If she could
only have been absorbed again, mind and body, in her good work as
a nurse, the temptation might even yet have found her strong
enough to resist it. The fatal severity of the German discipline
had snapped asunder the last tie that bound her to her better
self. Her face hardened as she walked away proudly from Surgeon
Wetzel, and took a chair.
The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the question of her
present situation in the cottage.
"Don't suppose that I want to alarm you," he said. "There is, I
repeat, no need to be anxious about the Frenchmen, but there is
serious reason for anxiety on your own account. The action will
be renewed round this village by daylight; you ought really to be
in a place of safety. I am an officer in the English army--my
name is Horace Holmcroft. I shall be delighted to be of use to
you, and I _can_ be of use, if you will let me. May I ask if you
are traveling?"
Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her nurse's dress more
closely round her, and committed herself silently to her first
overt act of deception. She bowed her head in the affirmative.
"Are you on your way to England?"
"Yes.
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