"You are speaking of your brother, Major Felstead?"

"My only brother."

"I am very much obliged to you, Lady Cranston," Captain Griffiths declared. "I can see that we need not worry any more about Mr. Lessingham."

Philippa laughed.

"It seems rather old-fashioned to think of you having to worry about any one down here," she observed. "It really is a very harmless neighbourhood, isn't it?"

"There isn't much going on, certainly," the Commandant admitted. "Very dull the place seems at times."

"Now be perfectly frank," Philippa begged him. "Is there a single fact of importance which could be learnt in this place, worth communicating to the enemy? Is the danger of espionage here worth a moment's consideration?"

"That," Captain Griffiths replied in somewhat stilted fashion, "is not a question which I should be prepared to answer off-hand."

Philippa shrugged her shoulders and appealed almost feverishly to Helen, who had just entered the room.

"Helen, do come and listen to Captain Griffiths! He is making me feel quite creepy. There are secrets about, it seems, and he wants to know all about Mr. Lessingham."

Helen smiled with complete self-possession.

"Well, we can set his mind at rest about Mr. Lessingham, can't we?" she observed, as she shook hands.

"We can do more," Philippa declared. "We can help him to judge for himself. We are expecting Mr. Lessingham for dinner, Captain Griffiths. Do stay."

"I couldn't think of taking you by storm like this," Captain Griffiths replied, with a wistfulness which only made his voice sound hoarser and more unpleasant. "It is most kind of you, Lady Cranston. Perhaps you will give me another opportunity."

"I sha'n't think of it," Philippa insisted. "You must stay and dine to-night. We shall be a partie carrie, for Nora goes to bed directly after dinner. I am ringing the bell to tell Mills to set an extra place," she added.

Captain Griffiths abandoned himself to fate with a little shiver of complacency. He welcomed Lessingham, who was presently announced, with very much less than his usual reserve, and the dinner was in every way a success. Towards its close, Philippa became a little thoughtful. She glanced more than once at Lessingham, who was sitting by her side, almost in admiration. His conversation, gay at times, always polished, was interlarded continually with those little social reminiscences inevitable amongst men moving in a certain circle of English society. Apparently Richard Felstead was not the only one of his college friends with whom he had kept in touch. The last remnants of Captain Griffiths' suspicions seemed to vanish with their second glass of port, although his manner became in no way more genial.

"Don't you think you are almost a little too daring?" Philippa asked her favoured guest as he helped her afterwards to set out a bridge table.

"One adapts one's methods to one's adversary," he murmured, with a smile, "Your friend Captain Griffiths had only the very conventional suspicions. The mention of a few good English names, acquaintance with the ordinary English sports, is quite sufficient with a man like that."

Helen and Griffiths were talking at the other end of the room. Philippa raised her eyes to her companion's.

"You become more of a mystery than ever," she declared. "You are making me even curious. Tell me really why you have paid us this visit from the clouds?"

She was sorry almost as soon as she had asked the question. For a moment the calm insouciance of his manner seemed to have departed. His eyes glowed.

"In search of new things," he answered.

"Guns? Fortifications?"

"Neither."

A spirit of mischief possessed her. Lessingham's manner was baffling and yet provocative. For a moment the political possibilities of his presence faded away from her mind. She had an intense desire to break through his reserve.

"Won't you tell me—why you came?"

"I could tell you more easily," he answered in a low tone, "why it will be the most miserable day of my life when I leave."

She laughed at him with perfect heartiness.

"How delightful to be flirted with again!" she sighed. "And I thought all German men were so heavy, and paid elaborate, underdone compliments. Still, your secret, sir, please? That is what I want to know."

"If you will have just a little patience!" he begged, leaning so close to her that their heads almost touched, "I promise that I will not leave this place before I tell it to you."

Philippa's eyes for the first time dropped before his. She knew perfectly well what she ought to have done and she was singularly indisposed to do it. It was a most piquant adventure, after all, and it almost helped her to forget the trouble which had been sitting so heavily in her heart. Still avoiding his eyes, she called the others.

"We are quite ready for bridge," she announced.

They played four or five rubbers. Lessingham was by far the most expert player, and he and Philippa in the end were the winners. The two men stood together for a moment or two at the sideboard, helping themselves to whisky and soda. Griffiths had become more taciturn than ever, and even Philippa was forced to admit that the latter part of the evening had scarcely been a success.

"Do you play club bridge in town, Mr. Lessingham?" Griffiths asked.

"Never," was the calm reply.

"You are head and shoulders above our class down here."

"Very good of you to say so," Lessingham replied courteously. "I held good cards to-night."

"I wonder," Griffiths went on, dropping his voice a little and keeping his eyes fixed upon his companion, "what the German substitute for bridge is."

"I wonder," Lessingham echoed.

"As a nation," his questioner proceeded, "they probably don't waste as much time on cards as we do."

Lessingham's interest in the subject appeared to be non-existent. He strolled away from the sideboard towards Philippa. She, for her part, was watching Captain Griffiths.

"So many thanks, Lady Cranston," Lessingham murmured, "for your hospitality."

"And what about that secret?" she asked.

"You see, there are two," he answered, looking down at her. "One I shall most surely tell you before I leave here, because it is the one secret which no man has ever succeeded in keeping to himself. As for the other—"

He hesitated. There was something almost like pain in his face. She broke in hastily.

"I did not call you away to ask about either. I happened to notice Captain Griffiths just now. Do you know that he is watching you very closely?"

"I had an idea of it," Lessingham admitted indifferently. "He is rather a clumsy person, is he not?"

"You will be careful?" she begged earnestly. "Remember, won't you, that Helen and I are really in a most disgraceful position if anything should come out."

"Nothing shall," he promised her. "I think you know, do you not, that, whatever might happen to me, I should find some means to protect you."

For the second time she felt a curious lack of will to fittingly reprove his boldness. She had even to struggle to keep her tone as careless as her words.

"You really are a delightful person!" she exclaimed. "How long is it since you descended from the clouds?"

"Sometimes I think that I am there still," he answered, "but I have known you about seventy-six hours."

"What precision?" she laughed. "It's a national characteristic, isn't it? Captain Griffiths," she continued, as she observed his approach, "if you really must go, please take Mr. Lessingham with you. He is making fun of me. I don't allow even Dick's friends to do that."

Lessingham's disclaimer was in quite the correct vein.

"You must both come again very soon," their hostess concluded, as she shook hands. "I enjoyed our bridge immensely."

The two men were already on their way to the door when a sudden idea seemed to occur to Captain Griffiths. He turned back.

"By-the-by, Lady Cranston," he asked, "have you heard anything from your brother?"

Philippa shook her head sadly. Helen, who, unlike her friend, had not had the advantage of a distinguished career upon the amateur dramatic stage, turned away and held a handkerchief to her eyes.

"Not a word," was Philippa's sorrowful reply.

Captain Griffiths offered a clumsy expression of his sympathy.

"Bad luck!" he said. "I'm so sorry, Lady Cranston. Good night once more."

This time their departure was uninterrupted. Helen removed her handkerchief from her eyes, and Philippa made a little grimace at the closed door.

"Do you believe," Helen asked seriously, "that Captain Griffiths has any suspicions?"

Philippa shrugged her shoulders.

"If he has, who cares?" she replied, a little defiantly. "The very idea of a duel of wits between those two men is laughable."

"Perhaps so," Helen agreed, with a shade of doubt in her tone.



CHAPTER X

Philippa and Helen started, a few mornings later, for one of their customary walks. The crystalline October sunshine, in which every distant tree and, seaward, each slowly travelling steamer, seemed to gain a new clearness of outline, lay upon the deep-ploughed fields, the yellowing bracken, and the red-gold of the bending trees, while the west wind, which had strewn the sea with white-flecked waves, brought down the leaves to form a carpet for their feet, and played strange music along the wood-crested slope. In the broken land through which they made their way, a land of trees and moorland, with here and there a cultivated patch, the yellow gorse still glowed in unexpected corners; queer, scentless flowers made splashes of colour in the hedgerows; a rabbit scurried sometimes across their path; a cock pheasant, after a moment's amazed stare, lowered his head and rushed for unnecessary shelter. The longer they looked upwards, the bluer seemed the sky. The grass beneath their feet was as green and soft as in springtime. Driven by the wind, here and there a white-winged gull sailed over their heads,—a cloud of them rested upon a freshly turned little square of ploughed land between two woods. A flight of pigeons, like torn leaves tossed about by the wind, circled and drifted above them. Philippa seated herself upon the trunk of a fallen tree and gazed contentedly about her.

"If I had a looking-glass and a few more hairpins, I should be perfectly happy," she sighed. "I am sure my hair must look awful."

Helen glanced at it admiringly.

"I decline to say the correct thing," she declared. "I will only remind you that there will be no one here to look at it."

"I am not so sure," Philippa replied. "These are the woods which the special constables haunt by day and by night. They gaze up every tree trunk for a wireless installation, and they lie behind hedges and watch for mysterious flashes."

"Are you suggesting that we may meet Mr. Lessingham?" Helen enquired, lazily. "I am perfectly certain that he knows nothing of the equipment of the melodramatic spy. As to Zeppelins, don't you remember he told us that he hated them and was terrified of bombs."

"My dear," Philippa remonstrated, "Mr. Lessingham does nothing crude."

"And yet,—" Helen began.

"Yet I suppose the man has something at the back of his head," Philippa interrupted. "Sometimes I think that he has, sometimes I believe that Richard must have shown him my picture, and he has come over here to see if I am really like it."

"He does behave rather like that," her companion admitted drily.

Phillipa turned and looked at her.

"Helen," she said severely, "don't be a cat."

"If I were to express my opinion of your behaviour," Helen went on, picking up a pine cone and examining it, "I might astonish you."

