pen to you. I will not
leave the room, and you shall not--"

His gesture of appeal coincided with the sob in her throat. She broke
down in her speech, and Captain Griffiths moved a step nearer.

"If you have any weapon in your possession, sir," he said, "you had
better hand it over to me."

"Well, do you know," Lessingham replied, "I scarcely see the necessity.
One thing I will promise you," he added, with a sudden flash in his
eyes, "a single step nearer--a single step, mind--and you shall have
as much of my weapon as will keep you quiet for the rest of your life.
Remember that so long as you are reasonable I do not threaten you. Help
me to persuade Lady Cranston to leave us."

Captain Griffiths was out of his depths. He was not a coward, but he had
no hankering after death, and there was death in Lessingham's threat and
in the flash of his eyes. While he hesitated, there was a knock upon the
door. Mills came silently in. He carried a telegram upon a salver.

"For you, sir," he announced, addressing Captain Griffiths. "An orderly
has just brought it down."

Griffiths looked at the pink envelope and frowned. He tore it open,
however, without a word. As he read, his long, upper teeth closed
in upon his lip. So he stood there until two little drops of blood
appeared.

Then he turned to Mills.

"There is no answer," he said.

The man bowed and left the room. He walked slowly and he looked back
from the doorway. It was scarcely possible for even so perfectly trained
a servant to escape from the atmosphere of tragedy.

"Something tells me," Lessingham remarked coolly, as soon as the door
was closed, "that that message concerns me."

The Commandant made no immediate reply. He straightened out the telegram
and read it once more under the lamplight, as though to be sure there
was no possible mistake. Then he folded it up and placed it in his
waistcoat pocket.

"The notion of your arrest, sir," he said to Lessingham harshly, "is
apparently distasteful to some one at headquarters who has not digested
my information. I am withdrawing my men for the present."

"You're not going to arrest him?" Philippa cried.

"I am not," Captain Griffiths answered. "But," he added, turning to
Lessingham, "this is only a respite. I have more evidence behind all
that I have offered. You are Baron Bertram Maderstrom, a German spy,
living here in a prohibited area under a false name. That I know, and
that I shall prove to those who h