“I said a decade of the rosary to our Blessed Lady,” said the Reverend
Mother, “and thanked God that this dear child’s life would not be taken.
I was certain that those men would not condemn her to death. She was
acquitted on the charge of espionage, and sentenced to two weeks’
imprisonment for smuggling food to prisoners, by a verdict of seven
against three. Only when she left the court did she fall into so deep a
swoon that for a little while we thought her dead.”
The Reverend Mother had told her story well. She held me in a deep
strained interest. It was rather to myself than to her that I spoke the
words which were my comment at the end of this narrative.
“How splendid!... But I am puzzled about that German lieutenant, Franz
von Kreuzenach. He kept the real evidence back.”
“That,” said the Reverend Mother solemnly, “was a great mystery, and a
miracle.”
Wickham Brand joined us in the passage, with Eileen O’Connor by his
side.
“Not gone yet?” said Wickham.
“I have been listening to the tale of a woman’s courage,” I said, and
when Eileen gave me her hand, I raised it to my lips, in the French
style, though not in gallantry.
“Reverend Mother,” she said, “has been exalting me to the seventh heaven
of her dear heart.”
On my way back to Brand’s mess I told him all I had heard about Eileen’s
trial, and I remember his enthusiasm.
“Fine! Thank heaven there are women like that in this blood-soaked
world. It saves one from absolute despair.”
He made no comment about the suppression of evidence, which was a puzzle
to me.
We parted with a “So long, old man,” outside his headquarters, and I did
not see him until a few days later.
X
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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