English patient at the
hospital at Mannheim. It is needless to say that I doubted the existence
of the absent person described as a nurse. However, it was possible
to make inquiries by applying to the surgeon, Ignatius Wetzel, whose
whereabouts was known to his friends in Mannheim. I wrote to him, and
received his answer in due time. After the night attack of the Germans
had made them masters of the French position, he had entered the cottage
occupied by the French ambulance. He had found the wounded Frenchmen
left behind, but had seen no such person in attendance on them as the
nurse in the black dress with the red cross on her shoulder. The only
living woman in the place was a young English lady, in a gray traveling
cloak, who had been stopped on the frontier, and who was forwarded on
her way home by the war correspondent of an English journal.'"

"That was Grace," said Lady Janet.

"And I was the war correspondent," added Horace.

"A few words more," said Julian, "and you will understand my object in
claiming your attention."

He returned to the letter for the last time, and concluded his extracts
from it as follows:

"'Instead of attending at the hospital myself, I communicated by letter
the failure of my attempt to discover the missing nurse. For some little
time afterward I heard no more of the sick woman, whom I shall still
call Mercy Merrick. It was only yesterday that I received another
summons to visit the patient. She had by this time sufficiently
recovered to claim her discharge, and she had announced her intention of
returning forthwith to England. The head physician, feeling a sense of
responsibility, had sent for me. It was impossible to detain her on
the ground that she was not fit to be trusted by herself at large, in
consequence of the difference of opinion among the doctors on the case.
All that could be done was to give me due notice, and to leave the
matter in my hands. On seeing her for the second time, I found her
sullen and reserved. She openly attributed my inability to find the
nurse to want of zeal for her interests on my part. I had, on my side,
no authority whatever to detain her. I could only inquire whether she
had money enough to pay her traveling expenses. Her reply informed me
that the chaplain of the hospital had mentioned her forlorn situation in
the town, and that the English residents had subscribed a small sum
of money to enable her to return to her own country. Satisfied on