The Messenger

Miss von Schwarzenberg. Her dignity under the ordeal would forever, Napier told himself, count in his mind to Mi

that night, Julian Grant walked in. He ha

ted and difficult return from Germany had been duly chronicled in the newspapers, together with hints of the unsuitable treatment to which Sir James and Lady Nicholson Grant had been

ir William made no more effort than Madge

foreigners over here," was the unfilial answer which Napier challenged on other ground

erson who was a Kurg?st. It was a speech that did him no good in that company-being far too much like a reflectio

ent of those shining lights of filial duty, Mr. Carl and Mr. Ernst Pforzheim. They would never cast such a reflect

No trouble about subjecting those facts to every sort of test! Why? Because they were nearer home. Yet I doubt if the Foreign Office makes any note of them. I have-in haphazard way. But enough to sober any man." He produced two or three. Instances of harsh dismissal at a time when fresh employment was known to be impossible. Instances of boycott, of petty persecution, all because of a foreign name. It was the kind of

ithin the gate was as music in the ear and as honey in the mou

oom, everybody began to

s been washed up on the coast. And you, Madge," urged her father, who

ked in the moonlight, by the incoming ti

elp her into the voluminous white canvas ulster. "It isn't true, is it," she said in a low, e

said, struggling to enable M

ou aren't working with Sir William, you go rou

d a soldier as an excuse for not becoming one. But that Miss Greta should be one of the few t

sleeve with deliberation-"surely you know that before you

ace will come

compunction an excuse to widen the distance between themselves and the rest of the party. "I've gone in

u should say that."

n't kno

sorrow of the question. Why, in the name of a

he said, a pace or two b

he was sure that the tears in

f I go on? I p

ve alread

e paused

f once-to save my life." She gained on him; she was panting at his el

make too

such a life as min

-"that wasn't in the least what

with the two in front, Mis

face. "Does Gavan kn

tisfy himself. Two hundred people on the Fourth of August simply vanished from our

pies free to do their wo

happened to them

o some of them. Set blindfol

ly awful!" b

e knows what Germany would do with men-yes, a

that to women!"

ouldn'

gainst a wall

," was Miss G

oed Nan. "It's

bserved Napier, with his

berg. They had come up with Lady McIntyre, abandoned by the advance-guard.

ships seen in that transfiguring light. "Only two or thr

r shapes? Was there a mystery more urgent there? The night was unsea

ped behind him, strolled on

r who again

amateur detectives. Have you t

od

so easily, if we were as accomplished a

audible sigh of m

of proscribed area as yet, why are we in i

e told me herself about

the proscribed area because the enemy alien in

van, I'm not go

d him about the leakage of the shipping secret. The loss it had been to us. The gain it

me anxious," sai

eathed a free

ous about

hort-"because I was wrong ab

ou were wrong, are you

at Julian had had "more serious things" to think about. He hadn't b

it till he got his chief alone. When he had asked and obtained Sir William's reluctant consent "to a few

s! It

s though Sir William's presence might be trusted to exercise a mollifying effect

d in Lady McIntyre. Gray-white, shaped like a great egg or a pear, according to your angle of vision, seen at closer quarters it might be taken for a well-stuffed laundry-bag, except for the something odd protrud

ver his shoulder. "I thought we had come

dn't know it wou

it to look more harmless," Sir

way, Madge mustn't-" Then, with a rising terror in her voice, Lady McIntyre betrayed the degree to which she had

long as they aren't touched

self had said was likely to have dire results, Lady McIntyre r

hey, too, looked at the Thing, all except Napier. He looked at the huddled figure staring with that curious expression at the mine. It was canvas-covered like herself. Like herself, of rounded

ice shrilled sharply behind him-

old," she announced. "If you weren't too grand, Mr.

was elated by her victory. "I'll race you ba

he swish and rattle of pebbles as they swept up shore in the advance, and then, deserted by th

e track of light across the water. The moon wore a cloud round h

e sounded strange. As she turned from the moon-path on the water to meet Napier's look fastened on her, he saw that her eyes had brought away some of the restlessness as we

apier implied a singular stretch of charity. Nor would she accept his silence. As though he must himself share this view

nice i

gain. But the soft rapture was gone, gone utterly. "Ju

he did lo

g to help M

Mr. Wi

ndid person who is organiz

, "that's a good way to give

ropped her hand. "Oh, I wish you

said to himself. "Well, since she

aking and the sleeping. It mattered for all of life-he knew that now. It wou

. "I think I'd like to go home," she said

is

war and were brave enough to say so, and say it publicly." She turned her eyes from the curling, crisping foam as if to plead for some little sympathy for these views. There was no sign on Nap

m?" Napier

n't have you mocking

mock at

ome to Scotland. His mother, too. And Julian is here." They were silent a moment. "And I just wish they'd stayed in Germany," she burst out. "They

"Well, if he

rather better than I do now," she w

shing surf foamed as white as

breathless in her manner, "before th

he beach and flung itself in thunder against the outward barrier. In spume and froth it ran whitely

. And the noise! Doesn't it make

ome hig

howed a place at his sid

ou and me." Her laugh was gone in a second. With her eye on the rece

ependent on othe

e' you've got. How little I know abou

hat, how little

, even with a touch of wistfulness. "You British are so reticent!" He didn't deny the charge. He

ot. "The only safe way then," h

of roguery lightening her new seriousness. "I

ill the danger-point was safely rounded by her

t her straight enough now.

ou'll tell

swered a trifle griml

She leaned a trifle nearer. "You are mo

gone. On the errand that will end even her surface kindness to Greta's enemy. This is th

ther serious,

ng her voice a little above the nearing thunder. "

at jocularity. "I must

uch a fick

what th

ou are fickle

effect of jauntiness, "and w

erstand you," s

nderstand me?

lition, but in the same way as she had spoken-at the bidding of some influence outside them both. Napier half turned from the too-disturbing nearness and instinctively put out a hand to the boulder, shoulder-high, just in front of him. But

the surf, as she hurried on. "Maybe it's this one. No? Then perhaps it's that. And always wrong-till one day

he cr

knew, they were clinging together. They cared as little for sea water as did the rocks. The two stood there l

as with the knowledge that the wash of a greater sea than this they stood

cade to join the whiteness of sea water. All veils had been stripped off for that moment of

try to save her. She fell against the rock. Her hand, that tried to bre

." He was leading her

But she followed him. They found th