Four or five men, Colonel von Waldor and Herr von Busche among them, were lifting a wounded man or a dead man upon a low country cart filled with straw, and then the doctor and his assistant received their charge and laid him carefully down, raising his head as they did so. The evening light shone brightly on the pallid face--Kurt's face; but, Heaven be thanked, Kurt wounded, but not dead! His eyes were open, and a smile flitted across his pallid features as Erna bent over him where he lay. Her fair countenance, darkened by the riding-hat which she wore, was as pale as his own, but she, too, was smiling, and she bent lower and lower still, and closed those lips of his that would speak and that were not to speak, with a kiss; and then she leapt down from the cart and bounded straightway, with Herr von Busche's help, into the saddle, her horse having meanwhile been brought to her. The Colonel, too, had mounted by this time, and the cart now set off, the wounded man being supported by the doctor's assistant; the doctor had also mounted his horse and joined the procession, which, following the cutting in the opposite direction, soon vanished within the glade. There remained but Herr von Busche and Alexandra, whom Bertram only saw after the cart had disappeared; there were two grooms, too, and they were now bringing up the horses; one of them a spare one, probably the one which poor Kurt had been riding. The whole scene only occupied a few minutes, during which Bertram just had time to overcome the first paralysing feelings of horror. What subsequently retained and restrained him in the sheltering darkness of the trees, was a flood of curiously mingled feelings, out of which there emerged with potent forces the warning: They have found each other for life and death; step not again between them; touch not again with clumsy hands the dainty and complicated wheels of a fate which laughs your calculations to scorn! He would have liked best to creep away unseen by any one, but here was Otto ascending the cutting, and loudly calling Bertram's name. Alexandra, who was just about to let Herr von Busche help her into the saddle, started; Herr von Busche sang out in reply to Otto; Bertram stepped forth from under the trees, and the Princess hurried up to him, gathering her riding-habit with one hand, and holding out the other to him. "My dear friend! you here? Thank Heaven! I was just debating whether I had not better wait for you, rather than leave a servant with a message." "Is Kurt badly wounded?" "How do you know? but never mind! No; not badly. That is to say, it will be a tedious affair, but the surgeon guarantees a complete cure, and states that his life is in no danger. He found the ball at once; we were already on the spot--and, great Heaven, what a splendid, heroic creature Erna is!"