I did just that. I did it quite frankly and without a thought of prying. I saw that the sheets were small scale maps. They were the maps of a fort and the names upon them were written both in French and in German. The thrill of a great discovery shot all through me. It flashed upon me that I had heard Willi say that during the previous summer Franz had spent a long furlough in the Argonne section of France. He had been fishing and botanizing—so Willi had said. Indeed, only the night before Franz himself had told us stories of the sport there; and all his family had accepted the stories at their face value. So had I until that moment when I stood beside his desk and saw the plans of a French field fortress. Then I knew the truth. Lieutenant Franz von Heiden was doing important work—so confidential that even his family must be kept in ignorance about it—for the intelligence department of the German General Staff. Like me, he was entitled to the gloriously shameful name of spy! If I had obeyed my natural impulse to rush into Franz’s room and exchange fraternal greetings with this new colleague of the secret service, so romantically discovered, he might have saved himself. Instead, something made me play the innocent and be the innocent, too, as far as intent was concerned. When Franz returned, dressed for the shoot, I was standing looking out of his window, and I said nothing about my discovery. We had our rabbit shoot that day. We crowded all the fun and energy possible into it. It was our last day together and by sundown I felt as close to Franz von Heiden as though he were my own brother. A few days later Willi and I went back to Gross Lichterfelde. Shortly after I returned from my Christmas leave, my tutor sent for me. He even recognized the amenities of the occasion enough to unbend a little and greeted me with a trace of mechanical friendliness. “I trust you had a pleasant holiday,” he said, “you told me, did you not, that you were to spend it at the Baron von Heiden’s?” That touch of friendliness was the occasion of my tragic error. I remember that I plunged into a boisterous description of my vacation, of the pleasant days in the country, of the shooting, of Franz. As my tutor listened, with a tolerant air, I told him what a splendid fellow Franz was, how cleverly he talked and how diligently he worked. And then, with a rash innocence for which I have never forgiven myself, I told him of what I had seen on that day of the rabbit shooting—of the maps on the table. Franz was one of us! But my tutor was not interested. Abruptly he interrupted my burst of gossip; and soon after that he plunged me into a quiz in spoken French. My progress in that seemed his only preoccupation. A month later Willi von Heiden staggered into my room. “Franz is dead,” he said.