Paul shifted from one foot to the other, anxious for news, eager, after his two days’ confinement in this shell, for action, yet remorseful for his eagerness.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said, half-heartedly.
“But I want you to go,” she answered, with a glimmer of a smile at this man turned shamefaced school-boy who stood in front of her. “You’re wild to go really, Paul, and I am in no danger.” She drew a swift breath as she said that and hoped that he would not notice it.
Paul Ravenel did not.
“Yes, I am restless, Marguerite,” he said in a burst. “I’ll tell you why? Do you know what I did on the roof? What I had to do?”
“You frightened the women away—shot one of them—put an end to their fiendishness.”
Paul shook his head.
“That would have been no use, my dear. The man, a brother-officer of mine, would still have lain upon that roof in torture and helpless. They would have left him there till dark and finished their work then, if he were still alive. Can you guess what they were doing? They were burning his head slowly.”
“Oh!”
Marguerite had a vision of herself rushing out into the street as only that morning she had proposed to do, and meeting the same fate. She covered her eyes with her hands.