"We shall soon
meet again, I hope," was the extent of promise I could obtain from
him; and I saw that to press the matter further was both unfair and
indelicate.

Though I lay down in bed I could not sleep; a strange feeling of dread,
an anxious fear of something undefined, was over me; and at every noise
I arose and looked out of the window, and down the streets, which
were all still and silent. The terrible events of the tale were like a
nightmare on my mind, and I could not dismiss them. At last I fell into
a half slumber, from which I was awakened by the Baron's servant. His
master was dangerously ill; another attack had seized him, and he was
lying senseless. I hastened to the room, where I found the sick man
stretched half dressed upon the bed, his face purple, and his eyeballs
strained to bursting; his breathing was heavy, and broken by a low,
tremulous quaver, that made each respiration like a half-suppressed
sigh. While I opened the window to give him air, and bathed his forehead
with cold water, I dispatched a servant for a doctor.

The physician was soon beside me; but I quickly saw that the case
was almost hopeless. His former disease had developed a new and, if
possible, worse one--aneurism of the heart.

I will not speak of the hourly vacillations of hope and fear in which
I passed that day and the following one. He had never regained
consciousness; but the most threatening symptoms had considerably
abated, and, in the physician's eyes, he was better. On the afternoon
of the third day, as I sat beside his bed, sleep overtook me in my
watching, and I awoke feeling a hand within my own: it was Elgenheim's.

Overjoyed at this sign of returning health, I asked him how he felt.
A faint sigh, and a motion of his hand towards his side, was all his
reply. Not daring to speak more, I drew the curtain, and sat still and
silent at his side. The window, by the physician's order, was left open,
and a gentle breeze stirred the curtains lightly, and gave a refreshing
air within the apartment. A noise of feet, and a hurried movement in the
street, induced me to look out, and I now saw the head of an infantry
battalion turning into the Platz. They marched in slow time, and with
arms reversed. \ With a throb of horror, I remembered the Deserter! Yes,
there he was! He marched between two dismounted gendarmes, without coat
or cap; a broad placard fixed on his breast, inscribed with his name and
his crime. I turned instant