5 deg.  Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, a Montignies.

A LA PEINE DE MORT

* * * * *

Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms of hard labour for the same offence—­assisting young Belgians to leave the Belgium that was under German occupation.  And further, the information that of the five condemned to death, Philip Bauck and Edith Cavell had already been executed.

* * * * *

The monsters!  Oh that von Bissing.  How gladly she would die if she might first have the pleasure of killing him!  That pompous old man of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted with Eastern servility, who boasted of his “tender heart,” so that he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split the tongues of finches to make them sing better.  Edith Cavell—­she did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women—­but Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far and wide for her goodness of heart.  She had held aloof from Vivie, but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her suspect—­living, seemingly, under the protection of a German official?  But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was no room in the military hospitals—­And for such a trivial offence as that—­and to kill her before there could be any appeal for reconsideration or clemency.  Oh what a nation!  She would tend their sick and wounded no more.

She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden on her way to the Rue Royale.  She burst into von Giesselin’s office.  He was not there.  A clerk looking at her rather closely said that the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away.  Vivie scarcely took in the meaning of his German phrases.  She waited there, her eyes ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what she thought of his people before she renounced any further relations with him.

Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied.  She burst out:  “Have you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?”

“What about?” he said wearily.

“The assassination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for which England—­yes, and America—­will never forgive you....  From this moment I—­”

“But have you not heard what has happened to me?  I am dismissed from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in Lorraine—­It is very sad about your Miss Cavell.  I knew nothing of it till this morning when I received my own dismissal—­And oh my dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again.”