hrough you; if I am caught, it will be through you. But be sure of
this--if we meet in the _Malplaquet_, the fowler and the bird, it will
be for the last time. You may catch me, but you will not take me. For
a long time past I have provided against just such an outcome as this.
Upon my uniform tunics, upon my overalls, I have fixed buttons,
hollowed out, each of which contains enough of cyanide of potassium to
kill three men. If I were court-martialled and shot, there would be no
disgrace to me, an officer on secret service, but a whisper of it
might steal to Portsmouth and give deep pain to one there. No one will
learn of the petty officer of R.N.V.R. who died far away in the north.
The locket with the portrait is round my neck, the ring is upon my
finger. Both are ready waiting for you who will do what I ask and will
keep my secret from her.

I have the honour to be, sir,

Your obedient servant,

JOHN TREHAYNE.

* * * * *

I folded up the papers and returned them to Dawson, who carefully
placed them in his pocket. In the shadows the spirit of Trehayne still
seemed to be waiting. I thought for a few minutes, and then rose to my
feet. "He was an officer on secret service," said I slowly. "An enemy,
but a gallant and generous enemy. In love and in war he played the
game, Requiescat in pace."

"Amen," said Cary.

Dawson rose and gripped our hands. "I have the locket and the ring,
and I will write as he wished. It is the least that I can do."

They buried Trehayne with naval honours as an enemy officer who had
died among us. England does not war with the dead. Though he had
fallen by his own hand, the Roman Church did not withhold from an
erring son the beautiful consolation of her ritual. Cary and I openly
attended the funeral. Dawson was officially in bed, suffering from his
much-desired attack of influenza. But in the firing party of Red
Marines, whose volleys rang through the wintry air over the body of
Trehayne, I espied one whom I was glad to see present.

PART II

_MADAME GILBERT_

CHAPTER IX

THE WOMAN AND THE MAN

If one believed Dawson's own accounts of his exploits--I can conceive
no greater exercise in folly--one would conclude that he never failed,
that he always held the strings by which his puppets were constrained
to dance, and that he could pluck them from their games and shut them
within his black box whenever he grew wearied of their frui