“Ah, then I know you?” she cried. “You are not Belgian—but German—you, who have posed so long as my father’s intimate friend—you, who thought to mislead us—who schemed to bring the enemy into our midst. Though you have uttered words of love to me, I see you now, exposed as a spy—as an enemy—as one who should be tried and shot as a traitor?”
She did not spare her words in the mad frenzy of the moment.
“You speak harshly,” he growled. “If you do not have a care, you shall pay for this?”
“I will. I would rather die here now, than become the wife of a low, cunning spy, who has posed as one of ourselves while he has been in secret relation with the enemy all the time. I hate you, Arnaud Rigaux—I hate you!” shrieked the girl. “Do your worst to me! The worst cannot be worse than death—and even that I prefer, to further association with one who wears the Prussian uniform, and who is leading the enemy into our country. Your cultured friends have burned and sacked Sévérac. Let them sack the whole of Belgium if they will, but our men have still the spirit to defend themselves, just as I have to-day. I defy you, clever, cunning spy that you are. Hear me?” she cried, her white teeth set, her head low upon her shoulders, and her hands clenched as she stood before him, half crouched as a hunted animal ready to spring. “You men who make war upon women may try and crush us, but you will never crush me. Go, and escape in your car if you will. Pass through the Belgian lines back to Brussels. But, though only a defenceless girl, I am safer even in the hands of this barbarian enemy than in the hands of a traitor like you?”
“Very well, girl—choose your own fate,” laughed the man roughly. “You refuse to go with me—eh?”
“Yes,” she said. “I refuse. I hate the sight of your treacherous face. Already I have told my father so.”
“Your father is no longer a person to be regarded,” the man declared. “He is already ruined financially. I have seen to that, never fear. You are no longer the daughter of Baron de Neuville, but the daughter of a man whom this war has brought to ruin and to bankruptcy. It should be an honour to you, daughter of a ruined man, that I should offer you marriage.”
“I am engaged to marry Edmond Valentin,” she replied.
“Bah! a mere soldier. If he is not already dead he soon will be. Germany flicks away the Belgian army like so many grains of sawdust before the wind.”
“No. Edmond is honest and just. He will live,” she cried. “And you, the spy and traitor, will die an ignoble death!”