Karl frowned, staring at her with hard eyes, but she faltered, "You won't give him up, Karl? Not Mr. Bob, our old friend!"
"What else would I do?" Karl demanded, thrusting out both arms in an excited gesture. "Would you have me betray the Fatherland?"
Elizabeth found her tongue at last and rose to face her husband. Her thin face was flushed and her eyes shining.
"Karl, it is not only you who love Germany," she said earnestly. "I would not betray her to our enemies, but, Karl, you know well that there is nothing here for Mr. Bob to learn. Only the fortifications are secret, and he will never be allowed near them by the guard. You know they would shoot him before he reached them, as they shot that poor, deaf old man the other day. Tell him to go, Karl. Tell him never, on his word, to spy again, as the price of his safety. No, wait," she begged, as Karl showed impatient signs of interrupting her. "Do it for the debt we owe America. Have you forgotten the long, happy years we spent there? Often I think of my kind mistress and of Mr. Bob when he was a little child. Do you remember the day long ago when he fell off his horse, how you picked him up and carried him in the house? You were pale that day yourself, and when he opened his eyes you said, 'Thank God.' You were very ill ten years ago, when the Major had you cared for like his friend and your life was saved. Don't we owe them anything, Karl, that you are so ready to harm them?"
Karl's brows had unbent a little as he listened to Elizabeth's plea, and when he answered it was less arrogantly, though his voice was still hard and self-assured.
"Yes, wife, I know. But you reason stupidly. I cannot make you see beyond your finger-tips. Our service in America was good, and we were friends with the Major's family. I served him faithfully. But now we are at war, and Germany's enemies are ours. I am now a soldier and Mr. Bob is a soldier, too. That is an end to all talk of friendship. Keep your pity for our own people, and forget all gratitude to those who are against us. America and the sons of America are less than nothing to you now."
Karl's face was set, and his eyes gleamed at thought of the praise and honor awaiting him with Bob's capture. No persuasion on earth could have turned him aside from his purpose, and to his excited mind it lost all trace of selfish ambition and became the loftiest patriotism.
Elizabeth closed her lips despairingly and looked at him with sad eyes. But his forbearance was now quite at an end.
"Give me the picture!" he cried, shaking her thin shoulder. "Must I treat you roughly to get it? Where is your obedience?"