It seemed to Lucy, though, that the thought of a German prison kept the Belgian girl from feeling much enthusiasm in her relief at Bob's safety. Perhaps her own misgivings made her fearful, but she questioned Marie anxiously.
"He's safe there, Marie, don't you think so? It's dreadfully hard—but I do hope we'll be able to send him things."
"Oh, yes, he is safe, Miss Lucy," Marie assured her hastily. She was a truthful girl, but Lucy's pleading face would not let her speak otherwise just now.
"He's away from the battle-field. It seems as if the greatest danger had been left behind. If we could only find out where he is! I'm sure he can write us before long."
"I think so, yes," said Marie hopefully, her troubled conscience reminding her as she spoke of friends and neighbors from her home whose fate in Germany no one had ever learned.
"Lots of prisoners come back, even during the war—wounded ones I mean," Lucy went on. "I suppose being a prisoner of war isn't really the worst thing that can happen to you." Somehow, Marie's hopeful words did not cheer her as they were intended to.
"Yes, many have come back," Marie responded briefly. Her invention failed her here, for once she had seen a train filled with French and Belgian prisoners returned after a year's captivity, as it passed the Swiss frontier. The sight of those haggard and weary faces had never left her memory. At last she offered Lucy the only solution that seemed possible to her.
"Miss Lucy, if only America get ready quick and go to help fight. That is how we will have the war over. Nobody will have a free country while Germany is strong."
"I know it," Lucy sighed, feeling for the moment weighed down by a burden beyond her strength. The night of the Twenty-Eighth's departure came suddenly back to her. "Poor Mr. Harding," she thought, struck with sharp remorse at the little time she had found to lament her friend's misfortune. "But he may be safe as well as Bob—oh, how I wish we knew."
Marie finished her work and turned to Lucy, with a sudden smile lighting up her quiet face. "You must hope all is right with your brother. It is no use to fear. Good news may come."