plodded thankfully across. ... And their leader, leaning from his
saddle to take my offered hand, suddenly struck me in the face, and
at the same moment a trooper behind me hit me on the head with the
butt of a pistol."

The girl's flying pencil faltered; she lifted her brown eyes,
waiting.

"That's about all," he said--"as far as facts are concerned.... They
treated me rather badly.... I faced their firing-squads half-a-dozen
times. After that bluff wouldn't work they interned me as an English
civilian at Holzminden.... They hid me when, at last, an inspection
took place. No chance for me to communicate with our Ambassador or
with any of the Commission."

He turned to her in his boyish, frank way: "But do you know, Miss
Erith, it took me quite a while to analyse the affair and to figure
out why they arrested me, lied about me, and treated me so
hellishly.

"You see, I was kept in solitary confinement and never had a chance
to speak to any of the other civilians interned there at Holzminden.
There was no way of suspecting why all this was happening to me
except by the attitude of the Huns themselves and their endless
questions and threats and cruelties. They were cruel. They hurt me a
lot."

Miss Erith's eyes suddenly dimmed as she watched him, and she
hastily bent her head over the pad.