DEATH INTERVENED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 142, 17 June 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

DEATH INTERVENED.

An affecting scene (says a correspondent) was witnessed recently at the Vienna General Hospital. A much-esteemed Vienna surgeon—Dr. Franz Karis — lay there at the point of death anxiously awaiting his bride. Dr. Karis, still a young man, had been betrothed some timo previously to the lady, a Fraulein Ebert, formerly his housekeeper. She had nursed him last year through an attack cf diphtheria with such devotion and Selfsacrifice that gratitude and admiration moved him to propose to her. Although the lady was of simple birth, and though, in case of such a marriage, his family would lose a considerable fortune, they offered no objection to the union. Unfortunately a serious attack of inflammation of the lungs, Which confined him fo* months to bed, followed the diphtheria, and prevented Dr. I-. aris from carrying out his Intention of marriage. A few days ago he was carried, by his own wish, to the hospital, where he grew sj rapidly worse that he felt his end approaching. He then begged his medical colleague in the hospital to hasten the marriage formalities, and, to prevent the necessity of publishing the banns, the director procured the necessary documents, and the bride hastened to the Suffragan Bishop to obtain a dispensation from the banns, after which she hurried to the Town Hall to fulfil the necessary legal formalities there. This done, she returned w'th all speed to the bedside of her lover, where the rector and the marriage witnesses were assembled. The state -cf the patient in the meanwhile had grown visibly worse. Minute by minute he became more agitated, and amid profound silence kept his eyes fixed -upon the door, murmuring her name. At half-past live he expired. Half an hour later \he door was hastily opened by Fraulein Ebert, who threw herself in a heart-broken condition upon tho bed. She covered the face of the departed with kisses, and criel|jLdespairlngly, 'Too late! too late!' with difficulty she was at length taken away by the friends of the deceased, who showed her throughout the utmost commiseration and sympathy.