“But won’t you be afraid to live in this house alone—a woman, with men like these about you?”
“I don’t think I will, sir.”
Half a year has passed. Mona has seen nothing of Oskar since Christmas. With a thrill of the heart she hears of the wide liberty he has won by his ability and good behaviour. But even in that there is a certain sting. He is free of the camp now as far as the barbed wire extends; why does he not come to see her? Sometimes she feels bitter that he does not come, but again the strange thing is that sometimes she is sure that if he did come she would run away from him.
All the same, she has a sense of his presence always about her. No matter how early she rises in the morning she finds that the rough work of the farm, unfit for a woman, has been done by other hands before she has reached the cow-house.
For a long time this sense as of a supernatural presence, unseen and unheard, helping her and caring for her and keeping guard over her, strengthens her days and sweetens her nights. But at length something happens which causes her courage to fail.
Rumour has come to the camp that a great enemy offensive is shortly to be made on the Western front. To meet the need of it the old guard of tried and trusted men are sent overseas, and their places filled by a new guard, which seem to have been recruited from the very sweepings of the streets.
The captain of this new guard assigned to the first three compounds (the nearest to the farmhouse) turns out to be a brute. His antecedents are doubtful. His own men, to whom he is a tyrant, say he has been a barman in a public-house somewhere, and that a few years before the war he was convicted of a criminal assault on a woman.
Mona becomes aware that she is attracting the attention of this ruffian. He is asking questions about her, following her with his evil eyes, and making coarse remarks that are intended to meet her ears.
“Fine gal! Splendid! What a woman for a wife, too!”