled through her set teeth, opening and clenching her fingers together convulsively, as if she would like to s.n.a.t.c.h the letter away from him--when, perhaps, she would have expressed her feelings pretty forcibly in the way of scratches on the Burgher's beaming face: "there, I wouldn't have let him see it if he had gone down on his bended knees for it--no, not if I had died first!"

The widow continued to sob in her handkerchief; while the Burgher appeared to gloat over the delicate angular handwriting of the letter, as if he were learning it by heart and spelling out every word--he took so long over it.

"Ah, it is bad, gracious lady," he said at length; "but, still, not so bad as it might otherwise be."

Madame Dort raised her tear-stained face, looking at the little roan questioningly; while Lorischen, who in her longing to hear about Fritz had not quitted the apartment, according to her usual custom when Burgher Jans was in it, drew nearer, resting her impulsive fingers on the table, so as not to alarm that worthy unnecessarily and make him stop speaking.

The Burgher felt himself a person of importance, on account of his opinion being consulted; so he drew himself up to his full height--just five feet one inch!

"The letter only says, most worthy and gracious lady,--and you, dearest maiden," he proceeded--with a special bow to Lorischen, which the latter, sad to relate, only received with a grimace from her tightly drawn spinster lips--"that the young and well-born Herr is merely grievously wounded, and not, thanks be to Providence, that he is--he is--he is--"

"Why don't you say 'dead' at once, and not beat about the bush in that stupid way?" interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man's hemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurting out roughly without demur.

"No, I like not the ugly word," suavely expostulated the Burgher. "The great-to-come-for-all-of-us can be better expressed than that! But, to resume my argument, dearest maiden and most gracious lady, this doc.u.ment does not state that the dear son of the house has shaken off this mortal coil entirely as yet."

"I'd like to shake off yours, and you with it!" said Lorischen angrily, under her breath--"for a word-weaving, pedantic little fool!"

"You mean that there is hope?" asked Madame Dort, looking a bit less tearful, her grief having nearly exhausted itself.

"Most decidedly, dear lady," said the Burgher. "Does not the letter say so in plain and very-much-nicely-written characters?"