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Page 78
A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
that wrung my very heart.
I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
of me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made no
sign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
and muddy clothes.
"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the man
of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?"
"Beg the Frau Gr�fin's pardon," I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf in
Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Gr�fin ..."
She stopped me with a gesture.
"Herr Doktor!" she called to the dinner-table.
By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.
Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
long cigar that smelt delicious.
"Frau Gr�fin?" he queried, glancing at me.
"This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
in my sitting-room, if you will allow me...."
"But, Frau Gr�fin, most certainly. There surely was no need ..."
"Johann!" Monica called the servant I had seen before, "take this man
into the sitting-room!"
The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
and sat down at the desk.
"Now tell me what you wish to say ..." she began in German as the servant
left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet,
clasping my hands.
"Francis!" she whispered in English in a great sob, "oh, Francis! what
have they done to you to make you look like that?"
I gripped her wrist tightly.
"Frau Gr�fin," I said in German, still in that hideous patois, "you must
be calm." And I whispered in English in her ear:
"Monica, be brave! And talk German whatever you do."
She regained her self-possession at once.
"I understand," she answered, sitting down at her desk again; "it is
more prudent."
And for the rest of the time we spoke in German.
"Desmond?" I asked.
"Locked up in Grundt's bedroom," she replied. "I met them pushing him
along the corridor--it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of his
sight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warned
you!"
"What is Grundt doing here?" I asked. "And those soldiers and that
officer?"
"My dear," she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a sudden
change of mood, "I'm in preventive arrest!"
"But, Monica...."
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