s. She was alone
with him, for it would be hours before her friends came from Chiavagno.
He had the game in his hands, and of all our confederacy she alone
remained to confront him. Mary's courage was pretty near perfect, and
for the moment she did not think of herself or her own fate. That came
later. She was possessed with poignant disappointment at our failure.
All our efforts had gone to the winds, and the enemy had won with
contemptuous ease. Her nervousness disappeared before the intense
regret, and her brain set coolly and busily to work.

It was a new Ivery who confronted her, a man with vigour and purpose in
every line of him and the quiet confidence of power. He spoke with a
serious courtesy.

'The time for make-believe is past,' he was saying. 'We have fenced
with each other. I have told you only half the truth, and you have
always kept me at arm's length. But you knew in your heart, my dearest
lady, that there must be the full truth between us some day, and that
day has come. I have often told you that I love you. I do not come now
to repeat that declaration. I come to ask you to entrust yourself to
me, to join your fate to mine, for I can promise you the happiness
which you deserve.'

He pulled up a chair and sat beside her. I cannot put down all that he
said, for Mary, once she grasped the drift of it, was busy with her own
thoughts and did not listen. But I gather from her that he was very
candid and seemed to grow as he spoke in mental and moral stature. He
told her who he was and what his work had been. He claimed the same
purpose as hers, a hatred of war and a passion to rebuild the world
into decency. But now he drew a different moral. He was a German: it
was through Germany alone that peace and regeneration could come. His
country was purged from her faults, and the marvellous German
discipline was about to prove itself in the eye of gods and men. He
told her what he had told me in the room at the Pink Chalet, but with
another colouring. Germany was not vengeful or vainglorious, only
patient and merciful. God was about to give her the power to decide the
world's fate, and it was for him and his kind to see that the decision
was beneficent. The greater task of his people was only now beginning.

That was the gist of his talk. She appeared to listen, but her mind was
far away. She must delay him for two hours, three hours, four hours. If
not, she must keep beside him. She was the only one of our co