第14章

Horace Holmcroft entered the room again at the moment when Surgeon Wetzel's staring eyes were still fastened on her, waiting for her reply.

"I have not overrated my interest," he said, pointing to a little slip of paper in his hand."Here is the pass.Have you got pen and ink? I must fill up the form."Mercy pointed to the writing materials on the table.Horace seated himself, and dipped the pen in the ink.

"Pray don't think that I wish to intrude my self into your affairs," he said."I am obliged to ask you one or two plain questions.What is your name?"A sudden trembling seized her.She supported herself against the foot of the bed.Her whole future existence depended on her answer.She was incapable of uttering a word.

Ignatius Wetzel stood her friend for once.His croaking voice filled the empty gap of silence exactly at the right time.He doggedly held the handkerchief under her eyes.He obstinately repeated: "Mercy Merrick is an English name.Is it not so?"Horace Holmcroft looked up from the table."Mercy Merrick?" he said."Who is Mercy Merrick?"Surgeon Wetzel pointed to the corpse on the bed.

"I have found the name on the handkerchief, "he said."This lady, it seems, had not curiosity enough to look for the name of her own countrywoman." He made that mocking allusion to Mercy with a tone which was almost a tone of suspicion, and a look which was almost a look of contempt.Her quick temper instantly resented the discourtesy of which she had been made the object.The irritation of the moment--so often do the most trifling motives determine the most serious human actions--decided her on the course that she should pursue.She turned her back scornfully on the rude old man, and left him in the delusion that he had discovered the dead woman's name.

Horace returned to the business of filling up the form.

"Pardon me for pressing the question," he said."You know what German discipline is by this time.What is your name?"She answered him recklessly, defiantly, without fairly realizing what she was doing until it was done.

"Grace Roseberry," she said.

The words were hardly out of her mouth before she would have given everything she possessed in the world to recall them.

"Miss?" asked Horace, smiling.

She could only answer him by bowing her head.

He wrote: "Miss Grace Roseberry"--reflected for a moment--and then added, interrogatively, "Returning to her friends in England?" Her friends in England? Mercy's heart swelled: she silently replied by another sign.He wrote the words after the name, and shook the sandbox over the wet ink."That will be enough," he said, rising and presenting the pass to Mercy; "I will see you through the lines myself, and arrange for your being sent on by the railway.Where is your luggage?"Mercy pointed toward the front door of the building."In a shed outside the cottage," she answered."It is not much; I can do everything for myself if the sentinel will let me pass through the kitchen."Horace pointed to the paper in her hand."You can go where you like now," he said."Shall I wait for you here or outside?"Mercy glanced distrustfully at Ignatius Wetzel.He was again absorbed in his endless examination of the body on the bed.If she left him alone with Mr.Holmcroft, there was no knowing what the hateful old man might not say of her.She answered:

"Wait for me outside, if you please."

The sentinel drew back with a military salute at the sight of the pass.All the French prisoners had been removed; there were not more than half-a-dozen Germans in the kitchen, and the greater part of them were asleep.Mercy took Grace Roseberry's clothes from the corner in which they had been left to dry, and made for the shed--a rough structure of wood, built out from the cottage wall.At the front door she encountered a second sentinel, and showed her pass for the second time.She spoke to this man, asking him if he understood French.He answered that he understood a little.Mercy gave him a piece of money, and said: "I am going to pack up my luggage in the shed.Be kind enough to see that nobody disturbs me." The sentinel saluted, in token that he understood.Mercy disappeared in the dark interior of the shed.