she folded her hands on her black dress and said:
"There is something I have been wishing to tell you for two
weeks, but I did not because I was not sure that I was right, and
I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily. Now, perhaps, you
would be willing to share the trouble with me. Would you?"

Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The
man who made maps--the man whom you struck in the carrefour--is the
same man who ran away with the box; I know it!"

"That spy?--that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink
skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?"

"Yes. I know his name, too."

Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously.

"His name is Von Steyr--Siurd von Steyr. It was written in pencil
on the back of one map. The morning after the assault on the
house, when they thought I was ill in bed, I got up and dressed
and went down to examine the road where you caught the man and
saved my father's little steel box. There I found a strip of
cloth torn from your evening coat, and--oh, Monsieur Marche!--I
found the great, flat stone with which he tried to crush you,
just as my father fired from the wall!"

The sudden memory, the thought of what might have happened, came
to her in a flash for the first time. She looked at him--her
hands were in his before she could understand why.

"Go on," he whispered.

Her eyes met his half fearfully--she withdrew her fingers with a
nervous movement and sat silent.

"Tell me," he urged, and took one of her hands again. She did not
withdraw it--she seemed confused; and presently he dropped her
hand and sat waiting for her to speak, his heart beating
furiously.

"There is not much more to tell," she said at last, in a voice
that seemed not quite under control. "I followed the broken
bushes and his footmarks along the river until I came to a stone
where I think he sat down. He was bleeding, too--my father shot
him--and he tore bits of paper and cloth to cover the wound--he
even tore up another map. I found part of it, with his name on
the back again--not all of it, though, but enough. Here it is."

She handed him a bit of paper. On one side were the fragments of
a map in water-colour; on the other, written in German script, he
read "Siurd von Steyr."

"It's enough," said Jack; "what a plucky girl you are, anyway!"

"I? You don't think so!--do you?"

"You are the bravest, sweetest--"

"Dear me! You must not say that! You are sadly uneducated, a