Elizabeth made no more protests. She walked with heavy steps to the old bureau and pulled open a drawer. From the depths of a worn leather pocketbook she drew out the little photograph and, without one glance at it, handed it to her husband.
Karl snatched it eagerly from her hand, and looked at it closely, holding it to the light. He started to tear off the figures of Lucy and William, but reflecting that it would be better to show the picture unmutilated, he thrust it quickly inside his blouse and went out of the room.
Elizabeth stood by the bureau motionless for a moment, then mechanically she straightened the crocheted cover where Karl had brushed against it. She had crocheted it herself two years ago at Governor's Island, while Lucy was recovering from the measles, sitting beside her in the darkened room. She went slowly over to the window, staring out unseeingly. In her painful bewilderment she prayed for help and guidance to know what she should do, and as her lips moved she felt her mind made up beyond any faltering.
She turned to the wall where a woolen shawl hung, and, hesitating no longer, took it down and wrapped it about her head and shoulders. Her face was calm and quiet now with the strength of her resolution. She descended to the shop and found Herr Adler seated there, casting up his accounts, for it was Saturday afternoon.
"Good-day, Aunt," he nodded, raising his blond head at sight of her. "Will you stay here for a while and attend to the customers while I do my figuring? My uncle has gone off somewhere in a great hurry."
"First I must go out and see Frau Bauer," said Elizabeth, smiling pleasantly at her nephew. "I promised to come before the week is out. In half an hour I will be back and help you gladly." She replaced a few potatoes which had fallen from the basket and walked out into the street. Once outside she quickened her pace a little and turned off in the direction of the fortified road behind the village.
Bob had lingered in the woods a while after putting on the peasant's clothes, trying to feel at home in them before he showed himself in the village. But the disguise was complete enough to any one unfamiliar with his face, and sure to escape notice by its very commonplaceness.
"If they see that you are a stranger they will take you for a marketer from the countryside," the old Frenchman had assured him. "They come from a day's journey off now, because the land is untilled beneath the shell-fire, north and south of us."