r wrists, and in the luxurious,
soft-curtained room there raged two battles.

But the struggles did not last long. Harry hurled his antagonist, an
exhausted wreck, to the floor, and sprang to the side of Pauline.
Throwing off Mlle. de Longeon's grasp, he picked up the packet from the
floor, and with Pauline ran from the room.

A revenue cutter was landing a group of faint and silent men, at the
pier of the Navy Yard when an automobile flashed in.

"Hurrah! They did it! You're safe!" cried Pauline, rushing past Harry
to greet Ensign Summers.

The officer took her extended hands gratefully, but there was no light
in his eyes as he answered.

"Safe--and dishonored," he said. "I am only glad for my men."

"Why dishonored?" asked Harry.

"Don't you understand?"

"The man," said Pauline, curiously, "the man who placed the bomb?
Where is he?"

"Dead," said Summers. "He broke the tube after you were released and
then attacked me with a knife. I had to kill him."

"Good for you!" broke in Harry. "But what's all the gloom talk for?
This stuff about dishonor? You've proved yourself a hero, man."

"I have lost the most important documents of the Navy Department--
through a silly entanglement with a woman."

"No, you haven't. We went and got them for you," said Harry,
presenting the packet of plans.

CHAPTER XXIII

A PAPER CHASE

In Balthazar's band, which had failed so often do away with Pauline
Marvin, there was, nevertheless, one man who had attracted the
particular interest Raymond Owen--Louis Wrentz. Physically and
mentally brutal, he had always been one to oppose Balthazar's delays.

Six months before Owen would have shuddered at the thought of employing
this ruffian. Then his great aim was to be rid of Pauline by the most
indirect and secret means.

But Pauline's hair-breadth escape a few weeks before from Mlle de.
Longeon's cleverly planned plot, the almost incredible rescue of the
submarine and recovery of Ensign Summers' torpedo boat plans, as well
as the fact that the year of adventure was rapidly drawing to a close
and that Harry's growing hostility and the increasing danger of
exposure at the hands of some one of his aides, made the secretary
willing to take every chance, made it imperative that he should have a
lieutenant who could be trusted to strike boldly. Owen sent for
Wrentz.

The man appeared in the guise of a servant seeking employment, and was
brought up to Owen's p