Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/38

28 of unspeakable rapture. Neither of them spoke as Margaret approached.

"Oh, what is it? What has happened?" exclaimed Margaret, too terrified by their strange attitudes to see that their expression was one of great joy, and not of grief.

Wilhelm stretched one hand towards the table, and his lips moved, but no sound came from them. Annette turned to the table, took up a letter, and gave it to Margaret, saying, "Karl! Karl! He is alive. He comes home."

Margaret sank into a chair. Strong as her instinct had been that Karl was not dead, the certainty came to her with almost as great a shock of surprise as it had come to his brother and sister.

The letter was from Karl's friend, the young lady in the Philadelphia Hospital. It was long and full, giving an account of all that Karl had suffered in the months in Libby Prison, of his almost miraculous preservation at City Point, and of his present convalescence. At the close she said:—

"The surgeon says that if Karl has no drawbacks he will be well enough to come home in a month. He most earnestly advises that you do not come here. Karl is absolutely comfortable, and wants for nothing; the excitement of talking would do him great harm. He himself begs that you will not come. I will see him every day, and write to you every week."