“Oh, you know?”
I told her that we had heard part of the tale from the Reverend Mother, but not all of it. Not the motive, nor what had really happened.
“But you guessed?”
“No,” I answered, sturdily.
She laughed, but in a serious way.
“It is not a hard guess, unless I am older than I feel, and uglier than the mirror tells me. He was in love with me.”
Brand and I looked absurdly embarrassed. Of course we had guessed, but this open confession was startling, and there was something repulsive in the idea to both of us who had come through the war-zone into Lille, and had seen the hatred of the people for the German race, and the fate of Pierre Nesle’s sister.
Eileen O’Connor told us that part of her story which the Reverend Mother had left out. It explained the “miracle” that had saved this girl’s life, though, as the Reverend Mother said, perhaps the grace of God was in it as well. Who knows?
Franz von Kreuzenach was one of the Intelligence officers whose headquarters were in that courtyard. After service in the trenches with an infantry battalion he had been stationed since 1915 at Lille until almost the end. He had a lieutenant’s rank, but was Baron in private life, belonging to an old family in Bonn. Not a Prussian, therefore, but a Rhinelander, and without the Prussian arrogance of manner. Just before the war he had been at Oxford—Brasenose College—and spoke English perfectly, and loved England with a strange, deep, unconcealed sentiment.
“Loved England?” exclaimed Brand at this part of Eileen’s tale.