"It was I who got you into this!" Helen exclaimed, beset by a new thought. "If I hadn't stayed——"
Perhaps a better "if" would have referred to Henriette's beauty.
"Nonsense! It's all a mistake!" said Phil.
"Plot complete!" he added, as the sergeant appeared with the letters and papers that he had found in Phil's room carefully tied up and announced, with barrack-room gruffness that it was time to march.
Phil could only smile over his shoulder as he was faced about under the escort of the two privates. From Helen he had an encouraging smile in response; from Henriette a look of fright and appeal. Inwardly he was boiling. It was the first time that he or any Sanford for many generations had known the loss of liberty for five minutes. This callous old sergeant, these two men with fixed bayonets walking on either side of Phil, had no business in France. They were invaders.
On through the village street beside the gorge of transport he was conducted, then down the long avenue of trees to Count de la Grange's chateau. There he was halted and every scrap of paper in his pockets removed. He stood for a time, while officers and messengers passed up and down the steps, before he was taken indoors.
At the end of the long hall, its ceiling cracked and yellow from the neglect of impoverished nobility, its walls hung with family portraits, sat General Rousseau under guard, his aquiline nose and finely-moulded chin in bold relief. As Phil was directed along the hall, the sound of his steps on the marble flooring drew the General's attention. The glances of the two met. Phil was about to speak, when his impulse was stayed by the fact that he was looking at a profile which seemed oblivious of his presence.
"He is in trouble and does not want to recognise me lest he get me in trouble," Phil thought, "or I might get him into deeper trouble."
The General sat stiffly erect, a space between his coat back and the chair back, something distinguished and calm in his manner, with a smiling turn to his lips which completed an air of quiet triumph unaffected by his surroundings. Directly an officer came out from one of the rooms and motioned to the General to enter the open door in front of him. Phil was then moved up to the seat thus vacated, whence he could look into the salon, with its long French windows open on the garden. Before a table sat a German general of fifty-five or so, his bullet head close-cropped and his profile as set as if it were carved out of stone. On the wall at his back was a large map with blue pencil markings. In front of him stood old Rousseau, head up, his lips still having the turn of a faint smile.
Division Commander von Stein was reading from a paper, which stated that the General had given information to the enemy by means of carrier pigeons.