to his room; Leopold will give us a hand."

"That's not necessary--he is my father, and it is my place to carry
him."

In an instant he took up the old man with so much gentleness, and yet
with such firmness of muscle, that you would have thought he carried
a babe. He refused my assistance even up the staircase. He laid the
old Baron on his bed, with his eyes still fixed, and quite unconscious.

"Thank God! there he is safe," said Rudolf, falling into a chair. "I
have had many a hard piece of work in my life, but never one in which
my heart was so deeply concerned. May I stay here until he regains
consciousness?" he asked of Francis like a supplicant.

"I feel that it is impossible for you to leave at such a moment,"
she answered; "but we must call in Rolf, and if he sees you here----"

"Oh, if he makes the slightest to do I'll twist his neck about like
a chicken's."

It occurred to me that the more simple and prudent plan would be for
me to go and make the Captain acquainted with what had happened, and
obtain his promise to keep silent and to pretend not to know anything
about Rudolf's presence. He was enjoying his after-dinner nap when I
found him, and I was afraid he would have an attack of apoplexy when
I told him about the coming of Rudolf. His anger seemed to make him
forget the gravity of the General's position. I endeavoured to make
him understand that the accident might possibly be attributed to a
fit of cold, caused by drinking May wine in the cool of the evening so
shortly after the copious dinner of which the General had partaken; but
he had made up his mind that Rudolf was the cause of the misfortune,
and he asserted that his duty as a soldier and an officer was to have
him forthwith arrested as a deserter.

It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could get this fixed
idea out of his head. I succeeded, however, at length in proving to
him that the duty which he owed to humanity far surpassed all others at
present; that it would be an unheard-of cruelty to arrest the son now
at the bedside of a father, dying, for all we knew; that even Francis
herself had consented to his staying, and that we were in duty bound
to cast a veil over the family secrets. Finally the inborn good-nature
of Rolf triumphed, and we went together to the General's room.

The doctor had just arrived. He considered the case serious, and said
it would be necessary to bleed the patient. Fritz and Rolf were left
to aid the