“But, Elizabeth,” Lucy stammered, more at sea than ever, “he arranged a cipher with you? He spoke to you of war news?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “I know what you would say, Miss Lucy. You wonder that he tell me, but it was first me who tell him something.” Elizabeth’s dark eyes were filled with pain and sorrow as she looked into Lucy’s face and whispered, “No longer do I wish for Germany to win.”
Never in ten long years had Lucy doubted Elizabeth’s word, but now a wretched fear shot through her. Did she dare trust blindly to Karl’s wife? But even while she hesitated, the kind, steady, honest gaze of those dark eyes swept her last doubts away. With impetuous remorse and thanksgiving she reached out her hands and clasped Elizabeth’s closely, while her tongue struggled for words to express her new-born joy and confidence.
“Oh, Elizabeth, I’m glad! I’m so glad!” was all she said, but her face spoke for her, and Elizabeth’s anxious eyes shone with relief and friendliness.
“You believe me, dear Miss Lucy—you know I speak truth?” she asked eagerly. Then at Lucy’s swift assent she continued earnestly, “I tell you all the truth, and then you see I do not deceive you. Miss Lucy, I do not love France or England, or even America better than my Fatherland. Germany I love, and always will I love her. Only, Miss Lucy, now is no longer with us the dear country I before knew.”
A look of horror flashed into her kind face as she said heavily:
“I have things seen that never could I tell you of. At first I believe my countrymen who say the English prisoners are guilty of crimes—for I never any Englishmen knew. I think perhaps they deserve the deadly punishment. But when America send her soldiers against us——” Elizabeth’s voice trembled. “When Mr. Bob so nearly was given up to death; when they tell me lies of how the Americans, they are worse than any—I believe them not! Too long was I in America to be so fooled, and now I know it is a cruel war that has brought her against us. For those men who have put the world on fire, who have made to die those many innocent children—oh, Miss Lucy, better they are beat and conquered by America, and so may God let the old Germany live again!”
The little German woman’s low, cautious voice shook with earnestness. Her clasped hands opened and closed in quick, restless gestures so unlike quiet, steady Elizabeth that Lucy’s heart beat with pity and understanding. In Elizabeth’s simple nature love of country was very strong, and her disillusionment, at returning to war-time Germany, very bitter. Yet she still found courage to hope for better things. Lucy marveled at her patient faith, but she could not at all put her thoughts into words, nor indeed find thoughts that would not hurt more than console, so after a look of warm affection she sat silent. But in a moment curiosity prompted her to ask:
“How about Karl, Elizabeth? Does he know how you feel?”
A shadow settled once more on Elizabeth’s face, but she answered quietly, “Karl is very angry with me, Miss Lucy; but it is not that he knows I would help the Allies now.”