“What on earth are you doing, Sally Ashton? If you are not ill, come on back to bed. If you are ill, come back in any case and let me get whatever it is you desire.”
Sally murmured something vague and indeterminate about endeavoring to discover a lost pillow and Alice fell comfortably asleep again, nor did she awaken when Sally at last slipped out of the room and down stairs.
In case any one else heard her or called, she had made up her mind to explain that she was seeing about some preparation for breakfast. As “housekeeper extraordinary” this statement might be believed, even if it were unlike her to start her ministrations so early.
But no one was disturbed and Sally got her little bundle of provisions together quickly, since she knew just where the supplies of food were kept. They had not a great deal, considering the demands that were constantly being made upon them by the people in the neighborhood who were less well off, so Sally felt that she had not the right to be over-generous, and made her selections with due discretion.
It was more than ever her determination to demand that the soldier leave the château at once this morning, if he could be induced to see the wisdom of such a proceeding, but if not by nightfall.
Also Sally had made up her mind to ask no questions. If the soldier were arrested later she wished to know as little as possible concerning him.
He had spoken of being captured and of running away from his captors. This suggested that he was a German or an Austrian who had been taken prisoner and was trying to effect an escape. If this were true Sally felt a fierce condemnation of her own cowardly attitude. But was it not remotely possible that the soldier had committed some offense and had then run away from his own regiment? However, this point of view was but little in his favor. As he spoke English with an accent and as foreign accents were all of an equal mystification to Sally, it was possible that she need never know his origin.
Outdoors and slipping through the garden, to Sally’s surprise and consternation she nearly ran into old Jean, who appeared to have been up all night caring for his stock.
He looked like a gnome with his wrinkled skin, his little eyes, his muddy gray hair and even his clothes almost of a color with the earth.
He was carrying a lantern, but instead of speaking beckoned mysteriously to Sally to follow him out to Miss Patricia’s barn, where a half dozen cows were now installed.