A PERSONAL AFFAIR
"My God!" he said, "it would not surprise me to find him here in the
house!... He _is_ here--or you would never wear a face like that!...
What do you mean to do, block my way in my own house?" as she confronted
him.
"Kurt--" Her white lips merely formed the word.
"_Is_ he here? Answer me!"
"I--he----"
"Answer me!"
Behind them a voice broke in quietly: "I'll answer for us all.... Don't
touch that holster, General! I can kill you first.... Now, then, am I to
pass that door without violence?... Because I'm going to pass it one way
or another----"
He came forward, his naked sabre shining in the candle light, his grey
eyes level, cool, and desperate.
Von Reiter stared at this tall young fellow in the gay uniform of the
Guides. His hand, which had instantly moved toward his holster, remained
suspended.
"I am going out of that door," repeated Guild.
"Will General Baron von Reiter be good enough to move aside?"
The German's eyes narrowed. "So," he said very quietly, "it is not to be
the hand after all, but an exchange of cards. I am not sorry--" With a
movement too swift for the eye to follow, his sword was out and
glittering in his hand, and he sprang on Guild, beating at his guard,
raining blows like lightning.
The girl had fallen against the table, one hand at her throat as though
choking back the bursting cry of fright; her brain rang with the
dissonance and metallic clamour; the flashing steel dazzled her. Two oak
chairs fell crashing as Guild gave ground under the terrific onslaught;
there was not a word spoken, not a sound except the infernal din of the
sabres and the ceaseless shifting of armed heels on the floor.
Suddenly von Reiter went down heavily; the doormat slipping under foot
had flung him to the floor with a crash across a fallen chair. After a
second or two he groaned.
Guild looked down at him, bewildered, sword in hand--watched him as he
struggled to his feet. The German was ghastly white. A fit of coughing
shook him and he tried to disguise it with his hand.
"Pick up your sabre!" motioned Guild.
Von Reiter stooped, recovered his sword, adjusted the hilt to his hand.
He coughed again, and there was a trace of blood on his lips, but his
face was dead white. He looked very steadily at Guild.
"Acknowledgments to the Comte d'Yvoir," he said with an effort; and the
shadow of a smile touched his thin, grim lips.
"Do I pass?" demanded Guild, as grimly.
Von Reiter started to speak, and suddenly his mouth was full of blood.
"Kurt," cried the girl in an agonized voice, "do you mean to kill him or
that he is to kill _you_!--_here_--before my face?"
"I mean--just--that!"
He sprang at Guild again like a tiger, but Guild was on him first, and
the impact hurled von Reiter against the table. His sabre fell
clattering to the floor.
[Illustration: "The impact hurled von Reiter against the table"]
For a moment, white as a corpse, he looked at his opponent with sick
eyes, then, suddenly faint, he slid into the great leather chair. There
was more blood on his lips; Guild, breathing heavily, bent over and
looked at him, ignorant of what had happened.
Karen came and took his hand in hers. Then a slight groan escaped him
and he opened his eyes.
"Are you badly hurt?" asked Guild.
"I'm a little sick, that's all. I think when I fell some ribs broke--or
something----"
"I meant fairly by you," said Guild miserably.
"You played fair. It was bad luck--bad luck--that's all." He closed his
pain-sickened eyes: "God, what luck," he mumbled--"really atrocious!"
Guild, still holding his naked sword, drew his automatic with his left
hand. Then he looked silently at Karen.
"Can't you leave the house by the garden?" she whispered tremulously.
"The gate is padlocked."
"Kervyn, they'll kill you if you step out of that door!"
Von Reiter, drowsy with pain, opened his eyes:
"No, they won't," he said. "Be kind enough to speak to my aide. I--I'm
afraid I'm rather--ill."
He glanced at Guild: "Honour of an officer," he added weakly.
Karen stepped to the door and flung it open.
"Captain!" she called sharply.
A moment later the young hussar aide-de-camp who had escorted Guild to
the British lines came clanking in.
