I found them in the cathedral waiting, and
we went to the Hotel de l'Europe, where she and I dined together."
"Good Heavens! You don't mean to say she was there under the awful fire
of our guns?"
"No, else I should not have been with you. Weber, the trusty Alsatian,
of whom you know, came to us in the town. It was he who had borne the
letter from Philip to Mademoiselle Julie. We thought we saw Germans in
the outskirts of Chastel. We did not find any, but when we came back to
the Hotel de l'Europe, where we left them, Mademoiselle Julie and her
servants, the Picards, were gone."
"Perhaps they were alarmed by the German advance and have taken refuge
somewhere in the woods. If so, it will be easy to find them, Scott."
"No, they're not there. They're in the hands of the enemy. I shouldn't
mind it so much if she were merely a captive of the Germans, but that
man Auersperg has taken her again."
"How can you possibly know that to be true, Scott?"
Then John told the story of the register, and of the successive writing
of the names. Cotton heard him, too, and his face was very grave.
"It's a pity Bougainville couldn't have come earlier," he said. "We
might not only have saved Mademoiselle Julie but have captured this
Prince of Auersperg as well. Then we should indeed have had a prize. But
the wireless could not talk through all the storm and we had no warning
of the German movement until the snowfall died down.
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