s
letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion,
however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to
disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.

He began by explaining that his professional duty had made him decide
to defend this spy. She was in need of a lawyer; she was a foreigner;
public opinion, influenced by the exaggerated accounts given by the
newspapers of her beauty and her jewels, was ferociously inimical,
demanding her immediate punishment. Nobody had wished to take charge of
her defense. And for this very reason he had accepted it without fear
of unpopularity.

Ferragut believed that this sacrifice might be attributed to the
impulse of a gallant old beau, attracted to Freya because of her
beauty. Besides, this criminal process represented a typical Parisian
incident and might give a certain romantic notoriety to the one
intervening in its developments.

A few paragraphs further on the sailor became convinced that the
_maitre_ had fallen in love with his client. This woman even in her
dying moments shed around her most amazing powers of seduction. The
professional success anticipated by the lawyer disappeared on his first
questioning. Defense of Freya would be impossible. When he questioned
her regarding the events of her former life, she either wept for every
answer, or else remained silent, immovable, with as unconcerned a
glance as though the fate of some other woman were at stake.

The military judges did not need her confessions: they knew, detail for
detail, all her existence during the war and in the last years of
peace. Never had the police agents abroad worked with such rapidity and
success. Mysterious and omnipotent good fortune had crowned every
investigation. They knew all of Freya's doings. They had even received
from a secret agent exact data regarding her personality, the number by
which she was represented in the director's office at Berlin, the
salary that she was paid, as well as her reports during the past month.
Documents written by her personally, of an irrefutable culpability, had
poured in without any one's knowing from what point they were sent or
by whom.

Every time that the judge had placed before Freya's eyes one of these
proofs, she looked at her lawyer in desperation.

"It is _they_!" she moaned. "They who desire my death!"

Her defender was of the same opinion. The police had learned of her
presence in France by a letter that her su