The jubilant Franz explained.
“Mount him on one of your horses. The trooper can squeeze in in front of the car. Has the female prisoner a dagger or a pistol?”
“I have not searched her, Herr Hauptmann.”
“Make sure, but offer no violence or discourtesy. No, leave this fellow here at present. I want a few words with him in private. Assemble your men around the car, and take the woman there now.”
Irene was led out. She paused in the doorway, and the corporal thought she did not know what she was wanted for.
“You are to be conveyed in the automobile, Fräulein,” he said.
But she was looking for Dalroy in the gloom. Before anyone could interfere, she ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the lips.
“Good-bye, my dear one!” she wailed in a heart-broken way. “We may not meet again on this earth, but I am yours to all eternity.”
“With these words in my ears I shall die happy,” said Dalroy. Her embrace thrilled him with a strange ecstasy, yet the pain of that parting was worse than death. Were ever lovers’ vows plighted in such conditions in the history of this gray old world?