aunt is too ill to travel."

"But they will find the wireless," said the woman. "They are sure to use
the towers for observation, and they will find it."

"In that case," said the officer, "you will suggest to them that we fled
in such haste we had no time to dismantle it. Of course, you had no
knowledge that it existed, or, as a loyal French woman, you would have
at once told them." To emphasize his next words the officer pointed at
her: "Under no circumstances," he continued, "must you be suspected. If
they should take Briand in the act, should they have even the least
doubt concerning him, you must repudiate him entirely. If necessary, to
keep your own skirts clear, it would be your duty yourself to denounce
him as a spy."

"Your first orders," said the woman, "were 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Withdrawn some two hundred yards from the Paris road, the chateau stood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,