this. It was a modest little house and
is now the comfortable quarters of a fat old Prussian general.

"But upon the estate is the cottage of a loyal Frenchman. He was
gardener there in my husband's time. But as he bears a German name and
his wife is German, they have never suspected him.

"It is with this old gardener, Brodart, my son communicates; and it is
to him our good Bubu goes."

"But how can the dog get across No Man's Land?" cried Ruth. "I do not
understand that at all!"

"There are bare and bleak places between the lines which we know
nothing about," the countess said, shaking her head. "Not in all
places are the two armies facing each other at a distance of a few
hundred yards. There is the lake and swampland of Savoie, for
instance. A great space divides the trenches there--all of two miles.
Patrols are continually passing to and fro by night there, and from
both sides. A man can easily get through, let alone a dog.

"Hush!" she added, lowering her voice. "Of course, I fear nobody here
now. Poor Bessie--who was faithful to me for so many years--was
contaminated by German gold. But she was half German at best. It was
well the poor soul escaped as she did.

"However, my remaining servants I can trust. Yet there are things one
does not speak of, Mademoiselle. You understand? There are many good
men and true who take their lives in their hands and go back and forth
between the enemy's lines and our own. They offer their lives upon the
altar of their country's need."

CHAPTER XVII

THE WORST IS TOLD

"But, Major Marchand? What of him?" Ruth asked, deeply interested in
what the countess had said.

"He, too, is in the secret work," responded the countess, smiling
faintly. "My older son claimed the right of undertaking the more
perilous task. Likewise he was the more familiar with the vicinity of
our summer estate at Merz, having been there often with his father."

"But Major Henri goes back and forth, along the front, both by flying
machine and in other ways?" Ruth asked. "I am sure I have seen him----"

She wanted to tell the countess how she had misjudged the major. But
she hesitated. There was the matter of Nicko, the chocolate peddler,
and the man who looked like him!

Could that disguised man have been the major? And if so, what was his
interest in the German officer who had so suddenly died in the field
hospital--the occupant of Cot 24, Hut H?

The girl's mind w