A single piercing laugh rang out. She stopped the sound abruptly with one quick indrawing of her breath, and waited.
Colonel Baron tried to speak, and no sound came. Denham remained motionless, not even attempting to raise his eyes.
“Oui!” Lucille said restlessly. “Il est—il est——”
The Colonel managed a few short words. There was no possibility of softening what had to be said.
“To-night—the citadel. To-morrow—to Bitche!”
“To Bitche!” echoed Lucille. “Ah-h!”
To Bitche—that terrible fortress-prison, the nightmare of Verdun prisoners! Their Roy to be sent to Bitche! Mrs. Baron swayed slightly as if on the verge of fainting. Roy, her petted and idolised darling—her boy, so tenderly cared for—to be hurried away to Bitche!
Lucille hardly could have told which of the two she was watching with the more intense attention—Mrs. Baron, stunned and wordless, or Denham, with his fixed still face of suffering.
“And nothing—nothing—can be done?” she asked.
“We have tried everything!” the Colonel answered gloomily.[1]