When about to go, Alison turned and gazed steadily and threateningly at the old man.
"Your complicity ensures your silence. I need not enjoin silence upon you. The Germans would shoot you if they knew you had helped me through their lines."
"I know it, Monsieur."
"If I return towards morning, I shall have found entrance to the mountains impossible, and shall be supposed to have passed the night in the castle. You are not to know otherwise.--Adieu!"
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
The Shadow of Doom.
In Walter's chamber a bright light was also burning, but upon his entrance, he found no one there but Frederic.
"Doctor Behrend has been here the whole time," he said, "and he waited a long while for you; but he has been summoned over to the village. I believe Corporal Braun is in a very bad state."
Walter seemed unpleasantly surprised at these tidings. "Has Doctor Behrend gone? he asked. I wished very much to speak with him."
"The doctor wished it too. He said I should have ready your cloak and your pistols, as you were to go away this evening, and would not take me with you this time as usual when you go out on patrol duty."