gone like a swift
shadow in the dark!"

Fascinated by the transformation in her, the other three sat gazing at
Thessalie in silence. Her colour was high, her dark eyes sparkled, her
lips glowed. And the superb young figure so celebrated in Europe, so
straight and virile, seemed instinct with the reckless gaity and
courage which rang out in her full-throated laughter as she ended with
a gesture and a snap of her white fingers.

"For my country--for France, whose generous mind has been poisoned
against me--I would do anything--anything!" she said. "If you think,
Garry, that I have wit enough to balk d'Eblis, check Ferez, confuse
the plotters in Berlin--well, then!--I shall try. If you say it is
right, then I shall become what I never have been--a spy!"

She sat for a moment smiling in her flushed excitement. Nobody spoke.
Then her expression altered, subtlely, and her dark eyes grew
pensive.

"Perhaps," she said wistfully, "if I could serve my country in some
little way, France might believe me loyal.... I have sometimes wished
I might have a chance to prove it. There is nothing I would not risk
if only France would come to believe in me.... But there seemed to be
no chance for me. It is death for me to go there now, with that
dossier in the secret archives and a Senator of France to swear my
life away----"

"If you like," said Westmore, very red again, "I'll go into the
business, too, and help you nail some of these Hun plotters. I've
nothing better to do; I'd be delighted to help you land a Hun or
two."

"I'm with you both, heart and soul!" said Barres. "The whole country
is rotten with Boche intrigue. Who knows what we may uncover at
Northbrook?"

Dulcie rose and came over to where Barres sat, and he reached up
without turning around, and gave her hand a friendly little squeeze.

She bent over beside him:

"Could I help?" she asked in a low voice.

"You bet, Sweetness! Did you think you were being left out?" And he
drew her closer and passed one arm absently around her as he began
speaking again to Westmore:

"It seems to me that we ought to stumble on something at Northbrook
worth following up, if we go about it circumspectly, Jim--with all
that Austrian and German Embassy gang coming and going during the
summer, and this picturesque fellow, Murtagh Skeel, being lionised
by----"

Dulcie's sudden start checked him and he looked up at her.

"Murtagh Skeel, the Irish poet and patriot," he repeated, "w