be sent in to bring back the
prisoner. I was so filled with anxiety and impatience that I could not
wait, but I hurried back alone with the promise that they would follow.

The Pedley-Woodrow Road opens into the high-road to Colchester at a point
about half a mile from the village of Radchurch. It was evening now and
the light was such that one could not see more than twenty or thirty
yards ahead. I had proceeded only a very short way from the point of
junction when I heard, coming towards me, the roar of a motor-cycle being
ridden at a furious pace. It was without lights, and close upon me. I
sprang aside in order to avoid being ridden down, and in that instant, as
the machine flashed by, I saw clearly the face of the rider. It was
she--the woman whom I had loved. She was hatless, her hair streaming in
the wind, her face glimmering white in the twilight, flying through the
night like one of the Valkyries of her native land. She was past me like
a flash and tore on down the Colchester Road. In that instant I saw all
that it would mean if she could reach the town. If she once was allowed
to see her agent we might arrest him or her, but it would be too late.
The news would have been passed on. The victory of the Allies and the
lives of thousands of our soldiers were at stake. Next instant I had
pulled out the loaded revolver and fired two shots after the vanishing
figure, already only a dark blur in the dusk. I heard a scream, the
crashing of the breaking cycle, and all was still.

I need not tell you more, gentlemen. You know the rest. When I ran
forward I found her lying in the ditch. Both of my bullets had struck
her. One of them had penetrated her brain. I was still standing beside
her body when Murreyfield arrived, running breathlessly down the road.
She had, it seemed, with great courage and activity scrambled down the
ivy of the wall; only when he heard the whirr of the cycle did he realize
what had occurred. He was explaining it to my dazed brain when the
police and soldiers arrived to arrest her. By the irony of fate it was
me whom they arrested instead.

It was urged at the trial in the police-court that jealousy was the cause
of the crime. I did not deny it, nor did I put forward any witnesses to
deny it. It was my desire that they should believe it. The hour of the
French advance had not yet come, and I could not defend myself without
producing the letter which would reveal it. But now