Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be Monica, though her back was towards me.  On one side of the table was a big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale slip of a lad in officer’s uniform with only one arm ...  Schmalz, no doubt.

A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall.  To my surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs.  Her face was pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes that wrung my very heart.

I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper had ranged us.  Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who shambled off in turn with low obeisances.  Directly she stopped in front of me I knew she had recognized me—­I felt it rather, for she made no sign—­though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days’ beard and muddy clothes.

“Ah!” she said with all her languor de grande dame, “you are the man of whom Heinrich spoke.  You have just come out of hospital, I think?”

“Beg the Frau Graefin’s pardon,” I mumbled out in the thick patois of the Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, “I served with the Herr Graf in Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Graefin ...”

She stopped me with a gesture.

“Herr Doktor!” she called to the dinner-table.

By Jove! this girl had grit:  her pluck was splendid.

Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a long cigar that smelt delicious.

“Frau Graefin?” he queried, glancing at me.

“This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia.  He is ill and out of work, and wishes me to help him.  I should wish, therefore, to see him in my sitting-room, if you will allow me....”

“But, Frau Graefin, most certainly.  There surely was no need ...”

“Johann!” Monica called the servant I had seen before, “take this man into the sitting-room!”

The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains.  Monica followed and sat down at the desk.

“Now tell me what you wish to say ...” she began in German as the servant left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet, clasping my hands.

“Francis!” she whispered in English in a great sob, “oh, Francis! what have they done to you to make you look like that?”

I gripped her wrist tightly.

“Frau Graefin,” I said in German, still in that hideous patois, “you must be calm.”  And I whispered in English in her ear: 

“Monica, be brave!  And talk German whatever you do.”

She regained her self-possession at once.