George Gibbs

“ In pity for herself and Cyril she watched the new day born, a new day, bleak and cheerless, which seemed by its very aspect to pronounce a sentence upon them; the new day which was to mark the passing of all the things growing womanhood holds most dear, her first faith, her first tenderness, her first passion.
Doris kept to her room until Betty came in, awakening her from a heavy sleep into which she had fallen just before sunrise. Lady Heathcote rang for Wilson and then retired to the ministrations of her own maid, leaving Doris to dress for the morning at her leisure. ”

“ Then it had only been a packet of cigarette papers—a mere package of Riz-la-Croix which everybody, for some reason or other, seemed to want. Now, weighed lightly in her hand, the seclusion of her room gave it a different character. She recalled Cyril’s bantering tone at having been chased twenty miles for a cigarette. But his attitude deceived Doris no more than it had his pursuers. There was material here for something more deadly than cigarettes. She took the yellow packet in both hands and pressed it to her temples as though by this act she could pass its secrets into her own brain. ”

“ Udo smiled.
“I can hardly be expected to do that. I do not love you now, my cousin. I cannot love anyone who is false to my country, but I cannot forget that once, not a year ago, we were brothers. No, I cannot shoot you, Cyril, though perhaps that would be a better death than that other—yonder.”
Hammersley shrugged. “It is the fortune of war. From your point of view I deserve it. I can only thank you again, for myself and for Miss Mather, for your generosity.” ”

“ A loud crackling came to her ears from the wireless room. He was there, already in communication with his employers in Germany. Even now, with Cyril’s words still ringing in her ears, she found it difficult to believe that John Rizzio was England’s enemy; and the price of his treachery a picture, “The Descent from the Cross”! What a mockery that a man who would stoop to such dishonor could make its price a picture which typified the conquest of sublime virtue even over death! ”

“ As he had said to von Winden, every man was guilty until he was proven innocent. He had a rare nose for scenting unsuspected odors, and a fine hand for finding the weak links in the armor of those he used as well as of those who sought to use him. He had a faculty for appearing at places where he was least expected and a prescience almost miraculous in forestalling the moves of his adversaries. He ruled by fear and by admiration and there was not a man in the Empire with a skeleton in his closet, no matter how high his station, who did not live without a terror of von Stromberg in his heart. ”

“ Before her the sun was setting blood red in a sea of amber. She mounted above it into the clear empyrean of azure, higher—higher yet. She felt the exhilaration of large spaces, the joy of conquest over all material things. Death even did not dismay her—Cyril’s—her own. She seemed to have crossed at a bound, from the realm of substance into that of immateriality. Her soul already sang in accord with the angels. They were mated. She and Cyril—mated! And even Death should not separate them. ”

“ I couldn’t marry a man as old as John Rizzio.”
Lady Betty only laughed again.
“Forgive me, dear, but it really is most curious. I wouldn’t laugh if you hadn’t been so careful to describe to me all the virtues that Cyril—hasn’t.”
Doris powdered the end of her nose thoughtfully.
“I suppose they’re all a myth—men like that. They simply don’t exist—that’s all.”
Lady Betty pinned a final jewel on her bodice.
“I’m sure John Rizzio is flattered at your choice. Cyril is an old dear. But to marry! I’d as soon take the automatic chess player. Why are you going to marry Cyril, Doris?” she asked. ”

“ Within the farmhouse of Blaufelden, rather late in a night in March a tall iron-gray figure, slender, buttoned to the neck in a close-fitting uniform coat, paced slowly up and down. A plain wooden table stood in the center of the room. It was lighted by a lamp with a green shade and covered with papers arranged in orderly piles. There were chairs, strongly but simply made, and a sad-colored rug, and the walls were decorated with pictures of hunting scenes, while over the stone fireplace in which the pine logs intermittently blazed, there was a colored lithograph of the Emperor of Germany. ”

“ Hammersley’s shot must have missed. He looked around at Doris and laughed, and she saw the light of triumph that rode in his eyes. The exhaust was roaring steadily now, but with one hand on the wheel and in the other his automatic, Hammersley sat motionless, watching the slits in the canvas for the men that he knew must come in a moment. At a gesture of his, Doris sank low in the cockpit, her hands on the wheel, watching, too, and ready to do her share as Cyril had directed. ”

“ Doris watched Stryker skulking along in the shadow of the limousine. She saw him reach his seat, heard a grinding of the clutches and a confused scuffle out of which, his blond hair disheveled, his shoulders coatless, Cyril emerged and leaped for the running-board of the moving machine.
“You forgot to search the limousine,” she heard him shout.
The tall man scrambled to his knees and fired at the retreating machine while the others jumped for the touring-car. ”

“ If there were Englishmen in high places in London who could be bought, there were others, many others, who helped to form the vicious chain which led to Germany.
“I tell you I believe we’re honeycombed with spies,” he growled. “For one that we’ve caught and imprisoned or shot, there are dozens in the very midst of us. If this thing keeps up we’ll all of us be suspecting one another. How do I know that you, Sandys, you, Rizzio, Byfield or even Hammersley here isn’t a secret agent of the Germans? What dinner-table in England is safe when spies are found in the official family at the War Office?” ”

“ And before Hammersley could know what he meant to do, he drew his hunting-knife from its sheath in Hammersley’s belt and plunged it into his own shoulder.
Hammersley could scarcely restrain a cry, but Lindberg smiled at him and plucking the weapon out, put it in Hammersley’s outstretched hand.
“It is nothing,” he said. “It will bleed a little. The more it bleeds the better my case with Excellenz. They will be here in three hours, if not before. Now bind and gag me—quick. There is no time to lose.” ”

