re to tell them Briand had been
long in my service; that I brought him from my home in Laon."

"He might be in your service for years," returned the colonel, "and you
not know he was a German agent."

"If to save myself I inform upon him," said Marie, "of course you know
you will lose him."

The officer shrugged his shoulders. "A wireless operator," he
retorted, "we can replace. But for you, and for the service you are to
render in Paris, we have no substitute. You must not be found out.
You are invaluable."

The spy inclined her head. "I thank you," she said.

The officer sputtered indignantly.

"It is not a compliment," he exclaimed; "it is an order. You must not
be found out!"

Withdrawn some two hundred yards from the Paris road, the chateau stood
upon a wooded hill. Except directly in front, trees of great height
surrounded it. The tips of their branches brushed the windows;
interlacing, they continued until they overhung the wall of the estate.
Where it ran with the road the wall gave way to a lofty gate and iron
fence, through which those passing could see a stretch of noble turf,
as wide as a polo-field, borders of flowers disappearing under the
shadows of the trees; and the chateau itself, with its terrace, its
many windows, its high-pitched, sloping roof, broken by towers and
turrets.

Through the remainder of the night there came from the road to those in
the chateau the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat. It moved
without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly. Not for an instant
was there a breathing-spell. And when the sun rose, the three
spies--the two women and the chauffeur--who in the great chateau were
now alone, could see as well as hear the gray column of steel rolling
past below them.

The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood within
fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its back. They
knew also that the reverberations from the direction of Meaux, that
each moment grew more loud and savage, were the French "seventy-fives"
whipping the gray column forward. Of what they felt the Germans did
not speak. In silence they looked at each other, and in the eyes of
Marie was bitterness and resolve.

Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that stretched
the length of the terrace and from the windows of which, through the
park gates, they could see the Paris road.

"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last