He glanced obliquely at Guild and at Karen, but when his eyes fell on
von Reiter he stared, astonished. Nevertheless, his spurred heels
clicked together at salute.
Von Reiter's eyes became ironical. He looked for a moment at his aide,
then his gaze wandered to Karen and to Guild.
"Where do you desire to go?" he asked with an effort.
"To Antwerp."
"The road is still open." And, to the hussar: "Safe conduct for Captain
the Comte d'Yvoir across the railway. Write it now."
"And for my comrade, Mr. Darrel, and ten recruits," said Guild quietly.
"And for his comrade, Mr. Darrel, and ten recruits," repeated von Reiter
in a failing voice. But he was smiling.
"And--for _me_!" said Karen.
Von Reiter's eyes had almost closed; he opened them again, heavily, as
she spoke. Karen bent over him:
"Kurt, I must go. I can not remain here now. Besides--I
want--my--husband."
"Think well," he said drowsily. "Think diligently--at this
moment--solemn--supreme--" He raised himself a little, then relapsed:
"God," he murmured, "what luck to meet with under your own roof!..."
And, to the hussar: "Write it that Miss Karen Girard goes also--if she
so desires."
There was a silence. The hussar scribbled on the stamped paper in his
tablets. After he had finished he laid the tablets and the fountain pen
on von Reiter's knees. Very slowly the latter affixed his signature.
He said to the hussar: "I am ill. Go to Trois Fontaines and bring me a
medical officer."
When the hussar had gone and when the whirr of the automobile had died
away down the drive, Guild aided the hurt man to a sofa and Karen
brought pillows from a bedroom.
He was very thirsty, too, and she gave him water continually. At
intervals there were slight signs of mental wandering, perhaps symptoms
of pneumonia, from his crushed ribs, for he coughed a great deal and the
fever already reddened his blond skin. But in the main his mind seemed
to be clear. He opened his light-blue eyes and glanced at Guild
continually.
"Bad luck, old chap," he said in English, "but no reflection on you.
Just bad luck, bad, very bad! We Germans usually have an ally in God.
But the trinity is incomplete without luck."
Guild said in a low voice: "I am really sorry, von Reiter. I hope you
will come out all right. God knows I bear you no ill will."
"Many thanks. I shall come out all right. There is much work to do." A
ghost of the ironical smile touched his feverish lips again. "And much
work to be done after this business in Europe is settled.... I mean in
America. She must pay her reckoning. She must settle with us Germans....
I wish it might come soon---_now!_--while their present administration
remains--while yet this dull President and his imbecile and grotesque
cabinet ministers are in power.... I beg your pardon--seeing you in that
uniform made me forget that you are also _Mr. Guild_."
But the irony in his wearied eyes made it very plain that he had not
forgotten.
"Karen?" he said presently. She leaned forward in her chair beside him.
"It was just bad luck, very bad luck," he muttered; "but yours is
luck"--he turned his dulled eyes toward Guild--"luck to be envied....
Some day I hope it may be--the hand."
"It is now, if you wish," said Guild.
The other shook his head: "Too soon, too soon," he muttered. "Even a
German officer has his--limits. Between you and my luck I'm in a bad
way--a very bad mess."
Karen bent over his hand and touched it with her lips.
The fever was gaining; he began to roll his blond head from side to
side, muttering of love and luck and of the glory of God and the German
Empire. A slight smile remained on his lips.
Before the automobile arrived from Trois Fontaines the fever seized him
fiercely. His coughing racked him incessantly now, and the first heavy
hemorrhage soaked his grey tunic and undershirt.
They eased him all they could, laying open his broad blond chest and the
ribs now terribly discoloured where his fall had crushed them in again
under the bandage.
How the man could have risen and come at him again Guild could not
understand. He was terribly shocked.
Dreadful sounds came from his laboured breathing; he lay with eyes
closed now, one burning hand lying in Karen's.
Toward four o'clock in the morning a far, faint sound penetrated the
room.
