land nearer to Ireland than America?"

"Geographically, perhaps, but in sentiment--"

"Sentiment! Yes, when you have finished with this bloody business of
yours that you have begun on, go you through Ireland and England and
Europe, and ask the widows and the fatherless, and the girls who kissed
their lovers 'good-bye,' and never saw them again, what they think of
that sentiment! But it's no use arguing with you now; there's your
German yacht. You're no brother of mine. You've made me sorry that we
had the same father and mother."

As she spoke, she went to the door, opened it and, before he could
reply, slammed it behind her, and went to her room to seek and find a
woman's usual relief from extreme mental tension.

John Castellan went on packing his papers, his face grey, and his
features hard-set. He loved his beautiful sister, but he thought that he
loved his country more. When he had finished he went and knocked at her
door, and said:

"Norah, I'm going. Won't you say 'good-bye?'"

The door was swung open, and she faced him, her face wet with tears, her
eyes glistening, and her lips twitching.

"Yes, good-bye, John," she said. "Go to your German friends; but, when
all the horrors that you are going to bring upon this country through
their help come to pass, remember you have no sister left in Ireland.
You've sold yourself, and I have no brother who is a traitor. Good-bye!"

The door swung to and she locked it. John Castellan hesitated for a
moment or two, and then with a slow shake of his head he went away down
the stairs out into the street, and along to the little jetty where the
German yacht's boat was waiting to take him on board.

Norah had thrown herself on her bed in her locked room shedding the
first but not the last tear that John Castellan's decision was destined
to draw from women's eyes.

About half an hour later the encircling hills of the bay echoed the
shriek of a siren. She got up, looked out of the window, and saw the
white shape of the German yacht moving out towards the fringe of islands
which guard the outward bay.

"And there he goes!" she said in a voice that was almost choked with
sobs, "there he goes, my own brother, it may be taking the fate of the
world with him--yes, and on a German ship, too. He that knows every
island and creek and cove and harbour from Cape Wrath to Cape Clear--he
that's got all those inventions in his head, too, and the son of my own
father and mother, sold