He had left Clark in company of the two girls
mentioned, and about whom his mother knew nothing, the very morning
after his arrival home from his long absence in Europe. That was all his
mother knew. She was quite broken. Coming on the top of all her other
sorrow her only son's behaviour had been a fearful, perhaps a finishing
blow, but she was such a good woman that she still prayed for him. Clark
was horrified. His mother had decided at first she would try to shield
him and say nothing, but when she found that nobody had the least idea
of what he had done she felt she owed it to her friends to be open and
have no secrets from them. Whatever it cost her in suffering and
humiliation she would be frank. Anything was better than keeping up
false appearances to friends who believed in you. She was a brave woman,
a splendid woman. The girls--poor Mrs. Twist--were Germans.

On reading this Miss Heap was all of a tingle. Her worst suspicions
hadn't been half bad enough. Here was everything just about as black as
it could be; and Mr Twist, a well-known and universally respected
American citizen, had been turned, by means of those girls playing upon
weaknesses she shuddered to think of but that she had reason to believe,
from books she had studied and conversations she had reluctantly taken
part in, were not altogether uncommon, into a cat's-paw of the German
Government.

What should she do? What should she say? To whom should she go? Which
was the proper line of warning for her to take? It seemed to her that
the presence of these people on the Pacific coast was a real menace to
its safety, moral and physical; but how get rid of them? And if they
were got rid of wouldn't it only be exposing some other part of America,
less watchful, less perhaps able to take care of itself, to the ripening
and furtherance of their schemes, whatever their schemes might be? Even
at that moment Miss Heap unconsciously felt that to let the Twinklers go
would be to lose thrills. And she was really thrilled. She prickled with
excitement and horror. Her circulation hadn't been so good for years.
She wasn't one to dissect her feelings, so she had no idea of how
thoroughly she was enjoying herself. And it was while she sat alone in
her bedroom, her fingers clasping and unclasping the arms of her chair,
her feet nervously nibbing up and down on the thick soft carpet,
hesitating as to the best course for her to take, holding her knowledge
meanwhile tigh