“What’s he looking for?” Larry asked himself. Lucy could not help doing what she now did, though the explanation of the whole strange affair was still remote from her. She crept around to her old nurse’s side, and in the shadow, dropped down by Elizabeth’s crouching figure and caught hold of her thin, trembling hands.
“Never mind, Elizabeth, it’s all right—I believe in you,” she whispered, hardly thinking what she said. “No one is going to hurt you. Only tell the truth—whatever it is.”
Elizabeth’s hand pressed Lucy’s in a quick grateful clasp, but, apart from a little gasping sigh, she made no answer. Her eyes were turned to Karl, whom Larry had begun to question.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in English.
Karl protested with an eagerness almost like violence, “No harm, Captain. I my wife came to see.” He waved his big arm toward Elizabeth in confirmation.
“That’s not quite good enough. Why make such a secret of it? Why must Franz arrange the meeting? And why were you so anxious to get away that you attacked the soldier I put on guard at the back door?”
Karl hesitated for an instant, then plunged on, trying to speak confidently, “I dared not in the day cross the Rhine, Captain, because I thought the Americans do not friendly to me feel. I thought better keep quiet—for my wife’s sake.”
“Thoughtful of Elizabeth, as usual,” remarked Major Harding, stepping into the candle-light.
Here was another surprise for Karl, and not a pleasant one. “You? It is you, Lieutenant—I mean Major?” he stammered, staring.
“Yes, another of your old friends. You say you came here to see Elizabeth. How did it happen that Franz arranged the meeting? How came he to interest himself?”