"Well, then," replied Walter, while the old melancholy smile flitted over his face, "another meeting will be spared me, and to you, murder in a duel; for after what has just happened, I will never draw a weapon against you.--But one thing more, Mr. Alison. I do not know how you came past the guard, and I will not ask you; but I demand your word of honor not to follow me further, and to go back immediately by the path on which you came. I am forced to demand this. Do not refuse it." Alison gazed at him morosely. "I have nothing more to seek in the mountains," he said; "I will go back immediately." "I thank you, and now--farewell!" Walter turned away and vanished in the shrubbery. Alison gazed after him. "There he goes, right into the midst of the enemy, with that calmness and those eyes before which mine almost fell. Oh, this German!"--he clinched his hands in savage fury. "I can force her to be my wife, but her heart will never forget him; it cannot,--I understand that!" * * * On the evening of the next day, Captain Schwarz with his battalion, which Lieutenant Fernow had now joined, entered S. It had been almost a whole day upon the march, as it had taken the by-road through E., but it brought welcome news. The very next morning, the colonel and his staff, with the rest of the regiment from L. re-enforced and instructed to fall on the enemy if he still obstructed the pass, went to join the other detachments in S. The regiment had been recalled from its post, and had at the same time received orders to march on to Paris. CHAPTER XXX. Waiting. The winter had passed. More than six months lay between that eventful autumn night, and the spring day which now poured its sunny magnificence over B. Six months, full of snow and ice, full of new sieges and new triumphs. Now the bloody strife had ended. Overthrown in his last, despairing struggles, exhausted, driven back into the very heart of the country, the enemy at last confessed itself beaten. The last war for the Rhine had been fought; henceforth, new boundaries were to guard the ancient river and the land through which it flowed. In the Rhine-country the first thunderbolt of war had fallen; here the people had most feared and trembled, most fervently prayed; because here the danger had been most imminent; and it was the Rhineland that was to be first greeted as saviour and conqueror. The trembling hope that had a little while ago followed the departing soldiers, was now changed into shouts of exultation and plans of victory.