Madame de la Tour and Michelle had lodgings in Badheim village, but Miss Webster, after discovering how useful Michelle promptly made herself at the hospital, assigned them a room in the cottage with Lucy and Miss Pearse, in which to pass the night whenever they chose. And they often chose to remain there, so as to spend the evenings with Armand, who, recovering more slowly than Bob and Alan, loved to have his mother and sister to beguile his lonely hours. Thus it happened that Michelle took part in a night’s incident soon after Lucy’s and Alan’s visit to Franz’ cottage.
Lucy was roused from the sound, dreamless sleep into which she fell after each hard day’s work by a sound of tapping against the window casement beside her cot. She stirred without opening her eyes, for the casement opened outwards, and she vaguely fancied that a branch of the tree shading the window had blown against the pane. But when the sound was sharply repeated she opened her eyes, sat up, and turning to the window saw a woman looking in at her.
She had no time for more than a quick start before the woman leaned over the sill, and, the shawl wrapped about her head and shoulders falling apart a little, in the clear moonlight Lucy saw Trudchen’s pale, troubled face.
“What is it? Is Friedrich sick again?” Lucy asked hurriedly.
Trudchen put a finger to her lips, glancing toward Miss Pearse’s cot, and spoke in an eager whisper.
“Fr?ulein, forgive me for coming. I need help—and I have nowhere else to go. My little Adelheid is sick now, and I have nothing—I don’t know what to do! Kind Fr?ulein, will you come?”
At the trembling earnestness of her voice Lucy did not even stop to answer. She was out of bed in a second, but before beginning to dress she asked doubtfully, “Shall I be help enough? I’d better call Miss Pearse.”
Trudchen leaned in the window to catch her arm as she whispered imploringly, “No, no, Fr?ulein, only you! Otherwise Franz will be still more angry.”
“All right,” Lucy nodded, not stopping to argue. Miss Pearse slept heavily after her long hours of work and she did not stir while Lucy hastily dressed herself. In ten minutes she stole from the room and met Trudchen in front of the cottage.
“What is the matter with Adelheid?” she asked. “What shall I take with me?”
“She has fever, Fr?ulein, and she coughs a great deal. She caught cold from Friedrich, and my man sent her on an errand in the forest yesterday, and she lost the path and was late coming home. She was shivering, poor little one, but now she is too warm——”
“Wait here a minute,” said Lucy.
She went back into the cottage, lit a candle and took from the medicine store-closet the first simple remedies that occurred to her. Then, with a vivid recollection of the poverty of Franz’ cottage, she crept back into her room, took one of the blankets from her cot and, stuffing it under her arm, picked up the other supplies and rejoined Trudchen in the moonlit clearing.
“Come on,” she said softly. “You carry the blanket, please.”
Trudchen took it from her and wrapped it around her own shivering shoulders. She set the pace almost at a run across the open behind the hospital, and into the forest. It was cold, but scarcely any wind moved the tree-tops. The night frost made the snow sparkle with fresh brilliance and gave a hoary gleam to the dark pine-trunks. The moonbeams fell between the branches with a checkered silver light by which it was easy to find the way. Owls hooted dismally overhead and invisible beasts scurried off into the shadows.
Trudchen said not a word, absorbed in making all the speed she could. Lucy followed close, suddenly remembering that she should have left a word to explain her absence. In a quarter of an hour they came out into the second clearing and approached the cottage, from which a single candle shone, bright yellow against the clear pallor of snow and moonlight.
Trudchen pushed open the cottage door and entered the kitchen. Red embers glowed on the hearth, before which had been drawn Adelheid’s little trundle bed, and beside her on a low stool sat Franz, gloomily staring into the sinking fire.
Trudchen flung off her blanket and shawl, ran to Adelheid and anxiously touched her hot forehead. The child lay motionless with closed eyes, huddled under the ragged blanket. But when her mother said, “See, Adelheid, leibchen, the Fr?ulein is here to help you,” she opened her eyes and looking vaguely up at Lucy, smiled faintly and tried to speak, though a fit of coughing put an end to the few whispered words.
