t I want to know is about the other papers. Did you hand
over _all_ you took to the English Government?"

Max thought a moment. Should he give Schenk the information he so
evidently desired? So far as he knew, the papers had no particular
value, though he had not really examined them with any care; but they
might have. Still, they were safe enough, he thought, for he had seen
them handed over into the possession of the bank.

"No--only the plans. The others seemed only business papers, and I had
them put away in safety against the time when the Durend works should
again be mine."

"It hardly looks as though they ever will be, does it, Monsieur Max? But
I am going to make you an offer. Among those papers are letters that
passed between the Imperial Government and myself in the days before the
war. They are valueless, really, but I do not wish them to get into
enemy hands, as they will damage me in the eyes of my Imperial master.
You see, I am frank with you. Get me, then, all those papers and you
shall go free--free, that is, on condition you join with me in running
the Durend works to its fullest capacity during the war. I will not ask
you to work on war material--you shall manage the shops manufacturing
railway material and farming machinery. I need you and your influence
with these obstinate Belgian workmen, and am ready to pay a heavy price
to get you."

"A heavy price?" muttered Max. His head was beginning to whirl, and he
caught confusedly at the last words.

"Ja. Think you it has cost me nothing to beg your life from the
governor? He is madly enraged with you, I can tell you. These, then, are
the terms: those papers and your active assistance, or your life."

Max sat slowly down in the chair and put his face between his hands.
Life was sweet, and he could not disguise from himself that he was ready
to do the utmost he honourably could to save his life. But here, it
seemed clear, dishonour was too surely involved. To give up the papers,
if they were really private, might not be so hard, but to join Schenk in
running the works, even on non-war material, was a thing he shrank from
instinctively. Would the workmen understand the distinction? Would they
not conclude he had turned traitor, and some revile him, and
others--worse still--follow his dubious example?

Max was not very long in doubt. After all, he reasoned finally, anything
proposed by Schenk must needs be bad, however plausible his tale. The
only rea