ith hardly a trace of accent to betray his origin:

"'Corporal Vinson, we have paid you lavishly for information of no
value, but you will have to serve us better than that, and we shall
continue to treat you well.'

"I thought I should have fainted when I heard my name pronounced by
this man. It was clear he already knew my rank and name.... He knew
much more than that--as the conversation which followed let me see. He
informed me that he wished to obtain a complete statement of the
organisation of the dirigibles and aeroplanes; he must have the
characteristics of all the apparatus; a list of the Flying Service
Corps: he exacted even more confidential information still--where the
aviators and the aircraft were to be moved if mobilisation took
place--the whole bag of tricks, in fact!"

"And," asked Fandor, hesitating a little, "you have ... supplied him
with all this?"

In a voice so low as to be barely audible, and blushing to the roots
of his hair, Vinson confessed:

"I supplied it all!"

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Not yet, Monsieur--listen:

"Alfred had gone back with me as far as Nancy, where I had put on my
uniform again; then I returned to Chalons quite by myself.

"I asked myself if it would be possible to get clear away from the
terrible set I was mixed up with. Try as I might, I could not manage
it. Every day Alfred harried me, threatened me: I had to obey him.
Then almost on the top of this came the affair of Captain Brocq."

Fandor had been waiting for this. He had foreseen that he was going to
learn what the connecting link was, which united the adventures of
Corporal Vinson with the drama of the Place de l'Etoile, but his
expectations were not fulfilled.... True enough, Vinson, through the
mysterious intervention of his redoubtful friends, was to enter into
relations with Captain Brocq, to whom he had been recommended, how or
in what terms he did not know.

The business hung fire for several weeks, and this was owing to Vinson
himself, whose moods alternated from one of shrinking disgust to one
of bravado courage.

"At times," said he, "I wished to break with them at any cost, and
become honest once more; but, alas, I was always under the evil
influence of Nichoune, who was a very close friend of Alfred, and the
pair of them encouraged me to tread the traitor's path without
faltering. Then, without breathing a word, I put in a request through
the proper channel for a change of garrison