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go through my heart at this. I suppose I must have turned as red as blood. "'"What I was thinking of," I said, "was probably the happiest moment of my life, though at that moment I received a mortal wound." "'"But you've quite got over it, have you not?" she asked with much anxious sympathy. "I suppose some bullet struck you at the moment of victory?" "'I felt a good deal of an ass; but I suppressed this feeling to the best of my power, and without looking up, but fixing my eyes on the ground like some naughty schoolboy who has just been having a blowing up, I said in a feeble voice: "'"I have had the pleasure of seeing you before." "'Then the conversation went on in most edifying fashion, Pauline saying: "'"Oh, really, I didn't know!" "'"Yes," I went on; "it was such magnificent spring weather, and I was enjoying it with two friends of mine, whom I hadn't seen for several years." "'"Ah! that must have been very nice," she said. "'"I saw you, Miss Asling," I said. "'"Did you really?" she answered. Oh, that must have been in the Thiergarten." "'"Yes," said I; "one Whit Monday, in the Webersche Zelt." "'"Yes, yes; quite right," cried Pauline. "I was there with my father and mother. There was a great crowd of people. I enjoyed it immensely. But I don't remember seeing you." "My former state of idiocy came back upon me in full force, and I was on the point of saying something very absurd, when the Geheime Rath came in, to whom Pauline announced with much joy that I had brought a letter from her cousin. The old gentleman was charmed, and cried: "'"What! a letter from Leopold! He's alive, then? How's his wound getting on? When will he be able to be moved?" "'And with that he took me by the lapels of the coat, and led me into his own room. Pauline followed; he called for breakfast, and asked endless questions. In short, I had to stay two good hours, and when at last I tore myself away with much difficulty (for Pauline sat close beside me, and kept looking me in the eyes with childlike unconstraint), he put his arm about my shoulders and begged me to come in as often as I could--at breakfast-time, for preference. "'I was now (as often happens in field service) right in the thick of the fire, without expecting it. If I were to detail to you the tortures that I underwent; how I often, as if impelled by some irresistible power, rushed away to that house which appeared to me a place so fatal t
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