periors in Barcelona had
sent, stupidly disguised, written with regard to a code whose mystery
had been discovered some time before by the French counter-spies. To
the _maitre_ it was only too evident that some mysterious power had
wished to rid itself of this woman, dispatching her to an enemy's
country, intending to send her to death.

Ulysses suspected in the defender a state of mind similar to his
own,--the same duality that had tormented him in all his relations with
Freya.

"I, sir," wrote the lawyer, "have suffered much. One of my sons, an
officer, died in the battle of the Aisne. Others very close to me,
nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of
the Orient...."

As a Frenchman, he had felt an irresistible aversion upon becoming
convinced that Freya was a spy who had done great harm to his
country.... Then as a man, he had commiserated her inconsequence, her
contradictory and frivolous character, amounting almost to a crime, and
her egoism as a beautiful woman and lover of luxury that had made her
willing to suffer moral vileness in exchange for creature comfort.

Her story had attracted the lawyer with the palpitating interest of a
novel of adventure. Commiseration had finally developed the vehemence
of a love affair. Besides, the knowledge that the exploiters of this
woman were the ones that had denounced her, had aroused his knightly
enthusiasm in the defense of her indefensible cause.

Appearance before the Council of War had proved painful and dramatic.
Freya, who until then, had seemed brutalized by the regime of the
prison, roused herself upon being confronted by a dozen grave and
uniformed men.

Her first moves were those of every handsome and coquettish female. She
knew perfectly well her physical influence. These soldiers transformed
into judges were recalling those other flirts that she had seen at the
teas and grand balls at the hotels.... What Frenchman can resist
feminine attraction?...

She had smiled, she had replied to the first questions with graceful
modesty, fixing her wickedly guileless eyes upon the officials seated
behind the presidential table, and on those other men in blue uniform,
charged with accusing her or reading the documents of her prosecution.

But something cold and hostile existed in the atmosphere and paralyzed
her smiles, leaving her words without echo and making ineffectual the
splendors of her eyes. All foreheads were bowed under the we