She well knew the opinions of the Herr Doktor, for he had expressed them time and again within her hearing. He had been a student at Bonn in his youth and was a Prussian by birth. His belief in the military destiny of the Prussian Government was not to be shaken. That he had remained in America so long after the war was begun was a mystery to all those who knew him well.
During the ten years he had resided in the United States, Doctor Herschall had made no attempt to associate himself with America or American interests. His affiliations were entirely German and he scoffed at any advancement in science or any discovery in his own profession, that did not have its birth in the German universities.
How much she had been influenced to take up this Red Cross work by her antipathy for Doctor Herschall and a desire to escape his attentions, Belinda had scarcely known; but now she would have given anything had the ocean again separated the Herr Doktor and herself.
How she wished she had retired with the French nurses and other attendants. For it did not seem—now—so necessary that she should have run into this unforeseen danger by attending these "Boches."
She used the accustomed scornful phrase in her thought, yet with a qualm of conscience. These Germans were not "a stupid and brutal people." They had once been as near to her and as dear to her as her father's nation. If her mother had lived until she was grown to young womanhood, and had been to her the companion and friend her father had been, Belinda might have been pro-German—might not have had her thoughts and sympathies drawn so strongly to the French.
A man nurse, a strong, capable fellow, appeared to relieve her rather late in the evening. She had been assigned a cot in one of the empty wards, where she slept with other women attendants. They accepted her as German like themselves, but from another hospital unit. It was too late and all were too weary for Belinda to be troubled by any cross-examination.
She knew when she awoke on the morrow she would awake to the danger of a general inspection of the wards which the Herr Doktor would probably undertake. Because of Paul Genau's advice—his insistence, indeed—her full name had not been recorded with the Military Head.
Had it been possible for Belinda Melnotte to escape from the hospital enclosure on this morning, she certainly would have deserted her ward and tried to get through the lines into territory held by the French.
The point of the wedge driven by the German advance into the yielding French lines she was told was far beyond the town. Many non-combatants had been caught by the swift advance and were being sent to the rear by the Germans. Some—those who would be a burden to the conquerors—were weeded out and allowed to escape to the French lines; and Belinda might have been fortunate enough to be one of these.
However, with two sentinels standing at the gateway of the hospital enclosure and nobody allowed to go out without a permit save the stretcher-bearers, what chance had she? Perforce she was held to her service.