"Karen," he said quietly, "are you ready?"
The hussar asked whether there was luggage, and learning that there was he sent the chauffeur in to bring out Guild's box and Karen's suit-case and satchel.
The girl ran upstairs to the sick room. They admitted her.
Guild was standing by the car when she returned, a drooping, listless figure, her handkerchief pressed to her face. He gave her his arm and aided her into the car. The hussar stepped in beside the chauffeur.
Dawn was just breaking behind the house; the evergreens stood out, massive and black against the silvering east.
As the car moved slowly out of the gravel circle the first bird twittered.
Guild bent over the girl beside him: "Is he still unconscious?"
"They don't know. It is the lungs. His body is all crushed in----"
She rested her cheek against his shoulder, weeping, as the great grey car rushed on through the pallour of early dawn.
Stretched out flat on the seat of a railway carriage, her tear-marred face buried in her arms, her dishevelled hair tumbled around her neck and shoulders, Karen lay asleep. In that car all the other compartments seemed to be full of Saxon reserve artillery officers, their knobbed helmets shrouded in new grey slips, their new, unwrinkled uniforms suggestive of a very recent importation from across the Rhine.
Ahead, cattle cars, ore cars, and flat cars composed the long train, the former filled with battery horses and cannoniers, the latter loaded with guns, caissons, battery waggons, forges, and camp equipment, all in brand-new grey paint.
Except when the train stopped at some heavily guarded station, nobody came to their compartment. But at all stations officers opened the doors and silently examined Guild's credentials--energetic, quick-moving, but civil men, who, when the credentials proved acceptable, invariably saluted his uniform with a correctness impeccable.
Nevertheless, before the train moved out again, always there was a group of officers gazing in polite perplexity at the green jacket and forage cap and the cherry-coloured riding breeches of a regiment which, they were perfectly aware, was already in the saddle against them.
At one station Guild was able to buy bread and cheese and fruit. But Karen still slept profoundly, and he did not care to awaken her.