“Because there’s no one else I can trust. It’s a question of my correspondence, and the flat. I want you to look Prout up occasionally. He thinks I’ve enlisted. Here”—he fumbled in his pocket—“are eight letters for him. From me. Have one posted every three weeks. I’ve pencilled the dates on the flap. You can get some one to post them from the country, I suppose.” Peter took the letters; nodded comprehension. “There’s a cheque in each of them, so you needn’t worry about giving the older bounder any money. I’ve told him you’ll call, and that he’s to give you any correspondence that comes for me.” “What am I to do with it?” asked Peter. Francis hesitated a perceptible second before saying, “I want you to open everything that comes except—letters from America. Answer them all. Say I’m away, if you like. Joined the Army. I don’t think there’ll be any bills. If there are, they can wait.” “And the letters from America?” “Those, I don’t want you to open on any account. Keep them for me till I come back. If you don’t hear from me in six months, better say eight months, burn them. And post this.” He took another envelope from his pocket, handed it to Peter, who saw, in his cousin’s sprawly handwriting, “Miss B. Cochrane. C/o The Guaranty Trust Company of New York. To be forwarded.” There was the usual awkward silence which betokens sentiment among English people. Then Peter got up, walked over to the safe, pulled out his private cash-box, and locked up the letters. “That’ll be all right,” he said. “But why eight months? You don’t expect the war to last as long as that, do you?” Came footsteps outside, a hand at the door-catch. “Well, good-bye, Mr. Jameson. I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you for the information.” Mr. “Raymond Sellers” shook hands effusively; half bowed to Simpson, and departed. “Who was that chap?” asked Peter’s partner. “That was only . . .” Peter stopped himself in time, “an American newspaper fellow—cadging advertisements for one of their trade-journals.” “_Tobacco Leaf_ or the other one?” “The other one,” said Peter nonchalantly. § 2 To Peter Jameson’s rather narrow imagination, as yet untouched by the new melodramatic world, the whole interview with Francis appeared fantastic. He could neither visualize the steps which preceded that interview—the coming of the idea, the remembering of an old school-friend in the Foreign Office, the chivvying about from pillar to post necessary for the securing of “peculiar” employment, the two days of schooling by the quiet little civilian at “S,” the final instructions; nor the resultant arrival of “Mr. Raymond P. Sellers” at a certain hotel in Amsterdam, where he waited in his clean bedroom overlooking the canal till a very ordinary-looking Dutch merchant—having closed the door carefully behind him—said, “Hello, Gordon. I didn’t know you were one of us.” . . .