at Osborne could floor me in no time."

"You refuse to let me write, then?" she persisted.

"Absolutely."

"You intend to go on that fishing expedition with Jimmy Dumble
to-morrow?"

"Wouldn't miss it for anything," he confessed.

Philippa was suddenly white with anger.

"Henry, I've finished," she declared, holding out her hand to keep
him away from her. "I've finished with you entirely. I would rather be
married to an enemy who was fighting honourably for his country than to
you. What I have said, I mean. Don't come near me. Don't try to touch
me."

She swept past him on her way to the door.

"Not even a good-night kiss?" he asked, stooping down.

She looked him in the eyes.

"I am not a child," she said scornfully.

He closed the door after her. For a moment he remained as though
undecided whether to follow or not. His face had softened with her
absence. Finally, however, he turned away with a little shrug of
the shoulders, threw himself into his easy-chair and began to smoke
furiously.

The telephone bell disturbed his reflection. He rose at once and took up
the receiver.

"Yes, this is 19, Dreymarsh. Trunk call? All right, I am here."

He waited until another voice came to him faintly.

"Cranston?"

"Speaking."

"That's right. The message is Odino Berry, you understand? O-d-i-n-o
b-e-r-r-y."

"I've got it," Sir Henry replied. "Good night!" He hung up the receiver,
crossed the room to his desk, unlocked one of the drawers, and produced
a black memorandum book, secured with a brass lock. He drew a key from
his watch chain, opened the book, and ran his fingers down the O's.

"Odino," he muttered to himself. "Here it is: 'We have trustworthy
information from Berlin.' Now Berry." He turned back. "'You are being
watched by an enemy secret service agent.'"

He relocked the cipher book and replaced it in the desk. Then he
strolled over to his easy-chair and helped himself to a whisky and soda
from the tray which Mills had just arranged upon the sideboard.

"We have trustworthy information from Berlin," he repeated to himself,
"that you are being watched by an enemy secret service agent."

CHAPTER VIII

"Tell me, Mr. Lessingham," Philippa insisted, "exactly what are you
thinking of? You looked so dark and mysterious from the ridge below that
I've climbed up on purpose to ask you."

Lessingham held out his hand to steady her. They were standing on
a sharp spur of the cliffs, the north