needed. My strength was almost exhausted. | ing of a shell, as he was superintending the removal of some of the captured guns. He was full of hope and spirit, but chafing at the delay caused by his wound, which prevented his accompanying his regiment-which was first on the homeward list. When his injuries had been attended to, I passed on with the doctor to the other beds. All full, even yet,-for the most part of wan, wasted faces, the sight of which would never gladden the waiting ones at home. Though peace had come, it was for them, at least, too late. Others, of countenances worn, indeed, but brightened with eager hope, as the kind doctor spoke cheery words of encouragement and promise. The terrible strain of the past months was telling heavily upon my bodily powers. I knew, once the over-wrought nerves relaxed their tension, I should break down utterly. But I could not leave the work that, in spite of its pain, had become so dear to me. And so much remained to be done. It would be long, indeed, before the gentle hands of Peace could bind up all the gaping wounds she found. So, with sinking spirit and failing powers, I struggled on. Not now in reckless disregard of health and life, as I might once have done; but in sweet assurance of accepted service, leaning hard upon Him whose strength never fails, who "giveth power to the faint, and might to him that hath no strength." It may be that I shrank from the reaction of feeling I knew must come in the quiet even-tide, when the burden and heat of the day should be. over. I had had so little time for brooding over the past. My present had been to soothe and succour the sufferings of others, and my beloved had seemed very near me, only separated by a thin veil of flesh. He was serving Jesus in the light above, I in the shadow below-that wasing intensely from wounds no human skill could all. Once and again I had written to Thekla. My heart was drawn to the loving, sorrowing girl who shared my grief; and she was Conrad's sister -therefore mine, though no recognized tie bound us together. I had received no answer, but that was scarcely strange in those unsettled days. And when the time was come, and it was the place for me, I doubted not the way to Munich would be opened. One morning, a day or two after the proclamation of peace, as I was going the round of the ward in a temporary hospital of which I had the day charge, the doctor had insisted on my relinquishing night service long before,-I noticed a fresh face in one of the recently vacated beds. A fine, dark, handsome face, with brilliant eyes and glossy raven hair. I felt at once, though I could not have told why, strongly drawn towards him. I had never seen him before, I was sure, and yet something in his countenance recalled some half-forgotten likeness or description. I felt infinitely relieved when his wound proved to be a slight one, received by the accidental burst When his round was finished, and he left the ward, after making the patients as comfortable as their cases admitted of, I, as usual, took out my little Bible, and read a few verses by each bed, as the strength of the sufferer permitted. The stranger's was the last, and just as I seated myself beside it, a feeble call came from one of the furthest beds, on which lay a poor fellow suffer heal or alleviate. As I rose to go to him, the young officer held out his hand, saying, “Will you lend me that book, mademoiselle, while you are with the poor fellow yonder? You look worn out. I am more fit to read it for myself, than you are to do so to me." One instant I hesitated. I felt a strange reluctance to trust that precious and only memento of my Conrad in other hands than my own. The next, I blushed at my selfish folly, and laid it in his. His earnest "Thank you!" made me feel it was no strange book to him; and with a cry in my heart for blessing for him and peace for the troubled spirit of the poor suffering man who was even then in sight of the portals of the dark valley, I crossed the room. The dying man kept me long at his side-the heart can soothe where the hands are helpless and useless. I spoke of Him who had pledged himself to care for the watching ones, in the far-off cottage-home in the Black Forest, so soon to be widowed and orphaned-of Him whose blood cleanseth, whose grace saves "to the uttermost," even at the eleventh hour. And gradually the moanings ceased, the tossing head lay still, the contracted brow grew smooth, and with that name "above every name" upon the pallid lips, the sufferer slept. Not the sleep that knows no waking that would not be yet, I knew. I had watched the coming footsteps of the last enemy too often now to mistake. So I rose and looked round to ascertain where I was needed next. At once I met the dark eyes of the stranger fixed upon me with a look of earnest entreaty. As they caught mine, he eagerly beckoned to me, and as I reached his pallet, he burst forth, pointing to the Bible he held open at the title-page, "Mademoiselle, tell me! where did you get this book? Where is Conrad von Edelstein?" The sudden mention of that long unheard and unspoken name