"What am I to think of this? What does this man Grätz mean when he tells me that your maid has been arrested on a serious charge and that the Edmeston Agency of a German automobile is in danger?"
The girl stood very still with one slender hand resting on her satchel, her face pale and quietly serious, her brows bent slightly inward as though she were trying to remember something or to solve some unpleasant problem not yet plain to her.
"One thing is clear," she said after a moment, lifting her candid eyes to his; "and that is, if you don't take me back certain friends of yours will be executed and a village in which you seem interested will be destroyed."
"If taking you back means any harm to England," he said, "I won't take you."
"And—your friends? What becomes of them?"
"My friends and the village must take the same chances that I do."
"What chances? Do you mean to go back without me?"
"I said I would," he replied drily.
"You said that if you went back without me they'd execute you."
"That's what I said. But there's no use in speculating on what is likely to happen to me if I go back without you. If you don't mind I think we had better start at once. We have had our warning from this man Grätz."