The Girl from Alsace Part 20

"Yes, yes; and what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything for a minute--I felt as though I were falling out of a airs.h.i.+p. But after I had fallen about a mile, I managed to say that I had sent you a telegram and also a postcard."

"How lucky!" breathed the girl. "How shrewd of you!"

"Shrewd? Was it? But that shock was nothing to the jolt I got the next minute when he told me that you had brought the postcard along in your bag! It was a good thing you came in just then, or he would have seen by the way I sat there gaping at him that the whole story was a lie!"

"I should have told you of the postcard," she said, with a gesture of annoyance. "It is often just some such tiny oversight which wrecks a whole plan. One tries to foresee everything--to provide for everything--and then some little, little detail goes wrong, and the whole structure comes tumbling down. It was chance that saved us--but in affairs of this sort, nothing must be left to chance! If we had failed, it would have been my fault!"

"But how could there have been a postcard?" demanded Stewart. "I should like to see it."

Smiling, yet with a certain look of anxiety, she stepped to her bag, took out the postcard, and handed it to him. On one side was a picture of the cathedral at Cologne; on the other, the address and the message:

Cologne, July 31, 1914.

Dear Mary--

Do not forget that it is to-morrow, Sat.u.r.day, you are to meet me at Aix-la-Chapelle, from where we will go on to Brussels together, as we have planned. If I should fail to meet you at the train, you will find me at a hotel called the Kolner Hof, not far from the station.

With much love,

BRADFORD STEWART.

Stewart read this remarkable message with astonished eyes, then, holding the card close to the candle, he stared at it in bewilderment.

"But it is my handwriting!" he protested. "At least, a fairly good imitation of it--and the signature is mine to a dot."

"Your signature was all the writer had," she explained. "Your handwriting had to be inferred from that."

"Where did you get my signature? Oh, from the blank I filled up at Aix, I suppose. But no," and he looked at the card again, "the postmark shows that it was mailed at Cologne last night."

"The postmark is a fabrication."

"Then it was from the blank at Aix?"

"No," she said, and hesitated, an anxiety in her face he did not understand.

"Then where _did_ you get it?" he persisted "Why shouldn't you tell me?"

"I will tell you," she answered, but her voice was almost inaudible. "It is right that you should know. You gave the signature to the man who examined your pa.s.sport on the terrace of the Hotel Continental at Cologne, and who recommended you to the Kolner Hof. He also was one of ours."

Stewart was looking at her steadily.

"Then in that case," he said, and his face was gray and stern, "it was I, and no one else, you expected to meet at the Kolner Hof."

"Yes," she answered with trembling lips, but meeting his gaze unwaveringly.

"And all that followed--the tears, the dismay--was make-believe?"

"Yes. I cannot lie to you, my friend."

Stewart pa.s.sed an unsteady hand before his eyes. It seemed that something had suddenly burst within him--some dream, some vision----

"So I was deliberately used," he began, hoa.r.s.ely; but she stopped him, her hand upon his arm.

"Do not speak in that tone," she pleaded, her face wrung with anguish.

"Do not look at me like that--I did not know--I had never seen you--it was not my plan. We were face to face with failure--we were desperate--there seemed no other way." She stopped, shuddering slightly, and drew away from him. "At least, you will say good-by," she said, softly.

Dazedly Stewart looked at her--at her eyes dark with sadness, at her face suddenly so white----

She was standing near the window, her hand upon the curtain.

"Good-by, my friend," she repeated. "You have been very good to me!"

For an instant longer, Stewart stood staring--then he sprang at her, seized her----

"Do you mean that you are going to leave me?" he demanded, roughly.

"Surely that is what you wis.h.!.+"

"What I wish? No, no! What do I care--what does it matter!" The words were pouring incoherently from his trembling lips. "I understand--you were desperate--you didn't know me; even if you had, it would make no difference. Don't you understand--nothing can make any difference now!"

She s.h.i.+vered a little; then she drew away, looking at him.

"You mean," she stammered; "you mean that you still--that you still----"

"Little comrade!" he said, and held out his arms.

She lifted her eyes to his--wavered toward him----

"Halt!" cried a voice outside the window, and an instant later there came a heavy hammering on the street door.

CHAPTER IX

THE FRONTIER

The knocking seemed to shake the house, so violent it was, so insistent; and Stewart, petrified, stood staring numbly. But his companion was quicker than he. In an instant she had run to the light and blown it out. Then she was back at his side.

"The moment they are in the house," she said, "raise the window as silently as you can and unbolt the shutter."

And then she was gone again, and he could hear her moving about near the door.

Again the knocking came, louder than before. It could mean only one thing, Stewart told himself--their ruse had been discovered--a party of soldiers had come to arrest them----