for a moment deprived me of the power of replying. But those dark, searching eyes were pressing me, and I answered low and calm, "He is where he needs the written Word no more-' for ever with the Lord!"" "Dead! Conrad von Edelstein dead! Surely, mademoiselle, it is not that you would tell me?" He started up from his pillow, greatly agitated. "Yes; he is dead." Trouble me! "He died on the 5th of December at Drécy, a little village in the Vosges, near Belfort." Each word came slow and heavy, like blood-drops from my heart. "How was it? Did he fall in battle?" "No; he was shot by a franc-tireur." The anxious, sorrowful eyes pleaded for more. And he was his friend- he loved him- had doubtless been loved by him-so with an effort I went on. "It happened thus: In October, he of whom we are speaking," I could not trust myself to speak the name, "came to Drécy, where my father and I lived, with his company. He and some of his men were billeted upon us. We found in him not an enemy, but a friend. He was namesake and nephew of my father's dearest friend. He remained more than a week with us then. Three weeks afterwards, on his way back to Belfort after conveying some despatches, he was shot by a franc-tireur in the Drécy woods, three miles from our house. He was brought there, and there in a few weeks-he died. If you knew him, you will know how. He was buried in the Drécy churchyard." "And his friends-do they know? He has a Are you sure? How do you know it? Did mother and sister." you see him die?" "Yes." He sank back, covering his face with his hands. Were my words hard, and cold, and cruel? For worlds I could not have spoken otherwise. Some minutes passed before he spoke again. I sat still, fighting with pain. At last he looked up, and said brokenly: "So goes half my joy in returning home. Well, for him, as he was so fond of saying, 'It is well;' but for me-for-" His voice failed. My heart felt bursting, but no tears came. From the lonely height of my sorrow, I looked pityingly down on this fellowmourner. He wept, but I was calm. After a while, he continued, taking, I suppose, my pale calmness as a mark of indifference,— "Pardon me, mademoiselle, but this sudden blow unmans me. Conrad von Edelstein was to me a friend-a brother. There is no one like him left. Will you tell me you say you were with him when he died-when was it, and where? If it will not trouble you too much," he added. "He has a sister-he had a mother." I was so used to think of Conrad as not dead, only entered upon a higher life, that I unconsciously used the present tense in speaking of him. But he understood. "Had, mademoiselle?" "Yes; but she was spared the anguish of his loss. She went home first!" "Both dead!" he exclaimed. Then, in a low tone of utter grief that went to my heart, he murmured, "Brother and mother gone! 0 Thekla! my poor, poor Thekla!" The words were low, not meant for my ears, but I heard and understood. "You are Karl Erhardt!" I exclaimed. "O thank God!" Surprise overpowered grief in his expressive face as he said, "I am. Ah, I see, you have heard of me from Conrad!" "Yes; and from Thekla!' "From Thekla! Have you heard from her? Is she well?" "I have not heard for more than two months She was well then, but in bitterness for her brother and mother. I have written to her several times since, but have received no reply, owing, no doubt, to the uncertainty of our movements." "Have you been long in the ambulance, mademoiselle?" Karl asked after a long, sad silence, with a look of kind interest and inquiry. "You seem worn and weary." "Since December." "You have a father, I think you said; how does he spare you for such work as this?" "I have no father now-no home. My father died before your friend. My home was burned down." "Dear mademoiselle," he said very kindly, "you may well be able to sympathize, as I heard you doing just now, with others whose trials are even less than your own, and from the same cause. Pardon me that I have ignorantly turned your thoughts to such painful subjects. But you must leave this work. You have already done too much. You say you have now no home. Will you not go to Thekla von Edelstein? She will receive you as a friend, a sister, I am sure. And she owes you a large debt of gratitude for your services both to the living and the dead." The living and the dead! Oh, it was too much. It brought before me in such vivid contrast all those words implied. Thekla would have her Karl, but I-O Conrad, my Conrad! In a paroxysm of mute agony I bowed my head upon my hands. Only for a moment. I had work to do. Resolutely crushing it down, I rose to go my round with medicine and food. But first, with a sudden thought, I placed Thekla's last letter to me in her lover's hand. It would tell him all, I knew. But he would know it one day; it was better he should do so at once. For I felt I must not speak of the past again, it would unnerve me for my present. Mechanically I went through my duties with reeling brain, and failing limbs, and sinking heart. As I passed Karl's bed again, he held out his hand, and with tears in his dark eyes, whispered, "Forgive me. I