'Auf Wiedersehen,' he said ironically. He pressed a button on his desk; the door opened and the sentry took Howard back through the quiet, moonlit streets to his prison.
Nicole was sitting on her bed, waiting for him.
As the door closed she came to him and said:
'What happened?
Did they hurt you?'
He patted her on the shoulder.
'It's all right,' he said.
They did nothing to me.'
'What happened, then?
What did they want you for?'
He sat down on the bed and she came and sat down opposite him.
The moon threw a long shaft of silver light in through the window; faintly, somewhere, they heard the droning of a bomber.
'Listen, Nicole,' he said. 'I can't tell you what has happened.
But I can tell you this, and you must try to forget what I am telling you.
Everything is going to be all right. We shall go to England very soon, all of the children - and I shall go too.
And you will go free, and travel back to Chartres to live with your mother, and you will have no trouble from the Gestapo.
That is what is going to happen.'
She said breathlessly: 'But - I do not understand.
How has this been arranged?'
He said: 'I cannot tell you that.
I cannot tell you any more, Nicole.
But that is what will happen, very soon.'
'You are not tired, or ill?
This is all true, but you must not tell me how it has been done?'
He nodded.
'We shall go tomorrow or the next day,' he replied.
There was a steady confidence in his tone which brought conviction to her.
'I am very, very happy,' she said quietly.
There was a long silence.
Presently she said:
'Sitting here in the darkness while you were away, I have been thinking, monsieur.'
In the dim light he could see that she was looking away from him.
'I was wondering what these children would grow up to be when they were old.
Ronnie - I think he will become an engineer, and Marjan a soldier, and Willem - he will be a lawyer or a doctor.
And Rose will be a mother certainly, and Sheila - she may be a mother too, or she may become one of your English women of business.
And little Pierre - do you know what I think of him?
I think that he will be an artist of some sort, who will lead many other men with his ideas.'
'I think that's very likely,' said the old man.
The girl went on. 'Ever smee John was killed, monsieur, I have been desolate,' she said quietly.
'It seemed to me that there was no goodness in the world, that everything had gone mad and crazy and foul - that God had died or gone away, and left the world to Hitler.
Even these little children were to go on suffering.'
There was a pause.
The old man did not speak.
'But now,' she said, 'I think I can begin to see the pattern.
It was not meant that John and I should be happy, save for a week.
It was intended that we should do wrong.
And now, through John and I, it is intended that these children should escape from Europe to grow up in peace.' Her voice dropped.
'This may have been what John and I were brought together for,' she said. 'In thirty years the world may need one of these little ones.' She paused. 'It may be Ronnie or it may be Willem, or it may be little Pierre who does great things for the world,' she said. 'But when that happens, monsieur, it will be because I met your son to show him Paris, and we fell in love.'
He leaned across and took her hand, and sat there in the dim light holding it for a long time.
Presently they lay down on their beds, and lay awake till dawn.