also."

"I am afraid that I could not allow anything to interfere with one brief
call which I must pay."

"In Downing Street?"

"Precisely!"

"You go to visit your friend at the Foreign Office?"

"Immediately I have called at my rooms."

She looked away from him out of the window. Beneath her veil her eyes
were a little misty. She saw nothing of the trimly partitioned fields,
the rolling pastoral country. Before her vision tragedies seemed to
pass,--the blood-stained paraphernalia of the battlefield, the empty,
stricken homes, the sobbing women in black, striving to comfort their
children whilst their own hearts were breaking. When she turned away
from the window, her face was hardened. Once more she found herself
almost hating the man who was her companion. Whatever might come
afterwards, at that moment she had the sensations of a murderess.

"You may know when you sleep to-night," she exclaimed, "that you will be
the blood-guiltiest man in the world!"

"I would not dispute the title," he observed politely, "with your friend
the Hohenzollern."

"He is not my friend," she retorted, her tone vibrating with passion. "I
am a traitress in your eyes because I have received a communication from
Germany. From whom does it come, do you think? From the Court? From the
Chancellor or one of his myrmidons? Fool! It comes from those who hate
the whole military party. It comes from the Germany whose people have
been befooled and strangled throughout the war. It comes from the people
whom your politicians have sought to reach and failed."

"The suggestion is interesting," he remarked coldly, "but improbable."

"Do you know," she said, leaning a little forward and looking at him
fixedly, "if I were really your fiancee--worse! if I were really your
wife--I think that before long I should be a murderess!"

"Do you dislike me as much as all that?"

"I hate you! I think you are the most pigheaded, obstinate,
self-satisfied, ignorant creature who ever ruined a great cause."

He accepted the lash of her words without any sign of offence,--seemed,
indeed, inclined to treat them reflectively.

"Come," he protested, "you have wasted a lot of breath in abusing me.
Why not justify it? Tell me the story of yourself and those who are
associated with you in this secret correspondence with Germany? If you
are working for a good end, let me know of it. You blame me for judging
you, for maintaining a certain definite poise. You are no