probably in those twenty years of her life she had learnt more than
many women had learned in forty.

Hers was an angelic face, with big, wide-open, truthful eyes, but her
heart was, I knew, cold and callous.

Could I--dare I--take her into my service--to assist me in a matter of
the most vital importance to British interests? The mission upon which I
was engaged at that moment was both delicate and difficult. A single
false move would mean exposure.

I was playing a deep game, and it surely behoved me to exercise every
precaution. During the years I had been endeavouring to prove the peril
to which England was exposed from foreign invasion, I had never been
nearer failure than now. Indeed, I held my breath each time I
recollected all that depended upon my success.

Ray Raymond, Vera Vallance, and myself had constituted ourselves into a
little band with the object of combating the activity of the ingenious
spies of the Kaiser. Little does the average Englishman dream of the
work of the secret agent, or how his success or failure is reflected in
our diplomatic negotiations with the Powers. Ambassadors and ministers
may wear smart uniforms with glittering decorations, and move in their
splendid embassies surrounded by their brilliant staffs; attaches may
flirt, and first secretaries may take tea with duchesses, yet to the spy
is left the real work of diplomacy, for, after all, it is upon the
knowledge he obtains that His Excellency the Ambassador frames his
despatch to his Government, or the Minister for Foreign Affairs presents
a "Note" to the Powers.

We had for months been working on without publicity, unheeded,
unrecognised, unprotected, unknown. A thankless though dangerous task,
our only reward had been a kind word from the silent, sad-faced Prime
Minister himself. For months our whereabouts had been unknown, even to
each other. Ray generally scented the presence of spies, and it was for
me to carry through the inquiry in the manner which I considered best
and safest for myself.

"Suzette," I said at length, looking at her across the rising smoke
from my cigarette, "when we last met you had the advantage of me. To-day
we stand upon even ground."

"Pardon! I don't quite understand?" asked the little lady in the sheath
costume with just a slight tremor of the eyelids.

"Well--I have discovered that you and Henry Banfield are friends--that
to you he owes much of his success, and that to you is the credit of a