tell what was
happening, she was on her knees before him.

"Spare me," she begged, trying to seize his hands.

"Madame," De Grost answered, "I am not your judge. You will kindly hand
over to me the document which you are carrying."

She took it from the bosom of her dress. De Grost glanced at it, and
placed it in his breast-pocket.

"And now?" she faltered.

De Grost sighed--she was a very beautiful woman.

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

"It is finished," she assured him, breathlessly. "Monsieur le Baron, you
will keep my secret? Never again, I swear it, will I sin like this. You,
yourself, shall be the trustee of my honor."

Her eyes and arms besought him, but it was surely a changed man--this.
There was none of the suaveness, the delicate responsiveness of her
late host at Porchester House. The man who faced her now possessed the
features of a sphinx. There was not even pity in his face.

"You will not tell my husband?" she gasped.

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

She swayed upon her feet.

"He will never forgive me," she cried.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV. THE MAN PROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

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

"I wish you would tell me, Count von Hern," she said, soon after they
had settled down in their places, "why my husba