"I have heard about it; that is all."
"Do you know what it is?"
"All I know about it is that there is such a thing--something known to certain Germans, and by them spoken of as THE GREAT SECRET. I imagine, of course, that it is some vital military secret which they desire to guard."
"Is that all you know about it?"
"No, not all." She looked at him gravely out of very clear, honest eyes:
"I know, also, that the Berlin Government has ordered its agents to discover your whereabouts, and to"silence" you."
He gazed at her quite blandly for a moment, then, to her amazement, he laughed--such a clear, untroubled, boyish laugh that her constrained expression softened in sympathy.
"Do you think that Berlin doesn"t mean it?" she asked, brightening a little.
"Mean it? Oh, I"m jolly sure Berlin means it!"
"Then why--"
"Why do I laugh?"
"Well--yes. Why do you? It does not strike me as very humorous."
At that he laughed again--laughed so whole-heartedly, so delightfully, that the winning smile curved her own lips once more.
"Would you tell me why you laugh?" she inquired.
"I don"t know. It seems so funny--those Huns, those Boches, already smeared from hair to feet with blood--pausing in their wholesale butchery to devise a plan to murder ME!"
His face altered; he raised himself on one elbow:
"The swine have turned all Europe into a b.l.o.o.d.y wallow. They"re belly-deep in it--Kaiser and knecht! But that"s only part of it.
They"re destroying souls by millions!... Mine is already d.a.m.ned."
Miss Erith sprang to her feet: "I tell you not to say such a thing!"
she cried, exasperated. "You"re as young as I am! Besides, souls are not slain by murder. If they perish it"s suicide, ALWAYS!"
She began to pace the white room nervously, flinging open her fur coat as she turned and came straight back to his bed again. Standing there and looking down at him she said:
"We"ve got to fight it out. The country needs you. It"s your bit and you"ve got to do it. There"s a cure for alcoholism--Dr. Langford"s cure. Are you afraid because you think it may hurt?"
He lay looking up at her with h.e.l.l"s own glimmer in his eyes again:
"You don"t know what you"re talking about," he said. "You talk of cures, and I tell you that I"m half dead for a drink right now! And I"m going to get up and dress and get it!"
The expression of his features and his voice and words appalled her, left her dumb for an instant. Then she said breathlessly:
"You won"t do that!"
"Yes I will."
"No."
"Why not?" he demanded excitedly.
"You owe me something."
"What I said was conventional. I"m NOT grateful to you for saving the sort of life mine is!"
"I was not thinking of your life."
After a moment he said more quietly: "I know what you mean.... Yes, I am grateful. Our Government ought to know."
"Then tell me, now."
"You know," he said brutally, "I have only your word that you are what you say you are."
She reddened but replied calmly: "That is true. Let me show you my credentials."
From her m.u.f.f she drew a packet, opened it, and laid the contents on the bedspread under his eyes. Then she walked to the window and stood there with her back turned looking out at the falling snow.
After a few minutes he called her. She went back to the bedside, replaced the packet in her m.u.f.f, and stood waiting in silence.
He lay looking up at her very quietly and his bruised young features had lost their hard, sullen expression.
"I"d better tell you all I know," he said, "because there is really no hope of curing me... you don"t understand... my will-power is gone. The trouble is with my mind itself. I don"t want to be cured.... I WANT what"s killing me. I want it now, always, all the time. So before anything happens to me I"d better tell you what I know so that our Government can make the proper investigation.
Because what I shall tell you is partly a surmise. I leave it to you to judge--to our Government."
She drew from her m.u.f.f a little pad and a pencil and seated herself on the chair beside him.
"I"ll speak slowly," he began, but she shook her head, saying that she was an expert stenographer. So he went on:
"You know my name--Kay McKay. I was born here and educated at Yale.
But my father was Scotch and he died in Scotland. My mother had been dead many years. They lived on a property called Isla which belonged to my grandfather. After my father"s death my grandfather allowed me an income, and when I had graduated from Yale I continued here taking various post-graduate courses. Finally I went to Cornell and studied agriculture, game breeding and forestry--desiring some day to have a place of my own.
"In 1914 I went to Germany to study their system of forestry. In July of that year I went to Switzerland and roamed about in the vagabond way I like--once liked." His visage altered and he cast a side glance at the girl beside him, but her eyes were fixed on her pad.
He drew a deep breath, like a sigh:
"In that corner of Switzerland which is thrust westward between Germany and France there are a lot of hills and mountains which were unfamiliar to me. The flora resembled that of the Vosges--so did the bird and insect life except on the higher mountains.
"There is a mountain called Mount Terrible. I camped on it. There was some snow. You know what happens sometimes in summer on the higher peaks. Well, it happened to me--the whole snow field slid when I was part way across it--and I thought it was all off--never dreamed a man could live through that sort of thing--with the sheer gneiss ledges below!
"It was not a big avalanche--not the terrific thundering sort--rather an easy slipping, I fancy--but it was a devilish thing to lie aboard, and, of course, if there had been precipices where I slid--" He shrugged.
The girl looked up from her shorthand ma.n.u.script; he seemed to be dreamily living over in his mind those moments on Mount Terrible.
Presently he smiled slightly: