"No, Frederic, not this time," said Walter absently. He paced several times up and down, then he halted suddenly. "It is all the same now!" he murmured. "Why not tell him what I was going to confide to Robert?--Frederic!"
"Herr Lieutenant!"
"It is possible an attack may be made to-night. Have you received orders to be ready for an alarm?"
"Yes, at ten o'clock with two men I am to patrol the park. It is for the sake of security, the captain says, because it is not guarded."
"Very well! In any event you will see the doctor before this. It was very necessary that I should speak with him, but I must go, and I have no time to seek him in the village. You will deliver my errand word for word, just as I tell you; but to him alone, and no other. Do you hear?"
"To no other!"
The next words were very difficult ones for Walter to speak. He struggled with himself for some moments.
"If it should come to a conflict, he is the only one who will not have to take a part in it, and the French sharp-shooters around here are a barbarous horde to whom nothing is sacred. He must protect Miss Forest so far as lies in his power."
"The American Miss?" returned Frederic slowly.
"Yes!" Walter again hesitated, but then all at once the words broke hasty and ardent, from his lips. "Tell him I demand it of him as a last duty of friendship. Miss Forest has been to me the one dearest in the wide world! He shall guard her if he must, with his life!"