"Your husband already knows, madame," was the quiet reply. "Only a few hours ago I proved to him whence had come the leakage of so many of our secrets lately." She swayed upon her feet. "He will never forgive me!" she cried. "There are others," Peter declared, "who forgive more rarely even than husbands." A sudden illuminating flash of horror told her the truth. She closed her eyes and tried to run from the room. "I will not be told!" she screamed. "I will not hear. I do not know who you are. I will live a little longer!" "Madame," Peter said, "the Double Four wages no war with women, save with spies only. The spy has no sex. For the sake of your family, permit me to send you back to your husband's house." * * * * * That night two receptions and a dinner party were postponed. All London was sympathising with Monsieur de Lamborne, and a great many women swore never again to take a sleeping draught. Madame de Lamborne lay dead behind the shelter of those drawn blinds, and by her side an empty phial. CHAPTER III THE MAN FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT Bernadine, sometimes called the Count von Hern, was lunching at the Savoy with the pretty wife of a Cabinet Minister, who was just sufficiently conscious of the impropriety of her action to render the situation interesting. "I wish you would tell me, Count von Hern," she said, soon after they had settled down in their places, "why my husband seems to object to you so much. I simply dared not tell him that we were going to lunch together; and, as a rule, he doesn't mind what I do in that way." Bernadine smiled slowly. "Ah, well," he remarked, "your husband is a politician and a very cautious man. I dare say he is like some of those others, who believe that because I am a foreigner and live in London, that therefore I am a spy." "You a spy!" she laughed. "What nonsense!" "Why nonsense?" She shrugged her shoulders. She was certainly a very pretty woman, and her black gown set off to its fullest advantage her deep red hair and fair complexion. "I suppose because I can't imagine you anything of the sort," she declared. "You see, you hunt and play polo, and do everything which the ordinary Englishmen do. Then one meets you everywhere. I think, Count von Hern, that you are much too spoilt, for one thing, to take life seriously." "You do me an injustice," he murmured. "Of course," she chattered on, "I don't really know what spies do. One reads about them in these silly stories, but I have never felt sure that as live people they exist at all. Tell me, Count von Hern, what could a foreign spy do in England?" Bernadine twirled his fair moustache and shrugged his shoulders.