door, listened again.

The billiard-room was at the opposite end of the vestibule, and, closing
the door gently behind him, he switched on the electric light, which
revealed Mademoiselle Van Drissel evidently waiting for him.

"What have you learned, Anton?" she whispered in German.

"I have learned everything, my little wife," he replied. "We leave this
house to-morrow, as soon as those two fools have gone to catch their
boat-train."

"Zo!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands. "I, for one, shall be
delighted. I shall have but one regret."

"And what is that, Ottilie?" inquired her husband.

"That I shall not be able to twist the neck of that detestable little
pig-dog, Billy, before I go. Ach, Anton, you do not know how I hate the
little beast!"

"I do not love him myself," said the spy, seating himself beside her.
"Listen, this is a good opportunity for us to talk without interruption,
and there is much to be arranged. You will stay in London; I shall cross
over to-morrow night from the usual place, for my information must be
in the Kaiser's hands without delay. It is now June 20, and the great
attack is to take place on the first day of July."

As he spoke he drew out a pocket-book, and the girl leaning over his
shoulder read the words he wrote down rapidly while all he had overheard
was still fresh in his memory.

"Is it possible?" murmured his female confederate. "Our time has not
been wasted after all, then. Our people knew what they were doing when
they sent us to this house."

"Our people always know what they are doing," said the sham Belgian,
with a cunning leer. "What would you have? A family, the father of which
is a brigadier-general at the front; the eldest son also a captain at
the front; and the young boy on the point of joining the Army. They were
just the very people likely to talk, to say nothing of that greatest
fool of all, Uncle Staff Captain, who told me a great deal when he dined
here on Wednesday. Ottilie, these English are lunatics, and it is not
for nothing that we have opened their letters for the last six months
without their discovering it. Still, I must confess I had never expected
a piece of luck so complete and so timely as this," and he tapped the
notebook in which he had recorded everything.

He stooped towards her and kissed with as much affection as lies in the
German nature to bestow upon anyone outside itself, and when he spoke
again his whisper was very earnest.

"You