in the Citadel and given to Eileen as a proof that his own hope of escape was not in vain, though she had warned him of the fearful risk. "The poor man gave me the list in sheer simplicity, and in innocence I kept it."
Simply and touchingly she admitted her guilt in smuggling food to French and British prisoners and to German sentries, and claimed that her fault was only against military regulations, but in humanity was justified.
"I am Irish," she said. "I have in my heart the remembrance of English crimes to Ireland—old, unforgettable crimes that still cry out for the justice and the liberty which are denied my country."
Some of the younger German officers shook their heads approvingly. They liked this Irish hatred of England. It was according to their text-books.
"But," said the Irish girl, "the sufferings of English prisoners—you know here of their misery, their hunger, their weakness in that Citadel where many have died and are dying—stirred my compassion as a woman to whom all cruelty is tragic, and all suffering of men a call to that mother-love which is in the spirit of all their womanhood, as you know by your German women—as I hope you know. Because they were starved I tried to get them food, as I would to starving dogs or any poor creatures caught in the trap of war, or of men's sport. To that I confess guilty, with gladness in my guilt."
The Reverend Mother, standing there in the whitewashed corridor of the convent, in the flickering light of an oil lantern which gleamed on the white ruff round her neck and the silver cross on her breast, though her face was shadowed in the cavern of her black headdress, repeated this speech of Eileen O'Connor as though in hearing it first she had learnt it by heart.
"The child was divinely inspired, monsieur. Our Lady stood by her side, prompting her. I am sure of that."
