" Paul and his mother took counsel.
Both were French at heart. They determined to leave all they had in the
world at Metz, rather than Paul should be called up to serve Prussia.
The three contrived to cross the frontier. Paul offered himself to the
Foreign Legion; his wife volunteered to nurse in a military hospital at
Nancy; and Madame Herter, mere took refuge in her girlhood's home at
Luneville, where her old father still lived.
Then came the rush of the Huns across the frontier. Paul's wife was
killed by a Zeppelin bomb which wrecked her hospital. At Luneville the
mother and grandfather perished in their own house, burned to the ground
by order of the Bavarian colonel, Von Fosbender.
Paul Herter had not been in love with his wife. There was a mystery
about the marriage, but her fate filled him with rage and horror. His
mother he had adored, and the news of her martyrdom came near to driving
him insane. In the madness of grief he vowed vengeance against all
Bavarians who might fall into his hands.
He was fighting then in the Legion; but shortly after he was gravely
wounded. His left foot had to be amputated; and from serving France as a
soldier, he began to serve as a surgeon. He developed astonishing skill
in throat and chest operations, succeeding in some which older and more
experienced men refused to attempt. Months passed, and into his busy
life had never come the wished-for chance of vengeance; but all who knew
him knew that Herter's hatred of Bavarians was an obsession.
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