Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son’s return.  An hour passed, and he did not come.  Another hour, and she began to grow anxious.  When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl.  An hour of terrible suspense ensued.  It was worse than she had even feared.  Carl lay by the roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood, moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless.  Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid with bruises.  The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son.  “May he die in a foreign land,” said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, “without wife to nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul!  May his body lie unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures!  May his inheritance pass into the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!” They muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless eyes, and left her with her son.

For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever set in, and he raved continually.  He fancied himself pursued by Hans Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff.  When this was reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal; but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled.  His disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt.  In truth, it was the rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead.

Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a warmer affection for the victim of his brutality.  She threw off all disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch’s cottage, to aid in nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery.  She had, one day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples.  An indissoluble tie now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death.

When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable opportunity to obtain her father’s consent to their marriage.  The scars were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured.  No bones had been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault.  But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy the happiness for which he hoped,—­the love that had called him back to life.  As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk