arl, looking
at him strangely.

"None, save what I have told you," was the slow, deliberate reply. "But
I think I shall eventually find her."

"You will, Darnborough. I know well what you mean when you reply in
those terms. I have experienced your vague responses before," laughed
his lordship.

But the great secret agent only grinned, and his grey face broadened
into a smile, while the Earl lay wondering whether, after all, his
visitor knew more concerning the mysterious female friend of Harborne
than he had admitted.

Darnborough went on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary
of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened
to arise over Europe, and of which our Embassies in Berlin and Vienna,
with all the pomp of their officialdom, were as yet in ignorance.

And while the chief of the Secret Service was closeted with the Foreign
Minister, and the latter was scribbling some pencil notes of his
visitor's report, Jean waited downstairs in the library for the Earl's
permission to return to his room.

As the soft after-glow of early autumn spread over the western sea
before her, she turned at last from the long window and crossed the big
room, wherein deep shadows were now falling.

The Earl's mysterious visitor had been shown in there by Jenner before
being conducted to his lordship's room, and upon the Earl's pedestal
writing-table, set in an alcove overlooking the terrace, stood a small,
well-worn despatch-box of green enamelled steel, covered with dark green
canvas.

It had been brought by Darnborough, and stood unlocked and open, just as
he had taken from it the written reports of the agents of the Secret
Service who had arrived at Charing Cross early that morning from the
Continent.

Curiosity prompted Jean to pause and peer into it. She wondered what
business that rather sour-faced man had with the Earl, and what that
portable little steel box could contain.

A photograph--the photograph of a young and handsome woman--which was
lying face upwards, first attracted her attention. Curious, she thought,
that the man towards whom old Jenner had been so deferential should
carry about the picture of a pretty woman.

She took it in her fingers and held it in the light in order to examine
it more closely. Then, in replacing it, she glanced at the file of
papers uppermost, a thick bundle of various documents, stamped with the
arms of England and the words, "Foreign Office," a