As he turned the corner he saw before the house a group of people who seemed to be regarding it curiously. Warren hastened his steps. Pushing through the group, he entered. The door, torn from its hinges, swung against the wall. In the hall a heavy chest of drawers was overturned and the drawers piled together on the floor. The contents were scattered everywhere. Calling the names of the family, Warren dashed through the rooms, vainly hoping to find some trace of his people, or some explanation of the new disaster. Returning to the door, he appealed to the bystanders. What had happened? They told him that they had come down the street just in time to see the soldiers leading off a group of people. More than that they did not know. They supposed that they were now dead. It was what happened in war.
Warren returned to the house, his head whirling. This seemed the last and most crushing blow. To have such a thing happen just as he was about to rescue his little sister and reunite the family! He could not imagine why this thing should have been done. Why should any soldiers molest American citizens?
Utterly overcome, he sank down in a chair by the window and leaned his head on the sill. All gone! He did not know what to do. His quick and clever brain for the moment refused to act. He raised his head and looked dully out into the street where the group of curious people was slowly moving away. For a long time he stared, then his eyes suddenly set themselves on something nearer. Dumfounded, unbelieving, he glared. It seemed that he could hear Evelyn's voice, Evelyn's own words.
"If anyone kidnapped me," she had said, "I think if I had my diamond on
I would try to scratch a message on the window pane."
Indeed, her mother's ring had served her well. Before Warren's eyes, on the glass, Evelyn had left her message:
"Arrested as spies. Ac't dad's book. Taken to camp. Find Ivan. Tell
Consul. Help."
Clutching the arms of his chair, Warren sat staring at the message on the window pane. He read it over and over. A curious feeling that his eyes were tricking him possessed him. He reached out and rubbed the message slowly, fully expecting it to disappear. The letters felt rough under his fingers. It was really written there with Evelyn's diamond. Still unbelief possessed him. How had it happened that she had foreseen this dreadful mischance clearly enough, in some mysterious way, to plan the delivery of the saving message?
As Warren looked, the events of the last few crowded days seemed to rise up and bear him down under their horror and immensity. He sat clutching the arms of his chair, and with unseeing eyes stared and stared at the letters. All at once he felt very young, very helpless, very lonely.
America, his own dear country, with its safety and its careless, unthinking haphazard hospitality for every living person who seeks her shores; America seemed suddenly to be set farther than the farthest star.
Like most American boys, Warren was clever, shrewd and ingenious. Life with Professor Morris had trained him in ingenuity and efficiency. Since his earliest remembrance it had fallen to his lot to act as the head of his family, making decisions that usually are the sole right of fathers and guardians. But now, under conditions of horror and tragedy, he realized that he was after all only a boy; and the thought came to him that he and his, dear and infinitely precious as they were to each other, counted not at all in the great tragedy of war.