Then a fear came over Charlie that the same event might prevent Ernestine meeting him, as she might be deprived of her brother's escort. But if she failed to come, a messenger of some kind might meet him at Burtscheid. CHAPTER XXII. AT BURTSCHEID. 'In five hours--in four--in two,' and so on he reckoned, 'I shall see her again--my darling! my darling!' At last the wished-for time came when he was to set forth on that walk which--he fondly, ardently, and tenderly hoped--was to end in _her_ presence; but, as he walked down the leafless avenue from the city, he felt his heart become tremulous, almost sick with anxiety and fear, lest she should be unable to meet him, even after all the months of separation undergone; yet his was a heart that never quailed, even when he faced that battery in the wood--a battery that was not of cannon, but mitrailleuses! Anon as he proceeded, something of Ernestine's high and strange enthusiasm gathered in his breast. Even if he were fated never to wed her, he felt that she was the one great passion of his life, a worship almost spiritualized, and that beyond the trammels of this material world, he would follow her, faithful and unchanged, into that to come. Then he almost smiled to think how German the tone of his mind was becoming. The evening sky was cloudless, and wore a kind of pale violet tint, amid which the stars sparkled out brilliantly. The trees of the avenue between the city and Burtscheid were covered with rimy frost, which made their branches seem to coruscate and glitter in myriad prisms. Frost was on the pathway; it shone on the stems and twigs, on the stalks and blades of the wayside plants; snow covered all the district, yet the air was far from being cold. At last the old church of Burtscheid rose before him again. In another minute or two, he would have clasped her to his breast, where he had clasped her last--at the altar-rail--when those sad and sweet and solemn vows were interchanged. In that moment the campaign in Alsace and Lorraine, danger, duty, wound, and suffering, were all forgotten; nothing was in his mind but the intense happiness of the event to come. He was conscious enough of the tombs and cypresses, the pillars and obelisks, standing grimly up from the snow-clad graves; of the dusky outlines of various distant buildings; of red lights streaming from windows out upon the gloom; and he could see the pale silver crescent of the new moon peeping sharply up above the black outline of the Schloss of Frankenburg. He heard the faint whisper of the ivy leaves on the old wall; but all as one might do in a dream.' He threw away the end of his cigar, and thought, 'I should not have been smoking when coming to meet _her_.' No britzka or other carriage stood before the gate. Heinrich was not there as escort; neither was the old butler or any other servant there in attendance.