Lucy sat down on the stool from which Franz had risen, felt Adelheid’s quick pulse and touched her swollen tonsils.
“Hold the candle nearer?” she asked Trudchen, and, shivering in the cold room, said to Franz, “Will you put on more wood? Make it as warm as you can.”
Mechanically Franz obeyed, throwing on pine-boughs which sent quick flames darting up the chimney, though the room remained cold, penetrated by draughts from between the logs which made the candle-flame veer in every direction.
Lucy covered Adelheid with the blanket she had brought, gave her a quinine tablet, painted her throat with iodine, wound a compress around her neck and put a beer-bottle filled with hot water at her feet. Franz moved about the room, silent and inscrutable as ever. Trudchen ran where Lucy bade her, or else knelt by Adelheid’s little bed, her anxious eyes never leaving the child’s face.
Adelheid had gone off into an uneasy doze which began to be troubled by feverish dreams, and presently she tried to talk, painfully in her hoarse, choked voice.
“Hush, Adelheid, don’t talk,” Lucy coaxed her, but she paid no heed, tossing about on her narrow bed, as though living again the troubled moments whose memory possessed her little brain.
“Yes, Papachen, I’m going. I’ll run all the way, so don’t be angry,” she cried, panting for breath as she spoke and struggling against the cough that mastered her at every moment. Franz stopped his aimless walk and stared at her. Adelheid went on, now half to herself:
“It’s cold, and I don’t know where I am. Oh, I wish I could see the clearing! It’s awfully big—the forest. But I’ll go, Papachen, I’ll go all the way. I’ll tell him what you said. I’ll tell him you will go to the river without fail——”
“Be silent, Adelheid!” commanded Franz, towering above the child, who shrank back at the harsh voice, staring dazedly up into her father’s face.
Then eagerly she continued, “I did it, Papachen. I went there, though I was tired and very cold. I told Herr Johann——”
“Be quiet!” Franz grasped Adelheid’s little shoulder, speaking the stern words close to her ear.
Trudchen gave a quick sob. “Franz, she is ill, poor little one,” she whispered.
Franz took away his heavy hand, then, as though ashamed of his roughness, he smoothed Adelheid’s tumbled hair and pulled the blanket up about her chin. He cast an odd look at Lucy, in which hostility at her presence contended with a kind of gratitude.
“Tell me, Fr?ulein,” Trudchen whispered, “will she be very ill?”
“I don’t think so,” Lucy reassured her. “I don’t think she has anything worse than a bad cold. How long was she out in the forest yesterday?”
“About—two hours,” said Trudchen, glancing fearfully at Franz.
He had left the hearth as Adelheid relapsed into silence, and was looking from the window which opened on the farther side of the clearing. He paid no heed to his wife’s words for at that moment all his attention seemed taken up by something outside. He started, hesitated, then walked quickly to the front and went outdoors.
Lucy was feeling of Adelheid’s pulse again and trying to guess how much fever she had, for she had forgotten to bring a thermometer and there was no watch in the cottage. In a moment she was roused by hearing footsteps in the bedroom beyond, and the low sound of men’s voices. She could hear Franz speaking in a cautious whisper to someone, and one of the little boys crying out at being awakened. The footsteps at once recrossed the floor to the back, and the shed-door was creakily opened, as though Franz had taken his midnight visitor to its safer shelter.
Exasperated at this continued mystery, Lucy glanced at Trudchen, who was looking with keenest anxiety toward the bedroom door.
“Your husband has visitors at funny hours,” said Lucy, unable to contain herself.
Trudchen turned, her pale face and unhappy eyes raised to Lucy in a kind of silent appeal. To Lucy her face seemed to say, “I can’t explain—don’t ask me.” But in a minute she apparently felt the need of saying something, and she spoke dully, as though she had rehearsed the words.
“It is nothing, Fr?ulein. Franz has to sell wood far and near, and often people come in the night because they are passing through the forest. Some of them do not like to be about too much by daylight. Germans who fear the Americans are not friendly.”
