have you done to my poor
papa and mamma? Why did you come here?"

"Surely you must know."

"What do I know? Only that they were good sweet people."

"Good sweet spies!"

"Spies! Those poor old darlings?"

"Oh, I say--really, now, you surely can't have the face, the
insolence, to--"

"I haven't any insolence. I haven't anything but a broken heart."

"How many hearts were broken--how many hearts were stopped, do you
suppose, because of your work?"

"My what?"

"I refer to the lives that you destroyed."

"I--I destroyed lives? Which one of us is going mad?"

"Oh, come, now, you knew what you were doing. You were glad and proud
for every poor fellow you killed."

"It's you, then, that are mad." She stared at him in utter fear. She
made a dash for the door. He prevented her. She fell back and looked
to the window. He took her by the arm and twisted her into a chair. He
had seen hysteria quelled by severity. He stood over her and spoke
with all the sternness of his stern soul.

"You will gain nothing by trying to make a fool of me. You carried
messages for those people. The last messages you took you delivered to
one of our agents."

Her soul refused her even self-defense. She could only stammer the
fact, hardly believing it as she put it forth:

"I didn't know what was in the letters. I never knew."

Verrinder was disgusted by such puerile defense:

"What did you think was in them, then?"

"I had no idea. Papa--Sir Joseph didn't take me into his confidence."

"But you knew that they were secret."

"He told me that they were--that they were business messages--secret
financial transactions."

"Transactions in British lives--oh, they were that! And you knew it."

"I did not know it! I did not know it! I did not know it!"

She realized too late that the strength of the retort suffered by its
repetition. It became nonsense on the third iterance. She grew afraid
even to defend herself.

Seeing how frightened she was at bay, Mr. Verrinder forebore to drive
her to distraction.

"Very well, you did not know what the messages contained. But why did
you consent to such sneaking methods? Why did you let them use you for
such evident deceit?"

"I was glad to be of use to them. They had been so good to me for so
long. I was used to doing as I was told. I suppose it was gratitude."

It was then that Mr. Verrinder delivered himself of his bitter opinion
of gratitude, which has usually been so well spoken