ised to prove that the guilty one was the girl,
and to that end obtained leave of absence and spent much time and
money. At the trial he was able to show the record of Marie in Berlin
and Monte Carlo; that she was the daughter of a German secret agent;
that on the afternoon the prints disappeared Marie, with an agent of
the German embassy, had left Paris for Berlin. In consequence of this
the charge of selling military secrets was altered to one of "gross
neglect," and Henri Ravignac was sentenced to two years in the military
prison at Tours. But he was of an ancient and noble family, and when
they came to take him from his cell in the Cherche-Midi, he was dead.
Charles, his brother, disappeared. It was said he also had killed
himself; that he had been appointed a military attache in South
America; that to revenge his brother he had entered the secret service;
but whatever became of him no one knew. All that was certain was that,
thanks to the act of Marie Gessler, on the rolls of the French army the
ancient and noble name of Ravignac no longer appeared.

In her chosen profession Marie Gessler found nothing discreditable. Of
herself her opinion was not high, and her opinion of men was lower.
For her smiles she had watched several sacrifice honor, duty, loyalty;
and she held them and their kind in contempt. To lie, to cajole, to
rob men of secrets they thought important, and of secrets the
importance of which they did not even guess, was to her merely an
intricate and exciting game.

She played it very well. So well that in the service her advance was
rapid. On important missions she was sent to Russia, through the
Balkans; even to the United States. There, with credentials as an army
nurse, she inspected our military hospitals and unobtrusively asked
many innocent questions.

When she begged to be allowed to work in her beloved Paris, "they" told
her when war came "they" intended to plant her inside that city, and
that, until then, the less Paris knew of her the better.

But just before the great war broke, to report on which way Italy might
jump, she was sent to Rome, and it was not until September she was
recalled. The telegram informed her that her Aunt Elizabeth was ill,
and that at once she must return to Berlin. This, she learned from the
code book wrapped under the cover of her thermos bottle, meant that she
was to report to the general commanding the German forces at Soissons.

From Italy she passe