was taken from his sanctuary.

He did not return the next day, nor the day after. His wife, tortured
by anxiety, went to the district headquarters. The commandant was
away. The aide could not enlighten her. There had been no message
sent to the baron--that was certain. Major Barenberg and Captain
Ludra had been transferred to another command. Unfortunately,
nothing could be done except to report the case.

The brave woman was not broken by her anguish, but raised to the
height of heroic devotion. She dedicated herself to the search for
her husband. The faithful forester, convinced that his master had
been killed, was like a slow, sure bloodhound on the track of the
murderers. He got a trace of them in a neighboring village, where
their car had been seen to pass at dusk on the fatal day. The
officers were in it, but not the baron. The forester got a stronger
scent of them in a wine-house, where their chauffeur had babbled
mysteriously on the following day. The old woodsman followed the
trail with inexhaustible patience.

"I shall bring the master's body home," he said to his mistress,
"and God will use me to avenge his murder."

A few weeks later he found his master's corpse hidden in a hollow
on the edge of the forest, half-covered with broken branches,
rotting leaves, and melting snow. There were three bullets in the
body. They had been fired at close range.

The widow's heart, passing from the torture of uncertainty to the
calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had