Dalroy turned. Irene stood close behind. She knew when he left the garret, and had followed swiftly. She confessed afterwards that she thought he meant to carry out his self-denying project, and leave her.
"You are mistaken, Monsieur Joos," she said now, speaking with an aristocratic calm which had an immediate effect on the miller and his distraught womenfolk. "You do not know the German soldier. He is a machine that obeys orders. He will kill, or not kill, exactly as he is bidden. If your house has been excepted it is absolutely safe."
She was right. The mill was one of the places in Visé spared by German malice that day. A well-defined section of the little town was given up to murder, and loot, and fire, and rapine. Scenes were enacted which are indescribable. A brutal soldiery glutted its worst passions on an unarmed and defenceless population. The hour was near when some hysterical folk would tell of the apparition of angels at Mons; but old Henri Joos was unquestionably right when he spoke of the presence of devils in Visé.
The miller's volcanic outburst seemed to have exhausted itself; he subsided to the oaken bench, leaned forward, elbows on knees, and thrust his clenched fists against his ears as though he would shut out the deafening clamour of the guns. This attitude of dejection evidently alarmed Madame Joos. She forgot her own fears in solicitude for her husband. Bending over him, she patted his shoulder with a maternal hand, since every woman is at heart a mother--a mother first and essentially.
"Maybe the lady is right, Henri," she said tenderly. "Young as she is, she may understand these things better than countryfolk like us."
"Ah, Lise," he moaned, "you would have dropped dead had you seen poor Dupont. He wriggled for a long minute after he fell. And the Abbé, with his white hair! Some animal of a Prussian fired at his face."
"Don't talk about it," urged his wife. "It is bad for you to get so excited. Remember, the doctor warned you----"
"The doctor! Dr. Lafarge! A soldier hammered on the surgery door with the butt of his rifle, and, when the doctor came out, twirled the rifle and stabbed him right through the body. I saw it. It was like a conjuring trick. I was giving an officer some figures about the contents of the mill. The doctor screamed, and clutched at the bayonet with both hands. And who do you think the murderer was?"