'At Burtscheid, dearest Carl; meet me at Burtscheid, where last we met.' Then she seemed to melt away from before him, and Charlie started and awoke, to find it was happily but a mere dream, born too probably of his nervous and enfeebled condition, yet one so vivid, we have said--so terrifically vivid and painful, that he was trembling in every limb, a cold perspiration covered his whole frame; and by some strange association of ideas, the dying curse, if curse it was, of the French captain came rushing on his memory. And now the time came when he was to leave the Chateau de Caillé. 'And you go, you go to her,' said Célandine, making a great effort to appear calm, on the day of his departure. 'To her whose miniature I showed you, dear friend yes.' 'Oh, may you both be happy--very, very happy!' 'I thank you, dear Célandine; you will ever have her gratitude, as well as mine; but there are many things to oppose, many interests to thwart our happiness.' 'Alas!' said the French girl, sadly; 'but remember that nothing is _impossible_.' And so when Charlie Pierrepont left his kind friends and that charming part of Lorraine, he little knew that he left behind a warm girlish heart that yearned for him, and him only, and thought nothing of Monsieur Adolphe, with all his thousands of francs, her father's choice; and keenly she envied her--the unknown lady--whose miniature was in Charlie's heart. From the surgeon of a Prussian regiment at Saarbrück, Charlie Pierrepont got a medical certificate, to the effect that he was incapable of rejoining the Thuringians, or of serving for some time. Leave was given him by the general in command, and he took the train from Saarbrück to Aix, to be near Frankenburg and her, of whom he had heard nothing for all those months, that seemed like so many ages now; for Charlie was so much of a lover, that to breathe the same atmosphere with her was a source of joy. Yet it was a cold and frosty atmosphere now, for Christmas was close at hand, the time when Christmas trees are lighted, when arcades and toyshops, fruiterers and pastry-cooks drive a roaring trade, when circles long separated are reunited, and happy parents sit at the head of happy tables surrounded by shining faces. The Reichswald was leafless and bare now, and a mantle of snow covered all those heights that surround Aix, which seems to lie in 'a fertile bowl surrounded by bold hills;' and ice lay in masses about the boats of the pontoon bridge of the Rhine. It was on the evening of the third Thursday before the great festival of the Christian year that Charlie found himself in the brilliant speise-saal of the Grand Monarque.