Then I remember only that mad headlong flight back across the park, where the very air seemed full of sobbing, mocking voices, and the ground beneath my feet swayed and heaved. I could not even think coherently. I heard the motor go tearing down the road past me, and come to a standstill at the turn. Still I had no thought of any danger. It never occurred to me to leave the footpath and make my way back to the "Brand," as I might well have done, by a more circuitous route. I kept on the footpath, and just as I reached the little iron gate which led into the spinney, I felt a man's arm suddenly flung around my neck, and with a jerk I was thrown almost off my feet. "He is here, madame," I heard a low voice say. "Take the papers from him. I have him safe." I think that my desperate humour lent me more than my usual strength. With a fierce effort I wrenched myself free. Almost immediately I heard the click of a revolver. "If you move," a low voice said, "I fire!" "What do you want?" I asked. "The papers." I laughed bitterly. "Are they worth my life?" I asked. "The life of a dozen such as you," the man answered. "Quick! Hand them over." Then I heard a little cry from the woman who had been standing a few feet off. In the struggle I had lost my cap, and a faint watery moon, half hidden by a ragged bank of black clouds, was shining weakly down upon us. "Guy," she cried, and her voice was shaking as though with terror. "Guy, is that you?" I lost my self-control. I forgot her sex, I forgot everything except that she was responsible for this unspeakable corruption. I said terrible things to her. And she listened, white--calm--speechless. When I had finished she signed to the man to leave us. He hesitated, but with a more peremptory gesture she dismissed him. "Guy," she said, "you have not spared me. Perhaps I do not deserve it. Now listen. The whole thing is at an end. Those few papers are all we want. Your father is already in France. I am leaving at once. Give me those papers and you will be rid of us for ever. If you do not I must stay on until I have received copies of a portion of them, at any rate. You know very well now that I can do this. Give me those that you have. It will be safer--in every way." "Give them to you?" I answered scornfully. "Are you serious?" "Very serious, Guy. Do you not see that the sooner it is all over--the better--the safer--up there?" She pointed towards the house. I could have struck the white fingers with their loathsome meaning. "I shall take this packet to Lord Chelsford," I said. "I am down here as a spy--a spy upon spies. He is up at the house now, and to-morrow this packet will be in his hands. I shall tell him how I secured it. I think that after that you will not have many opportunities for plying your cursed trade." "You know the consequences?" "They are not my concern," I answered coldly. She looked over her shoulder.