She was pondering again over these troubling thoughts as she sat by the window, deeply wishing that she could go back to her native town in Bavaria and talk to the old pastor she had known in her youth. He had never outgrown for her the wisdom she had seen in him when he had married her to Karl, with much kind and shrewd advice for both of them. She smiled at the thought of it as she bent over the heel of her sock. Suddenly heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened. Elizabeth looked up in surprise.
"Is it you, Karl, home so early?" she asked as her husband came quickly in and crossed the room to her side.
He wore the German private's gray uniform as cook to an Infantry company, and his rather stout figure had trimmed down wonderfully since he put it on. He looked almost young and soldierly. But his face just now was red and hot, and his black eyes blazed with excitement.
"Whom do you think I have seen?" he shouted, pointing a shaking finger at his wife as though to assure her earnest attention. "I have seen a spy from the American army across there with the French, and whom do you think it was? It was Bob Gordon!"
Elizabeth turned deathly pale. Her knitting slipped unnoticed from her hands and she stared at Karl speechlessly until he shook her by the shoulder, crying:
"Come! Don't be so stupid! I want that picture you have of him. Where is it? I must show it to my captain, so he will be convinced it is the right man when we have taken him. He was wandering about the border of the village, just entering it. He has got across the lines somehow, in a farmer's old clothes. Pretty smart! But not so smart that I didn't recognize him—our fine young officer! He won't get back so easily, for I have sent warnings to all the pickets beyond the wood."
Karl was fairly quivering with eagerness. He saw glory awaiting him around the corner—the precious words of praise from his superior, the possible decoration, which are life itself to the zealous German soldier, and which he puts before every impulse of humanity or independence.
"Hurry!" he urged angrily, astonished at Elizabeth's white-faced silence. "I want to take him on the road by the fortifications. Think what it means to us who were half accused of being friendly to America! Could there be better proof than this of our loyalty?"
Elizabeth's pale lips could hardly form the words she tried to utter. Her throat choked her, but desperately she strove against the horror that seized her and pleaded tremblingly, "Oh, Karl, not a spy—not a spy!"