What had happened in those five days? My anxi-
ety and dread became insupportable. My father
was obliged to return to his estate of Grumitz, and
I was out of all present danger. Aunt Marie re-
mained and endeavored to quiet me with her con-
ventional ideas of destiny, special providences, and
the like — small comfort for the dreadful lack of
news from the front. After his return home my
father telegraphed repeatedly the result of his in-
quiries. He could get no reply from Frederick's
colonel, yet on examination of the list of killed and
wounded his name was not discovered.
One afternoon, when I had begged to be left
alone, I lay on the sofa half dreaming of the day
he left me. Aroused by a slight movement I sprang
up in terror, with the feeling that anxiety had
overmastered reason, and that it was in imagination
only that I saw Frederick standing in the doorway.
The next moment I was clasped to his heart.
When we found time for other thought than the
joy of re-union, Frederick explained that he had
been left wounded in a farmhouse, and the regi-
mental surgeon could make no other report than
"missing," which, fortunately, had not reached us.
As soon as possible he hastened home, and the war
was virtually at an end when he recovered suffi-
ciently to be moved.
We spent the summer in Grumitz, and after
much serious consultation I persuaded Frederick
to resign his commission. Our interests had now,
through our love, become so united, that there was
no longer any feeling of hesitancy on account of
my being the financial partner. He was only anx-
ious to spare us both the horrors of another war.