did not know." "No, I have nothing to forgive. Forgive me if I ask you not to speak of these things yet -here-I cannot bear it. I pressed my hands to my throbbing brow." Karl looked at me compassionately. "You must let me assume a brother's right," he said, "and take you away from this. In a few days, please God, I shall be able to travel-sooner, perhaps. You will come to Thekla—say you will come!" But I could not think, could not answer then. The rest of the evening was spent by the bed of the dying man of whom I have spoken. Face to face with death, I grew calm again, and strong in the strength that is perfected in weakness. At midnight he passed away, with words of peace and trust on his lips. And then, without even pausing to speak to Karl, I left the ward-left it to return no more. For that night my strength utterly failed. The sudden plunge into the past had been too great a shock to my already exhausted system. I remember the doctor laying his hand on my shoulder, and facing me round towards him. Then I knew no more. For hours I lay in a swoon so death-like that those who ministered to me feared the veiled consciousness would never return. When it did, I knew my work was ended, -for the present, at least. No illness, no fever seized me. But my strength was gone. And when, in a few days, Karl left for Munich, I no longer resisted the doctor's imperative orders that I should accompany him; for, in his presence and protection, I saw the opening I had waited for. CHAPTER XXIII. LEFT ALONE. Thou knowest-not alone as God, all-knowing, THAT journey is a dream to me. I know I lay back in the carriage prostrate, exhausted, too weary to think or to realize; that kind hands and pitying faces tended and surrounded me the one night we spent at the house of one to whom Karl was related, who had known Conrad; that Karl did indeed assume a brother's right to protect and care for me. All else is blank. Not so the end. That is another of the pictures photographed vividly, indelibly in my memory. Karl had not written to Thekla of our coming. Letters might still miscarry. But he had sent a message by a mutual friend in his returning regiment, that he was detained by a slight wound for possibly a week; after that she might look for him each day. That was prior to our meeting. And now we were arriving before that time, and Karl's heart was beating high with all a lover's hope and joy. And mine? Well, it was too broken, too weary, even to flutter; it lay still in a quiet, half rest, half pain. We arrived at Munich in a clear, cold, sunny March afternoon. All was bustle and confusion at the station. Bright faces and sad ones. Mourning robes and festive garments. Welcomes that were all joy; greetings that were clouded by sorrow. The last the most numerous, alas! For me, of course, neither. Many outstretched hands and kindly faces met Karl, though his arrival was not awaited and watched for by his nearest and dearest. But I knew how glad a welcome was in store for him in the favoured home from whose treasures war had not claimed even one victim. But Thekla was first in his thoughts, I knew, as he hastily broke from the friends and acquaintances that surrounded him. We were soon rolling through the streets of Munich-the quaint old city of which I had heard my father and Conrad speak so much. At last we stopped before the old mansion of the Von Edelsteins. I knew it well. The face of the old man-servant who answered Karl's hasty summons to the door lighted up with pleasure as he recognized him; but clouded quickly, darkly. Ah! well I knew wherefore. The shadow fell over Karl's bright look as he grasped his hand for one silent moment. No words were needed. Then Karl asked eagerly, "Where is your young lady Franz? Is she well?" "Well in health, captain, yes," the old man answered with a sigh. "She will be well in heart now you are come." "Where shall I find her? In the drawingroom? No; don't go. I will announce myself. -Come," he said, taking my passive hand in his, and leading me up the broad polished staircase. Kind, thoughtful Karl, he did not forget me even then. Franz looked inquiringly, wonderingly, at me as we passed. I was a stranger to him; he was well known to me. And all I saw-the large hall, with its dark quaint furniture and shining floor, garnished with two enormous boars' heads at either end; the broad staircase with its carved balustrade, and grim old pictures,-I knew them all. Silently I followed where Karl led, with a strange mingling of dreaminess and vivid realization. Softly a large heavy door swung open to his touch, so noiselessly as not to disturb the only occupant of the large handsome apartment into which it admitted us-a fair girl, in deep mourning dress, seated near the window; some work lay on her lap, with her listless hands crossed upon it. The last rays of the setting sun lingered on the window at which she sat, distinctly revealing every line of the sweet, sad face. Thekla! yes; there were the rich masses of clustering golden-brown hair, the broad white brow-so like another!