"Wilkie Collins - The New Magdalen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

Mercy attempted to remonstrate. The Englishman respectfully took her arm, and
drew her out of the sentinel's reach.
"It is useless to resist," he said. "The German discipline never gives way.
There is not the least need to be uneasy about the Frenchmen. The ambulance
under Surgeon Wetzel is admirably administered. I answer for it, the men will be
well treated." He saw the tears in her eyes as he spoke; his admiration for her
rose higher and higher. "Kind as well as beautiful, "he thought. "What a
charming creature!"
"Well!" said Ignatius Wetzel, eying Mercy sternly through his spectacles. "Are
you satisfied? And will you hold your tongue?"
She yielded: it was plainly useless to resist. But for the surgeon's resistance,
her devotion to the wounded men might have stopped her on the downward way that
she was going. If she could only have been absorbed again, mind and body, in her
good work as a nurse, the temptation might even yet have found her strong enough
to resist it. The fatal severity of the German discipline had snapped asunder
the last tie that bound her to her better self. Her face hardened as she walked
away proudly from Surgeon Wetzel, and took a chair.
The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the question of her present
situation in the cottage.
"Don't suppose that I want to alarm you," he said. "There is, I repeat, no need
to be anxious about the Frenchmen, but there is serious reason for anxiety on
your own account. The action will be renewed round this village by daylight; you
ought really to be in a place of safety. I am an officer in the English army--my
name is Horace Holmcroft. I shall be delighted to be of use to you, and I can be
of use, if you will let me. May I ask if you are traveling?"
Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her nurse's dress more closely round
her, and committed herself silently to her first overt act of deception. She
bowed her head in the affirmative.
"Are you on your way to England?"
"Yes."
"In that case I can pass you through the German lines, and forward you at once
on your journey."
Mercy looked at him in unconcealed surprise. His strongly-felt interest in her
was restrained within the strictest limits of good-breeding: he was unmistakably
a gentleman. Did he really mean what he had just said?
"You can pass me through the German lines?" she repeated. "You must possess
extraordinary influence, sir, to be able to do that."
Mr. Horace Holmcroft smiled.
"I possess the influence that no one can resist," he answered--"the influence of
the Press. I am serving here as war correspondent of one of our great English
newspapers. If I ask him, the commanding officer will grant you a pass. He is
close to this cottage. What do you say?"
She summoned her resolution--not without difficulty, even now--and took him at
his word.
"I gratefully accept your offer, sir."
He advanced a step toward the kitchen, and stopped.
"It may be well to make the application as privately as possible," he said. "I
shall be questioned if I pass through that room. Is there no other way out of
the cottage?"
Mercy showed him the door leading into the yard. He bowed--and left her.