When the man was gone, he turned to Jane. "Did I not tell you so? We must go to another point of the compass? Now we will direct our steps back to the Rhine. The only thing which remains to us is to write from Germany to Herr Erdmann; in any event this is easier than a correspondence with N., since we have his full address. In case he is no longer alive, we must repeat our advertisement in the several Rhenish newspapers. But in any event, I think we should immediately start upon our return journey."
At these words, Jane started from her stupor.
"And why? We are now in France. Perhaps we may succeed in finding that regiment!"
"For Heaven's sake, Jane, what are you thinking of? Seek a regiment upon the march--what an idea!"
"But that matters not, I will now know the truth! And if it was to cost me my life, and I must rush into the fight, even into the line of battle,--I must have a certainty!"
Atkins stood almost horrified before this sudden outbreak of a passion he had never suspected in Jane; and he now for the first time remarked her deathly pallor.
"Good God, what is the matter with you! Are you ill? I thought you would have to suffer from the weariness and excitement of this journey."
He sought to assist her, but she repelled him with a passionate gesture.
"It will pass over--I need nothing--but I beg you for a glass of water."
Atkins was in serious anxiety; he knew that Jane was not at all subject to nervous attacks, and he feared that she was ill. As in the hotel at present, prompt service was not to be dreamt of, he himself hastened out to fetch the water.
This was what Jane had expected. She wanted no water, but she needed a moment of solitude to save her from suffocation. Scarce was he gone, when she, too, hastened to the door, drew the bolt, and then sinking on her knees by the sofa, she buried her face in her hands. Jane Forest would not yield in this way before stranger eyes!
"If one is thrust out into life, without parents and without home, and then falls into the hands of a learned man who knows and loves nothing in the wide world but science--" and that letter came from the Rhine! This had been the lightning stroke which had passed through her; the presentiment came with all the annihilating power of certainty. That lightning flash had opened an abyss before her, into which Jane did not dare to glance; it had brought a secret to light, of which the cold, proud betrothed of Alison had not before been conscious. But, as now in mortal anguish she wrung her uplifted hands, it broke forth in one long-repressed despairing-cry;--