nd I can be of most help when the attack on the main defence is
begun?"

"Yes."

"And when Westerling finds that my information is false about
Engadir--then--"

She had never put the question to him in this way before. What would
Westerling do if he found her out?

"My God, Marta!" he exclaimed. "If I'd had any sense I would have
thought of that in the beginning and torn out the 'phone! I've been mad,
mad with the one thought of the nation--inhuman in my greedy patriotism.
I will not let you go any further!"

It was a new thing for her to be rallying him; yet this she did as the
strange effect of his protest on the abnormal sensibilities that her
acting had developed.

"Thinking of me--little me!" she called back. "Of one person's comfort
when hundreds of thousands of other women are in terror; when the
destiny of millions is at stake! Lanny, you are in a blue funk!" and she
was laughing forcedly and hectically. "I'm going on--going on like one
in a trance who can't stop if he would. It's all right, Lanny. I
undertook the task myself. I must see it through!"

After she had hung up the receiver her buoyancy vanished. She leaned
against the wall of the tunnel weakly. Yes, what if she were found out?
She was thinking of the possibility seriously for the first time. Yet,
for only a moment did she dwell upon it before she dismissed it in
sudden reaction.

"No matter what they do to me or what becomes of me!" she thought. "I'm
a lost soul, anyway. The thing is to serve as long as I can--and then I
don't care!"

XXXVII

THUMBS DOWN FOR BOUCHARD

Haggard and at bay, Bouchard faced the circle of frowns around the
polished expanse of that precious heirloom, the dining-room table of the
Gallands. The dreaded reckoning of the apprehensions which kept him
restlessly awake at night had come at the next staff council after the
fall of the Twin Boulder Redoubt. With the last approach to the main
line of defence cleared, one chapter of the war was finished. But the
officers did not manifest the elation that the occasion called for,
which is not saying that they were discouraged. They had no doubt that
eventually the Grays would dictate peace in the Browns' capital. Exactly
stated, their mood was one of repressed professional irritation. Not
until the third attempt was Twin Boulder Redoubt taken. As far as
results were concerned, the nicely planned first assault might have been
a stroke of strategy by the Browns t