Dalroy blamed himself, not the others, for this fatal bungling. Before snatching a much-needed rest he ought to have arranged with Joos a practicable line of retreat in the event of a night alarm. Of course he had imposed silence on all as a sort of compulsory relief from the tension of the earlier hours, but he saw now that he was only too ready to share the miller's confidence. Not without reason had poor Dr. Lafarge warned his fellow-countrymen that "there were far too many Germans in Belgium." Schwartz and his like were to be found in every walk of life, from the merchant princes who controlled the trade of Antwerp to the youngest brush-haired waiter in the Café de la Régence at Brussels. Dalroy was aware of a grim appropriateness in the fate of Schwartz. The German automatic pistols carried soft-nosed bullets, so the arch-traitor who murdered the Visé doctor had himself suffered from one of the many infernal devices brought by _Kultur_ to the battlefields of Flanders. But the punishment of Schwartz could not undo the mischief the wretch had caused. The men he led knew the nature and purpose of their errand. They would report to the first officer met on the main road, who might be expected to detail instantly a sufficient force for the task of clearing the wood. In fact, the operation had become a military necessity. There was no telling to what extent the locality was held by Belgian troops, as, of course, the runaway warriors would magnify the firing a hundredfold, and no soldier worth his salt would permit the uninterrupted march of an army corps along a road flanked by such a danger-point. In effect, Dalroy conceived a hundred reasons why he might anticipate a sudden and violent end, but not one offering a fair prospect of escape. At any rate, he refused to be guilty of the folly of plunging into an unknown jungle of brambles, rocks, and trees, and elected to go back by the path to the foot of the quarry, whence he might, with plenty of luck, break through on a flank before the Germans spread their net too wide. He had actually crossed some part of the clearing in front of the hut when his gorge rose at the thought that, win or lose in this game of life and death, he might never again see Irene Beresford. The notion was intolerable. He halted, and turned toward the black wall of the wood. Mad though it was to risk revealing his whereabouts, since he had no means of knowing how close the nearest pursuers might be, he shouted loudly, "Miss Beresford!" And a sweet voice replied, "Oh, Mr. Dalroy, they told me you were dead, but I refused to believe them!"