They are gone—back to their own country, which wants them not. The camp that has been their prison for four years is empty. It lies, in the quickening daylight, like a vast black scar on the green face of the mountain.
Suddenly a new thought comes to Mona. They may still avoid death. Life may yet be open to them.
“Oskar,” she says, speaking in a rapid whisper, “now that the officers and the guard have gone, isn’t it possible that we could escape to somewhere ... where we should be unknown....”
“Impossible! Quite impossible, Mona.”
“Ah yes, I suppose it is,” she says, and they rise to resume their journey.
But just then, in the first rays of morning, from a cottage that is between them and the sea, she hears the voice of a woman singing. She knows who the woman is—one of her former maids, who has lately been married to a farm labourer. Perhaps her husband has gone to his work in the fields, and she is out in their little garden, gathering up the eggs of the hens that are clucking. How happy she must be!
For a moment Mona’s heart fails her. She forgets the great thoughts of yesterday, and regrets the loss of the simple joys that are reserved for other women.
“It seems a pity, though, doesn’t it?” she says.
“Do you regret it, Mona?” says Oskar, looking round at her. But at the next moment her soul has regained its strength.
“No! Oh, no! It had to be.... And then there is our great hope, our wonderful idea!”