"I don't care! I speak exactly what I feel. The British Empire is to-day greatly menaced, and if we are to win, we must face the facts and speak out boldly. We don't want these incompetent khaki-clad amateur detectives telling the matter-of-fact British nation official untruths. Why, only the other day the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the War Office told us that every German secret agent was known and under constant surveillance! Is that the truth, I ask you, or is it a deliberate official falsehood? Read Hansard's reports. I have quoted from them!" The two men could not raise a protest. They knew, alas! that the words the young man had spoken were the actual and ghastly truth. "Well," he went on, looking at his visitors, "we know what is in progress--or at least we have the strongest suspicion of it. Now, what decision have you both arrived at? What, in the interests of the safety of the Empire, shall we do?" Trustram shrugged his shoulders blankly, while Sir Houston drew a long breath. Neither man replied. What could they do, save to warn the War Office, who they knew would probably turn a deaf ear to all their suspicions? CHAPTER THIRTEEN. TOWARDS THE BRINK. Later that same evening Jack, who had walked down Fitzjohn's Avenue to Mr Shearman's, as was his habit, found Elise's father at home. Though old Dan Shearman, a hale, bluff North-country man, rather liked young Sainsbury, yet, at heart, he would have preferred a man of established prosperity as his daughter's husband--a manufacturer like himself, or a professional man with a good paying practice. Dan Shearman--as everybody called him in Birmingham--was a practical man, and had made a fortune by dint of hard toil and strict economy. He had begun as a half-timer in a cotton-mill in Oldham, and had risen, step by step, until now he was one of the biggest private employers of labour in the Midlands. For years he had hoped that Elise would make a rich marriage, yet her chance meeting with Jack Sainsbury had suddenly turned the course of events, and both he and his wife could not hide from themselves how deeply the young couple had fallen in love with one another. More than once husband and wife had consulted as to whether it would not be to Elise's future interest if they broke off the attachment. Indeed, just before the outbreak of war, they had contemplated sending Elise for a long stay with her aunt, who was married to an English merchant in Palerno. Yet, partly because the girl begged to remain in London, and partly because of Mrs Shearman's liking for young Sainsbury, the bluff old fellow gave way--though there always remained the fact that Jack was a mere clerk and that, at the present time, he was out of a situation. That he had been rejected by the military doctors Mr Shearman knew, but he was unaware that Jack had been left a legacy by the doctor who had so mysteriously committed suicide in Wimpole Street.