"Scarlett," he began, "if we don't reach--"
A quick rapping at the door silenced him; the young Countess stood in
the hallway, bright-eyed, but composed, asking for me.
"The red and the white lights are gone," she said. "There are four
green lights on the tower and four blue lights on the halyards."
I turned to Eyre. "This is interesting," I said, grimly. "I set
signals for the _Fer-de-Lance_ to land in force. Somebody has changed
them. You had better get ready to go."
Sylvia had shrunk away from Eyre. The Countess looked at her blankly,
then at me.
"Madame," I said, "there is little enough of happiness in the
world--so little that when it comes it should be welcomed, even by
those who may not share in it."
And I bent nearer and whispered the truth.
Then I went to Sylvia, who stood there tremulous, pallid.
"You serve your country at a greater risk than do the soldiers of
your King," I said. "There is no courage like that which discounts a
sordid, unhonored death. You have my respect, mademoiselle."
"Sylvia!" murmured the young Countess, incredulously; "you a
spy?--here--under my roof?"
Sylvia unconsciously stretched out one hand toward her.
Eyre stepped to her side, with an angry glance at Madame de Vassart.
"I--I love you, madame," whispered Sylvia. "I only place my own
country first. Can you forgive me?"
The Countess stood as though stunned; Eyre passed her slowly,
supporting Sylvia to the door.
"Madame," I said, "will you speak to her? Your countries, not your
hearts, are at war. She did her duty."
"A spy!" repeated the Countess, in a dull voice. "A spy! And she
brings this--this shame on me!"
Sylvia turned, standing unsteadily. For a long time they looked at
each other in silence, their eyes wet with tears. Then Eyre lifted
Sylvia's hand and kissed it, and led her away, closing the door
behind.
The Countess still stood in the centre of the room, transfixed, rigid,
staring through her tears at the closed door. With a deep-drawn breath
she straightened her shoulders; her head drooped; she covered her face
with clasped hands.
Standing there, did she remember those who, one by one, had betrayed
her? Those who first whispered to her that love of country was a
narrow creed; those who taught her to abhor violence, and then failed
at the test--Bazard, firing to kill, going down to death under the
merciless lance of an Uhlan; Buckhurst, guilty of every crime that
attracted him; and now Sylvia, her friend, false to the salt she had
eaten, false to the roof above her, false, utterly false to all save
the land of her nativity.
And she, Éline de Trécourt, a soldier's daughter and a Frenchwoman,
had been used as a shield by those who were striking her own
mother-land--the country she once had denied; the country whose
frontiers she knew not in her zeal for limitless brotherhood; the
blackened, wasted country she had seen at Strasbourg; the land for
which the cuirassiers of Morsbronn had died!
"What have I done?" she cried, brokenly--"what have I done that this
shame should come upon me?"
"You have done nothing," I said, "neither for good nor evil in this
crisis. But Sylvia has; Sylvia the spy. That a man should give up his
life for a friend is good; that a woman offer hers for her country is
better. What has it cost her? The friendship of the woman she
worships--you, madame! It has cost her that already, and the price may
include her life and the life of the man she loves. She has done her
duty; the sacrifice is still burning; I pray it may spare her and
spare him."