Who Goes There!

"Fritzl will take it, never fear, sir. Leave it on the billiard table – any telegrams or letters – and they shall be sent when Fritzl drives to the station."

"Where," he inquired, "is Lesse Forest?" And could he send a messenger?

"Lesse Forest? Why the chasse wall separates the range of the Lesse Hills from Quellenheim. Any peasant at Trois Fontaines who possesses a bicycle could take a message and return in an hour."

"Do you know who leases the chasse at Lesse?"

"Yes. Some wealthy Americans."

So he smiled his thanks and returned to the hall. There was writing material on the long oak table. And first of all he wrote out a brief telegram to General von Reiter saying that he had fulfilled his promise.

This was all he might venture to say in a telegram; the rest he embodied in his letter to the Herr Baron:

Having telegraphed to you, and fulfilled my enforced obligations to the letter, I am confident that you, in your turn, will fulfill yours, release the hostages held by your troops at Yslemont, and spare the village any further destruction and indemnity.

You had made it a part of the contract that, in case you were not at Quellenheim, I was to remain over night under your roof.

I therefore have done so. It was not an agreeable sensation, and your forced hospitality, you will recognize, imposes no obligations upon an unwilling guest.

Now, as I say, the last and least item of my indebtedness to you is finally extinguished, and I am free once more to do what I choose.

I shall be a consistent enemy to your country in whatever capacity the Belgian Government may see fit to employ me. I shall do your country all the harm I can. Not being a public executioner I have given the spies in your employment in London a week's grace to clear out before I place proofs of their identity in the hands of the British Government.

This, I believe, closes, for the present, our personal account.

Miss Girard is well, suffered no particular hardship, and is, I suppose, quite safe at Quellenheim where your capable housekeeper and her son are in charge of the Lodge.

May I add that, personally, I entertain no animosity toward you or toward any German, individually – only a deep and inextinguishable hatred toward all that your Empire stands for, and a desire to aid in the annihilation of this monstrous anachronism of the twentieth century.

When he had signed and sealed this, and directed it, he wrote to his friend Darrel:

Dear Harry:

If you are at Lesse Forest still, which I understand adjoins the hills of Quellenheim – and if your friends the Courlands still care to ask me for a day or two, I shall be very glad to come. I am at Quellenheim, Trois Fontaines.

Please destroy the letter I intrusted to you to send to my mother. Everything is all right again. I may even have time to fish with you for a day or two.

The messenger from Trois Fontaines who takes this will wait for an answer.

Please convey my respect and my very lively sense of obligation to the Courlands. And don't let them ask me if it inconveniences them. I can go to Luxembourg just as well and see you there if you can run over.

Did you get my luggage? I am wearing my last clean shirt. But my clothes are the limit.

If I am to stop for a day or two at the Courlands please telegraph to Luxembourg for my luggage as soon as you receive this.

    Yours as usual,
    Guild

P. S.

Do Uhlans ever annoy the Courlands? I imagine that Lesse is too far from the railway and too unimportant from a military standpoint to figure at all in any operations along the edge of the Grand Duchy. And also any of the Ardennes is unfit as a highway between Rhenish Prussia and France. Am I correct?

    G.

He had sealed and directed this letter, and was gazing meditatively out of the diamond-leaded windows at the splashing fountain in the court, when a slight sound attracted his attention and he turned, then rose and stepped forward.

Karen gave him her hand, smiling. In the other hand she held the last of her orchids.

"Are you rested?" he asked.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Perfectly, thank you. Really it is beautiful outside the house."

She lifted her lovely eyes and stood gazing out into the sunshine.

"There is no word from General von Reiter?" she asked, absently caressing her cheek with the fragrant blossom in her hand.

"Not yet," he said.

"If none comes, what are you going to do?"

"I am free, anyhow, to leave now."

"Free?"

"Free of my engagement with Baron von Reiter."

"Free of your obligations to —me?" she asked in a low voice.

He turned to her seriously: "My allegiance to you needs no renewal, Karen, because it has never been broken. You have my friendship if you wish for it. It is yours always as long as you care for it."

"I do… Are you going to leave – Quellenheim?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When a messenger brings me an answer to a letter which I shall send this morning."

She stood caressing her lips with his flower and gazing dreamily into the forest.

"So you really are going," she said.

"I cannot help it."

"I thought" – she forced a smile – "that you intended to rob me first."

He did not answer.