there close to the
battery; and then I saw the stars come out and thought--"

"Hush!" said the girl, "you must not speak any more now. You are too
weak; I only spoke to you to find out whether you had regained
consciousness or not."

"But you must let me thank you. If it had not been--"

"No, I won't allow another word," she interposed authoritatively. "You
will do yourself harm, and then I shall be accused of being a bad nurse!
Besides, you haven't got to thank me at all; it was the dog who made me
see you."

"What, Gelert," whispered Fritz again, in spite of her
admonition,--"dear old fellow!"

He had hardly uttered these words, when the faithful dog, who must have
been close beside the bed, raised himself up, putting a paw on one of
Fritz's arms which lay outside the coverings and licking his hand,
whining rapturously the while, as if rejoiced to hear the voice of his
master again.

"`Gelert!'" exclaimed the girl with some surprise. "Why, I know the dog
perfectly, and he recognises me quite well; but he is called `Fritz,'
not `Gelert,' as you said."

"`Fritz!'" ejaculated he, in his turn. "Why, that is my name!"

"Gracious me," thought the girl to herself, "he is rambling again, and
confusing his own name with that of the dog! I must put a stop to his
speaking, or else he will get worse. Here, take this," she said aloud,
lifting to his lips a wineglass containing a composing draught which the
doctor had left for her patient to take as soon as he showed any signs
of recovery from his swoon, and which she really ought to have given him
before; "it will do you good, and make you stronger."

Fritz swallowed the potion unhesitatingly, immediately sinking back on
his pillow in a quiet sleep; when the girl, sitting down by the side of
the bed, watched the long-drawn, quivering respirations that came from
the white, parted lips of the wounded man.

"Poor young fellow!" she said with a sigh; "I fear he will never get
over it. I wonder where Armand is now, and how came this stranger to
have possession of his dog! The funniest thing, too, is that `Fritz'
seems as much attached to this new master as he was to Armand, although
he has not forgotten me. Have you, `Fritz,' my beauty, eh?"

The retriever, in response, gave three impressive thumps with his bushy
tail on the floor, as he lay at the girl's feet by the side of the bed.
He evidently answered to this other familiar appellation quite as
readily as h