looked up at him. "Yes?" she said hesitatingly. She was completely
at a loss.

"Well, your old German servant, Mrs. Blake, sent one of these telegrams
on Monday, August 10th. She explained that a stranger she met in the
street had asked her to send it off. She was, it seems, kept under
observation for a little while, after her connection with this telegram
had been discovered, but in all the circumstances, the fact she was in
your mother's service, and so on, she was given the benefit of the
doubt."

"But--but I don't understand even now?" said Rose slowly.

"I'll explain. All these messages were from German agents in this
country, who wished to tell their employers about the secret despatch of
our Expeditionary Force. 'Boutet' meant Boulogne. Of course we have no
clue at all as to how your old servant got the information."

Rose suddenly remembered the day when Major Guthrie had come to say
good-bye. A confused feeling of horror, of pity, and of vicarious shame
swept over her. For the first time in her young life she was glad of the
darkness which hid her face from her companion.

The thought of seeing Anna now filled her with repugnance and shrinking
pain. "I--I understand what you mean," she said slowly.

"You must remember that she is a German. She probably regards herself in
the light of a heroine!"

The minutes dragged by, and it seemed to Mr. Reynolds that they had been
waiting there at least half an hour, when at last he saw with relief the
tall slim figure emerge through the great door of the Council House.
Very deliberately James Hayley walked down the stone steps, and came
towards them. When he reached the place where the other two were
standing, waiting for him, he looked round as if to make sure that there
was no one within earshot.

"Rose," he said huskily--and he also was consciously glad of the
darkness, for he had just gone through what had been, to one of his
highly civilised and fastidious temperament, a most trying
ordeal--"Rose, I'm sorry to bring you bad news. Anna Bauer is dead. The
poor old woman has hanged herself. As a matter of fact, it was I--I and
the inspector of police--who found her. We managed to get a doctor in
through one of the side entrances--but it was of no use."

Rose said no word. She stood quite still, overwhelmed, bewildered with
the horror, and, to her, the pain, of the thing she had just heard.

And then, suddenly, there fell, shaft-like, athwart the still, dark
a