But Madam Stephan had already made the supreme sacrifice. She was lying at that moment in her apartment, dead, a bullet wound in her heart, victim of a system the full extent of which she had not yet realized although she had been a member of it. An hour before her maid had requested the evening out and had appeared at the office of Heinric von Lertz. He had scarcely noticed her for message after message had reached him of the frustrations of the various plots of destruction, and he was nearly frenzied. Suddenly he was drawn up taut. The maid had given him the secret sign of the Imperial German spy army. "You, you," he gasped. "Yes," she answered without emotion. "Eight years have I served Madam Stephan as personal maid on guard against the moment which has now arrived. She gave information to Harrison Grant at the Criminology Club, and I have come to remind you of your duty." The heart of Heinric von Lertz became cold with fear. So this was the way Germany trusted her most confidential workers. He wondered of his own valet, of his housekeeper, of everyone whose respect he had thought he held. Mechanically he put on his coat and hat. He talked aimlessly as they rode toward Madam Stephan's apartment, wondering, thinking of the relentless grip Germany held upon her spies. At the door to Madam's apartment the maid pushed something into his hand. He shuddered as he felt it to be a revolver. "It is her own," said the maid in a cold lifeless voice, "so it makes no difference which one of you use it. You will find her in the library." As she was speaking she had slipped her latch key into the lock and had entered. Von Lertz followed in a semi-daze, and walked alone into the library. "Madam Stephan, I have come to claim the debt you owe Imperial Germany," he said in a voice which he hardly recognized as his own. Mechanically he thrust the revolver toward her. Madam Stephan started to her feet from the easy chair in which she had been reclining. One look at the pallid, set face of Von Lertz convinced her of the desperateness of her position. Life had become very sweet to her after her intimate talk with Harrison Grant. She made a sudden lunge at Von Lertz. She had just reached him when there came the muffled report of a revolver shot smothered in clothing. Von Lertz had reversed the weapon and pulled the trigger. Madam Stephan staggered back and then fell full length on the floor, her life blood oozing out through a wound which had penetrated her heart. As Von Lertz stood aghast gazing at the result of his handiwork the maid entered. She took the revolver from his nerveless hand and stooping by the body of her former mistress twisted the fingers of the right hand, already cooling in death, about the handle and the trigger. Then she walked to the table and picking up a book, opened it, and began marking a passage.