“It’s me, sure enough, Mary dear. And now I have found you I will never let you go again. But, my precious child, how on earth did you get here?”
She disengaged herself and let her little electric torch wander over my rough habiliments.
“You look a tremendous warrior, Dick. I have never seen you like this before. I was in Doubting Castle and very much afraid of Giant Despair, till you came.”
“I think I call it the Interpreter’s House,” I said.
“It’s the house of somebody we both know,” she went on. “He calls himself Bommaerts here. That was one of the two names, you remember. I have seen him since in Paris. Oh, it is a long story and you shall hear it all soon. I knew he came here sometimes, so I came here too. I have been nursing for the last fortnight at the Douvecourt Hospital only four miles away.”
“But what brought you alone at night?”
“Madness, I think. Vanity, too. You see I had found out a good deal, and I wanted to find out the one vital thing which had puzzled Mr Blenkiron. I told myself it was foolish, but I couldn’t keep away. And then my courage broke down, and before you came I would have screamed at the sound of a mouse. If I hadn’t whistled I would have cried.”
“But why alone and at this hour?”
“I couldn’t get off in the day. And it was safest to come alone. You see he is in love with me, and when he heard I was coming to Douvecourt forgot his caution and proposed to meet me here. He said he was going on a long journey and wanted to say goodbye. If he had found me alone—well, he would have said goodbye. If there had been anyone with me, he would have suspected, and he mustn’t suspect me. Mr Blenkiron says that would be fatal to his great plan. He believes I am like my aunts, and that I think him an apostle of peace working by his own methods against the stupidity and wickedness of all the Governments. He talks more bitterly about Germany than about England. He had told me how he had to disguise himself and play many parts on his mission, and of course I have applauded him. Oh, I have had a difficult autumn.”
“Mary,” I cried, “tell me you hate him.”