ught love, to enjoy its gifts; now he was glad to make
sacrifices for its sake. He saw how Ruth's beautiful face saddened when
he was suffering, and with manly strength of will concealed inexpressible
agony under a grateful smile. He feigned sleep, to permit her and his
father to rest, and when tortured by feverish restlessness, lay still to
give his beloved nurses pleasure and repay their solicitude. Love urged
him to goodness, gave him strength for all that is good. His
convalescence advanced and, when he was permitted to leave his bed, his
father was the first one to support him through the room and down the
steps into the court-yard. He often felt with quiet emotion the old man
stroke the hand that rested on his arm, and when, exhausted, he returned
to the sick-room, he sank with a grateful heart into his comfortable
seat, casting a look of pleasure at the flowers, which Ruth had taken
from her chamber window and placed on the table beside him.

His family now knew what he had endured and experienced, and the smith
found a kind, soothing word for all that, a few months before, he had
considered criminal and unpardonable.

During such a conversation, Ulrich once exclaimed "War! You know not how
it bears one along with it; it is a game whose stake is life. That of
others is of as little value as your own; to do your worst to every one,
is the watchword; but now--every thing has grown so calm in my soul, and
I have a horror of the turmoil in the field. I was talking with Ruth
yesterday about her father, and she reminded me of his favorite saying,
which I had forgotten long ago. Do you know what it is? 'Do unto others,
as ye would that others should do unto you.' I have not been cruel, and
never drew the sword out of pleasure in slaying; but now I grieve for
having brought woe to so many!

"What things were done in Haarlem! If you had moved there instead of to
Antwerp, and you and Ruth . . . I dare not think of it! Memories of those
days torture me in many a sleepless hour, and there is much that fills me
with bitter remorse. But I am permitted to live, and it seems as if I
were new-born, and henceforth existence and doing good must be synonymous
to me. You were right to be angry. . . ."

"That is all forgiven and forgotten," interrupted the smith in a resonant
voice, pressing his son's fingers with his hard right hand.

These words affected the convalescent like a strengthening potion, and
when the hammers again mo