"Hurry up! one more." Another shout from near by, and looking round I saw that we were alone. It was she or I. She moved towards the boat, and as she did so I saw the only possible solution--I saw what I then thought to be my duty; what I still consider--and, God knows, that scene is never long out of my mind--what I still consider to have been my duty. I took her by the arm and twisted her facing me. "As Ginger's wife, yes," I muttered; "as the cursed spy I know you to be, no--a thousand times no." "My God!" she whispered. "My God!" Without further thought I pushed by her and stepped into the boat, which was actually being lowered into the water. Two minutes later the _Astoria_ sank, and she went down with her.... That is what occurred that night in mid-Atlantic. I make no excuses, I offer no palliation; I merely state facts. Only had I not heard what I did hear in that alcove she would have been just--Ginger's wife. Would the Expeditionary Force have crossed so successfully, I wonder? As I say, I did what I still consider to have been my duty. If both could have been saved, well and good; but if it was only one, it _had_ to be me, or neither. That's the rub; should it have been neither? Many times since then, old friend, has the white twitching face of that woman haunted me in my dreams and in my waking hours. Many times since then have I thought that--spy or no spy--I had no right to save my life at her expense; I should have gone down with her. Quixotical, perhaps, seeing she was what she was; but she was a woman. One thing and one thing only I can say. When you read these lines, I shall be dead; they will come to you as a voice from the dead. And, as a man who faces his Maker, I tell you, with a calm certainty that I am not deceiving myself, that that night there was no trace of cowardice in my mind. It was not a desire to save my own life that actuated me; it was the fear of danger to England. An error of judgment possibly; an act of cowardice--no. That much I state, and that much I demand that you believe. * * * * *