She murmured something to which he paid no attention whatever.
'I left my two A.D.C.'s at Folkestone,' he went on, 'forbade them to enter the train. They are worried about me. Perhaps they are right. You see, it was at—but we don't mention names—my headquarters last week. It was the night before our advance. You read about that. I won't mention the name of the place. We called it a partial success. But for the thing I am going to tell you, it might have been the turning point of the war. The attack failed—my fault.'
'I read that your division did splendidly,' she remarked.
Again he moistened his dry lips. His hands were shaking now by his side; he seemed like a man on the verge of paralysis.
'This is what happened,' he continued. 'I was at headquarters, my own headquarters. My orderly reported a Staff Officer from the French headquarters. He came in, a typical-looking young French soldier, wearing the uniform of one of their best regiments, one of those which I knew were in the division which was to join up with ours in the morning. He was tall and dark, with a thin, black moustache, long, narrow eyes, a scar on his right cheek, sallow, and with a queer habit of swinging his left arm. He brought me some intelligible, perfectly coherent verbal instructions, asked a few questions as to my plans for the next day, gave me a personal message from the French General commanding the division, saluted, got back into his motor-car and drove off. And I thought no more about it until we found out that our whole scheme of attack was known to the enemy, and that they were prepared for us at every point. He was a German. We were sold. Thousands of my men were lost through that. My fault. He was a German. Are you a German, young lady?'
'Ah, but no!' she exclaimed, shrinking a little back.
'You are not wholly English.'
'I am half French and half English,' she told him.
'The French are good people,' he went on, relapsing into his former far-away tone, 'very fine people. They can fight too, and they can tell Germans when they see them. That is why I am going home—because I couldn't. I've sworn that the next German I see, I'll kill. You're not a German, are you?'
'I told you just now,' she reminded him quietly, 'that I am half French and half English—mostly French. I am in the service of the French Government at the present moment, trying to help you, General.'