“ Von Stromberg roared with delight. “Boiled in oil!” he repeated.
“Yes—or perhaps some more exquisite cruelty that your ingenious people have devised,” she said coolly. “To prosaic minds like mine, Excellenz, you Germans are the wonders of the age. You are both godlike and Saturnian; a nation of military fanatics, a nation of silly sentimentalists; a nation trained to scientific brutality, which shares the sorrows of the dying rose. Which is it that you want us to think you, the god or the satyr?” ”

“ RICE-PAPERS Doris looked from the man whose hand she had accepted to the one she had refused. Their attitudes were eloquent of concealment and the few phrases which had reached her ears as she paused outside the curtain did nothing to relieve the sudden tension of her fears. She hesitated for a moment as Rizzio recovered himself with an effort.
“Do come in, Doris,” he said with a smile. “Hammersley and I were—er——”
“Discussing the scrap of paper. I’m sure of it,” she said coolly. “Nothing is so fruitful of argument. I shouldn’t have intruded, but Cyril was to take me home and I’m ready to go.” ”

“ To judge a man by his possibilities for venality is like judging a rose by the sharpness of its thorn. Something of the weakness of this cynicism had been apparent to the keen intellect of von Stromberg and he had been finding of late a rare pleasure in trifling with his convictions, admitting [142] into the stored cavern of his mind for experimental purposes, an occasional ray of optimism. At the present moment he was analyzing the result of his summons to Herr Hammersley to come to Germany at once and the communication from Herr Rizzio which impugned Herr Hammersley’s loyalty to Germany. ”

“ An English spy betrayed by the simplest of tricks upon the credulity and affection of a woman. He thought that Hammersley had been after bigger game. Plans, fortifications—the same objects, the same methods. Von Stromberg had tried to puzzle out in the mazes of his wonderful brain the possible chance that this man could have had of learning of the whereabouts of Herr Gottschalk’s memoranda and of the momentous decision which had been reached in the Wilhelmstrasse with regard to them. ”

“ A gleam of hope had penetrated to her through the gloom that encompassed her thoughts—only a gleam at the best, but it was enough to give her courage to go on with her efforts to save Cyril from immediate danger. And this was the belief born of the forcible and secret entry of the house that the men who were in pursuit of the fateful packet were not in any way connected with Scotland Yard or the War Office. Otherwise if they believed the papers to be in her possession they would have come boldly in the light of day and demanded of her father the right to search the house. ”

“ Not a head from below was turned up to look at her and she had a sense of her own unimportance in the immensity of Cyril’s viewpoint. She saw the yellow machine start slowly down the incline, gathering momentum as it ran until it left the runway and rose magnificently, its engine roaring steadily, clearing the surf and rocks and heading straight into the growing day.
O God! That she should have suspected him of anything base and dishonorable—a man who could face death as he was doing, as he had been doing for months. Cyril—the Yellow Dove. ”

“ Two other men, Foresters, warned by Rizzio’s fate, sprang aside with horror in their eyes. Doris sank lower in her seat, her cheeks bloodless, grasping her wheel with icy hands, filled with horror. Cyril had sunk down in his seat, clutching at the side of the cockpit, his weapon falling from his fingers. With an effort she steadied her hold on the wheel. The canvas curtain had passed over their heads. They were in the open. To the right, coming from the Windenberg road, a machine filled with men was dashing across the field before them at a diagonal which would intercept them. ”

“ Realization, Rizzio, is the one banality of existence! Uncertainty is the only thing worth while. When one is certain of anything it ceases to be interesting. That is why Herr Hammersley, whom you call a fool in one breath and a genius in the next, excites my profound attention. ”

“ What if they had found her footsteps and followed? No, that was hardly possible, for the ridge of rock began immediately at the road, and thanks to his precautions, she would leave no footprints.
Slowly he descended, choosing his footing with quick deliberation, for the slightest sound, the dislodging of a twig or a sliver of crumbled stone and the crag of the Thorwald would become in a moment a hornet’s nest. Fortunately the back of the rock screened him from the road, and unless von Stromberg had sent men into the woods to left and right, there was no chance of discovery. ”

“ I’ve told you and you know already that my whole soul is wrapped in the cause of England in this war. I can have nothing but pity and contempt for any Englishman——”
She paused, for at this moment, the parlor maid appeared and, gathering up some brasses on Lady Heathcote’s desk, went out of the room.
“I beg that you will be more careful, Doris,” Cyril whispered.
She was silent a moment, and then after a glance at the dining-room door, went on with more restraint.
“Pity and contempt are hardly the kind of ingredients that love can live on. They’ve poisoned mine. It’s dead. ”

“ Doris Mather did not faint, an act which might readily have been forgiven her under the circumstances. Her nerves were shaken by the violence of her exercise and the narrowness of her escape, and it was some moments before she could reply to the anxious questions that were put to her. Then she answered evasively, peering through the windows at the moonlit lawn and seeing no sign of her pursuers. ”

“ Her accents of horror were genuine, but it seemed more horrible that she should be making a farce of her genuine emotions. Yet Cyril’s eyes impelled her. “It is terrible. I can’t believe——”
“General von Stromberg is not a man to make idle threats. I am glad that I am not in Rizzio’s shoes.”
She saw him pause, his mouth open, gazing upward at the lithograph of Emperor William. To Doris the picture merely typified power, ambition, intolerance of any ideals but those of military glory. But it was not at the portrait that Cyril was looking. ”