face. For a moment
I expected a blow; his hands clinched convulsively, and he focussed me
with blazing eyes.

"Don't," I said, quietly. "I am trying to be your friend; I am
trying to save you from yourself, Kelly. Don't throw away your
life--as I have done. Life is a good thing, Kelly, a good thing. Can
we not be friends though I tell you the truth?"

The color throbbed and throbbed in his face. There was a chair near
him; he groped for it, and sat down heavily.

"Life is a good thing," I said again, "but, Kelly, truth is better.
And I must tell you the--well, something of the truth--as much as you
need know ... now. My friend, _she is not worth it_."

"Do you think that makes any difference?" he said, harshly. "Let me
alone, Scarlett. I know!... _I know_, I tell you!"

"Do you mean to tell me that you know she deliberately betrayed you?"
I demanded.

"Yes, I know it--I tell you I know it!"

"And ... you love her?"

"Yes." He dropped his haggard face on his arms a moment, then sat
bolt upright. "Truth is better than life," he said, slowly. "I lied
to you and to myself when I came back. I did come to get Speed's
balloon, but I came ... for her sake,... to be near her,... to see her
once more before I--"

"Yes, I understand, Kelly."

He winced and leaned wearily back.

"You are right," he said; "I wanted to end it,... I am tired."

I sat thinking for a moment; the light in the room faded to a glimmer
on the panes.

"Kelly," I said, "there remains another way to risk your neck, and,
I think, a nobler way. There is in this house a woman who is running a
terrible risk--a German spy whose operations have been discovered.
This woman believes that she has in her pay the communist leader of
the revolt, a man called Buckhurst. She is in error. And she must
leave this house to-night."

Eyre's face had paled. He bent forward, clasped hands between his
knees, eyes fastened on me.

"There will be trouble here to-night--or, in all probability, within
the next twenty-four hours. I expect to see Buckhurst a prisoner. And
when that happens it will go hard with Mademoiselle Elven, for he will
turn on her to save himself.... And you know what that means;... a
blank wall, Kelly, and a firing-squad. There is but one sex for
spies."

A deadly fear was stamped on his bloodless face. I saw it, tense and
quivering, in the gray light of the window.

"She must leave to-night, Kelly. She must try to cross into Spain.
Will