Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/33

Rh Karl! Wilhelm had tears like the rain on his face, to beseech that he would let us pay that another man should go; but he said that the man with no wife should go to the fight, and he was angry at the last, even with Wilhelm.

"I think your brother was very right," said Margaret quietly, taking Wilhelm's hand in hers; "if he were my own brother, even if he had been killed, I should still rejoice that he had been noble enough to give his life for the right."

"For the Fatherland, yes," said Wilhelm; "but not for this land we need not to love. It is not anything to us, except that we must live. We are Germans; we are not of your blood;" and Wilhelm looked almost fiercely at Margaret.

"All men are of one blood, when the fight is that all men may be free, my friend," said Margaret, still more quietly, with a voice trembling with sympathy, and yet firm with enthusiasm. "Whatever land it had been which first began the fight for freedom to all, I would send my brothers to die under its banners. I would go myself! But I do not believe your Karl is dead. I cannot tell why I have so strong a feeling that he is still alive, but I have no doubt of it—none!"

Margaret's hopefulness was not shared by Wilhelm. He refused to listen to any of her suggestions. Weeks later a letter came from Karl's friend, Gustave Boehmer, who was in the same company, and was lying in the trench, next to Karl