Up and down, up and down, outside the long study windows marched a
sentry. Outside the great gate stood another. Even the house door
was guarded.
Angéle, her round arms bare, a great apron tied about her, her feet
in wooden sabots, was busy scrubbing the kitchen floor of the gate
house when the first company arrived. Soldiers were no new sight to
the girl by now, but so many here, what could it mean? She dried her
hands and clattered out to open the gates.
"Keep them open, my girl," smiled the Captain. "Others are coming,"
and leaving her standing round-eyed and open-mouthed, he took his men
and stationed them about the place.
"What does it mean?" she asked one of them.
The young soldier left to guard the gate, smiled at her as he
shouldered his gun and began pacing up and down, but his Captain was
still within ear-shot and so he made no answer.
The girl turned and hurried back into the house.
"_Ma mère_," she called (Nanine was the only mother she had ever
known) "_ma mère_, war has come even into the château."
"Eh," wheezed the old woman, coming heavily down the stair. "What
are you saying?" Angéle bade her look out of the window. By now,
several automobiles had arrived and were dislodging their passengers
at the great door, care-worn looking men for the most part, grizzled
of hair and mustache, their heavy army coats dusty and mud-splashed.
Nanine put her head, in its broad Breton cap, out of the door, only
to find herself facing a sentry standing there.
"Orders are to stay indoors this morning, _bonne femme_," he said
cheerily.
If anyone but a French soldier had dared to bar her way, a storm
would have broken about his head, but to Nanine, the horizon blue of
a _poilu's_ uniform, was never to be gainsaid in anything.
"_Eh bien, mon gosse_, if you say so, I'll stay in all week!" she
answered.
The man grinned and resumed his sentry-go.
The purring motors brought Marie to her window. She had tossed and
turned through the dark hours, dreading the task that was before her.
Her mind whirled trying to plan a way that might satisfy Von Pfaffen
and yet not betray her husband's cause. But like a wild bird, she
beat against her prison bars, knowing there was no way out.
As she parted the curtains and looked out on the driveway, Gerome was
just stepping from a motor car. There were three other officers with
him, a tall thin man with a long nose and a heavy gray mustache, and
a fat, red-faced man who wore a general's stars. The third, she
could not see, his face was so muffled in his coat collar, although
the day, early as it was, was quite warm. Another motor, whose
occupants had evidently already entered the house, was just turning
from the door.
She pushed the curtains back and stood looking out into the sunshine.
How peaceful everything looked, and yet in the room below her, men
were planning the best way to surprise and kill thousands of their
fellow men, and here was she, her brain whirling, trying to devise a
means to discover how they were to accomplish it.
She slipped quickly into her clothes and sat down again by the window
to wait until the conference should be over. She knew that Gerome
would come to her then. Every nerve was strained with a harrowing
expectancy. It was as though she awaited her execution.
The little gilt clock on her dressing-table, cheerily ticked out the
minutes as though they had been filled with joy, instead of agony.
The sun sparkled and glittered on the dew-wet leaves as brilliantly
as though the whole world on which it shone was as peaceful as the
château garden. A robin was fluting happily. But up and down,
before the door and before the great gate, paced the sentries, and
from the distant horizon came the ever-present rumbling of the guns.
She sat staring at the thin lace curtains fluttering gently in the
breeze, under the faded blue ones. What was the day to bring her,
she wondered?
There was a gentle knock at the door. She turned with a start. In
answer to her faint, "_Entrez_," Madame came in.
"You are awake, dear?" she said gently. "I came to see. The General
is having a very important meeting in his study and has asked me not
to have the servants come into the house. Will you mind waiting for
your breakfast?"
Marie had risen to greet her.
"No, no," she said hastily, "I don't think I shall want anything to
eat," and her hands trembled at her throat.
Madame led her back to the chair and made her sit down.
"We must all be brave," she said gently.
As she spoke, they could hear the door of the General's study opening
and a murmur of men's voices.
Madame listened attentively for a moment.
"The conference is over," she said, "pray God what they have decided
may be successful."
Marie turned miserably back to the window. The time for her task was
drawing nearer. There might be some way out of it. There must be.
"I'll order coffee now," said Madame. "Try to be calm, dear, we
women live in a man's world," and with a sigh, she left her.
Marie watched the officers come out and get into their motors. She
watched the General standing tall and straight in the sunshine, as he
shook hands with his _confrères_. Gerome's voice came up to her, as
he told his father he would go as far as the village with them, and
then come back, and she knew it meant he was coming back to her.
She watched the motors go down the driveway and out of the great
gates. The General saluted the last man as he left, and then turned
back into the house. The little band of soldiers mustered under
their Captain and started after the chugging cars. Angéle pushed the
heavy gates closed after them and clattered back to her scrubbing,
and as the sound of the motors died away in the distance, Marie fell
on her knees by the bed.
"Oh God," she prayed, "help me! Help me!"