For over half an hour Rosemary waited in that bare, cheerless room, and
gazed unseeing out of the window while she tried vainly to co-ordinate
her thoughts. In the forefront of her mind there was a feeling of great
joy which she hardly dared to analyze. Joy! And she also had the
feeling, though she had come to the very brink of an awful precipice,
though she was looking down into an abyss of shame and horror, with no
hope of ever being able to bridge the chasm over, that yet on the other
side was peace--peace that she would never attain, but which was there
nevertheless, to dwell on, to dream of, when the turmoil was past and
she be allowed to rest.
After about half an hour the young officer who had first conducted her
to the fateful spot came back to see what had happened. He seemed
astonished that she was still there.
"Major Buriecha has not yet come out of his room," Rosemary managed to
say quite coolly. "It is getting near dinner-time. I don't think I'll
wait any longer."
The young man appeared relieved. Anyway he was not likely now to get
into trouble on the English lady's account. He clicked his heels
together, expressed perfunctory regret at her disappointment, then
offered to conduct milady out of the château. Rosemary accepted his
escort and took leave of him at the gates.
"If milady will write to the commanding officer," Lieutenant Uriesu said
at the end, "I am sure he will give the permit milady requires."
"I will certainly take your advice," Rosemary assented cheerfully.
"Good-bye, Lieutenant Uriesu, and thank you for your kind efforts on my
behalf."
She walked back towards the village by way of the path. When she came to
the spot where first she had seen Peter that morning she sat down on the
tree-stump and listened to the murmur of the stream. She would not allow
herself to think of Peter--only of Philip and Anna, whom he was taking
across the frontier by another clever trick--in disguise, probably--and
over the mountain passes. Rosemary could not believe that they would
stick to the car and be stopped by the frontier police. They would get
away into Hungary--on foot. They were young, they knew the country, and
they could scramble over the mountain passes and be at Hódmezö soon,
where Elza would be waiting for them. Elza knew, of course, and Maurus
knew too. That was why he had been so calm and so composed when he was
told that he must leave Kis-Imre within four-and-twenty hours. They all
knew. Peter had trusted them. Only she, Rosemary, had been kept out of
his councils, because she might have betrayed them to Jasper, and Peter
could not tell her that it was Jasper who was the miserable spy.
But no, she would not think of Peter, or of how he had worked to
circumvent Jasper at every turn. She only waited to think of Philip and
Anna, those two children who were so ingenuously learning the lesson of
love one from the other, and of Elza, so patient and so heroic, and of
Maurus, who had played his part so well. Maurus would be coming through
from Cluj some time to-day, and he, too, would be held up at Sót, and
perhaps spend the night in the funny little hotel. Rosemary hoped that
she would see him. His company would be very welcome whilst Jasper was
still there. Then to-morrow she and Maurus would get across the frontier
somehow, and join up with Elza and the children at Hódmezö. And there
was always the British Consul in Cluj to appeal to. There was no
desperate hurry now. The children were safe and those articles of hers
would not be published in the _Times._ Peter would have seen to that.
But no, she did not want to think of Peter. Was she not still Jasper
Tarkington's wife?