"Then leave him to us. We'll compel him to hand back the mortgage, and your revenge shall be a new house at the expense of the German Government," whereat both Ray and he laughed heartily. Next night we faced the spy at his own rooms, and on pain of exposure and the police compelled him to hand over the new little villa to his intended victim unconditionally, a fact which caused him the most intense chagrin, and induced him to utter the most fearful threats of vengeance against us. But we had already had many such threats. So we only laughed at them. We had, however, the satisfaction of exposing the spy to the firm which employed him, and we were present on the platform of the Central Station when, two days later, having given up his rooms and packed his belongings, he left the Tyne-side for London, evidently to consult his travelling-inspector, "Henry Lewis." Several months passed. The attempt to obtain details of our new gun had passed completely from my mind. An inquiry which Ray and I had been actively prosecuting into an attempt to learn the secrets of the "transmitting-room" of our new _Dreadnoughts_ had led me to the south of Germany. I had had a rather exciting experience in Dresden and was now on my way back to London. "Ah! Your London is such a strange place. So dull, so _triste_--so very damp and foggy," remarked the girl seated in the train before me. "Not always, mademoiselle," I replied. "You have been there in winter. You should go in June. In the season it is as pleasant as anywhere else in the world." "I have no desire to return. And yet----" "Well?" "And yet I have decided to go straight on from the Gare du Nord." "The midday service! I shall cross by that also. We shall be fellow-travellers," I said. We were together in the night _rapide_ from Berlin to Paris, and had just left the great echoing station of Cologne, with few stops between there and Paris. Day was breaking. I had met Julie Granier under curious circumstances only a few hours before. At Berlin, being known to the controller of the Wagon-lit Company, I was at once given a two-berth compartment in the long, dusty sleeping-car, those big carriages in which I so often spent days, and nights too, for the matter of that. "M'sieur is for Paris?" asked the brown-uniformed conductor as I entered, and after flinging in my traps, I descended, went to the buffet and had a mazagran and cigarette until our departure. I had not sat there more than five minutes when the conductor, a man with whom I had travelled a dozen times, put his head in at the door, and, seeing me, withdrew. Then, a few moments later, he entered with a tall, dark-haired, good-looking girl, who stood aside as he approached me, cap in hand. "Excuse me, m'sieur, but a lady wishes to ask a great favour of you." "Of me? What is it?" I inquired, rising.