Von Reiter's eyes opened. "Halt!" he whispered. "Who goes there?"
It was Death. He seemed to understand that, for he sighed very lightly,
his hand closed on Karen's, and he lay gazing straight upward with
brilliant eyes.
A few moments later there came a rush, a crunching of gravel, the loud
purr of the motor outside.
Then Karen opened the door and a medical officer entered the room in
haste.
Guild turned to Karen: "I must go to the woods and bring in my men and
Darrel. Dearest, are you decided to go with me?"
"I could not remain here now. I do not wish to."
"Then wait for me," he said, and went out into the night.
A few moments later they took von Reiter upstairs to his own room. His
mind seemed to clear again for a while and he said feebly but distinctly
to his aide-de-camp:
"My daughter and her fiancé, the Comte d'Yvoir, are going to Antwerp for
their wedding. I remember that military trains now leave Trois Fontaines
by way of Trois Vierges, Liège, and Lesten. We control to Lesten, I
think."
"Yes, Excellence."
"Write for me that my daughter and the Comte d'Yvoir shall be accorded
transportation as far as we control. You will take them to Trois
Fontaines in my automobile; you will make personal requisition of the
chef-de-gar for the privacy of a compartment. You will affix to the
outside of the compartment a notice that the persons in possession are
travelling on my business and under my personal protection, and that
they are not to be detained or interfered with in any way.... Write it
separately to be affixed." His voice was weak but perfectly distinct.
The hussar wrote steadily in his tablets, finished, and waited.
"Hold them while I sign," whispered von Reiter. He signed both orders.
"Take them now. I shall not need the car. I shall be here a long
time--a--long--time. I am ill. So inform headquarters by telegraph."
"At orders, Excellence."
Von Reiter closed his eyes: "Say to the Comte d'Yvoir that it was--bad
luck--very bad luck.... But not--his fault.... Tell him I
am--contented--that a Gueldres is to marry my--daughter."
The aide saluted. But the sick man said nothing more.
* * * * *
Von Reiter was still unconscious when Guild returned from the forest.
Karen met him on the steps; he drew her aside:
"Dear," he whispered, "there has been more violence during my absence.
The Lesse men caught a traitor--a wretched charcoal burner from
Moresnet--prowling about their camp.
"They hung him with his own belt. I saw him hanging to a beech-tree.
"Darrel was greatly worried when I told him that the Courlands had been
forced to continue on to Luxembourg City. He has gone to the hamlet of
Croix to hire a peasant to drive him after them and try to overtake
them.
"As for the others, they will not come to Antwerp with me now. They have
seen 'red' again; and in spite of all I could do they have started back
toward Lesse to 'drive' Uhlans as they saw the wild game driven."
The girl shivered.
Guild made a hopeless gesture: "It means the death of every man among
them. The Uhlans will do the hunting and the driving, not the poor,
half-crazed peasants.... It means the end of Lesse and of every man who
had ever called it home."
The hussar appeared at the door. Guild looked up, returned the precise
salute, and his careworn features softened as he listened to the
instructions and the parting message from the now unconscious officer
above.
There was a silence, then:
"Karen," he said quietly, "are you ready?"
"Yes."
The hussar asked whether there was luggage, and learning that there was
he sent the chauffeur in to bring out Guild's box and Karen's suit-case
and satchel.
The girl ran upstairs to the sick room. They admitted her.
Guild was standing by the car when she returned, a drooping, listless
figure, her handkerchief pressed to her face. He gave her his arm and
aided her into the car. The hussar stepped in beside the chauffeur.
Dawn was just breaking behind the house; the evergreens stood out,
massive and black against the silvering east.
As the car moved slowly out of the gravel circle the first bird
twittered.
Guild bent over the girl beside him: "Is he still unconscious?"
"Yes."
"Is there any chance?"
"They don't know. It is the lungs. His body is all crushed in----"
She rested her cheek against his shoulder, weeping, as the great grey
car rushed on through the pallour of early dawn.