He looked up to see Chassaigne staring in astonishment at the door behind his chair. Startled, he twisted himself round to see what was happening--and gasped.
Framed in the doorway, a dressing-gown over her night-attire, her dark hair loose over her shoulders, was the young woman. In her hand was a bedroom candle, alight. Her face was expressionless and placid. Her eyes were open, looked fixedly in front of her. She moved into the room with a gliding step.
“She is asleep!” whispered Chassaigne. “Speak to her, Vincent!--who knows?--Perhaps another stratum of personality!”
The young woman glided straight toward the lieutenant, who gripped at the arm of the chair in his emotion. She was close upon him ere he could force himself to speech.
“Hélène!” he said in a tense, low voice, looking up into her eyes as if trying to bring her dream down to him. “Do you know me?”
She bent over him, kissed him softly upon the brow.
“Maxime!” she murmured, her tone vibrant with tender affection. “Maxime! You have been away so long!”
Chassaigne jumped in his chair, but before he could utter a word, a new voice spoke sharply.
The two officers turned to the doorway to see Doctor Breidenbach standing there, his face clouded with menace, his eyes angry.
The young woman started, looked wildly about her in the bewilderment of one suddenly aroused from sleep. Then after one horrified glance at her attire, an amazed stare at the two officers, she sank down on to a chair and covered her face with her hands. Trembling violently in every nerve of her body, she crouched there in a misery of shame, too overwhelmed to utter a sound.
The German advanced into the room, stood over her.
Vincent, now on his feet, flushed with rage at the brutal tone of the command, comprehensible enough to him despite his ignorance of the language.
Chassaigne went quietly behind the German, locked the door, and slipped the key in his pocket.
Breidenbach, his eyes fixed on the girl, reiterated his command.
“Monsieur!” broke from Vincent in an angry expostulation which ignored his comrade’s gesture to silence.
The German looked round upon him, forcing his face to a smile in which the vivid blue eyes behind the pince-nez failed to participate.