style="font-size:15px;"> "Take her as your wife. Do you understand?"
"I understand what you say," he said, amazed.
"That is sufficient. Do as I tell you if you want to leave England."
"Very well. But I must first go to the War Office – "
"No!"
"I must!"
"No. It is useless; hopeless. It would have been the thing to do yesterday. An explanation there would have given you credentials and security. But not today. She could not hope to leave. Do you understand?"
"No, but I hear you."
"She could not expect permission to leave because her maid has been arrested."
"What!"
"Yes! The charge is most serious."
"What is it?"
"Get into your car with the young lady and start at once. Don't go to the steamship office in Fenchurch Street. Don't go to the War Office. Go nowhere except to the wharf. Your passage has been secured as Mr. and Mrs. Kervyn Guild of New York. The initials on the baggage will be K. G. Your steamer tickets will be handed to you. You will pay no attention to the man who hands them to you, no attention to anybody. You will go aboard and go to your cabin until the ship is out at sea. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Good-bye."
CHAPTER VI
MR. AND MRS
Guild hung up the receiver, stood a moment in thought then turned around and looked gravely at the girl behind him. She gazed back at him as though still a trifle breathless after some sudden shock.
"What did that man say to you over the wire?" he asked in pleasant, even tones.
"He told me to trust you, and do what you told me to do. He said Anna, my maid, had been arrested."
"Who is he?" asked Guild grimly.
"Do you mean Mr. Grätz?"
"Yes; who is Mr. Grätz?"
"Don't you know him?" she said, astonished.
"I have never laid eyes on him. Your father recommended to me the Edmeston Agency and mentioned the name of a Louis Grätz who might be of use to me. That is all I know."
"My —father– you say?"
"Certainly, General Baron von Reiter."
"Oh!.. Then it must be quite all right. Only – I don't understand about my maid – "
"Did Mr. Grätz tell you she had been arrested?"
"Yes."
"On a serious charge?"
"Yes."
"Have you any idea what that charge may be?" he asked, studying her face.
"I haven't any idea," she said; "have you?"
"I don't know; perhaps I have. Is your maid German?"
"Yes."
"You brought her with you from Germany?"
"Yes."
"Where did you get her?"
"General von Reiter's housekeeper found her for me."
He hesitated, still looking steadily into those violet blue eyes of hers which seemed to question him so candidly. No, there could be no dishonesty there.
"Miss Girard," he said, "I find that I am going to be very much more frank with you than there once seemed any occasion for being. I am also going to say something to you that may possibly offend you. But I can't help it. It is this: Have you, through your letters to or from your father, imparted or received any military intelligence which might be detrimental to Great Britain or to her allies?"
"Do you mean am I a sort of spy?" she asked, flushing to the roots of her hair.
"In substance it amounts to that. And I shall have to ask you to answer me. And I'll tell you why I ask. I didn't intend to tell you; my personal and private affairs did not concern you. But they do now. And these happen to be the facts in my case: I was taken prisoner in Belgium by the cavalry forming the advance of your father's command. It happened four days ago; I was sentenced to military execution, led out for that purpose, reprieved by your father himself on condition that I undertake to find you and conduct you safely to Trois Fontaines near the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
"If I am unsuccessful in the undertaking, I am pledged to go back voluntarily and face a firing squad. If I am successful I am permitted to go free, and so are my fellow-hostages. And the little town where I was arrested is to be spared."
He passed one hand over his eyes, thoughtfully, then, looking at her very seriously:
"There seemed to be no reason why an honorable man might not accept such terms. I accepted them. But – things have happened here which I neither understand nor like. And I've got to say this to you; if my taking you back to your father means any detriment to England or to the cause England represents – in other words, if your returning to him means the imparting to him of any military information gathered here by you, then – I won't take you back; that's all!"
After a moment, half to herself, she said: "He really thinks me a spy. I knew it!"
"I don't think so. I am merely asking you!" he retorted impatiently. "There is something dead wrong here. I was intending to go to the War Office to tell them there very frankly about my predicament, and to ask permission to take you back in order to save my fellow-hostages, the village, and my own life; and now a man named Grätz of whom I know nothing calls me on the telephone and warns me not to go to the War Office but to get you out of England as soon as I can do it.
"What am I to think of this? What does this man Grätz mean when he tells me that your maid has been arrested on a serious charge and that the Edmeston Agency of a German automobile is in danger?"
The girl stood very still with one slender hand resting on her satchel, her face pale and quietly serious, her brows bent slightly inward as though she were trying to remember something or to solve some unpleasant problem not yet plain to her.
"One thing is clear," she said after a moment, lifting her candid eyes to his; "and that is, if you don't take me back certain friends of yours will be executed and a village in which you seem interested will be destroyed."
"If taking you back means any harm to England," he said, "I won't take you."
"And – your friends? What becomes of them?"
"My friends and the village must take the same chances that I do."
"What chances? Do you mean to go back without me?"
"I said I would," he replied drily.
"You said that if you went back without me they'd execute you."
"That's