"You have an evil mind," Philippa yawned, producing her cigarette case. "What you really resent is that Mr. Lessingham sometimes forgets to talk about Dick."

"The poor man doesn't get much chance," Helen retorted, watching the blue smoke from her cigarette and leaning back with an air of content. "Whatever do you and he find to talk about, Philippa?"

"Literature—English and German," Philippa murmured demurely. "Mr. Lessingham is remarkably well read, and he knows more about our English poets than any man I have met for years."

"I forgot that you enjoyed that sort of thing."

"Once more, don't be a cat," Philippa enjoined. "If you want me to confess it, I will own up at once. You know what a simple little thing I am. I admire Mr. Lessingham exceedingly, and I find him a most interesting companion."

"You mean," her friend observed drily "the Baron Maderstrom." Philippa looked around and frowned.

"You are most indiscreet, Helen," she declared. "I have learnt something of the science of espionage lately, and I can assure you that all spoken or written words are dangerous. There is a thoroughly British squirrel in that tree overhead, and I am sure he heard."

"I suppose the sunshine has got into your head," Helen groaned.

"If you mean that I am finding it a relief to talk nonsense, you are right," Philippa assented. "As a matter of fact, I am feeling most depressed. Henry telephoned from somewhere or other before breakfast this morning, to say that he should probably be home to-night or to-morrow. They must have landed somewhere down the coast."

"You are a most undutiful wife," Helen pronounced severely. "I am sure Henry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, and it is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, a year or two ago."

Some of the lightness vanished from Philippa's face.

"That was before the war," she sighed.

"I still think Henry is a dear, though I don't altogether understand him," Helen said thoughtfully.

"No doubt," Philippa assented, "but you'd find the not understanding him a little more galling, if you were his wife. You see, I didn't know that I was marrying a sort of sporting Mr. Skimpole."

"I wonder," Helen reflected, "how Henry and Mr. Lessingham will get on when they see more of one another."

"I really don't care," Philippa observed indifferently.

"I used to notice sometimes—that was soon after you were married," Helen continued, "that Henry was just a little inclined to be jealous."

Philippa withdrew her eyes from the sea. There was a queer little smile upon her lips.

"Well, if he still is," she said, "I'll give him something to be jealous about."

"Poor Mr. Lessingham!" Helen murmured.

Philippa's eyebrows were raised.

"Poor Mr. Lessingham?" she repeated. "I don't think you'll find that he'll be in the least sorry for himself."

"He may be in earnest," Helen reminded her friend. "You can be horribly attractive when you like, you know, Philippa."

Philippa smiled sweetly.

"It is just possible," she said, "that I may be in earnest myself. I've quarrelled pretty desperately with Henry, you know, and I'm a helpless creature without a little admiration."

Helen rose suddenly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed upon a figure approaching through the wood.

"You really aren't respectable, Philippa," she declared. "Throw away your cigarette, for heaven's sake, and sit up. Some one is coming."

Philippa only moved her head lazily. The sunlight, which came down in a thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell straight upon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its unexpressed evasive charm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour in the red-gold of her disordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was stretched almost at full length, one leg drawn a little up, her hands carelessly drooping towards the grass. The cigarette was still burning in the corner of her lips.

"I decline," she said, "to throw away my cigarette for any one."

"Least of all, I trust," a familiar voice interposed, "for me."

Philippa sat upright at once, smoothed her hair and looked a little resentfully at Lessingham. He was wearing a brown tweed knickerbocker suit, and he carried a gun under his arm.

"Whatever are you doing up here," she demanded, "and do you know anything about our game laws? You can't come out into the woods here and shoot things just because you feel like it."

He disposed of his gun and seated himself between them.

"That is quite all right," he assured her. "Your neighbour, Mr. Windover, to whom these woods apparently belong, asked me to bring my gun out this morning and try and get a woodcock."

"Gracious! You don't mean that Mr. Windover is here, too?" Philippa demanded, looking around. Lessingham shook his head.

"His car came for him at the other side of the wood," he explained. "He was wanted to go on the Bench. I elected to walk home."

"And the woodcock?" she asked. "I adore woodcock."

He produced one from his pocket, took up her felt hat, which was lying amongst the bracken, and busied himself insinuating the pin feathers under the silk band.

"There," he said, handing it to her, "the first woodcock of the season. We got four, and I really only accepted one in the hope that you would like it. I shall leave it with the estimable Mills, on my return."

"You must come and share it," Philippa insisted. "Those boys of Nora's are coming in to dinner. Your gift shall be the piece de resistance."

"Then may I dine another night?" he begged. "This place encourages in me the grossest of appetites."

"Have no fear," she replied. "You will never see that woodcock again. I shall have it for my luncheon to-morrow. I ordered dinner before I came out, and though it may be a simple feast, I promise that you shall not go away hungry."

"Will you promise that you will never send me away hungry?" he asked, dropping his voice for a moment.

She turned and studied him. Helen, who had strolled a few yards away, was knee-deep in the golden brown bracken, picking some gorgeously coloured leaves from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown his cap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour in his cheeks were both, in their way, becoming. His loose but well-fitting country clothes, his tie and soft collar, were all well-chosen and suitable. She admired his high forehead and his firm, rather proud mouth. His eyes as well as his tone were full of seriousness.

"You know that you ought to be saying that to some Gretchen away across that terrible North Sea," she laughed.

"There is no Gretchen who has ever made my heart shake as you do," he whispered.

She picked up her hat and sighed.

"Really," she said, "I think things are quite complicated enough as they are. I am in a flutter all day long, as it is, about your mission here and your real identity. I simply could not include a flirtation amongst my excitements."

"I have never flirted," he assured her gravely.

"Wise man," she pronounced, rising to her feet. "Come, let us go and help Helen pick leaves. She is scratching her fingers terribly, and I'm sure you have a knife. A dear, economical creature, Helen," she added, as they strolled along. "I am perfectly certain that those are destined to adorn my dining-table, and, with chrysanthemums at sixpence each, you can't imagine how welcome they are. Come, produce the knife, Mr. Lessingham."

The knife was forthcoming, and presently they all turned their faces homeward. Philippa arrested both her companions on the outskirts of the wood, and pointed to the red-tiled little town, to the sombre, storm-beaten grey church on the edge of the cliff, to the peaceful fields, the stretch of gorse-sprinkled common, and the rolling stretch of green turf on the crown of the cliffs. Beyond was the foam-flecked blue sea, dotted all over with cargo steamers.

"Would one believe," she asked satirically, "that there should be scope here in this forgotten little spot for the brains of a—Mr. Lessingham!"

"Remember that I was sent," he protested. "The error, if error there be, is not mine."

"And after all," Helen reminded them both, "think how easily one may be misled by appearances. You couldn't imagine anything more honest than the faces of the villagers and the fishermen one sees about, yet do you know, Mr. Lessingham, that we were visited by burglars last night?"

"Seriously?" he asked.

"Without a doubt. Of course, Mainsail Haul is an invitation to thieves. They could get in anywhere. Last night they chose the French windows and seem to have made themselves at home in the library."

"I trust," Lessingham said, "that they did not take anything of value?"

"They took nothing at all," Philippa sighed. "That is the humiliating part of it. They evidently didn't like our things."

"How do you know that you had burglars, if they took nothing away?" Lessingham enquired.

"So practical!" Philippa murmured. "As a matter of fact, I heard some one moving about, and I rang the alarm bell. Mills was downstairs almost directly and we heard some one running down the drive. The French windows were open, a chair was overturned in the library, and a drawer in my husband's desk was wide open."

"The proof," Lessingham admitted, "is overwhelming. You were visited by a burglar. Does your husband keep anything of value in his desk?"

"Henry hasn't anything of value in the world," Philippa replied drily, "except his securities, and they are at the bank."

"Without going so far as to contradict you," Lessingham observed, with a smile, "I still venture to disagree!"



CHAPTER XI

Sir Henry stepped back from the scales and eyed the fish which they had been weighing, admiringly.

"You see that, Mills? You see that, Jimmy?" he pointed out. "Six and three-quarter pounds! I was right almost to an ounce. He's a fine fellow!"

"A very extraordinary fish, sir," the butler observed. "Will you allow me to take your oilskins? Dinner was served nearly an hour ago."

Sir Henry slipped off his dripping overalls and handed them over.

"That's all right," he replied. "Listen. Don't say a word about my arrival to your mistress at present. I have some writing to do. Bring me a glass of sherry at once, or mix a cocktail if you can do so without being missed, and take Jimmy away and give him some whisky and soda."

"But what about your own dinner, sir?"

"I'll have a tray in the gun room," his master decided, "say in twenty minutes' time. And, Mills, who did you say were dining?"

"Two of the young officers from the Depot, sir—Mr. Harrison and Mr. Sinclair—and Mr. Hamar Lessingham."

"Lessingham, eh?" Sir Henry repeated, as he seated himself before his writing-table. "Mills," he added, in a confidential whisper, "what port did you serve?"

The butler's expression was one of conscious rectitude.

"Not the vintage, sir," he announced with emphasis. "Some very excellent wood port, which we procured for shooting luncheons. The young gentlemen like it."

"You're a jewel, Mills," his master declared. "Now you understand—an aperitif for me now, some whisky for Jimmy in your room, and not a word about my being here. Good night, Jimmy. Sorry we were too late for the mackerel, but we had some grand sport, all the same. You'll have a day or two's rest ashore now."

"Aye, aye, sir!" Dumble replied. "We got in just in time. There's something more than a squall coming up nor'ards."

Sir Henry listened for a moment. The French windows shook, the rain beat against the panes, and a dull booming of wind was clearly audible from outside.

"We timed that excellently," he agreed. "Come up and have a chat to-morrow, Jimmy, if your wife will spare you."

"I'll be round before eleven, sir," the fisherman promised, with a grin.

Sir Henry waited for the closing of the door. Then he leaned forward for several moments. He had scarcely the appearance of a man returned from a week or two of open-air life and indulgence in the sport he loved best. The healthy tan of his complexion was lessened rather than increased. There were black lines under his eyes which seemed to speak of sleepless nights, and a beard of several days' growth was upon his chin. He drank the cocktail which Mills presently brought him, at a gulp, and watched with satisfaction while the mixer was vigorously shaken and a second one poured out.

"We've had a rough time, Mills," he observed, as he set down the glass. "Until this morning it scarcely left off blowing."

"I'm sorry to hear it, sir," was the respectful reply. "If I may be allowed to say so, sir, you're looking tired."

"I am tired," Sir Henry admitted. "I think, if I tried, I could go to sleep now for twenty-four hours."

"You will pardon my reminding you, so far as regards your letters, that there is no post out tonight, sir," Mills proceeded. "I have prepared a warm bath and laid out your clothes for a change."

"Capital!" Sir Henry exclaimed. "It isn't a letter that's bothering me, though, Mills. There are just a few geographical notes I want to make. You know, I'm trying to improve the fishermen's chart of the coast round here. That fellow Groocock—Jimmy Dumble's uncle—very nearly lost his motor boat last week through trusting to the old one."

"Just so, sir," Mills replied deferentially, placing the empty glass upon his tray. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I must get back to the dining room."

"Quite right," his master assented. "They won't be out just yet, will they?"

"Her ladyship will probably be rising in about ten minutes, sir—not before that."

Sir Henry nodded a little impatiently. Directly the door was closed he rose to his feet, stood for a moment listening by the side of his fishing cabinet, then opened the glass front and touched the spring. With the aid of a little electric torch which he took from his pocket, he studied particularly a certain portion of the giant chart, made some measurements with a pencil, some notes in the margin, and closed it up again with an air of satisfaction. Then he resumed his seat, drew a folded slip of paper from his breast pocket, a chart from another, turned up the lamp and began to write. His face, as he stooped low, escaped the soft shade and was for a moment almost ghastly. Every now and then he turned and made some calculations on the blotting-paper by his side. At last he leaned back with a little sigh of relief. He had barely done so before the door behind him was opened.

"Are we going to stay in here, Mummy, or are we going into the drawing-room?" Nora asked.

"In here, I think," he heard Philippa reply.

Then they both came in, followed by Helen. Nora was the first to see him and rushed forward with a little cry of surprise.

"Why, here's Dad!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around his neck. "Daddy, how dare you be sitting here all by yourself whilst we are having dinner! When did you get back? What a fish!"

Sir Henry closed down his desk, embraced his daughter, and came forward to meet his wife.

"Fine fellow, isn't he, Nora!" he agreed. "Well, Philippa, how are you? Pleased to see me, I hope? Another new frock, I believe, and in war time!"

"Fancy your remembering that it was war time!" she answered, standing very still while he leaned over and kissed her.

"Nasty one for me," Sir Henry observed good-humouredly. "How well you're looking, Helen! Any news of Dick yet?"

Helen attempted an expression of extreme gravity with more or less success.

"Nothing fresh," she answered.

"Well, well, no news may be good news," Sir Henry remarked consolingly. "Jove, it's good to feel a roof over one's head again! This morning has been the only patch of decent weather we've had."

"This morning was lovely," Helen assented. "Philippa and I went and sat up in the woods."

Philippa, who was standing by the fire, turned and looked at her husband critically.

"We have some men dining," she said. "They will be out in a few minutes. Don't you think you had better go and make yourself presentable? You smell of fish, and you look as though you hadn't shaved for a week."

"Guilty, my dear," Sir Henry admitted. "Mills is just getting me something to eat in the gun room, and then I am going to have a bath and change my clothes."

"And shave, Dad," Nora reminded him.

"And shave, you young pest," her father agreed, patting her on the shoulder. "Run away and play billiards with Helen. I want to talk to your mother until my dinner's ready."

Nora acquiesced promptly.

"Come along, Helen, I'll give you twenty-five up. Or perhaps you'd like to play shell out?" she proposed. "Arthur Sinclair says I have improved in my potting more than any one he ever knew."

Sir Henry opened the door and closed it after them. Then he returned and seated himself on the lounge by Philippa's side. She glanced up at him as though in surprise, and, stretching out her hand towards her work-basket, took up some knitting.

"I really think I should change at once, if I were you," she suggested.

"Presently. I had a sort of foolish idea that I'd like to have a word or two with you first. I've been away for nearly a fortnight, haven't I?"

"You have," Philippa assented. "Perhaps that is the reason why I feel that I haven't very much to say to you."

"That sounds just a trifle hard," he said slowly.

"I am hard sometimes," Philippa confessed. "You know that quite well. There are times when I just feel as though I had no heart at all, nor any sympathy; when every sensation I might have had seems shrivelled up inside me."

"Is that how you are feeling at the present time towards me, Philippa?" he asked.

Her needles flashed through the wool for a moment in silence.

"You had every warning," she told him. "I tried to make you understand exactly how your behaviour disgusted me before you went away."

"Yes, I remember," he admitted. "I'm afraid, dear, you think I am a worthless sort of a fellow."

Philippa had apparently dropped a stitch. She bent lower still over her knitting. There was a distinct frown upon her forehead, her mouth was unrecognisable.

"Your friend Lessingham is here still, I understand?" her husband remarked presently.

"Yes," Philippa assented, "he is dining to-night. You will probably see him in a few minutes."

Sir Henry looked thoughtful, and studied for a moment the toe of a remarkably unprepossessing looking shoe.

"You're so keen about that sort of thing," he said, "what about Lessingham? He is not soldiering or anything, is he?"

"I have no idea," Philippa replied. "He walks with a slight limp and admits that he is here as a convalescent, but he hasn't told us very much about himself."

"I wonder you haven't tackled him," Sir Henry continued. "You're such an ardent recruiter, you ought to make sure that he is doing his bit of butchery."

Philippa looked up at her husband for a moment and back at her work.

"Mr. Lessingham," she said, "is a very delightful friend, whose stay here every one is enjoying very much, but he is a comparative stranger. I feel no responsibility as to his actions."

"And you do as to mine?"

"Naturally."

Sir Henry's head was resting on his hand, his elbow on the back of the lounge. He seemed to be listening to the voices in the dining room beyond.

"Hm!" he observed. "Has he been here often while I've been away?"

"As often as he chose," Philippa replied. "He has become very popular in the neighbourhood already, and he is an exceedingly welcome guest here at any time."

"Takes advantage of your hospitality pretty often, doesn't he?"

"He is here most days. We are always rather disappointed when he doesn't come."

Sir Henry's frown grew a little deeper.

"What's the attraction?" he demanded.

Philippa smiled. It was the smile which those who knew her best, feared.

"Well," she confided, "I used to imagine that it was Helen, but I think that he has become a little bored, talking about nothing but Dick and their college days. I am rather inclined to fancy that it must be me."

"You, indeed!" he grunted. "Are you aware that you are a married woman?"

Philippa glanced up from her work. Her eyebrows were raised, and her expression was one of mild surprise.

"How queer that you should remind me of it!" she murmured. "I am afraid that the sea air disturbs your memory."

Sir Henry rose abruptly to his feet.

"Oh, damn!" he exclaimed.

He walked to the door. His guests were still lingering over their wine. He could hear their voices more distinctly than ever. Then he came back to the sofa and stood by Philippa's side.

"Philippa, old girl," he pleaded, "don't let us quarrel. I have had such a hard fortnight, a nor'easter blowing all the time, and the dirtiest seas I've ever known at this time of the year. For five days I hadn't a dry stitch on me, and it was touch and go more than once. We were all in the water together, and there was a nasty green wave that looked like a mountain overhead, and the side of our own boat bending over us as though it meant to squeeze our ribs in. It looked like ten to one against us, Phil, and I got a worse chill than the sea ever gave me when I thought that I shouldn't see you again."

Philippa laid down her knitting. She looked searchingly into her husband's face. She was very far from indifferent to his altered tone.

"Henry," she said, "that sounds very terrible, but why do you run such risks—unworthily? Do you think that I couldn't give you all that you want, all that I have to give, if you came home to me with a story like this and I knew that you had been facing death righteously and honourably for your country's sake? Why, Henry, there isn't a man in the world could have such a welcome as I could give you. Do you think I am cold? Of course you don't! Do you think I want to feel as I have done this last fortnight towards you? Why, it's misery! It makes me feel inclined to commit any folly, any madness, to get rid of it all."

Her husband hesitated. A frown had darkened his face. He had the air of one who is on the eve of a confession.

"Philippa," he began, "you know that when I go out on these fishing expeditions, I also put in some work at the new chart which I am so anxious to prepare for the fishermen."

Philippa shook her head impatiently.

"Don't talk to me about your fishermen, Henry! I'm as sick with them as I am with you. You can see twenty or thirty of them any morning, lounging about the quay, strapping young fellows who shelter themselves behind the plea of privileged employment. We are notorious down here for our skulkers, and you—you who should be the one man to set them an example, are as bad as they are. You deliberately encourage them."

Sir Henry abandoned his position by his wife's side, His face darkened and his eyes flashed.

"Skulkers?" he repeated furiously.

Philippa looked at him without flinching.

"Yes! Don't you like the word?"

The angry flush faded from his cheeks as quickly as it had come. He laughed a little unnaturally, took up a cigarette from an open box, and lit it.

"It isn't a pleasant one, is it, Philippa?" he observed, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets strolling away. "If one doesn't feel the call—well, there you are, you see. Jove, that's a fine fish."

He stood admiring the codling upon the scales. Philippa continued her work.

"If you intend to spend the rest of the evening with us," she told him calmly, "please let me remind you again that we have guests for dinner. Your present attire may be comfortable but it is scarcely becoming."

He turned away and came back towards her. As he passed the lamp, she started.

"Why, you're wet," she exclaimed, "wet through!"

"Of course I am," he admitted, feeling his sleeve, "but to tell you the truth, in the interest of our conversation I had quite forgotten it. Here come our guests, before I have had time to escape. I can hear your friend Lessingham's voice."



CHAPTER XII

The three dinner guests entered together, Lessingham in the middle. Sir Henry's presence was obviously a surprise to all of them.

"No idea that you were back, sir," Harrison observed, shaking hands.

Sir Henry greeted them all good-humouredly. "I turned up about three quarters of an hour ago," he explained, "just too late to join you at dinner."

"Bad luck, sir," Sinclair remarked. "I hope that you had good sport?"

"Not so bad," Sir Henry admitted. "We had to go far enough for it, though. What do you think of that for an October codling?"

They all approached the scales and admired the fish. Sir Henry stood with his hands in his pockets, listening to their comments.

"You are enjoying your stay here, I hope, Mr. Lessingham?" he enquired.

"One could scarcely fail to enjoy even the briefest holiday in so delightfully hospitable a place," was the somewhat measured reply.

"You're by way of being a fisherman yourself, I hear?" Sir Henry continued.

"In a very small way," Lessingham acknowledged. "I have been out once or twice."

"With Ben Oates, eh?"

"I believe that was the man's name."

Philippa glanced up from her work with a little exclamation of surprise.

"I had no idea of that, Mr. Lessingham. Whatever made you choose Ben Oates? He is a most disgraceful person."

"It was entirely by accident," Lessingham explained. "I met him on the front. It happened to be a fine morning, and he was rather pressing in his invitation."

"I'm afraid he didn't show you much sport," Sir Henry observed. "From what Jimmy Dumble's brother told him, he seems to have taken you in entirely the wrong direction, and on the wrong tide."

"We had a small catch," Lessingham replied. "I really went more for the sail than the sport, so I was not disappointed."

"The coast itself," Sir Henry remarked, "is rather an interesting one."

"I should imagine so," Lessingham assented. "Mr. Ben Oates, indeed, told me some wonderful stories about it. He spoke of broad channels down which a dreadnought could approach within a hundred yards of the land."

"He is quite right, too," his host agreed.

"There's a lot of deep water about here. The whole of the coast is very curious in that way. What the—what the dickens is this?"

Sir Henry, who had been strolling about the room, picked up a Homburg hat from the far side of a table of curios. Philippa glanced up at his exclamation.

"That's Nora's trophy," she explained. "I told her to take it up to her own room, but she's always wanting to show it to her friends."

"Nora's trophy?" Sir Henry repeated. "Why, it's nothing but an ordinary man's hat."

"Nevertheless, it's a very travelled one, sir," Harrison pointed out. "Miss Nora picked it up on Dutchman's Common, the morning after the observation car was found there."

Sir Henry held out the hat.

"But Nora doesn't seriously suppose that the Germans come over in this sort of headgear, does she?" he demanded.

"If you'll just look inside the lining, sir," Sinclair suggested.

Sir Henry turned it up and whistled softly. "By Jove, it's a German hat, all right!" he exclaimed. "Doesn't look a bad shape, either."

He tried it on. There was a little peal of laughter from the men. Philippa had ceased her knitting and was watching from the couch. Sir Henry looked at himself in the looking-glass.

"Well, that's funny," he observed. "I shouldn't have thought it would have been so much too small for me. Here, just try how you'd look in it, Mr. Lessingham," he added, handing it across to him.

Lessingham accepted the situation quite coolly, and placed the hat carefully on his head.

"It doesn't feel particularly comfortable," he remarked.

"That may be," Sir Henry suggested, "because you have it on wrong side foremost. If you'd just turn it round, I believe you would find it a very good fit."

Lessingham at once obeyed. Sir Henry regarded him with admiration.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "Look at that, Philippa. Might have been made for him, eh?"

Lessingham looked at himself in the glass and removed the hat from his head with, some casual observation. He was entirely at his ease. His host turned towards the door, which Mills was holding open.

"Captain Griffiths, sir," the latter announced.

Sir Henry greeted his visitor briefly.

"How are you, Griffiths?" he said. "Glad to see you. Excuse my costume, but I am just back from a fishing expedition. We are all admiring Mr. Lessingham in his magic hat."

Captain Griffiths shook hands with Philippa, nodded to the others, and turned towards Lessingham.

"Put it on again, there's a good fellow, Lessingham," Sir Henry begged. "You see, we have found a modern version of Cinderella's slipper. The hat which fell from the Zeppelin on to Dutchman's Common fits our friend like a glove. I never thought the Germans made such good hats, did you, Griffiths?"

"I always thought they imported their felt hats," Captain Griffiths acknowledged. "Is that really the one with the German name inside, which Miss Nora brought home?"

"This is the genuine article," Lessingham assented, taking it from his head and passing it on to the newcomer. "Notwithstanding the name inside, I should still believe that it was an English hat. It feels too comfortable for anything else."

The Commandant took the hat to a lamp and examined it carefully. He drew out the lining and looked all the way round. Suddenly he gave vent to a little exclamation.

"Here are the owner's initials," he declared, "rather faint but still distinguishable,—B. M. Hm! There's no doubt about its being a German hat."

"B. M.," Sir Henry muttered, looking over his shoulder. "How very interesting! B. M.," he repeated, turning to Philippa, who had recommenced her knitting. "Is it my fancy, or is there something a little familiar about that?"

"I am sure that I have no idea," Philippa replied. "It conveys nothing to me."

There was a brief but apparently pointless silence. Philippa's needles flashed through her wool with easy regularity. Lessingham appeared to be sharing the mild curiosity which the others showed concerning the hat. Sir Henry was standing with knitted brows, in the obvious attitude of a man seeking to remember something.

"B. M.," he murmured softly to himself. "There was some one I've known or heard of in England—What's that, Mills?"

"Your dinner is served, sir," Mills, who had made a silent entrance, announced.

Sir Henry apparently thought no more of the hat or its possible owner. He threw it upon a neighbouring table, and his face expressed a new interest in life.

"Jove, I'm ravenous!" he confessed. "You'll excuse me, won't you? Mills, see that these gentlemen have cigars and cigarettes—in the billiard room, I should think. You'll find the young people there. I'll come in and have a game of pills later."

The two young soldiers, with Captain Griffiths, followed Sir Henry at once from the room. Lessingham, however, lingered. He stood with his hands behind him, looking at the closed door.

"Are you going to stay and talk nonsense with me, Mr. Lessingham?" Philippa asked.

"If I may," he answered, without changing his position.

Philippa looked at him curiously.

"Do you see ghosts through that door?"

He shook his head.

"Do you know," he said, as he seated himself by her side, "there are times when I find your husband quite interesting."



CHAPTER XIII

Philippa leaned back in her place.

"Exactly what do you mean by that, Mr. Lessingham?" she demanded.

He shook himself free from a curious sense of unreality, and turned towards her.

"I must confess," he said, "that sometimes your husband puzzles me."

"Not nearly so much as he puzzles me," Philippa retorted, a little bitterly.

"Has he always been so desperately interested in deep-sea fishing?"

Philippa shrugged her shoulders.

"More or less, but never quite to this extent. The thing has become an obsession with him lately. If you are really going to stay and talk with me, do you mind if we don't discuss my husband? Just now the subject is rather a painful one with me."

"I can quite understand that," Lessingham murmured sympathetically.

"What do you think of Captain Griffiths?" she asked, a little abruptly.

"I have thought nothing more about him. Should I? Is he of any real importance?"

"He is military commandant here."

Lessingham nodded thoughtfully.

"I suppose that means that he is the man who ought to be on my track," he observed.

"I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that he was," Philippa said drily. "I have told you that he came and asked about you the other night, when he dined here. He seemed perfectly satisfied then, but he is here again to-night to see Henry, and he never visits anywhere in an ordinary way."

"Are you uneasy about me?" Lessingham enquired.

"I am not sure," she answered frankly. "Sometimes I am almost terrified and would give anything to hear that you were on your way home. And at other times I realise that you are really very clever, that nothing is likely to happen to you, and that the place will seem duller than ever when you do go."

"That is very kind of you," he said. "In any case, I fear that my holiday will soon be coming to an end."

"Your holiday?" she repeated. "Is that what you call it?"

"It has been little else," he replied indifferently. "There is nothing to be learnt here of the slightest military significance."

"We told you that when you arrived," Philippa reminded him.

"I was perhaps foolish not to believe you," he acknowledged.

"So your very exciting journey through the clouds has ended in failure, after all!" she went on, a moment or two later.

"Failure? No, I should not call it failure."

"You have really made some discoveries, then?" she enquired dubiously.

"I have made the greatest discovery in the world."

Her eyebrows were gently raised, the corners of her mouth quivered, her eyes fell.

"Dear me! In this quiet spot?" she sighed.

"Yes!"

"Is it Helen or me?"

"Philippa!" he protested.

Her eyebrows were more raised than ever. Her mouth had lost its alluring curve.

"Really, Mr. Lessingham!" she exclaimed. "Have I ever given you the right to call me by my Christian name?"

"In my country," he answered, "we do not wait to ask. We take."

"Rank Prussianism," she murmured. "I really think you had better go back there. You are adopting their methods."

"I may have to at any moment," he admitted, "or to some more distant country still. I want something to take back with me."

"You want a keepsake, of course," Philippa declared, looking around the room. "You can have my photograph—the one over there. Helen will give you one of hers, too, I am sure, if you ask her. She is just as grateful to you about Richard as I am."

"But from you," he said earnestly, "I want more than gratitude."

"Dear me, how persistent you are!" Philippa murmured. "Are you really determined to make love to me?"

"Ah, don't mock me!" he begged. "What I am saying to you comes from my heart."

Philippa laughed at him quietly. There was just a little break in her voice, however.

"Don't be absurd!"

"There is nothing absurd about it," he replied, with a note of sadness in his tone. "I felt it from the moment we met. I struggled against it, but I have felt it growing day by day. I came here with my mind filled with different purposes. I had no thought of amusing myself, no thought of seeking here the happiness which up till now I seem to have missed. I came as a servant because I was sent, a mechanical being. You have changed everything. For you I feel what I have never felt for any woman before. I place before you my career, my freedom, my honour."

Philippa sighed very softly.

"Do you mind ringing the bell?" she begged.

"The bell?" he repeated. "What for?"

"I want Helen to hear you," she confided, with a wonderful little smile.

"Philippa, don't mock me," he pleaded. "If this is only amusement to you, tell me so and let me go away. It is the first time in my life that a woman has come between me and my work. I am no longer master of myself. I am obsessed with you. I want nothing else in life but your love."

There was an almost startling change in Philippa's face. The banter which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an atmosphere around him, an atmosphere of sincerity.

"Are you in earnest?" she faltered.

"God knows I am!" he insisted.

"You—you care for me?"

"So much," he answered passionately, "that for your sake I would sacrifice my honour, my country, my life."

"But I've only known you for such a short time," Philippa protested, "and you're an enemy."

"I discard my birth. I renounce my adopted country," he declared fiercely. "You have swept my life clear of every scrap of ambition and patriotism. You have filled it with one thing only—a great, consuming love."

"Have you forgotten my husband?"

"Do you think that if he had been a different sort of man I should have dared to speak? Ask yourself how you can continue to live with him? You can call him which you will. Both are equally disgraceful. Your heart knows the truth. He is either a coward or a philanderer."

Philippa's cheeks were suddenly white. Her eyes flashed. His words had stung her to the quick.

"A coward?" she repeated furiously. "You dare to call Henry that?"

Lessingham rose abruptly to his feet. He moved restlessly about the room. His fists were clenched, his tone thick with passion.

"I do!" he pronounced. "Philippa, look at this matter without prejudice. Do you believe that there is a single man of any country, of your husband's age and rank, who would be content to trawl the seas for fish whilst his country's blood is being drained dry? Who would weigh a codling," he added, pointing scornfully to the scales, "whilst the funeral march of heroes is beating throughout the world? The thing is insensate, impossible!"

Philippa's head drooped. Her hands were nervously intertwined.

"Don't!" she pleaded, "I have suffered so much."

"Forgive me," he begged, with a sudden change of voice. "If I am mistaken in your husband—and there is always the chance—I am sorry. I will confess that I myself had a different opinion of him, but I can only judge from what I have seen and from that there is no one in the world who would not agree with me that your husband is unworthy of you."

"Oh, please stop!" Philippa cried. "Stop at once!"

Lessingham came back to his place by her side. His voice was still shaking, but it had grown very soft.

"Philippa, forgive me," he repeated. "If you only knew how it hurts to see you like this! Yet I must speak. There is just once in every man's lifetime when he must tell the truth. That time has come with me—I love you."

"So does my husband," she murmured.

"I will only remind you, then, that he shows it in strange fashion," Lessingham continued. "He sets your wishes at defiance. He who should be an example in a small place like this, is only an object of contempt in the neighbourhood. Even I, who have only lived here for so short a time, have caught the burden of what people say."

Philippa wiped her eyes.

"Please, do you mind," she begged, "not saying anything more about Henry. You are only reminding me of things which I try all the time to forget."

"Believe me," Lessingham answered wistfully, "I am only too content to ignore him, to forget that he exists, to remember only that you are the woman who has changed my life."

Philippa looked at him in something like dismay, rather like a child who has started an engine which she has no idea how to stop.

"But you must not—you must not talk to me like this!"

His hand closed upon hers. It lay in his grasp, unyielding, cold, yet passive.

"Why not?" he whispered. "I have the one unalterable right, and I am willing to pay the great price."

"Right?" she faltered.

"The right of loving you—the right of loving you better than any woman in the world."

There was a queer silence, only partly due, as she was instantly aware, to the emotion of the moment. A door behind them had opened. Philippa's quicker senses had recognised her husband's footsteps. Lessingham rose deliberately to his feet. In his heart he welcomed the interruption. This might, perhaps, be the decisive moment. Sir Henry was strolling towards them. His manner and his tone, however, were alike good-natured.

"I was to order you into the billiard room, Mr. Lessingham," he announced. "Sinclair has been sent for—a night route march, or some such horror—and they want you to make a four."

Lessingham hesitated. He had a passionate inclination to face the situation, to tell this man the truth. Sir Henry's courteous indifference, however, was like a harrier. He recognised the inevitable.

"I am afraid I am rather out of practice," he said, "but I shall be delighted to do my best."



CHAPTER XIV

Sir Henry was obviously not in the best of tempers. For a mild-mannered and easy-going man, his expression was scarcely normal.

"That fellow was making love to you," he said bluntly, as soon as the door was closed behind Lessingham.

Philippa looked up at her husband with an air of pleasant candour.

"He was doing it very nicely, too," she admitted.

"You mean to say that you let him?"

"I listened to what he had to say," she confessed. "It didn't occur to you, I suppose," her husband remarked, with somewhat strained sarcasm, "that you were another man's wife?"

"I am doing my best to forget that fact," Philippa reminded him.

"I see! And he is to help you?"

"Possibly."

Sir Henry's irritation was fast merging into anger.

"I shall turn the fellow out of the house," he declared.

Philippa shrugged her shoulders.

"Why don't you?"

He seated himself on the couch by his wife's side. "Look here, Philippa, don't let's wrangle," he begged. "I'm afraid you'll have to make up your mind to see a good deal less of your friend Lessingham, anyway."

Philippa's brows were knitted. She was conscious of a vague uneasiness.

"Really? And why?"

"For one thing," her husband explained, "because I don't intend to have him hanging about my house during my absence."

"The best way to prevent that would be not to go away," Philippa suggested.

"Well, in all probability," he announced guardedly, "I am not going away again—at least not just yet."

Philippa's manner suddenly changed. She laid down her work. Her hand rested lightly upon her husband's shoulder.

"You mean that you are going to give up those horrible fishing excursions of yours?"

"For the present I am," he assured her.

"And are you going to do something—some work, I mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"For the immediate present I am going to stay at home and look after you," he replied.

Philippa's face fell. Her manner became notably colder.

"You are very wise," she declared. "Mr. Lessingham is a most fascinating person. We are all half in love with him—even Helen."

"The fellow must have a way with him," Sir Henry conceded grudgingly. "As a rule the people here are not over-keen on strangers, unless they have immediate connections in the neighbourhood. Even Griffiths, who since they made him Commandant, is a man of many suspicions, seems inclined to accept him."

"Captain Griffiths dined here the other night," Philippa remarked, "and I noticed that he and Mr. Lessingham seemed to get on very well."

"The fellow's all right in his way, no doubt," Sir Henry began.

"Of course he is," Philippa interrupted. "Helen likes him quite as much as I do."

"Does he make love to Helen, too?" Sir Henry ventured.

"Don't talk nonsense!" Philippa retorted. "He isn't that sort of a man at all. If he has made love to me, he has done so because I have encouraged him, and if I have encouraged him, it is your fault."

Sir Henry, with an impatient exclamation, rose from his place and took a cigarette from an open box.

"Quite time I stayed at home, I can see. All the same, the fellow's rather a puzzle. I can't help wondering how he succeeded in making such an easy conquest of a lady who has scarcely been notorious for her flirtations, and a young woman who is madly in love with another man. He hasn't—"

"Hasn't what?"

"He hasn't," Sir Henry continued, blowing out the match which he had been holding to his cigarette and throwing it away, "been in the position of being able to render you or Helen any service, has he?"

"I don't understand you," Philippa replied, a little uneasily.

"There's nothing to understand," Sir Henry went on. "I was simply trying to find some explanation for his veni, vidi, vici."

"I don't think you need go any further than the fact," Philippa observed, "that he is well-bred, charming and companionable."

"Incidentally," Sir Henry queried, "do you happen to have come across any one here who ever heard of him before?"

"I don't remember any one," Philippa replied. "He was at college with Richard, you know."

Sir Henry nodded.

"Of course, that's a wonderful introduction to you and Helen," he admitted. "And by-the-by, that reminds me," he went on, "I never saw such a change in two women in my life, as in you and Helen. A few weeks ago you were fretting yourselves to death about Dick. Now you don't seem to mention him, you both of you look as though you hadn't a care in the world, and yet you say you haven't heard from him. Upon my word, this is getting to be a house of mysteries!"

"The only mystery in it that I can see, is you, Henry," she declared.

"Me?" he protested. "I'm one of the simplest-minded fellows alive. What is there mysterious about me?"

"Your ignominious life," was the cold reply.

"Jove, I got it that time!" he groaned,—"got it in the neck! But didn't I tell you just now that I was turning over a new leaf?"

"Then prove it," Philippa pleaded. "Let me write to Rayton and beg him to use his influence to get you something to do. I am sure you would be happier, and I can't tell you what a difference it would make to me."

"It's that indoor work I couldn't stick, old thing," he confided. "You know, they're saying all the time it's a young man's war. They'd make me take some one's place at home behind a desk."

"But even if they did," she protested, "even if they put you in a coal cellar, wouldn't you be happier to feel that you were helping your country? Wouldn't you be glad to know that I was happier?"

Sir Henry made a wry face.

"It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear," he grumbled. "However—now what the dickens is the matter?"

The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but Jimmy Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the room.

"Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?" his patron demanded.

"Beg your pardon, sir," was the almost incoherent reply. "I've run all the way up, and there's a rare wind blowing. There's one of our—our trawlers lying off the Point, and she's sent up three green and six yellow balls."

"Whiting, by God!" Sir Henry exclaimed.

"Whiting!" Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. "What does this mean, Henry?"

"It must be a shoal," her husband explained. "It means that we've got to get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?"

"She there all right, sir," was the somewhat doubtful reply, "but us'll have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor'easter is blowing great guns again and it's a cruel tide."

"We've got to get out somehow," Sir Henry declared. "Mills, my oilskins and flask at once. I sha'n't change a thing, but you might bring a cardigan jacket and the whisky and soda."

Mills withdrew, a little dazed. Philippa, whose fingers were clenched together, found her tongue at last.

"Henry!" she exclaimed furiously.

"What is it, my dear?"

"Do you mean to tell me that after your promise," she continued, "after what you have just said, you are starting out to-night for another fishing expedition?"

"Whiting, my dear," Sir Henry explained. "One can't possibly miss whiting. Where the devil are my keys?—Here they are. Now then."

He sat down before his desk, took some papers from the top drawer, rummaged about for a moment or two in another, and found what seemed to be a couple of charts in oilskin cases. All the time the wind was shaking the windows, and a storm of rain was beating against the panes.

"Help yourself to whisky and soda, Jimmy," Sir Henry invited, as he buttoned up his coat. "You'll need it all presently."

"I thank you kindly, sir," Jimmy replied. "I am thinking that we'll both need a drink before we're through this night."

He helped himself to a whisky and soda on the generous principle of half and half. Philippa, who was watching her husband's preparations indignantly, once more found words.

"Henry, you are incorrigible!" she exclaimed. "Listen to me if you please. I insist upon it."

Sir Henry turned a little impatiently towards her. "Philippa, I really can't stop now," he protested. "But you must! You shall!" she cried. "You shall hear this much from me, at any rate, before you go. What I said the other day I repeat a thousandfold now."

Sir Henry glanced at Dumble and motioned his head towards the door. The fisherman made an awkward exit.

"A thousandfold," Philippa repeated passionately. "You hear, Henry? I do not consider myself any more your wife. If I am here when you return, it will be simply because I find it convenient. Your conduct is disgraceful and unmanly."

"My dear girl!" he remonstrated. "I may be back in twenty-four—possibly twelve hours."

"It is a matter of indifference to me when you return," was the curt reply. "I have finished."

The door was thrown open.

"Your oilskins, sir, and flask," Mills announced, hurrying in, a little breathless. "You'll forgive my mentioning it, sir, but it scarcely seems a fit night to leave home."

"Got to be done this once, Mills," his master replied, struggling into his coat.

The young people from the billiard room suddenly streamed in. Nora, who was still carrying her cue, gazed at her father in amazement.

"Why, where's Dad going?" she cried.

"It appears," Philippa explained sarcastically, "that a shoal of whiting has arrived."

"Very uncertain fish, whiting," Sir Henry observed, "here to-day and gone to-morrow."

"You won't find it too easy getting off to-night, sir," Harrison remarked doubtfully.

"Jimmy will see to that," was the confident reply. "I expect we shall be amongst them at daybreak. Good-by, everybody! Good-by, Philippa!"

His eyes sought his wife's in vain. She had turned towards Lessingham.

"You are not hurrying off, are you, Mr. Lessingham?" she asked. "I want you to show me that new Patience."

"I shall be delighted."

Sir Henry turned slowly away. For a moment his face darkened as his eyes met Lessingham's. He seemed about to speak but changed his mind.

"Well, good-by, every one," he called out. "I shall be back before midnight if we don't get out."

"And if you do?" Nora cried.

"If we do, Heaven help the whiting!"



CHAPTER XV

"Of course, we're behaving shockingly, all three of us!" Philippa declared, as she sipped her champagne and leaned back in her seat.

"You mean by coming to a place like this?" Lessingham queried, looking around the crowded restaurant. "We are not, in that case, the only sinners."

"I didn't mean the mere fact of being here," Philippa explained, "but being here with you."

"I forgot," he said gloomily, "that I was such a black sheep."

"Don't be silly," she admonished. "You're nothing of the sort. But, of course, we are skating on rather thin ice. If I had Henry to consider in any way, if he had any sort of a career, perhaps I should be more careful. As it is, I think I feel a little reckless lately. Dreymarsh has got upon my nerves. The things that I thought most of in life seem to have crumbled away."

"Ought I to be sorry?" he asked. "I am not."

"But why are you so unsympathetic?"

"Because I am waiting by your side to rebuild," he whispered.

A tall, bronzed young soldier with his arm in a sling, stopped before their table, and Helen, after a moment's protest and a glance at Philippa, moved away with him to the little space reserved for the dancers.

"What a chaperon I am!" Philippa sighed. "I scarcely know anything about the young man except his name and that he was in Dick's regiment."

"I did not hear it," Lessingham observed, "but I feel deeply grateful to him. It is so seldom that I have a chance to talk to you alone like this."

"It seems incredible that we have talked so long," Philippa said, glancing at the watch upon her wrist. "I really feel now that I know all about you—your school days, your college days, and your soldiering. You have been very frank, haven't you?"

"I have nothing to conceal—from you," he replied. "If there is anything more you want to know—"

"There is nothing," she interrupted uneasily.

"Perhaps you are wise," he reflected, "and yet some day, you know, you will have to hear it all, over and over again."

"I will not be made love to in a restaurant," she declared firmly.

"You are so particular as to localities," he complained. "You could not see your way clear, I suppose, to suggest what you would consider a suitable environment?"

Philippa looked at him for a moment very earnestly.

"Ah, don't let us play at things we neither of us feel!" she begged. "And there is some one there who wants to speak to you."

Lessingham looked up into the face of the man who had paused before their table, as one might look into the face of unexpected death. He remained perfectly still, but the slight colour seemed slowly to be drawn from his cheeks. Yet the newcomer himself seemed in no way terrifying. He was tall and largely built, clean-shaven, and with the humourous mouth of an Irishman or an American. Neither was there anything threatening in his speech.

"Glad to run up against you, Lessingham," he said, holding out his hand. "Gay crowd here tonight, isn't it?"

"Very," Lessingham answered, speaking very much like a man in a dream. "Lady Cranston, will you permit me to introduce my friend—Mr. Hayter."

Philippa was immediately gracious, and a few moments passed in trivial conversation. Then Mr. Hayter prepared to depart.

"I must be joining my friends," he observed. "Look in and see me sometime, Lessingham—Number 72, Milan Court. You know what a nightbird I am. Perhaps you will call and have a final drink with me when you have finished here."

"I shall be very glad," Lessingham promised.

Mr. Hayter passed on, a man, apparently, of many acquaintances, to judge by his interrupted progress. Lady Cranston looked at her companion. She was puzzled.

"Is that a recent acquaintance," she asked, "as he addressed you by the name of Lessingham?"

"Yes," was the quiet reply.

"You don't wish to talk about him?"

"No!"

Helen and her partner returned, a few moments later, and the little party presently broke up. Lessingham drove the two women to their hotel in Dover Street.

"We've had a most delightful evening," Philippa assured him, as they said good night. "You are coming round to see us in the morning, aren't you?"

"If I may," Lessingham assented.

Helen found her way into Philippa's room, later on that night. She had nerved herself for a very thankless task.

"May I sit down for a few moments?" she asked, a little nervously. "Your fire is so much better than mine."

Philippa glanced at her friend through the looking-glass before which she was brushing her hair, and made a little grimace. She felt a forewarning of what was coming.

"Of course, dear," she replied. "Have you enjoyed your evening?"

"Very much, in a way," was the somewhat hesitating reply. "Of course, nothing really counts until Dick comes back, but it is nice to talk with some one who knows him."

"Agreeable conversation," Philippa remarked didactically, "is one of the greatest pleasures in life."

"You find Mr. Lessingham very interesting, don't you?" Helen asked.

Philippa finished arranging her hair to her satisfaction and drew up an easy-chair opposite her visitor's.

"So you want to talk with me about Mr. Lessingham, do you?"

"I suppose you know that he's in love with you?" Helen began.

"I hope he is a little, my dear," was the smiling reply. "I'm sure I've tried my best."

"Won't you talk seriously?" Helen pleaded.

"I don't altogether see the necessity," Philippa protested.

"I do, and I'll tell you why," Helen answered. "I don't think Mr. Lessingham is at all the type of man to which you are accustomed. I think that he is in deadly earnest about you. I think that he was in deadly earnest from the first. You don't really care for him, do you, dear?"

"Very much, and yet not, perhaps, quite in the way you are thinking of," was the quiet reply.

"Then please send him away," Helen begged.

"My dear, how can I?" Philippa objected. "He has done us an immense service, and he can't disobey his orders."

"You don't want him to go away, then?"

Philippa was silent for several moments. "No," she admitted, "I don't think that I do."

"You don't care for Henry any more?"

"Just as much as ever," was the somewhat bitter reply. "That's what I resent so much. I should like Henry to believe that he had killed every spark of love in me."

Helen moved across and sat on the arm of her friend's chair. She felt that she was going to be very daring.

"Have you any idea at the hack of your mind, dear," she asked "of making use of Mr. Lessingham to punish Henry?"

Philippa moved a little uneasily.

"How hatefully downright you are!" she murmured. "I don't know."

"Because," Helen continued, "if you have any such idea in your mind, I think it is most unfair to Mr. Lessingham. You know perfectly well that anything else between you and him would be impossible."

"And why?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Helen exclaimed vigorously. "Mr. Lessingham may have all the most delightful qualities in the world, but he has attached himself to a country which no English man or woman will be able to think of without shuddering, for many years to come. You can't dream of cutting yourself adrift from your friends and your home and your country! It's too unnatural! I'm not even arguing with you, Philippa. You couldn't do it! I'm wholly concerned with Mr. Lessingham. I cannot forget what we owe him. I think it would be hatefully cruel of you to spoil his life."

