With Franz von Kreuzenach it was different. He was a humanitarian, and
sensitive to all cruelty in life. He hated, not the English, but the war
with real anguish, as she could see by many words he let fall from time
to time.
He was, she said, a poet, and could see across the frontiers of hatred
to all suffering humanity, and so revolted against the endless, futile
massacre and the spiritual degradation of civilised peoples. It was
only in a veiled way he could say these things in the presence of his
superior officer, but she understood. She understood another thing as
time went on--nearly eighteen months all told. She saw quite clearly,
as all women must see in such a case, that this young German was in love
with her.
“He did not speak any word in that way,” said Eileen when she told us
this, frankly, in her straight manner of speech, “but in his eyes, in
the touch of his hand, in the tones of his voice, I knew that he loved
me, and I was very sorry.”
“It was a bit awkward,” said Brand, speaking with a strained attempt at
being casual. I could see that he was very much moved by that part of
the story, and that there was a conflict in his mind.
“It made me uneasy and embarrassed,” said Eileen. “I don’t like to be
the cause of any man’s suffering, and he was certainly suffering because
of me. It was a tragic thing for both of us when I was found out at
last.”
“What happened?” asked Brand.
The thing that happened was simple--and horrible. When Eileen and her
companions were denounced by the sentry at the Citadel the case was
reported to the Kommandant of the Intelligence Office, who was in charge
of all anti-espionage business in Lille. He was enormously disturbed by
the suspicion directed against Eileen. It seemed to him incredible, at
first, that he could have been duped by her. After that, his anger was
so violent that he became incapable of any personal action. He ordered
Franz von Kreuzenach to arrest Eileen and search her rooms. “If she
resist, shoot her at once,” he thundered out.
It was at seven o’clock in the evening when Baron Franz von Kreuzenach
appeared at Eileen’s door with two soldiers. He was extremely pale and
agitated.
Eileen rose from her little table, where she was having an evening meal
of. soup and bread. She knew the moment had come which in imagination
she had seen a thousand times.
“Come in, Baron!”
She spoke with an attempt at cheerfulness, but had to hold to the back
of her chair to save herself from falling, and she felt her face become
white.
He stood for a moment in the room, silently, with the two soldiers
behind him, and when he spoke, it was in a low voice, in English. “It is
my painful duty to arrest you, Miss O’Connor.”
She pretended to be amazed, incredulous, but it was, as she knew, a
feeble mimicry.
“Arrest me? Why, that is--ridiculous! On what charge?”
Franz von Kreuzenach looked at her in a pitiful way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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