Mr. and Mrs. Saunders were having breakfast together in the pretty
stone villa they had built for themselves at Weissheim, overlooking
the Nonnensee. The view of the mountains beyond the lake, the
exquisite expanse of snow, growing into sparkling life under the
touch of the rising sun, furnished a prospect of sufficiently
absorbing grandeur. But Saunders' eyes wandered only from an
_omelette aux fines herbes_ to a belated copy of the _Morning Post_.
English newspapers had been scarce since the cutting of the railway,
and the present specimen had reached its destination by a roundabout
way through Vienna, and had cost exactly tenpence.
"What is the Government doing?" asked Mrs. Saunders, who took an
interest in home politics.
"I don't know. When I am in this delightfully disorganised country
the mild animosities of English party strife fill me with contempt.
I was reading the 'Births, deaths, and marriages' just to prove to
myself that there are natural tragedies and romances, even in the
decently regulated areas of Bayswater and Mayfair."
"Is anyone we know mentioned?"
"By Jove!" ejaculated Saunders after a pause.
"Well?"
"By Jove!"
"Please go on, Robert," said Mrs. Saunders with pardonable impatience.
"Angela Knox, that American girl, is----"
"Well?"
"Is going to marry a grouse moor."
"Pray be explicit."
"Glengourlie--a little man in the Scots Guards. Eldest son of the
Marquis of Stratheerie; ten thousand a year and the best half of
Inverness-shire."
Mrs. Saunders received this startling information with composure.
"She'll make a handsome peeress," was her comment.
"What about George Trafford?" asked her husband.
"Grimland is a country of short memories and swift changes," said
Mrs. Saunders. "It converted you from a _blasé_ bachelor to a happy
husband; and it has converted George Trafford from a broken-hearted
desperado to a lover of an usurping queen."
"Do you believe Von Hügelweiler's tale?" asked Saunders in surprise.
"Yes, and no; I believe George has undoubtedly been fascinated by
Gloria. With her beauty, high spirit, and fearless temperament, she
was bound to attract him. Fresh from a recent disappointment--and
lacking as he is at all times in all sense of proportion--he is quite
capable of demanding her hand in marriage. But Gloria,--though she
would like him well enough as a friend,--would not dream of
stultifying herself by marrying a plain American; still less would
she stoop to the depths Von Hügelweiler hinted at."
"I am sorry about it all," said Saunders. "Nervy, with all his
faults, is a lovable sort of scoundrel, and he had a pretty severe
knock over _l'affaire Angela_. If Gloria is fooling him for her own
purposes--as seems more than certain--it will leave him, spiritually
and mentally, in a condition of pulp."
"You mean----"
"Oh, not exactly; for one thing, he's mad already. He's like a man
on a free-wheel bicycle without a brake--all right on the level, but
in the deuce of a fix if he begins to go downhill."
Mrs. Saunders looked thoughtful.
"There is a possibility that he may never live to be disillusioned,"
she said. "He is said to be accompanying this force against us, and
he is not the sort of person to cultivate the art of taking cover.
However, things will be settled one way or the other soon."
"Very soon," Saunders agreed. "Meyer's scouts report that the enemy
encamped last night at Wallen; and they don't waste time there. Six
thousand able-bodied men in a bracing climate eat a good deal--and
Wallen is a small place with a limited supply of hams and maize.
They will be here to-day or to-morrow."
Mrs. Saunders devoted her attention to the omelette which furnished
their morning meal. She was a lady who had made a point of hiding
her emotions, and the near prospect of her husband being in danger
necessitated a strong effort of control. It was some minutes before
she spoke again.
"What are you going to do this morning?" she asked at length. "I
should 'curl,' if I were you. You haven't 'sent down' a 'stone' for
weeks, and I think a respite from your military preoccupations would
do you good."
Saunders sighed regretfully, and stretched himself.
"There is a competition to-day," he replied; "Major Flannel's Cup,
and I am not in for it. I may watch for a bit, but things are too
critical now to admit of much leisure. You see, I've been told off
to hold the Marienkastel, and our good friends the enemy may send us
their visiting-cards at any minute."
"And can you hold the Marienkastel?" asked Mrs. Saunders.
Saunders smiled.
"I can hold it for a couple of hours," he replied, "which is all that
Meyer requires of me. We are to put as many of the enemy out of
action as we can, and then yield possession with a bad grace. After
that we have a little surprise for them: a couple of concealed
mortars, which will blow the historic old fabric and those inside it
into several thousand fragments."
Mrs. Saunders suppressed a shudder.
"And are they sure to attack the Marienkastel?" she asked.
"Absolutely certain," he replied, "if they know the rudiments of
military science. Besides, there are sentimental reasons for their
doing so, for the old Schloss is the ancestral home of the
Schattenbergs."
Mrs. Saunders was silent for a moment; then she spoke, hesitatingly,
but with a forced calm.
