Dalroy held up the lantern. The official lettering was evidently convincing.
"She's my wife. If you're here in half-an-hour she'll bring you some coffee. One doesn't leave a young wife at home with so many soldiers about."
"If you both stand chattering here neither of you will get any coffee," put in Irene emphatically.
The Bavarian lowered his rifle. "I'm relieved at two o'clock," he said with a laugh. "Lose no time, _schoene Frau_. There won't be much coffee on the road to Liège."
The girl passed on, but Dalroy lingered. "Is that where you're going?" he asked.
"Yes. We're due in Paris in three weeks."
"Hans, are you coming, or shall I go on alone?" demanded Irene.
"Farewell, comrade, for a little ten minutes," growled Dalroy, and he followed.
An empty train stood in a bay on the right, and Dalroy espied a window-cleaner's ladder in a corner. "Where are you going, woman?" he cried.
His "wife" was walking down the main platform which ended against the wall of a signal-cabin, and there might be insuperable difficulties in that direction.
"Isn't this the easiest way?" she snapped.
Without waiting for her, he turned, shouldered the ladder, and made for a platform on the inner side of the bay. A ten-foot wall indicated the station's boundary. Irene ran after him. Within a few yards they were hidden by the train from the sentry's sight.
"That was clever of you!" she whispered breathlessly.
"Speak German, even when you think we are alone," he commanded.
The platform curved sharply, and the train was a long one. When they neared the engine they saw three men standing there. Dalroy at once wrapped the lamp in a fold of his blouse, and leaped into the black shadow cast by the wall, which lay athwart the flood of moonlight pouring into the open part of the station. Quick to take the cue, it being suicidal to think of bamboozling local railway officials, Irene followed. Kicking off the clumsy sabots, Dalroy bade his companion pick them up, ran back some thirty yards, and placed the ladder against the wall. Mounting swiftly, he found, to his great relief, that some sheds with low-pitched roofs were ranged beneath; otherwise, the height of the wall, if added to the elevation of the station generally above the external ground level, might well have proved disastrous.