s.

"Thank you," would be the reply I received from the Gouverneur
Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, with never one small look into my
eyes that so besought his.

And for all of the hours of that very long afternoon I sat on a low
stool beside the feet of those two great gentlemen and served them in
their communications while the heart in my breast was going into death
by a slow, cruel torture.

The exact meaning of those papers and words of business I did not
know, but once I observed my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, throw
down his pencil and look into the face of the Gouverneur Faulkner with
a great and stern astonishment.

"The work of grafters, Captain Lasselles, with a woman as a tool. But
I yet don't see just how it was that she worked it. My Secretary of
State, General Carruthers, and I have been at work for weeks and we
could not catch the exact fraud," made answer my Gouverneur Faulkner
with a cold sternness.

"I was warned in Paris that beautiful American women were very much
interested in the placing of war contracts, Monsieur le Gouverneur. I
fled upon a tug boat from the ship that I escape some for whom I had
letters of introduction which I could not ignore."

"It was your Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, whom that Madam
Whitworth sought upon the ship, Roberta," I said to myself.

"I think women are alike the world over, Captain, and the discussion
of them and their mental and moral processes is--fruitless," answered
my Gouverneur Faulkner as he again took up his pencil.

"When it happened to me to find the fragment of the letter to the lady
of America from my false lieutenant, I had a deep distress that
tenderness for the sufferings of poor France should fail to be in even
one American woman's heart. And now I am in deep concern. Where am I
to obtain the good strong mules by which to transport through fields
heavy with mud the food to my poor boys in their trenches?"

"Right here, Captain, I feel reasonably sure. I think I see a way to
give you what you want at a better figure; and from it no man shall
reap more than a just wage for honest work. As the Governor of the
State of Harpeth, I can give you at least that assurance." And as he
spoke my Gouverneur Faulkner looked the Capitaine, the Count de
Lasselles, in the eyes with a fine honesty that carried with it the
utmost of conviction.

"I give thanks to _le bon Dieu_," I said with words that were
very soft in my throat, but at which I