Franz von Kreuzenach began speaking in a low, emotional voice.
Whatever happened, he said, he prayed that she might think of him with friendship, not blaming him for that arrest, which was in obedience to orders. He would ever be grateful to her for her kindness, and the songs she had sung. They had been happy evenings to him when he could see her, and listen to her voice. He looked forward to them in a hungry way, because of his loneliness.
"He said—other things," added Eileen, and she did not tell us, though dimly we guessed at the words of that German officer who loved her. At the gate of the prison he delivered her to a group of military police, and then saluted as he swung round on his heel.
The next time she saw him was at her trial. Once only their eyes met, and he became deadly pale and bent his head. During her cross-examination of him he did not look at her, and his embarrassment, his agony—she could see that he was suffering—made an unfavourable impression on the Court, who thought he was not sure of his evidence, and was making blundering answers when she challenged him. She held him up to ridicule, but all the time was sorry for him, and grateful to him, because she knew how much evidence against her he had concealed.
"He behaved strangely about that evidence," said Eileen. "What puzzles me still is why he produced so much and yet kept back the rest. You see, he put in the papers he had found in the secret passage, and they were enough to have me shot, yet he hushed up the fact about the passage, which, of course, was utterly damning. It looked as though he wanted to give me a sporting chance. But that was not his character, because he was a simple young man. He could have destroyed the papers as easily as he kept back the fact about the underground passage, but he produced them, and I escaped only by
