Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/69

 faith and wonderful gaiety. Her laughter, her jokes, her patience, her courage, were an inspiration even to the poor degraded women who were prisoners with her. They worshipped her. We, her friends, gave her up for lost, though we prayed unceasingly that she might escape death. Then she was brought to trial."

She stood alone in the court. The young Baronne de Villers-Auxicourt had died in prison owing to the shock of her arrest and a weak heart. A weak heart, though so brave. Eileen was not allowed to see her on her deathbed, but she sent a message almost with her last breath. It was the one word "courage!" Mlle. Marcelle Barbier was released before the trial, for lack of direct evidence.

Eileen's trial was famous in Lille. The court was crowded and the German military tribunal could not suppress the loud expressions of sympathy and admiration which greeted her, nor the angry murmurs which interrupted the prosecuting officer. She stood there, wonderfully calm, between two soldiers with fixed bayonets. She looked very young and innocent between her guards, and it is evident that her appearance made a favourable impression on the court. The President, after peering at her through his horn spectacles, was not so ferocious in his manner as usual when he bade her be seated.

The evidence seemed very strong against her. "She is lost" was the belief of all her friends in court. One of the sentries at the Citadel, jealously savage because another man had received more tobacco than himself—on such a trivial thing did this girl's life hang!—betrayed the system by which the women's committee sent food to the French and English prisoners. He gave the names of three of the ladies and described Eileen O'Connor as the ringleader. The secret police watched her, and searched her rooms at night. They discovered the cypher and the key, a list of men who had escaped, and three