A WOMAN’S TREACHERY

According to the agreement with Heideck, Brandelaar, on his return from Dover, was to put in at Flushing, and the Major had instructed the guardships at the mouth of the West Schelde to allow the smack to pass unmolested without detention.  But he waited for the skipper from day to day in vain.  The weather could not have been the cause of his delay; certainly it had not been too bad for a man of Brandelaar’s daring.  A moderate north wind had been blowing nearly the whole time, so that a clever sailor could have easily made the passage from Dover to Flushing in a day.

Consequently, other reasons must have kept him in England.  Heideck began to fear that either his knowledge of men, so often tried, had deceived him on this occasion, or that Brandelaar had fallen a victim to some act of imprudence in England.

A whole week having passed since Brandelaar had started, Heideck at least hoped for his return to-day.  The north wind had increased towards evening; there was almost a storm, and the blast rattled violently at the windows of the room in the hotel, in which Heideck sat still writing at midnight.

A gentle knock at the door made him look up from his work.  Who could have come to see him at this late hour?  It was certainly not an orderly from his office, which was open day and night, for soldiers’ fingers as a rule knocked harder.

“Come in!” he said.  The door opened slowly, and Heideck saw, in the dimly-lighted corridor, a slender form in a long oilskin cape and a large sailor’s hat, the brim of which was pressed down over the forehead.

A wild idea flashed through Heideck’s mind.  He sprang up, and at the same moment the pretended young man tore off his hat and held out his arms with a cry of joy.

“My dear—­my beloved friend!”

“Edith!”

At this moment all other thoughts and feelings were forgotten by Heideck in the overpowering joy of seeing her again.  He rushed to Edith and drew her to his breast.  For a long time they remained silent in a long embrace, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing like merry children.

At last, slowly freeing herself from his arms, Edith said—­

“You are not angry with me, then, for coming to you, although you forbade it?  You will not send me away from you again?”

Her voice penetrated his ear like sweet, soothing music.  What man could have resisted that seductive voice?

“I should like to be angry with you, my dear, but I cannot—­Heaven knows I cannot!”

“I could not have lived any longer without you,” whispered the young woman.  “I was obliged to see you again, or I should have died of longing.”

“My sweet, my only love!  But what is the meaning of this disguise?  And how did you manage to cross the Channel?”

“I took the way you showed me.  And is my disguise so very displeasing to you?”