“Kind, young lady—why, hark to that. Your father’s oldest friend kind to come and see that little Beatrix is getting well again. What nonsense!”
She thought upon his words.
“You knew my father, then?”
“Ay, better than them all; knew his heart, his very soul. Some day we will talk of it—not now. You must get well again first, and have done with this nonsense about Master Brandon. Oh, don’t be anxious about him. The rogue can walk again, almost as well as I can.”
A sigh of relief escaped her lips. She told him, as shortly as she might, the story of her husband’s return. He listened with grave face, which could not cloak his anxiety.
“I feared from the first that this would happen,” she said. “Edmond would not believe. He chose to misunderstand me. He has not been here all these days. He threatened Brandon. It is a relief to know that they have not met.”
Watts feigned to laugh at the idea. His assumption of a confident indifference was none the less a failure.
“Strasburg cannot hold out three days,” he said. “It was lucky I went to the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel when I did. We bribed their own man and got over the roofs to Dr. Forbes’s house. He has been attending you, you know—a right good fellow, though he was born in San Francisco. Brandon is in his house now—about the last place they would look for him. The American flag will protect him. When the city falls, men will be reasonable again, and all this will be forgotten. We must wish the city to open its gates, little passenger. That’s the only chance for all of us. Meanwhile, trust me to keep those two fellows apart. I’ll have no cut-throat business, if I can help it. What are they fighting about? Devil take the rogues if they know. And why is Dick Hamilton’s daughter lying here like a pretty spoiled dove in a cage? Because two fools have been playing the fool’s game together. But we shall stop that. Trust old Richard Watts and the Germans who make the music at the gates.”
Thus he sought to give her courage, and fearing to excite her, he left her with an echo of his own self-reliance in her heart. She knew that she had one friend working for her; and when she slept that night her prayer was this—that the gates of Strasburg might be opened to the enemy.