ered.

Peter sighed--she was a very beautiful woman.

"Madame," he said, "the career of a spy is, as you have doubtless
sometimes realised, a dangerous one."

"It is finished!" she assured him breathlessly. "Monsieur le Baron, you
will keep my secret? Never again, I swear it, will I sin like this. You
will not tell my husband?"

"Your husband already knows, madame," was the quiet reply. "Only a few
hours ago I proved to him whence had come the leakage of so many of our
secrets lately."

She swayed upon her feet.

"He will never forgive me!" she cried.

"There are others," Peter declared, "who forgive more rarely even than
husbands."

A sudden illuminating flash of horror told her the truth. She closed her
eyes and tried to run from the room.

"I will not be told!" she screamed. "I will not hear. I do not know who
you are. I will live a little longer!"

"Madame," Peter said, "the Double Four wages no war with women, save
with spies only. The spy has no sex. For the sake of your family, permit
me to send you back to your husband's house."

* * * * *

That night two receptions and a dinner party were postponed. All London
was sympathising with Monsieur de Lamborne, and a great many women swore
never again to take a sleeping draught. Madame de Lamborne lay dead
behind the shelter of those drawn blinds, and by her side an empty
phial.

CHAPTER III

THE MAN FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

Bernadine, sometimes called the Count von Hern, was lunching at the
Savoy with the pretty wife of a Cabinet Minister, who was just
sufficiently conscious of the impropriety of her action to render the
situation interesting.

"I wish you would tell me, Count von Hern," she said, soon after they
had settled down in their places, "why my husband seems to object to you
so much. I simply dared not tell him that we were going to lunch
together; and, as a rule, he doesn't mind what I do in that way."

Bernadine smiled slowly.

"Ah, well," he remarked, "your husband is a politician and a very
cautious man. I dare say he is like some of those others, who believe
that because I am a foreigner and live in London, that therefore I am a
spy."

"You a spy!" she laughed. "What nonsense!"

"Why nonsense?"

She shrugged her shoulders. She was certainly a very pretty woman, and
her black gown set off to its fullest advantage her deep red hair and
fair complexion.

"I suppose because I can't imagin