When the peace comes, believe
me, it will be a glorious one for us. What we have won by the
sword we shall hold, and what has been wrested from us by cunning
and treachery, we shall regain.
"That man," Catherine declared, "is one of the Kaiser's intimates.
He is one of the twelve iron men of Germany. Now I will tell you
the name of the man with whom I, have spent the evening. It is
Baron Hellman. Believe me, he knows, and he has told me the
truth. He has had this letter by him for a fortnight, as he told
me frankly that he thought it too compromising to hand over.
To-night he changed his mind."
Julian stood speechless for a moment, his fists clenched, his eyes
ablaze.
Catherine threw herself into his easy-chair and loosened her coat.
"Oh, I am tired!" she moaned. "Give me some water, please, or
some wine."
He found some hock in the sideboard, and after she had drunk it
they sat for some few minutes in agitated silence. The street
sounds outside had died away. Julian's was the topmost flat in
the block, and their isolation was complete. He suddenly realised
the position.
"Perhaps," he suggested, with an almost ludicrous return to the
commonplace, "the first thing to be done is for me to dress."
She looked at him as though she had noticed his dishabille for the
first time. For a moment their feet seemed to be on the earth
again.
"I suppose I seem to you crazy to come to you at such an hour,"
she said. "One doesn't think of those things, somehow.
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