“But you caught a glimpse of one of the women, the younger, Annette?” said Johanna.

“So I did, but it was only a glimpse.”

“What did she look like?” asked John, who was trying to keep down the beating of his heart.

“It was only a second, but I saw a face that I will never forget.  She was very pale, but she had beautiful blue eyes like stars, and the most lovely golden hair that ever grew in the world.”

“Julie!  My Julie!” groaned John under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“I was merely wondering who she was.”

“I wondered, too, and so did all of us.  We heard a tale that she was a princess, a niece or a daughter, perhaps, of the great prince, with whom she traveled, and we heard another that she and the woman with her were French spies of the most dangerous kind who had been captured and who were being taken into Germany.  And the face of the beautiful young lady, which I saw for only a moment, was French, not German.”

John felt hot and then cold from head to foot.  Julie a spy!  Impossible!  Spies were shot or hanged, and sometimes women were no exceptions.  How could such a charge be brought against her?  And yet anything could happen in such a vast confused war as this.  Julie, his Julie of the starry blue eyes and the deep gold hair to be condemned and executed as a spy!  A cold shiver seized him again.

Then came sudden enlightenment.  Auersperg was medieval.  In his heart he arrogated to himself the right of justice, the upper, the middle and the low, and all other kinds, but he had ability and mingled with it an extreme order of cunning.  Julie of the Red Cross, a healer of wounds and disease, would not be held a prisoner, but Julie, a spy, would be kept a close captive, and her life would be in the hands of the general commanding those who had taken her.  Oh, it was cunning!  So cunning that its success seemed complete, and he thrilled in every vein with pain and anger.

“Are you ill?” asked the good Johanna, who had noticed the sudden deepening of his pallor.

“Not at all, thank you,” he replied, forcing himself to speak in a level tone.  “I feel splendidly.  All of you are too kind to me.  But that was an interesting story about the prince and the girl whom he brought with him, who might be either a relative or a captive.”

“I’m thinking she must have been his niece,” said romantic Annette, “but I’m sure she didn’t love him.  Perhaps she wanted to run away with some fine young officer, and he caught her and brought her back.”

“When did they leave?”

“Very early this morning.  They came in automobiles, but neither when they arrived nor when they departed was the lady in the machine with the prince.  She and the woman with her, who must have been her servant, were in a small machine alone, except for the chauffeur.”

“It’s a strange tale.  Which way did they go?”