-the full pouting lips, the large bright hazel eyes, the softly-rounded cheek, all as they had been depicted to me by the voice I might never hear again. But there was not the arch sparkling gaiety and brightness of look on which Conrad dwelt so much. She was changed. The round cheek had lost its rose, the soft eyes were heavy with unshed tears, the sweet lips set with the mournfulness of patient sorrow. She had not heard the noiseless opening of the door, and for a moment we both gazed in silence. Then Karl stepped forward, saying in a low, agitated voice, "Thekla!" With a glad cry she sprang towards him, and was clasped passionately to his heart. It may well be forgiven if, in the mingled joy and grief of that meeting, I was forgotten for some moments. There I stood in Conrad's home, and he not there! The room was half in shadow, half lighted by the flickering beams of the fire. The tall houses opposite almost shut out the fading evening light, except just where Thekla had sat. But there was light enough. I stood leaning heavily against the high back of a carved chair that stood near me, looking and feeling, not hearing. I had almost forgotten Karl and Thekla's presence. There were Conrad's mother's chair and work-table-just below her victure as a young mother, with a bright-faced, broad-browed | familiar haunts and treasures. My grief was no boy at her knee. There were Thekla's harp and longer wholly pent up in my own breast, though books, the inlaid Venetian cabinet where Con- no human line could sound its depths. But that rad's shells were treasured,-all as he had de- was not all. On the darkness of. my sorrow the scribed them. They were there, and I-but he Sun of Righteousness had risen, and there was oh! that far-off lonely grave, how it rose before healing in his wings; yes, even for such grief as me then! I strove to rally my sinking spirit by mine. Oh! that all sorrowing hearts knew his telling myself of his fairer home above. But it mighty power! would not do. I could only cry in my heart, "Lord, thou knowest," and endure the pain. But soon Thekla perceived the bowed, drooping figure standing motionless before her. "Karl,” she whispered inquiringly; but in the same instant she exclaimed, "It is Léonie," and breaking from Karl's arms she flung herself into mine with a passion of bitter weeping, sobbing out, "Oh, Léonie, Léonie! our Conrad, our Conrad!" My sweet, impulsive, loving Thekla, how precious she has been to me since that hour! CHAPTER XXIV. THE BATTLE OF LIFE. With a weary heart and head; "Fighting alone to-night, With not e'en a stander by To cheer me in the fight, Or to hear me when I cry. Only the Lord can hear, Only the Lord can see The struggle within, how dark and drear, Hymns for the Church on Earth. Ir was long before my exhausted frame and shattered nerves recovered any measure of strength and tone. Not only Thekla, but the whole household, treated me with almost reverential tenderness and pity, for the sake of him who had so loved me. And by degrees their care and kindness were rewarded, my strength began to return, my poor bruised heart to revive. And those days, sorrowful as they were, were unlike the dark ones that followed Conrad's death at Drécy. Human sympathy was very sweet to me; it was a precious solace to talk of my beloved one with Thekla, to hear of him from her, and to recognize in my surroundings his old Thekla, too, had found it her stay. She had learned to know him in whom she had only believed before. Her trial had been a heavy one. Mother, brother, taken almost by one blow; but she had still her Karl, whose grief for the brotherfriend he had lost was at least deep as her own, for the friendship between him and Conrad had been no common one. And a few weeks after his return they were married,-very quietly. There was nothing to wait for, and we knew what the departed would have wished. Thekla had many friends, and loving ones, but she was loath to leave her old home even for a time. So one bright April morning they stood before the altar and were made one in name and home, as they already were in heart and faith. And as I stood beside the fair young bride, whose sweet face looked so lovely in its subdued and chastened joy, no pang of jealous pain or bitter repining stirred the quiet depths of my sorrowful heart. For at last it was with me as with my Conrad,-Jesus stood between me and my sorrow. Karl and Thekla settled at once in the old mansion, Thekla's inheritance now, and my home, they say. I know it ever will be to me all of home I can have on earth. But as my bodily strength returned, and after Thekla's marriage had brought a change in the quiet house,-comers and goers, though the shadow of bereavement rested too heavily on it still for festivities,-I returned in measure to the work I had left. There was enough in the crowded hospitals still. At times Thekla would gently chide me when I returned worn and spent, and unable to rally my sinking spirits from deep overpowering dejection and depression. But then I would tell her that just as her life-work was to keep sunshine round the domestic hearth, so mine was to go forth to the service for which I had been |