Philippa's flashes of seriousness were only momentary. She made a little grimace. She was once more her natural, irresponsible self.

"You underrate my charm, Helen," she declared. "I really believe that I could make his life instead of spoiling it."

"And you would pay the price?"

Philippa, slim and elflike in the firelight, rose from her chair. There was a momentary cruelty in her face.

"I sometimes think," she said calmly, "that I would pay any price in the world to make Henry understand how I feel. There, now run along, dear. You're full of good intentions, and don't think it horrid of me, but nothing that you could say would make any difference."

"You wouldn't do anything rash?" Helen pleaded.

"Well, if I run away with Mr. Lessingham, I certainly can't promise that I'll send cards out first. Whatever I do, impulse will probably decide."

"Impulse!"

"Why not? I trust mine. Can't you?" Philippa added, with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"Sometimes," Helen sighed, "they are such wild horses, you know. They lead one to such terrible places."

"And sometimes," Philippa replied, "they find their way into the heaven where our soberer thoughts could never take us. Good night, dear!"



CHAPTER XVI

Mr. William Hayter, in the solitude of his chambers at the Milan Court, was a very altered personage. He extended no welcoming salutation to his midnight visitor but simply motioned him to a chair.

"Well," he began, "is your task finished that you are in London?"

"My task," Lessingham replied, "might just as well never have been entered upon. The man you sent me to watch is nothing but an ordinary sport-loving Englishman."

"Really! You have lived as his neighbour for nearly a month, and that is your impression of him?"

"It is," Lessingham assented. "He has been away sea-fishing, half the time, but I have searched his house thoroughly."

"Searched his papers, eh?"

"Every one I could find, and hated the job. There are a good many charts of the coast, but they are all for the use of the fishermen."

"Wonderful!" Hayter scoffed. "My young friend, you may yet find distinction in some other walk of life. Our secret service, I fancy, will very soon be able to dispense with your energies."

"And I with your secret service," Lessingham agreed heartily. "I dare say there may be some branches of it in which existence is tolerable. That, however, does not apply to the task upon which I have been engaged."

"You have been completely duped," Hayter told him calmly, "and the information you have sent us is valueless. Sir Henry Cranston, instead of being the type of man whom you have described, is one of the greatest experts upon coast defense and mine-laying, in the English Admiralty."

Lessingham laughed shortly.

"That," he declared, "is perfectly absurd."

"It is," Hayter repeated, with emphasis, "the precise truth. Sir Henry Cranton's fishing excursions are myths. He is simply transferred from his fishing boat on to one of a little fleet of so-called mine sweepers, from which he conducts his operations. Nearly every one of the most important towns on the east coast are protected by minefields of his design."

Lessingham was dumbfounded. His companion's manner was singularly convincing.

"But how could Sir Henry or any one else keep this a secret?" he protested. "Even his wife is scarcely on speaking terms with him because she believes him to be an idler, and the whole neighbourhood gossips over his slackness."

"The whole neighbourhood is easily fooled," Hayter retorted. "There are one or two who know, however."

"There are one or two," Lessingham observed grimly, "who are beginning to suspect me."

"That is a pity," Hayter admitted, "because it will be necessary for you to return to Dreymarsh at once."

"Return to Dreymarsh at once? But Cranston is away. There is nothing for me to do there in his absence."

"He will be back on Wednesday or Thursday night," was the confident reply. "He will bring with him the plan of his latest defenses of a town on the east coast, which our cruiser squadron purpose to bombard. We must have that chart."

Lessingham listened in mute distress.

"Could you possibly get me relieved?" he begged. "The fact is—"

"We could not, and we will not," Hayter interrupted fiercely. "Unless you wish me to denounce you at home as a renegade and a coward, you will go through with the work which has been allotted to you. Your earlier mistakes will be forgiven if that chart is in my hands by Friday."

"But how do you know that he will have it?" Lessingham protested. "Supposing you are right and he is really responsible for the minefields you speak of, I should think the last thing he would do would be to bring the chart back to Dreymarsh."

"As a matter of fact, that is precisely what he will do," Hayter assured his listener. "He is bringing it back for the inspection of one of the commissioners for the east coast defense, who is to meet him at his house. And I wish to warn you, too, Maderstrom, that you will have very little time. For some reason or other, Cranston is dissatisfied with the secrecy under which he has been compelled to work, and has applied to the Admiralty for recognition of his position. Immediately this is given, I gather that his house will be inaccessible to you."

Lessingham sat, his arms folded, his eyes fixed upon the fire. His thoughts were in a turmoil, yet one thing was hatefully clear. Cranston was not the unworthy slacker he had believed him to be. Philippa's whole point of view might well be changed by this discovery—especially now that Cranston had made up his mind to assert himself for his wife's sake. There was an icy fear in his heart.

"You understand," Hayter persisted coldly, "what it is you have to do?"

"Perfectly. I shall return by the afternoon train," was the despairing reply.

"If you succeed," Hayter continued, "I shall see that you get the usual acknowledgment, but I will, if you wish it, ask for your transfer to another branch of the service. I am not questioning your patriotism or your honour, Maderstrom, but you are not the man for this work."

"You are right," Lessingham said. "I am not."

"It is not my affair," Hayter proceeded, "to enquire too closely into the means used by our agents in carrying out our designs. That I find you in London in company with the wife of the man whom you are appointed to watch, may be a fact capable of the most complete and satisfactory explanation. I ask no questions. I only remind you that your country, even though it be only your adopted country, demands from you, as from all others in her service, unswerving loyalty, a loyalty uninfluenced by the claims of personal sentiment, duty, or honour. Have I said enough?"

"You have said as much as it is wise for you to say," Lessingham replied, his voice trembling with suppressed passion.

"That is all, then," the other concluded. "You know where to send or bring the chart when you have it? If you bring it yourself, it is possible that something which you may regard as a reward, will be offered to you."

Lessingham rose a little wearily to his feet. His farewell to Hayter was cold and lifeless.

He left the hotel and started on his homeward way, struggling with a sense of intolerable depression. The streets through which he passed were sombre and unlit.

A Zeppelin warning, a few hours before, had driven the people to their homes. There was not a chink of light to be seen anywhere. An intense and gloomy stillness seemed to brood over the deserted thoroughfares. Nightbirds on their way home flitted by like shadows. Policemen lurked in the shadows of the houses. The few vehicles left crawled about with insufficient lights. Even the warning horns of the taxicab men sounded furtive and repressed. Lessingham, as he marched stolidly along, felt curiously in sympathy with his environment. Hayter's news brought him face to face with that inner problem which had so suddenly become the dominant factor in his life. For the first time he knew what love was. He felt the wonder of it, the far-reaching possibilities, the strange idealism called so unexpectedly into being. He recognized the vagaries of Philippa's disposition, and yet, during the last few days, he had convinced himself that she was beginning to care. Her strained relations with her husband had been, without a doubt, her first incentive towards the acceptance of his proffered devotion. Now he told himself with eager hopefulness that some portion of it, however minute, must be for his own sake. The relations between husband and wife, he reminded himself, must, at any rate, have been strained during the last few months, or Cranston would never have been able to keep his secret. In his gloomy passage through this land of ill omens, however, he shivered a little as he thought of the other possibility—tortured himself with imagining what might happen during her revulsion of feeling, if Philippa discovered the truth. A sense of something greater than he had yet known in life seemed to lift him into some lofty state of aloofness, from which he could look down and despise himself, the poor, tired plodder wearing the heavy chains of duty. There was a life so much more wonderful, just the other side of the clouds, a very short distance away, a life of alluring and passionate happiness. Should he ever find the courage, he wondered, to escape from the treadmill and go in search of it? Duty, for the last two years, had taken him by the hand and led him along a pathway of shame. He had never been a hypocrite about the war. He was one of those who had acknowledged from the first that Germany had set forth, with the sword in her hand, on a war of conquest. His own inherited martial spirit had vaguely approved; he, too, in those earlier days, had felt the sunlight upon his rapier. Later had come the enlightenment, the turbulent waves of doubt, the nightmare of a nation's awakening conscience, mirrored in his own soul. It was in a depression shared, perhaps, in a lesser degree by millions of those whose ranks he had joined, that he felt this passionate craving for escape into a world which took count of other things.



CHAPTER XVII

Punctually at 12 o'clock the next morning, Lessingham presented himself at the hotel in Dover Street and was invited by the hall porter to take a seat in the lounge. Philippa entered, a few minutes later, her eyes and cheeks brilliant with the brisk exercise she had been taking, her slim figure most becomingly arrayed in grey cloth and chinchilla.

"I lost Helen in Harrod's," she announced, "but I know she's lunching with friends, so it really doesn't matter. You'll have to take care of me, Mr. Lessingham, until the train goes, if you will."

"For even longer than that, if you will," he murmured.

She laughed. "More pretty speeches? I don't think I'm equal to them before luncheon."

"This time I am literal," he explained. "I am coming back to Dreymarsh myself."

He felt his heart beat quicker, a sudden joy possessed him. Philippa's expression was obviously one of satisfaction.

"I'm so glad," she assured him. "Do you know, I was thinking only as I came back in the taxicab, how I should miss you."

She was standing with her foot upon the broad fender, and her first little impulse of pleasure seemed to pass as she looked into the fire. She turned towards him gravely.

"After all, do you think you are wise?" she asked. "Of course, I don't think that any one at Dreymarsh has the least suspicion, but you know Captain Griffiths did ask questions, and—well, you're safely away now. You have been so wonderful about Dick, so wonderful altogether," she went on, "that I couldn't bear it if trouble were to come."

He smiled at her.

