He might be wounded, possibly killed! Madame Dort's anxiety became terrible.
"No news," says the proverb, "is good news;" but, to some it is the very worst that could possibly be; for, their breasts are filled with a storm of mingled doubts and fears, while hope is deadened and there is, as yet, no balm of resignation to soothe the troubled heart! The proverb is wrong; even the most heartbreaking confirmation of one's most painful surmise is infinitely preferable to being kept in a state of perpetual suspense, where one dreads the worst and yet is not absolutely certain of it.
It was so now with Madame Dort.

She thought she could bear the strain no longer, but must go to the frontier herself and seek for information of her missing son, as she had read in the newspapers of other mothers doing.

However, one afternoon, as she was sitting in the parlour in a state of utter dejection by the side of the lighted stove, for winter was coming on and the days were getting cold, Lorischen brought in a letter to her which had just come by the post.
It was in a strange handwriting! The widow tore it open hurriedly, glancing first at the signature at the end.

"Madaleine Vogelstein!" she said aloud.

"I wonder who she is; I never heard of her before!" She then went on to read the letter.
It did not take her long to understand the sense of it.
For, after scanning the contents with startled eyes, she exclaimed, "My son! oh, my son!" and then fell flat upon the floor in a dead faint..