The sergeant-major started, and glanced at his sister-in-law, smiling cynically. The devil! In all this silly excitement they might have sacrificed the last night before their long separation, if the very person they were deceiving had not herself come to the rescue.
Ida smiled back at him.
He gave the bottle and a spoon to his wife with a "Mind you don't take too much." But he thought to himself, "Perhaps she will take a little more than is ordered, and so sleep the sounder."
Then he went back to his sister-in-law and the packing.
"There!" said Julie, as she held out the spoon. "I believe I did take just a little more than usual. Ida, will you help me to bed? I begin to feel tired already!"
Just then it struck ten o'clock. The tattoo sounded.
"So late already?" exclaimed the sergeant-major. "I must be off at once with this to the baggage-waggon."
He took up his box and turned to go. In the doorway he paused once more and said, "I shall only just go through the battery and then come back to bed, for I must be up betimes in the morning."
The sick woman lay waiting. She had taken the knife with her into the bedroom hidden under her shawl, and now held it grasped convulsively in her hand.
Close by in the sitting-room her sister was bustling about. The door had remained half open, so that her movements and occupations could be plainly perceived from the bedroom. At last she undressed herself hurriedly, as if forced to hasten.