"I think I know what is at the back of your mind," he said. "You think that I am coming back entirely on your account. As it happens, this is not so."

She looked at him with wide-open eyes.

"Surely," she exclaimed, "you have satisfied yourself that there is no field for your ingenuity in Dreymarsh?"

"I thought that I had," he admitted. "It seems that I am wrong. I have had orders to return."

"Orders to return?" she repeated. "From whom?"

He shook his head.

"Of course, I ought not to have asked that," she proceeded hastily, "but it does seem odd to realise that you can receive instructions and messages from Germany, here in London."

"Very much the same sort of thing goes on in Germany," he reminded her.

"So they say," she admitted, "but one doesn't come into contact with it. So you are really coming back to Dreymarsh!"

"With you, if I may?"

"Naturally," she agreed.

He glanced at the clock. "We might almost be starting for lunch," he suggested.

She nodded. "As soon as I've told Grover about the luggage."

She was absent only a few moments, and then, as it was a dry, sunny morning, they walked down St. James Street and along Pall Mall to the Carlton. Philippa met several acquaintances, but Lessingham walked with his head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

"Aren't you sometimes afraid of being recognised?" she asked him. "There must be a great many men about of your time at Magdalen, for instance?"

"Nine years makes a lot of difference," he reminded her, "and besides, I have a theory that it is only when the eyes meet that recognition really takes place. So long as I do not look into any one's face, I feel quite safe."

"You are sure that you would not like to go to a smaller place than the Carlton?"

"It makes no difference," he assured her. "My credentials have been wonderfully established for me."

"I'm so glad," she confessed. "I know it's most unfashionable, but I do like these big places. If ever I had my way, I should like to live in London and have a cottage in the country, instead of living in the country and being just an hotel dweller in London."

"I wonder if New York would not do?" he ventured.

"I expect I should like New York," she murmured.

"I think," he said, "in fact, I am almost sure that when I leave here I shall go to the United States."

She looked at him and turned suddenly away. They arrived just then at their destination, and the moment passed. Lessingham left his companion in the lounge while he went back into the restaurant to secure his table and order lunch. When he came back, he found Philippa sitting very upright and with a significant glitter in her eyes.

"Look over there," she whispered, "by the palm."

He followed the direction which she indicated. A man was standing against one of the pillars, talking to a tall, dark woman, obviously a foreigner, wrapped in wonderful furs. There was something familiar about his figure and the slight droop of his head.

"Why, it's Sir Henry!" Lessingham exclaimed, as the man turned around.

"My husband," Philippa faltered.

Sir Henry, if indeed it were he, seemed afflicted with a sudden shortsightedness. He met the incredulous gaze both of Lessingham and his wife without recognition or any sign of flinching. At that distance it was impossible to see the tightening of his lips and the steely flash in his blue eyes.

"The whiting seem to have brought him a long way," Philippa said, with an unnatural little laugh.

"Shall I go and speak to him?" Lessingham asked.

"For heaven's sake, no!" she insisted. "Don't leave me. I wouldn't have him come near me for anything in the world. It is only a few weeks ago that I begged him to come to London with me, and he said that he hated the place. You don't know—the woman?"

Lessingham shook his head.

"She looks like a foreigner," was all he could say.

"Take me in to lunch at once," Philippa begged, rising abruptly to her feet. "This is really the last straw."

They passed up the stairway and within a few feet of where Sir Henry was standing. He appeared absorbed, however, in conversation with his companion, and did not even turn around. Philippa's little face seemed to have hardened as she took her seat. Only her eyes were still unnaturally bright.

"I am so sorry if this has annoyed you," Lessingham regretted. "You would not care to go elsewhere?"

"I? Go anywhere else?" she exclaimed scornfully. "Thank you, I am perfectly satisfied here. And with my companion," she added, with a brilliant little smile. "Now tell me about New York. Have you ever been there?"

"Twice," he told her. "At present the dream of my life is to go there with you."

She looked at him a little wonderingly.

"I wonder if you really care," she said. "Men get so much into the habit of saying that sort of thing to women. Sometimes it seems to me they must do a great deal of mischief. But you—Is that really your wish?"

"I would sacrifice everything that I have ever held dear in life," he declared, with his face aglow, "for its realization."

"But you would be a deserter from your country," she pointed out. "You would never be able to return. Your estates would be confiscated. You would be homeless."

"Home," he said softly, "is where one's heart takes one. Home is just where love is."

Her eyes, as they met his, were for a moment suspiciously soft. Then she began to talk very quickly of other things, to compare notes of countries which they had both visited, even of people whom they had met. They were obliged to leave early to catch their train. As they passed down the crowded restaurant they once more found themselves within a few feet of Sir Henry. His back was turned to them, and he was apparently ignorant of their near presence. The party had become a partie Carrie, another man, and a still younger and more beautiful woman having joined it.

"Of course," Philippa said, as they descended the stairs, "I am behaving like an idiot. I ought to go and tell Henry exactly what I think of him, or pull him away in the approved Whitechapel fashion. We lose so much, don't we, by stifling our instincts."

"For the next few minutes," he replied, glancing at his watch, "I think we had better concentrate our attention upon catching our train."

They reached King's Cross with only a few minutes to spare. Grover, however, had already secured a carriage, and Helen was waiting for them, ensconced in a corner. She accepted the news of Lessingham's return with resignation. Philippa became thoughtful as they drew towards the close of their journey and the slow, frosty twilight began to creep down upon the land.

"I suppose we don't really know what war is," she observed, looking out of the window at a comfortable little village tucked away with a background of trees and guarded by a weather-beaten old church. "The people are safe in their homes. You must appreciate what that means, Mr. Lessingham."

"Indeed I do," he answered gravely. "I have seen the earth torn and dismembered as though by the plough of some destroying angel. A few blackened ruins where, an hour or so before, a peaceful village stood; men and women running about like lunatics stricken with a mortal fear. And all the time a red glow on the horizon, a blood-red glow, and little specks of grey or brown lying all over the fields; even the cattle racing round in terror. And every now and then the cry of Death! You are fortunate in England."

Philippa leaned forward.

"Do you believe that our turn will come?" she asked. "Do you believe that the wave will break over our country?"

"Who can tell?"

"Ah, no, but answer me," she begged. "Is it possible for you to land an army here?"

"I think," he replied, "that all things are possible to the military genius of Germany. The only question is whether it is worth while. Germans are supposed to be sentimentalists, you know. I rather doubt it. There is nothing would set the joybells of Berlin clanging so much as the news of a German invasion of Great Britain. On the other hand, there is a great party in Germany, and a very far-seeing one, which is continually reminding the Government that, without Great Britain as a market, Germany would never recover from the financial strain of the war."

"This is all too impersonal," Philippa objected. "Do you, in your heart, believe that the time might come when in the night we should hear the guns booming in Dreymarsh Bay, and see your grey-clad soldiers forming up on the beach and scaling our cliffs?"

"That will not be yet," he pronounced. "It has been thought of. Once it was almost attempted. Just at present, no."

Philippa drew a sigh of relief.

"Then your mission in Dreymarsh has nothing to do with an attempted landing?"

"Nothing," he assured her. "I can even go a little further. I can tell you that if ever we do try to land, it will be in an unsuspected place, in an unexpected fashion."

"Well, it's really very comforting to hear these things at first-hand," Philippa declared, with some return to her usual manner. "I suppose we are really two disgraceful women, Helen and I—traitors and all the rest of it. Here we sit talking to an enemy as though he were one of our best friends."

"I refuse to be called an enemy," Lessingham protested. "There are times when individuality is a far greater thing than nationality. I am just a human being, born into the same world and warmed by the same sun as you. Nothing can alter the fact that we are fellow creatures."

"Dreymarsh once more," Philippa announced, looking out of the window. "And you're a terribly plausible person, Mr. Lessingham. Come round and see us after dinner—if it doesn't interfere with your work."

"On the contrary," he murmured under his breath. "Thank you very much."



CHAPTER XVIII

Sir Henry was standing with his hands in his pockets and a very blank expression upon his face, looking out upon the Admiralty Square. He was alone in a large, barely furnished apartment, the walls of which were so hung with charts that it had almost the appearance of a schoolroom prepared for an advanced geography class. The table from which he had risen was covered with an amazing number of scientific appliances, some samples of rock and sand, two microscopes and several telephones.

Sir Henry, having apparently exhausted the possibilities of the outlook, turned somewhat reluctantly away to find himself confronted by an elderly gentleman of cheerful appearance, who at that moment had entered the room. From the fact that he had done so without knocking, it was obvious that he was an intimate.

"Well, my gloomy friend," the newcomer demanded, "what's wrong with you?"

Sir Henry was apparently relieved to see his visitor. He pushed a chair towards him and indicated with a gesture of invitation a box of cigars upon his desk.

"Your little Laranagas," he observed. "Try one."

The visitor opened the box, sniffed at its contents, and helped himself.

"Now, then, get at it, Henry," he enjoined. "I've a Board in half-an-hour, and three dispatches to read before I go in. What's your trouble?"

"Look here, Rayton," was the firm reply, "I want to chuck this infernal hole-and-corner business. I tell you I've worked it threadbare at Dreymarsh and it's getting jolly uncomfortable."

The newcomer grinned.

"Poor chap!" he observed, watching his cigar smoke curl upwards. "You're in a nasty mess, you know, Henry. Did I tell you that I had a letter from your wife the other day, asking me if I couldn't find you a job?"

Sir Henry waited a little grimly, whilst his friend enjoyed the joke.

"That's all very well," he said, "but we are on the point of a separation, or something of the sort. I'll admit it was all right at first to run the thing on the Q.T., but that's pretty well busted up by now. Why, according to your own reports, they know all about me on the other side."

"Not a doubt about it," the other agreed. "I'm not sure that you haven't got a spy fellow down at Dreymarsh now."