"And will your position--be a very dangerous one?" she asked.
"Fairly so," he replied lightly. "You see, we shall have to bear the
brunt of the main attack, and we shall hang on as long as we can.
But it is in the evacuation that we shall probably lose most heavily."
Mrs. Saunders nodded sagely.
"And it is in the subsequent bombardment that the enemy will suffer
most severely?" she inquired.
"Precisely. It will mean turning the fine old place into a shambles,
but we must strike hard or not at all; and Karl's blood is up, as it
was in 1904."
A deep, vibrant "boom" broke on their ears, and died with long-drawn
echoes amid the encircling mountains.
"The enemy have sent their visiting-card!" said Mrs. Saunders.
Saunders rose, and stepped hurriedly out of the long window on to the
balcony, his wife following. The former produced a pair of
field-glasses, and critically regarded a puff of smoke that hung
motionless in the still morning air to the extreme left of the
panorama.
"Four-inch Creusot," he said laconically; "that means that redoubt A
has found something to practise at--a feint attack, probably. I must
go to my post in the Marienkastel. They'll have worked round there
in a couple of hours, and then the serious business will begin."
Another sounding roar came pealing along the hillsides, and then a
veritable concert, as the other iron mouths took up the harsh music
and shook the thin air with their stern melody.
From where they stood the actual operations of the attack were
invisible by reason of the pine woods that clothed the plain in that
direction. But there was much to see from the commanding site
occupied by the Saunders' villa. The town itself,--with its circle
of improvised forts,--lay considerably below them to the left.
Companies of soldiers were plainly discernible defiling to the
various points of defence assigned to them, and the blare of bugles
rang shrilly through the strident chorus of the distant cannon. It
was plain that the greatest activity prevailed, but an activity
well-ordered, thought-out, and purposeful.
Meyer,--with all his unsoldierly distaste for personal danger,--was
almost perfect as the general of a threatened city. Every detail had
been thought out, every unit of the defence was ready at a moment's
notice to take his appointed place.
Saunders turned his sweeping gaze to the right, and it lighted upon
the private curling-rink belonging to Major Flannel's villa. He
smiled, for the contest for the Flannel Cup had already begun, and
was going on heedless of the stern symphony that was making the
valleys echo with bursts of shattering sound.
A curling competition demands a whole-hearted absorption from its
votaries, and takes little heed of battle, murder, and sudden death,
provided the ice is keen and in good order.
"What are you smiling at?" demanded Mrs. Saunders.
"British sense of proportion," he replied, and as he spoke a man on
skis approached from the street below and called on him by name.
"Orders from the General, Excellency!"
Saunders took the note. It was a hurried scrawl in Meyer's
handwriting:
"_Proceed instantly on receipt of this to the Marienkastel. Hang on
till they get within a hundred yards, then bolt for the abatis in the
new cemetery!_" Saunders read it aloud, and then turned to his wife.
"Farewell, dearest," he said simply. "When I have gone make your way
to the Pariserhof. You will be perfectly safe there."
Mrs. Saunders hung speechless a moment in her husband's embrace.
When she spoke it was apologetically, as one demanding a difficult
favour.
"Robert," she pleaded, "should I be a great nuisance in the
Marienkastel? I could tend the wounded--I might even----"
"To-day is a day of obedience and discipline," he interrupted with
firm kindness. "I am ordered to the Marienkastel, you to the
Pariserhof. Yours is the post of anxiety, mine of excitement. Man
is selfish and woman patient--and so the latter always has to bear
the crueller burden."
She bit her lip and nodded, and released herself from his embrace.
Strong arms handed him his rifle, and cool, steady hands fastened the
cartridge-belt around his waist.
"You know Karl entreated you not to take part in this stupid war,"
she said with the suspicion of a break in her voice. "Was it kind to
me to refuse him?"
"It was infernally cruel," he replied. "Necessity generally is."
Again she nodded thoughtfully. He was right; he was bound to help
Karl, but it needed a brave woman to admit the necessity. But Mrs.
Saunders was no ordinary woman, and for a minute her hazel eyes
fought hard and not unsuccessfully against the hot, pent stream that
battled for an exit. For a moment she fought the unequal fight; then
nature gained the day.
The tears won through, and the strong, supple form became a clinging
thing of naked grief.
Saunders pressed the bowed head tenderly against his bosom, and
intertwined his fingers lovingly in her hair.
"Good-bye, best beloved," he said. "And whatever comes, defeat or
victory, the thrill of triumph or the darkness that is death, there
will only be one vision before me--the cool, grey eyes that looked
into my soul and found something there not wholly unworthy of a
woman's love."
"God who gave you to me, protect you," she sobbed, "and teach me to
live through to-day."
And as Saunders strode through the snow to the Marienkastel there was
no fear in his heart; merely a great longing for the reunion which
must come to loyal hearts--here or hereafter.