“If their business is honest they ought to know the Americans won’t hurt them,” said Lucy, unsatisfied not so much at Trudchen’s words as at the halting manner in which they were spoken. She began to feel a new sympathy for Alan’s inquisitiveness. However, without waiting for an answer which she could not believe, she added, “I’m going back now, to the hospital. I’ll come early in the morning and bring some things she needs. There’s no danger; don’t be frightened.”
In spite of everything she felt so sorry for Trudchen’s evident misery that she put her hand on the German woman’s arm and did her best to comfort her.
“Thank you, thank you, kind Fr?ulein,” cried Trudchen, following Lucy to the door, gratitude throbbing in her voice. “Are you not afraid to go alone through the forest? Will you wait and let—Franz——”
“Oh, no, I’m not a bit afraid,” declared Lucy, disdaining the proffered escort. “I’ll be back in a few hours, remember.”
She closed the cottage door softly after her and ran across the clearing. As she entered the forest, light steps sounded on the snow and Michelle came running through the trees to meet her.
“Michelle! What’s the matter?” Lucy demanded.
“Nothing is the matter, except with you, mon amie,” said Michelle, panting. “I heard you stealing out and saw you walking across the hospital clearing with Franz’ wife. I followed you.”
“What on earth for?” asked Lucy, but at the same time she caught her friend’s arm in hers gratefully, for the night forest was lonely in its cold shadowy depths.
“To help you if I could. Why did you go to Franz’ cottage?”
“To see Adelheid. She’s sick, poor little thing. And oh, Michelle, someone came to see Franz——”
She paused, turning back to the cottage clearing. The shed-door had swung closed again and now a tall, quick-moving figure came out into the moonlight and walked toward the far side of the clearing.
“Herr Johann!” Michelle said in amazement.
“Yes, it’s he who was in the cottage. It’s he Adelheid was sent to talk with yesterday. Michelle, if we could find out where he goes now!”
Lucy’s suggestion was scarcely more than a spoken wish. She expected Michelle’s instant disapproval, for in the old days at Chateau-Plessis the French girl had often dissuaded her from foolhardy exploits and counselled the patience war’s perils had taught. But now Michelle seemed to feel differently. They were on German soil, it was true, but not under German rule. Lucy saw her blue eyes flash in the moonlight as her glance followed Herr Johann on his hurried way into the forest. She caught Lucy’s arm closer in hers, saying breathlessly:
“Let us follow him, Lucy! Surely the way he goes must teach us something.”
Lucy’s devouring curiosity at this fresh proof of the forest mystery swept away her lingering fear. With Michelle beside her she was ready for adventure. Her longing was so great to know at last the answer to the riddle, she drew Michelle almost at a run through the fringe of fir-trees, along the same path by which she and Alan had stalked the Germans a few days before.
The girls did not say a word as they hurried around the clearing, their quick breath white in the frosty moonlight, their cautious steps making little sound upon the snow. Herr Johann walked fast, for when they reached the point at which he had entered the forest he had already disappeared. They paused uncertainly, with an uncomfortable feeling that from behind one of the low-branched fir-trees he might be watching them.
“He’s gone. Shall we go on?” whispered Lucy, suddenly weakening,
“He cannot be far ahead, though,” Michelle answered in the same hushed tone. “Let us go on a little.”
They crept between the trees, looking from right to left, and fancying they saw the German’s figure beside every shadowy tree-trunk, and in every shade of swaying pine-boughs against moonlit snow. There were footprints in the snow in front of them but it was hard to tell if they were new or old. Lucy tried to remember the way she and Alan had followed, but the forest held few landmarks to a stranger and she soon lost all definite sense of direction.
“I think we’re idiots. We can’t find him,” she said to Michelle after another quarter of a mile. “Yet I hate to give up.”
“Shall we go a little further?” proposed Michelle, doubtfully. “I thought I heard a step.”
At the same moment Lucy, too, caught the slight, crunching noise of a man’s boot on the snow, a little on their right. Her heart gave a quick, hard throb and all her eager curiosity returned, driving away her creeping dread of the lonely night forest.
“Don’t make a sound,” she breathed in Michelle’s ear.
Michelle, ............