e nodded eagerly again, pursing his lips.

"Mademoiselle," he said quietly, "I will ask the good madame if you may
be relieved for the day. I have a car outside--a swift car. Can you
show me that cottage--Nicko's dwelling? I will bring you back
immediately."

"Of a surety," she told him in his own tongue, as he had spoken.
"Wait. I will get my hat and coat. I may not know the nearest way to
the place. But----"

"I am familiar with this territory," he said dryly. "We can strike it,
I have no doubt, Mademoiselle. But I need you to verify the place
and--perhaps--to identify the man."

"Not the spy?" she gasped.

"Nicko, the peddler."

"I see. I will be with you in the courtyard at once, Monsieur."

When she came out he was ready to step into a two-seated roadster, hung
low and painted a battleship gray. A man in uniform on the front seat
drove. Ruth got in, was followed by the secret agent, and they started.

She had much more in her heart and mind; but she doubted the
advisability of telling M. Lafrane.

There was what she suspected about Major Henri Marchand. Could she
turn suspicion toward the son of her good friend, the countess? And
his brother who, it was said, had run away?

Ruth felt that she had already told much that might cause the major
trouble. She did not know. She only suspected.

As for Tom Cameron's trouble--and the mystery surrounding him--she did
not feel that she could speak to the secret agent about that. Tom's
affairs could have nothing to do with the work of this French criminal
investigator. No. She hugged to her heart all her anxiety regarding
Tom.

As soon as they left the hospital courtyard Ruth found that she was
traveling with a chauffeur beside whom Charlie Bragg's reckless driving
was tame indeed. Besides, Charlie's lame car could not arrive at such
speed as this racing type of automobile was capable of.

By looking over the back of the front seat she obtained a glimpse of
the speedometer, and saw the indicator traveling from sixty to seventy.
After that she did not wish to look again. She did not want to know if
they traveled faster.

The road over which they went was strange to Ruth Fielding. It was by
a much shorter way Charlie Bragg had taken her to the field hospital,
and over which she had returned.

They began before long to meet farmers' wagons, piled high with
household goods, on which sat the strange, sad-eyed children of the war
zone, or dec