“He came in as we were sitting down to our mess.”
“You must have ears in the back of your head. I never saw anything like you in all my experience.”
Grace got up and stretched herself, placed a finger against her cheek and faced the end of the room.
“Have you heard the rumor, Elfreda? It is said that the American artillery is trained on the Germans, and that some hot-headed officers are planning to shoot up our friends across the Rhine one of these nights.”
“No? You don’t say!” cried Elfreda, speaking loudly enough to be heard in the next room. “I hope they will not do anything like that.”
“So do I, but it appears to be a possibility.”
Grace winked at Elfreda and changed the subject. After the dishes were washed and put away the two girls sat down to study their German, which they had been studying for some time. Since coming to the Rhine Grace had taken advantage of every opportunity to speak German, feeling certain that it would prove to be a good investment. Her knowledge of the language was destined to be very useful to her in the near future.
They turned in shortly after nine o’clock, Elfreda to go to sleep, Grace to lie awake and think. Before getting into bed she had whispered to Miss Briggs not to be alarmed if she were awakened suddenly in the night with a feeling that something was wrong in the room.
“That something will be only unimportant little I. I may be walking in my sleep for several nights to come.”
After ages of effort to keep heavy eyelids from falling, Grace was rewarded by hearing the trap raised in the adjoining room and light footsteps descending the cellar stairs. The Overton girl crept under the bed at the sound of the opening trap, and ere the footsteps had reached the cellar she had pulled aside the carpet just far enough for her purposes, removed the cardboard and pressed her ear to the hole in the floor. Every sound down there was almost as audible to her as if she had been in the cellar.