The Girl from Alsace Part 8

He got it out, gave it to her, and watched her as she unfolded it. Here was a woman, he told himself, such as he had never met before--a woman of verve, of fire----

She was looking up at him with flaming eyes.

"Mr. Stewart," she said, in a low voice, "you can save me, if you will."

"Save you?" echoed Stewart. "But how?"

She held the open pa.s.sport toward him.

"See, here, just below your name, there is a blank s.p.a.ce covered with little parallel lines. If you will permit me to write in that s.p.a.ce the words 'accompanied by his wife,' I am saved. The pa.s.sport will then be for both of us."

"Or would be," agreed Stewart, dryly, "if you were my wife. As it happens, you are not!"

"It is such a little thing I ask of you," she pleaded. "We go to the station together--we take our seats in the train--at the frontier you show your pa.s.sport. An hour later we shall be at Liege, and there our ways will part; but you will have done a n.o.ble action."

There was witchery in her eyes, in her voice. Stewart felt himself slipping--slipping; but he caught himself in time.

"I am afraid," he said, gently, "that you will have to tell me first what it is all about."

"I can tell you in a word," she answered, drawing very near to him, and speaking almost in a whisper. "I am a Frenchwoman."

"But surely," Stewart protested, "the Germans will not prevent your return to France! Why should they do that?"

"It is not a question of returning, but of escaping. I am an Alsatian. I was born at Stra.s.sburg."

"Oh," said Stewart, remembering the tone in which Bloem had spoken of Alsace-Lorraine and beginning vaguely to understand. "An Alsatian."

"Yes; but only Alsatians understand the meaning of that word. To be an Alsatian is to be a slave, is to be the victim of insult, oppression, tyranny past all belief. My father was murdered by the Germans; my two brothers have been dragged away into the German army and sent to fight the Russians, since Germany knows well that no Alsatian corps would fight the French! Oh, how we have prayed and prayed for this war of rest.i.tution--the war which will give us back to France!"

"Yes; I hope it will," agreed Stewart, heartily.

"Of a certainty you do!" she said, eagerly. "All Americans do. Not one have I ever known who took the German side. How could they? How could any American be on the side of despotism? Oh, impossible! America is on our side! And you, as an American, will a.s.sist me to escape my enemies."

"Your enemies?"

"I will not deceive you," she said, earnestly. "I trust you. I have lived all my life at Stra.s.sburg and at Metz, those two outposts against France--those two great fortresses of cities which the Germans have done their utmost to make impregnable, but which are not impregnable if attacked in a certain way. They have their weak spot, just as every fortress has. I have dissembled, I have lied--I have pretended to admire the gold-laced pigs--I have permitted them to kiss my hand--I have listened to their confidences, their hopes and fears--I have even joined in their toast 'The Day!' Always, always have I kept my eyes and ears open. Bit by bit, have I gathered what I sought--a hint here, a hint there.... I must get to France, my friend, and you must help me! Surely you will be glad to strike a blow at these braggart Prussians! It is not for myself I ask it--though, if I am taken, there will be for me only one brief moment, facing a file of soldiers; I ask it for France--for your sister Republic!"

If it had been for France alone, Stewart might still have hesitated; but as he gazed down into that eloquent face, wrung with desperate anxiety, he seemed to see, as in a vision, a file of soldiers in spiked helmets facing a wall where stood a lovely girl, her eyes flaming, her head flung back, smiling contemptuously at the leveled rifles; he saw again the flickering candles at the Virgin's feet----

"Very well," he said, abruptly--almost harshly. "I consent."

Before he could draw back, she had flung herself on her knees before him, had caught his hand, and was covering it with tears and kisses.

"Come, come, my dear," he said. "That won't do!" And he bent over her and raised her to her feet.

She was shaken with great sobs, and as she turned her streaming eyes up to him, her lips moving as if in prayer, Stewart saw how young she was, how lonely, how beautiful, how greatly in need of help. She had been fighting for her country with all her strength, with every resource, desperately, every nerve a-strain--and victory had been too much for her. But in a moment she had back her self-control.

"There, it is finished!" she said, smiling through her tears. "But the joy of your words was almost too great. I shall not behave like that again. And I shall not try to thank you. I think you understand--I cannot thank you--there are no words great enough."

Stewart nodded, smilingly.

"Yes; I understand," he said.

"We have many things to do," she went on, rapidly, pa.s.sing her handkerchief across her eyes with the gesture of one who puts sentiment aside. "First, the pa.s.sport," and she caught it up from the chair on which she had laid it.

"I would point out to you," said Stewart, "that there may be a certain danger in adding the words you mentioned."

"But it is precisely for those words this blank s.p.a.ce has been left."

"That may be true; but unless your handwriting is identical with that on the rest of the pa.s.sport, and the ink the same, the first person who looks at it will detect the forgery."

"Trust me," she said, and drawing a chair to the table, laid the pa.s.sport before her and studied it carefully. From the little bag she had carried on her arm, she took a fountain-pen. She tested it on her finger-nail, and then, easily and rapidly, wrote "accompanied by his wife" across the blank s.p.a.ce below Stewart's name.

Stewart, staring down over her shoulder, was astonished by the cleverness of the forgery. It was perfect.

"There," she added, "let it lie for five minutes and no one on earth can tell that those words were not written at the same time and by the same hand as all the others."

A sudden doubt shook her hearer. Where had she learned to forge like that? Perhaps, after all----

She read his thought in his eyes.

"To imitate handwriting is something which every member of the secret service must learn to do. This, on your pa.s.sport, is a formal hand very easily imitated. But I must rid myself of this pen."

She glanced quickly about the room, went to the open fireplace and threw the pen above the bricks which closed it off from the flue. Then she came back, motioned him to sit down, and drew a chair very close to his.

"Now we have certain details to arrange," she said. "Your name is Bradford Stewart?"

"Yes."

"Have you a sobriquet?"

"A what?"

"A name of familiarity," she explained, "used only by your family or your friends."

"Oh, a nickname! Well," he admitted, unwillingly, "my father always called me Tommy."

"Tommy! Excellent! I shall call you Tommy!"

"But I detest Tommy," he objected.

"No matter!" she said, peremptorily. "It will have to do. What is your profession?"

"I am a surgeon."

"Where do you live in America?"

"At Baltimore, in the State of Maryland."