For several days Goritz disappeared, and she gained a breathing space to think over her position. She ventured out many times into the courtyard in the hope of finding an opportunity to elude her guard, but each time she approached the drawbridge she saw the chauffeur Karl seated in the shadow of the wall, smoking his pipe. And so she knew that any attempt to pass him would be impossible.
At the end of the fourth day, Captain Goritz joined her at the supper table. He had now discarded his Austrian uniform and wore a rough suit of working clothes, similar to the peasant costume which Ena's husband wore. He greeted her gladly, but she asked him no questions as to his absence, upon her guard as she always was against the unknown quality in the man, which held her in constant anxiety. But after he had eaten, the cloud which had hung over him seemed to pass, and he leaned forward, smiling at her across the table.
"What else is left for me?" she smiled. "I have wondered where you were."
"Ah," he laughed, "you missed me? That is good. You wondered what would happen to you if I did not come back." He laughed as he lighted his cigarette. "I am not so easily to be lost, I assure you. I have been through Dukla Pass."
"Many soldiers have gone through the pass today--many this morning--many more this afternoon."
He was silent for a while, and then spoke very quietly. "They are coming."
She made no sound and seemed to be frozen into immobility by the import of the information.
"The Austrians have fortified the other end of the Pass, but it is said that the Russians are in great numbers, sweeping everything before them----"
"Lemberg has fallen. The fate of Przemysl hangs in the balance." He shrugged. "Tomorrow, perhaps, may see the Cossacks at Dukla Pass."
"I do not wish to alarm you," he said gently. "Six hundred years have passed over Schloss Szolnok, and it still stands. I am not going to run away."
"But you can do nothing--against so many."
"They will not bother us, I think. The Austrians, you see, have passed us by. They are taking all their artillery to Javorina and Jägerhorn and mounting them upon the old emplacements of the ruins. The defense will be made there where the gorge is narrower."