Some of the younger German officers shook their heads approvingly. They liked this Irish hatred of England. It was according to their text-books. “But,” said the Irish girl, “the sufferings of English prisoners--you know here of their misery, their hunger, their weakness in that Citadel where many have died and are dying--stirred my compassion as a woman to whom all cruelty is tragic, and all suffering of men a call to that mother-love which is in the spirit of all their womanhood, as you know by your German women--as I hope you know. Because they were starved I tried to get them food, as I would to starving dogs or any poor creatures caught in the trap of war, or of men’s sport. To that I confess guilty, with gladness in my guilt.” The Reverend Mother, standing there in the whitewashed corridor of the convent, in the flickering light of an oil lantern which gleamed on the white ruff round her neck and the silver cross on her breast, though her face was shadowed in the cavern of her black headdress, repeated this speech of Eileen O’Connor as though in hearing it first she had learnt it by heart. “The child was divinely inspired, monsieur. Our Lady stood by her side, prompting her. I am sure of that.” The trial lengthened out, until it was late in the evening when the Judge summed up. He spoke again of the gravity of the accusation, the dread punishment that must befall the prisoner if her guilt were proved, the weight of evidence against her. For a time he seemed to press her guilt heavily, and the Court was gloomy. The German officers looked grave. One thing happened in the course of his speech which affected the audience profoundly. It was when he spoke of the romantic explanation that had been offered by the prisoner regarding the secret cypher. “This lady,” he said, “asks me to believe that she and her companions were playing a simple girlish game of make-believe. Writing imaginary letters to mythical persons. Were these young ladies--nay, is she--herself--so lacking in woman’s charm that she has no living man to love her and needs must write fictitious notes to nonexistent men?” The President said these words with portentous solemnity. Perhaps only a German could have spoken them. He paused and blinked at the German officers below him. Suddenly into the silence of the court came a ripple of laughter, clear and full of most mirthful significance. Eileen O’Connor’s laugh bewitched the crowded court and there was a roar of laughter in which all the officers joined. By that laugh more even than by her general gaiety, her courage and eloquence, she won her life.