decide many who would
otherwise hesitate."

"Certainly.

"I will not detain you longer, at present. I shall see you in a day
or two, and any assistance which I can give is at your service."

"Thanks very much. I only wish that you could go with us.

"Goodbye. Tell the boys that their names are down, and that we
shall begin drill in a day or two."

Chapter 3: Death To The Spy!

The next morning Madame Duburg arrived, at ten o'clock; an hour at
which she had never, as far as Mrs. Barclay knew, turned out of her
house since her marriage. She was actually walking fast, too. It
was evident that something serious was the matter.

Mrs. Barclay was in the garden, and her visitor came straight out
from the house to her.

"Is anything the matter?" was Mrs. Barclay's first question.

"Yes, a great deal is the matter," Madame Duburg began, vehemently.
"You and your English husband are mad. Your wretched boys are mad.
They have made my sons mad, also; and--my faith--I believe that my
husband will catch it. It is enough to make me, also, mad."

Notwithstanding the trouble in which Mrs. Barclay was, at the
resolution of her sons, she could scarcely help smiling at the
excitement of Madame Duburg; the cause of which she at once
guessed. However, she asked, with an air of astonishment:

"My dear sister-in-law, what can you be talking about?"

"I know what I say," Madame Duburg continued. "I always said that
you were mad, you and your husband, to let your boys go about and
play, and tear and bruise themselves like wild Indians. I always
knew that harm would come of it, when I saw my boys come in
hot--oh, so unpleasantly hot, to look at--but I did not think of
such harm as this. My faith, it is incredible. When I heard that
you were to marry yourself to an Englishman, I said at once:

"'It is bad, harm will come of it. These English are islanders.
They are eccentric. They are mad. They sell their wives in the
market, with a cord round their neck.'"

"My dear sister-in-law," Mrs. Barclay interrupted, "I have so often
assured you that that absurd statement was entirely false; and due
only to the absolute ignorance, of our nation, of everything
outside itself."

"I have heard it often," Madame Duburg went on, positively. "They
are a nation of singularities. I doubt not that it is true, he has
hidden the truth from you. True or false, I care not. They are mad.
For this I care not. My faith, I have not married an Eng