by the undoubted resemblance
of father to daughter? No, it could not be that; and yet this man, or his
picture--ah! The recognition came to Orme in a flash.

This was the magnetic face that was now so often appearing in the
press--the face of the great, the revered, the able statesman upon whom
rested so great a part of the burden of the country's welfare. No wonder
that Orme recognized it, for it was the face of the Secretary of State!
And the girl was his daughter.

Orme was amazed to think how he had failed to piece the facts together.
The rumors of important international negotiations; the sudden but not
serious illness of the Secretary; his temporary retirement from
Washington to Chicago, to be near his favorite physician--for weeks the
papers had been full of these incidents.

When South Americans and Japanese combined to hinder the signing of
mysterious papers, he should have realized that the matter was not of
private, but of public importance. But the true significance of the
events into which he had been drawn had escaped his logical mind. It had
never occurred to him that such a series of plots, frequent though they
might be in continental Europe, could ever be attempted in a country like
the United States. And then, he had actually thought of little besides
the girl and her needs.

He glanced at her now, but her gaze was fixed on the scene before them.
The brightness of her eyes and her quickened breathing told him how
intense was her interest.

Across the table from the Secretary of State sat a younger man. His
breast glittered with decorations, and his bearing and appearance had all
the stiffness of the high-born Teuton.

Of the men who stood behind the two seated figures, some were young, some
were old, but all were weighted with the gravity of a great moment. Orme
inferred that they were secretaries and _attaches_.

And now pens scratched on paper. The Secretary of State and the German
Ambassador--for Orme knew that it must be he--were signing documents,
apparently in duplicate, for they exchanged papers after signing and
repeated the action. So these were the papers which at the last hour Orme
had restored; and this was the scene which his action had made
possible--all for the sake of a girl.

And when the last pen-stroke had been completed and the seated men raised
their eyes and looked at each other--looked at each other with the
responsible glance of men who have made history--at that moment